“In the Woods,” a very short story by Ron Loewinsohn

“In the Woods” by Ron Loewinsohn

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The woodsman plods up the hill with his axe on his shoulder. He works for a lumber company and never sees the man who signs his checks, but his knowledge of the trees he euts down is their smells in the air become suddenly dusty around him, the squirrels and small birds who live in their branches, the squeak his axe makes as he pulls it out of the tree, the feel of his shoulders and arms as he swings, with his feet planted firmly and widely. This morning he saw the lovers lying on a bed of moss in the clearing behind him, but he didn’t stop. They were fully clothed and as they slept he saw the naked sward between them rusted to a sliver. They have been there forever, he knew, tho he’d never seen them before, with the light coming down thru the branches playing on them there as if they slept at the bottom of a lake. He will think of them once or twice as he climbs into the truck with the others, or just before he lifts a french fry to his mouth. Then someone will speak to him and he’ll answer with his mouth full, while we are haunted by the image, the two bodies filled with repose like a lake in the mountains. The two young people with perfect features fill our dreams, fill them to overflowing, even before we reach sleep, plodding toward it, shaking our heads on the pillow, reaching out to the watch, running our fingers thru our hair again, and hearing in the darkness the sound of our swallowing. And they the two lovers asleep on the mossy bank—what do they dream of? They dream of us. Their dreams are haunted by us straining our eyes in the dim light, our stomachs knotted with anxiety, spilling the drink and wiping it up, sweating and reaching for the branch, feeling the bark and smelling the sap, wanting each other in the empty room and letting our face fall into our hands, aching and hanging on. They dream of the woodsman, the actual woodsman and the dust be raises.