It's A Nightmare!

(A note from the author: The author has jumped in where angels fear to tread, and is learning what it is to write. Decisions have had to be made regarding the genre and the wisdom of not using real names and places. So to protect himself from getting shot by past friends, you will notice a few small adjustments. For example, most obvious is that the protagonist will in the future be known as "Mike".)

After Donna left, Mike felt disconnected, "out to lunch," his dad would have said.

What his father did not know was that his son’s mind was completely occupied with anything but fencing. He’d just fallen in love and was completely and hopelessly distracted.
 

Mike was on automatic, dreaming about Donna. He watched his father swing his sledgehammer, a tune going through his mind to the beat of the sledge blows “I love Donna, bam,… I love Donna, bam…”

When the posts were all in the ground, his father rolled out the barbed wire alongside the fence. Mike sat on the tractor seat, Donnas' face floating in his mind. From a great distance he heard his father calling, interrupting, asking him to fetch the wire puller. He moved like Frankensteine on automatic. He could see himself drawing her in his scribbler, shading in her hair floating like a cloud around her face.

Later, His dad stood Mike the "zombie" alongside one of the fence posts measuring and explaining the height at which the wire was to be nailed. On Mike this was the midpoint between his hip and knee. The top one would be attached two hammer lengths higher. He filled both his pockets with nails, and they began, each moving in the opposite direction.

The sounds of their hammers rang through the quiet prairie air. Mike, glancing up into the sky thought he recognized Donnas' facial profile in a cloud off in the distance. He was thrilled and kept glancing towards it, thinking he’d draw a profile of her when he got home.

A few posts down the line he was brought out of his romantic haze when he realized he was feeling some pain around his upper thigh area. Looking down to figure it out, he could see the ends of the nails sticking out through his jeans. Not only that, they were also sticking through his pocket lining on the inside, poking and scratching his legs. No problem he thought as he adjusted his overalls and carried on.

It wasn't long before he found himself holding his pockets up with his hands, attempting to keep the sharp nails away from his legs as he moved from post to post. This caused him to walk in a waddling fashion. He was glad Donna wasn't around to see it. He looked like a sick duck.

As the pain increased his progress slowed. He looked towards his father, he was out of earshot and the tractor was at the far end of the line. He continued waddling along, moving ever more slowly. Every move was painful and agonizing. He was sure he was bleeding, imagining blood running down his legs into his socks and shoes.

He was taking more and more time at each post, carefully, slowly measuring, setting the nail, holding the post steady with the left hand hammering home each nail with slow deliberate blows. His heart sank as he looked ahead to see how many posts were left. He took a peek in his father's direction and surreptitiously, in a rather futile attmpt to lighten the load, began chucking nails out into the grass.

Even the very movements of hammering gave him severe shots of pain, the nails lacerating his tender skin as his body swung back and forth. He was not thinking of Donna anymore.

Just when he felt he could not go on, he heard the best sound of all. He heard the tractor start up and begin to move in his direction.

That evening, when he came in with two pails of milk to put through the cream separator, it took only 30 seconds for his mother to stop in her tracks, turn and look at him with that quizzical look. "What’s wrong Mike, you are walking weird?” she declared.

 For Mike this meant danger. He immediately realized he’d forgotten to mask his throbbing pain in the presence of the “all seeing mom!” He tried hard to act normal, hide the pain. “Nothing’s wrong mom.” he mumbled.

It was in times like this that he feared his mother. She still considered him a “child.” That she still had all the full rights of a mother despite the fact he was already 12 years old. He considered himself beyond the motherly, no holds-barred, bodily “checks” of embarrassment. Her checking his ears for cleanliness on Sunday morning was one thing, but her checking out his upper thighs was, he thought, out of bounds.

As she came closer, under her intense gaze, the pain in his legs seemed to increase. He tried not to be flustered as she stood beside him, scanning him from head to toe. He likened her to an aboriginal tracker or scout who could see things no one else could see. He was actually convinced that she could read his mind. He tried to avoid eye contact, hoping, that way to escape this brush with "death by embarrassment," with some kind of dignity.

With his thighs in such pain, he would have to try to do things differently. But, that was a problem; he’d never practiced any “new moves" around the cream separator, since he’d never had this kind of injury before. He suddenly felt the pressure and the panic rise. How was he going to do this without his mother seeing his pain?

The pails were heavy, full of milk. He had to pour each one through the screen sitting above the huge bowel at the top of the separator. He knew he should just tell her. Why was he doing this to himself? He kicked the riser into place, picked up the first pail. He paused. He could see a picture in his mind's eye, him standing before his mom, his pants down and around his ankles, in his gitch! "No way was that going to happen," he thought to himself and made his decision.

He stepped onto the riser and heaved the pail up onto his thigh to get his harm under it. The bottom rim of the metal pail, weighted with milk, gouged into his wounded thigh, He immediately felt the searing pain shoot through his body. His body winced violently, he yelled as he lost control, the pail tilting away, milk pouring out as it descended to the floor with a thud. He stood hunched over on his riser, and even in his pain could not help watching in wonder and horror as the milk spread everywhere, under the stove, and beyond, further and further stretching out in a huge circle on the kitchen floor.

Later, he lay in bed relieved, his eyes closed. He was so tired, but he felt better, his mother having fussed over and nursed his aching wounds. His last thought as sleep descended, was that the drawing of Donnas' profile would have to wait till tomorrow.

He dreamed of Donna. She was beautiful. More beautiful than he’d ever imagined. She had this dreamy appearance, wearing a beautiful white dress, glowing around her, with her big work boots on her feet. When she began to come towards him hands outstretched, his initial feelings of wonder quickly dampened. He began backing away but she kept coming closer and closer. He panicked turned and ran. But his legs didn't work right, he had trouble running, they were sluggish and slow. He looked down and was horrified to see his legs were stuck full of quills. Porcupine quills, all over his legs. He turned to look back and Donna was gone. Instead he saw undulating waves of hundreds of dark porcupines chasing him. Spreading slowly but surely in a big circle, all over the ground, gaining on him, surrounding him, closing in on him, he screamed his body twitching violently.

He woke up, aware of his legs churning. He was in a cold sweat, fully awake, trembling. His eyes wide open staring straight up at the slanted ceiling of his moonlit bedroom. 

"This man Daniel,...was found to have a keen mind...and also the ability to interpret dreams..." Dan. 5:12 

(Autobiographical Fiction by Cliff Derksen)

Spent some time yesterday taking photos

in the citie's public English Gardens.
June 20, 2013