Up Out

Anabasis, the janitor on retreat. Does laundry (a fist fight, with shoving onlookers, across the way in Wayne Hills (public housing) parking lot) and buys supplies for the mule pack, himself, to resupply. Drives around and in the long way, to touch base with the mechanic. A thousand feet in elevation means dramatic difference in snow pack and climate. Still three inches of crusted snow. Requires crampons and a ski-pole (broom stick) to keep from sliding backwards. House is cold but not frigid. Disengaging, he doesn't even start a fire right away; there's too much to see, too much to remember. A writer of paragraphs, he starts one. A few notes for later. The stove pipe needs knocking down, ashes dumped. A few minutes vacuuming, to clean dust and the odd iridescent bit of creosote. He uses half-finished paintings, on panels, left by a former lover, to block the sun at his writing window, the one facing west, just behind his black Dell. "It's nice to lay a fire again," are his first words of the day, so he sounds a bit the croaker. Not to worry, he lays a mean fire, the red maple is dry and burns hot. He kills the breaker for the refrigerator, the silence is absolute except for the dripping of the melt and the ticking of the cookstove. Not a breath of breeze. The dog is gone, he hopes to greener pastures. He thinks about companionship, even with animals, and rejects the concept. "Too burdensome" he mutters at the collection of cast-iron cookware. The unabridged dictionary is open to gnomist. He remembers looking it up. He often has a pen is his mouth, to free his hands. The crows are there, to greet him, he waves them off, spouting an admonition in Latin. "Mare est in turba." He sort of looks like a priest, keeps his head bowed, fingers beads. He might just be a surfer dude, with a web-cam at the end of the dock, so he could see wether or not to blow off work and go ride a wave. "We see this." the janitor says, as he starts a complicated risotto at the cookstove. Judge not, glass houses, all that. The janitor plays with leaving out as many words (letters) as possible and still making (make) sense, it's good he can retire to the wood. Retreat, I mean. Who am I? Where did that come from? There's a dark tunnel of identity, and at the end is you. It takes me longer and longer to write less and less, because of the way the viewer becomes the viewed. Where am I now? Trust his sense and things are turned around. How much of the janitor am I?.,;""),. Coded. But something was meant. Listen. Two nuns go into a bar. You and me.