Vanishing Point

Perspective. On the one hand, the stump had lasted a long time. The butt round from a chestnut oak I'd cut 15 years ago. I'd rolled it over to the graveyard and seated it, and, all this time I've used it as a rest stop. I keep a bottle of water there. It's only, what, 400 feet from the house? And it was, finally, today, what is the word, unsittable. I need a new stump. People have told me this for years. A soap-box or a packing-crate. I have no designs on higher office. This is it, as far as I'm concerned: meatballs on egg noodles. B calls with some questions about cooking an enormous rack of pork ribs. A couple of his writer friends will be visiting, and he wants me to come down. Which I certainly will, if I can. B has great friends, unfailingly interesting, and conversation, good conversation, is one of the finer things. As I think about it later, it might be the most important thing. I've been blessed with a long line of bright friends, and some of them have been quite batty. As most of us must, I consider myself normal, it's the only guide-book you're given; I have a few other guide-books, hidden under the visor: a field guide for amputation, birthing babies in the back of moving cars, how to plug gaping wounds with spider-webs, but mostly we're at a loss. In just a hundred years everyone has forgotten how to do anything. I volunteered to bring the sauce for the ribs, and I needed a fast run into town to get a few things. The sauce (over 10 years old now) needs to be brightened, after a winter of inactivity, so I need a sweet onion, to liquify, some red wine, papaya nectar, mixed chili powders. I keep it under a layer of rendered pork fat that makes a tight seal during the off-season. I get everything I need, stop at the pub for a beer, and when I get home, I'm in a mindless state. Unload the Jeep, rain is coming, onto the edge of the porch; up the three steps, grabbing what I can carry and I'm at the back door, key in hand, when I hear the dry rattle that can only be a snake. A beautiful timber rattler, a female, coiled tight and ready to strike. Six or seven rattles. I put down my groceries and backed away. I actually made a sound, a sweek, nothing like a real snake to shake things up a bit.