Little Molly in the Dying Light
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I smell the woodsmoke only in memory now with the laughter of my little Molly in the dying light of evening. Such days have long gone where our cabin crouched as proud as this working man's hands could fashion.
Hewn timbers snugged their fellows where dark mud packed the ragged gaps still holding Molly's tiny fingerprints. She had thrown her head back and giggled and such a stab of joy struck my heart! Side by side, we built our world, forsaking sad remembrances as each day came and went.
Many dawns and twilight curtain-falls have now come and gone from somewhere north of nowhere and that particular winter came too early, catching us unaware.
I smiled and touched the angel of my deepest love whose upturned face was all the heaven any man could believe. I sent her inside. We’d need lots of wood when this storm arrived.
Trudging toward the towering timber I set off; as the first languid snowflakes curled their mad cascades ever downward, scarcely whispering at all.
The heft of my heavy ax bit deeply and tore the fleshy bark in the bitter whoosh of an approaching storm. There’s still time, I told myself. There’s plenty of time.
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All afternoon I sang and hummed the silly serenade little Molly learned when she was three. Her mother’s tune--a trace of that other world--another time now passed.
I timed the bite of my swinging ax to the downbeat of her tune.
Whoom! Toppled timber fell.
And branches--Whoom!
And snowfall--whoom.
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I roped and cinched the firewood to my sled, secure and tight, and turned to catch a wispy fragrant smell: fresh baked bread beyond all famish--quickening my scraped boot prints on nightfall's whiteness.
Crunching echoes swarmed between the snowflakes as I rounded whitened paths and turned to find my Molly’s welcomed window light. But there I stopped too sudden to breathe or call the name stuck sideways in my throat.
All stood still--as did my heart.
The door wandered on its hinge, flapping slowly like the dying wing of a fallen sparrow.
Darkness crawled up my spine with steely chills.
Something damp had spilled along the textured floorboards, smeared and streaked its savage tracing--stove to door--crimson and appalling to my eyes--carried off and swallowed into blinding white flurries.
Suddenly somebody was screaming in my voice as half a mile away another voice and another joined tunefully--not human.
A-wooooo, the voices called...
A-woooo, the others answered...
I fell as brown crumbs on weathered flooring...somewhere north of nowhere.
Then the storm into that terrible night came rioting in to spin and whistle through our empty cabin as my arms let go the firewood--Whoom!
A-wooooo
A-wooooo
I smell the woodsmoke only in memory now with the laughter of my little Molly in the dying light of evening. Such days have long gone where our cabin crouched as hewn timbers snugged their fellows, and where dark mud packed the ragged gaps still holding Molly's tiny fingerprints. . . somewhere north of nowhere.
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