down from the mountain
Jan 10, 2008
Pa and his Snake Stick
“How d’ya feel?”
“Seventy-One.”
He’s spent the last two days on top of the mountain. Chopping wood. Because the ten tonnes of coal he’s hauled in for the winter isn’t burning like it should.
“Is it in your chest?”
“Nah. I’m ok. I don’t feel old at all. I just got a little cold.”
He’s had five heart attacks and his lungs don’t work as well as they should. They’re petrified by coal dust. His life seems so much harder than it has to be. We try to bring him down. Down from the mountain. Where things are easier, if not better. He won’t come.
But he’s never said he felt old before. Like he almost did today. When he said he felt seventy-one.
