Day 261
Irene sat in the corner huddled in her sleeping bag for warmth, giving me the hairy eyeball. I had filled the old cast iron heater with wood and opened the flue, but try as I might I couldn't get it to catch fire. The fact was the wood was wet. Before we left for The Cidar Mill, Irene had asked me to bring in a supply of wood and fill the heater. That way we could start a warm fire as soon as we returned and warm the cabin.
I had explained to Irene before we had left, that I could tell by the wind and sky that it wouldn't rain, sighting my superior camping and weather prognostication skills. After using up almost all of the newspaper I had brought for fire starter, I was able to get a weak fire going which in turn dried the wood at the top. It didn't take long before the cabin was a sauna again and Irene could she her sleeping bag.
I went out in the rain and stocked up on firewood hoping it would dry before it was needed. As I came back to the cabin, my arms loaded with firewood, I glanced over to the pond which seemed to have risen higher in just the past hour. The tree branch I had seen earlier was gone, sank beneath the surface. I forgot about the pond and tree branches.
The cabin was warm and toasty and all had been forgiven, if not forgotten. It was getting late and we had had no dinner, the electricity was still out. I remembered the cider and doughnuts. So by the light from the glow of the heater I opened the doughnuts as Irene found two plastic cups for the cider.
One bite and I knew, those doughnuts were older than I was. I followed the doughnut with a large swallow of the cider before I noticed it wasn't quite right. Checking the plastic jug we found the expiration date had been rubbed off.
The well was outside, and since I had no intention of going out in the rain again, I decided the cider wasn't so bad after all. As a matter of fact, the more I drank, the more I drank (just like the Blake Sheldon song).
Irene had opened the wine as she was not brave enough (or stupid enough as she put it) to drink something that from that fruit stand. Soon we were laughing at all that had happened to us on this camping trip. There was another peal of thunder and the ground shook, Irene nestled up close to me. This was more like it. My plans for romance were blossoming.
Irene asked me to come up to the loft and give her a massage. I thought, "This is it."
Until she said, "I have cramps."
How often had a man's fire of love been doused by those three little words. At least this explained why she got so mad about the firewood.
I rubbed my hands together to warm them up before my fingers worked their magic. I pride myself on my back rubs. As I worked Irene's cramps out, I started to feel some cramps of my own, deep down in my stomach. I made it down the ladder from the loft and out the door before depositing the cider and doughnuts, I had just ingested an hour before, next to the car.
It had stopped raining and the full moon was shining bright. There in the pond was the tree branch again floating just out of the water, the milky blue spot shining in the moonlight. Then, I swear, the blue spot winked at me, as the branch sank beneath the surface once more.
When I went back inside, Irene was asleep. I lay on my cot thinking of that milky blue spot and how it had seemed to wink at me. A trick of the light and the hard cider, I thought. That night I had a dream of a tree branch with a mouth and a milky blue eye, dragging a car tire into the pond. I also imagined I had heard something outside the door. In the morning, I decided both the dream and the noise were caused by the cider.
I stood in the doorway, taking a deep breath of the crisp morning air. I didn't notice the scratches in the fresh paint on the door.
Until tomorrow,
Ken
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