Fire Tower Talk

Early morning dialog.

“I have been off work because I won’t wear a mask, so I took a job as watchman for a logging outfit,” he said, “I am getting paid to camp out. You never know what life will bring. Good place and job to get my guns sighted in.”

“That is so cool,” I return, “Sounds like and adventure to me. Doing any writing?”

“Always gotta eff things up by bringing up writing, don’t you? Couldn’t leave it alone, could you?” I silently chastise myself. I shake my head at my reflection in the window, forlornly.

“Brought a note pad,” he continues, “Hiking this morning, saw grouse, hearing cow elk talk.”

“Good, write it all down,” I said.

Opened the gate on it, might as well move the cow from the one pasture to the next. “I need to learn to think before I open god-damned mouth,” I think with a sigh.

“Sort of like Kerouac’s fire tower?” he said.

“Exactly!” I exclaim.

“Jus’ spooked a doe,” he continues, “Two of them.”

“To me, that’s adventure,” I tell him.

“Me, too. Good country, God’s country,” he adds.

“Yes!” I said, “And I’m a bit jealous, too.”

“I brought lots of reading too. I am happy,” he tells me.

“I am happy too,” I said, “And sometimes that is enough, ain’t it?”

“Yes,” my friend replied, adding, “Almost always.”

Sitting at my desk, in front of my computer screen, and something they call a terminal, another point of irony that perhaps I only see, I don’t want to write anything beyond this. Instead, I think I’ll sit out in the shade of my backyard, in the summers heat, under the building clouds meant for a late afternoon thunderstorm and dream of my own fire tower, where my heart’s full.