LONG FADING ECHO

LONG FADING ECHO

by

Val Killpack

Touches the Earth

           

Digs in the garden, slowly, with dirty hands, finds the root.  Angelica archangelica sings in a whisper.  Only fertile women can hear the words, and others, all they hear is a long, silent hum.  Unless ears are put to the ground, nestled among leaves and bugs, and there in the earth a lone whine continues and continues, screams, and breaks down barriers between everything as it is.

Puts hand into the soil and pulls the plant, gently, rocking back and forth, side to side, while following the taproot down with the other hand.  Pulls the plant upward, carefully, leaving the aerial segment connected to the milk-coloured portion that never before, not once, has ever felt wind or sunlight.  Holds the plant with both hands and rises to bring it to clean water.  Fills a bucket, scrubs roots until unsoiled.  Snips at the border-space and places root portion on screen to dry in the amber light.  Removes leaves from stem, tosses stems to compost.  Spreads leaves on screen beside root.  Removes tobacco pouch and offers some to the garden, the earth, to nature.  Refills hole.  Listens.

Stirs the Potatoes

Sings in a shrill voice.  Sound echoes from the kitchen walls and bounces down the front steps.  Trees listen.  Stops singing and turns the tap on, and then, while holding hand in the water, the temperature rises, hot water rushes free.  Potatoes fall into the sink.  Scrubs them.  Peels thin exteriors off—in a whisk of motion, slices and dices, before dropping the cubes into a pan.  Turns on the gas and watches the flame spread across the iron.  Sound of a bird continues, faintly heard through screened-off windows.  In this pale air, potatoes roast, flavoured with rosemary, garlic, olive oil, salt.

Smells the air and smiles.  Potatoes want company.  Runs to the chicken coop.  Bursts through the door into the country breeze (flowers and manure), across the land, dives into the feathered domain.  Hens squawk.  Steps in chicken shit.  Two eggs wait, takes one with each hand.  Squawks at the chickens.  Skips back to the kitchen, potatoes still stewing.

Makes an omelette to go with country potatoes.  Sits for breakfast.  Drinks coffee, orange juice.  Flowered wallpaper in the kitchen, yellow background, cupboards painted white; stacks of dishes in the sink patiently waiting.  A lone fly circles, buzzes, and lands on the counter.  Shards of sunlight pattern the floor.  Dust floats in the air, sound settles all around.  Echoes of silence, stillness, slate-grey vibrations.  Resolves an empty mind.  Ungraspable feelings float free, barely touching the space, being, time.  A second.  Ten-thousandth of a second.  Time evaporates.  Thus.

Does the Laundry

Washing Machine waits with lid open, gapes toward the room, moaning dark lamentations to whomever or whatever will listen.  Dryer soothingly sighs to comfort Washer, but to no effect.  Reaches into the hamper and retracts a dirty shirt.  Rank odours permeate the small room.  Sorts laundry by colours, by weight of fabric, and constructs small heaps of clothing.  Turns certain items inside out.  Reads labels and shuffles clothing around appropriately.  Washing Machine swallows a load, churns it vigorously, salivates, but cannot chew, cannot swallow.  Washing Machine is a hungry ghost—a famished creature with a large belly and a neck too small to swallow even a grain of rice—wandering the earth in craving, desire, always wanting but never getting.  Occasionally the Hungry Machine gets a sock.  Nothing more.

Dryer purrs softly, tumbling the cotton load, smiles to no one in particular.  Chooses More Dry, and Dryer feels proud to be given such responsibility.  Dryer decides to stop later than usual, for Dryer knows that well-done clothes taste better.  Drying Machine toasts a shirt beyond repair, in anger.  Hang dry for best results, Dryer murmurs, how absurd.

Removes clothes from Dryer and folds them.  Closes Dryer and leaves room.  Dryer beeps.  Enters room and opens Dryer, then puts head into Drying Machine to feel the heat.  Dryer beeps and whirs, tries to spin.  Falls backward and runs from room.  Dryer shuts down, in desperation, and goes to sleep.  To dream the dreamless dream.  To stew.

Plays a Record

            Flips through the cardboard sleeves, until—Coltrane for a rainy day?  Johnny Hartman?  Removes record from sleeve and places on turntable.  Places needle on first track.  Red lights ignite and vinyl rotates.  Vibrations penetrate the small eardrums, causing the brain to find something of sound, musical noise—baritone vocals and tenor saxophone which shudder and shake and generate visceral response.  Sweat on the brow with a reluctant smile, standing, slow shuffle, shaking jumble, then falling, falling to the armchair.  Closing the eyes with some drink.  Ice and tumbler with whiskey…

If there's a moon up above, it's wonderful

It's wonderful, wonderful

In every way, so they say

You'll leave your house one morning

And without any warning

You'll find yourself shouting…

Falls into a dream, a long corridor, opening, widening, then tumbling in high heat.  Body shrinking small, eyes itch, teardrops dry away.  Cannot scream, shout, or yell.  Saliva evaporates, organs begin to stew, steam, then fried liver and overeasy, overmedium, overhard, an omelette, deep inside the body.

            Wakes and the record spins with no sound.  The needle resting on an endless track, rotating around and around for all time and time-being.  Vacant eyes travel across the room, begging the body to stand, to end the spinning, to begin again.  Fly lands on the wall.  Dust floats in the air.  Messages leave the brain with great effort, with strong and pure intention: rising to feet, stepping forward.  Fly wisps away, out the door, into the fresh country air (flowers and manure).  The tone-arm returns, platter stops rotating, and.  (Silence)

Digs a Latrine

           

Flies swarm the outhouse and red stench lingers beside the white chickens.  Walks away, in lurid perambulation, then handles a shovel.  Ducks into the forest, dodging a birch tree, steps solidly on the earth, steps again, at least a few times, stops in a clearing.  An old oak tree, witnessing the event, sways happily in the breeze, waiting for something more.  Muscles careen shovel deep into the soil.  Removes the earth, forms a pile akin to hole—a growing hole, deeper and deeper, rooting toward the core.  Lowers jeans and shits into the earth.  Fly circles the odour and buzzes and whines.  Wings rapidly flapping, quick as an electric fan.  Screaming like a saxophone.  With both hands, takes a mound of damp soil, sifts it between fingers, scattering it into the hole.  Removes jeans completely, removes top, shoes and socks.  Stands naked, speckled sunlight broadcasts though foliage to the earthen floor below.  They say it’s wonderful…  Whispers only a line of the song, then freezes.  Chills across the skin.  The oak tree rustles and shudders, a solitary acorn falls.  A clank to the head, eyes close, then open, slowly look toward sky.  Perfect blue and leather oak leaves, gnarled bark.

            Drops clothing into hole and fills the dirt back in.  Saunters toward forest/ home (for the time-being).  Wanders, seeks, looks for the root.  Dreams of more than a home—a buzzing, bright hole filled with blue, white—every colour—spinning in a whir of pure heat, until the human body evaporates, again, and only the voice remains, the song, a long fading echo, stirring itself in a cast-iron pan.