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okaywolfSometimes The Mountain Buries You is a queer novella about the monster that threatens your attempt at a much-needed quiet life. Check out the about page here.
The six foot trap doesn't fit in the back of your very practical hatchback with four wheel drive with the back hatch closed, which is why the bin of car stuff next to the bin of first aid has ratchet straps. You'd strap even more traps to the roof if you hadn't run out of traps filling the back of your very practical hatchback with four wheel drive. The car gets parked elsewhere during the night so that when you drive the traps and a mostly suture-free Sheppard up the winding paved road to the packed dirt road to the service road during the day there's less people who could ask questions later.
Sheppard nods off in the car. It worries you enough your worries wake him up briefly. "Sorry," you put a hand on his shoulder for as long as it's safe to drive one-handed and he slips back asleep.
At the place in the service road that's the easiest to walk to Sheppard's cabin from, he stops you from unbuckling your seatbelt. "I don't want you out of the car until you're back in town. Just— just in case."
He's so tired. It takes so long for him to unload the car by himself. You hope he's not paying attention to the too many thoughts racing through your head, you don't want them to exhaust him further.
He tosses the ratchet straps into the car stuff bin from the back and fumbles closing the hatch. The car's suspension shifts like a tree fell on it when he leans against your door. He bends crooked and with angles of limbs that would turn anybody else's stomach to kiss you through the open window that you close again as soon as he steps back.
You spend long enough on the rocky river bed on the way home that Murre is a familiar salmonberry-flavoured silent screaming panic—and then so tremendously relieved—when you get back.
It's so long before you see Sheppard again that you start thinking Murre might leave without seeing him one more time. He's been sewing himself up and you only don't smack him out of fear it will make him fall apart like a loose-jointed doll. "You're going to have to replace all those traps." Murre asks how things are and Sheppard says he's 'thinned the herd'. You get the feeling it will be a long summer.
The temperature doesn't drop as fast and as low at night now. It's warm enough for the hammock at dusk—it's warm enough that Murre will be leaving soon—and you lie with Sheppard between creaking firs. Murre is in the cabin drinking cider, hearing and knowing nothing.
You ask him how he's doing—worse but he won't admit it. He asks how you've been—worse but you won't admit it. You tell him it's not fair that he gets to know what you won't admit but you don't get to know what he won't. He kisses your forehead and apologizes.
When Sheppard leaves sometime near dawn, you sit on the back step off the cabin's back door, staring hard at the wood pile and wishing you could be and had the capacity for the catharsis of scream-crying. Murre collects you for work. You eat yesterday's cold pancakes for breakfast. You cry quietly doing inventory in the supply room until you're all done crying about the entire past, present, and future, ready for however hard the next however long will be. You've had worse. You've had much worse.
"Life was so much easier when I was a simple country doctor with one anomalous patient in the woods," you joke with Murre later.
Town is near full. When school's out for summer, town will be bursting. The campsites just outside of town will be packed and loud; the car accessible areas people aren't supposed to camp will be packed and loud. The trail medic sits on the rolling stool next to your office chair, doubling the size of your next medical equipment order.
Sheppard arrives at your cabin at 2am because town is too full to come any earlier. He's talking to Murre in French when you sleepily cling to the not-stairs, not awake enough to trust you'll avoid slipping down the deathtrap. Before you fall asleep with him in your arms, you tell him he ought to come back to you for medical treatment again. He laughs against your collarbone. You fall asleep calling him a fucker in your head and his smile that sounds like a laugh is the last thing you register.
The six foot trap doesn't fit in the back of your very practical hatchback with four wheel drive with the back hatch closed, which is why the bin of car stuff next to the bin of first aid has ratchet straps. You'd strap even more traps to the roof if you hadn't run out of traps filling the back of your very practical hatchback with four wheel drive. The car gets parked elsewhere during the night so that when you drive the traps and a mostly suture-free Sheppard up the winding paved road to the packed dirt road to the service road during the day there's less people who could ask questions later.
Sheppard nods off in the car. It worries you enough your worries wake him up briefly. "Sorry," you put a hand on his shoulder for as long as it's safe to drive one-handed and he slips back asleep.
At the place in the service road that's the easiest to walk to Sheppard's cabin from, he stops you from unbuckling your seatbelt. "I don't want you out of the car until you're back in town. Just— just in case."
He's so tired. It takes so long for him to unload the car by himself. You hope he's not paying attention to the too many thoughts racing through your head, you don't want them to exhaust him further.
He tosses the ratchet straps into the car stuff bin from the back and fumbles closing the hatch. The car's suspension shifts like a tree fell on it when he leans against your door. He bends crooked and with angles of limbs that would turn anybody else's stomach to kiss you through the open window that you close again as soon as he steps back.
You spend long enough on the rocky river bed on the way home that Murre is a familiar salmonberry-flavoured silent screaming panic—and then so tremendously relieved—when you get back.
It's so long before you see Sheppard again that you start thinking Murre might leave without seeing him one more time. He's been sewing himself up and you only don't smack him out of fear it will make him fall apart like a loose-jointed doll. "You're going to have to replace all those traps." Murre asks how things are and Sheppard says he's 'thinned the herd'. You get the feeling it will be a long summer.
The temperature doesn't drop as fast and as low at night now. It's warm enough for the hammock at dusk—it's warm enough that Murre will be leaving soon—and you lie with Sheppard between creaking firs. Murre is in the cabin drinking cider, hearing and knowing nothing.
You ask him how he's doing—worse but he won't admit it. He asks how you've been—worse but you won't admit it. You tell him it's not fair that he gets to know what you won't admit but you don't get to know what he won't. He kisses your forehead and apologizes.
When Sheppard leaves sometime near dawn, you sit on the back step off the cabin's back door, staring hard at the wood pile and wishing you could be and had the capacity for the catharsis of scream-crying. Murre collects you for work. You eat yesterday's cold pancakes for breakfast. You cry quietly doing inventory in the supply room until you're all done crying about the entire past, present, and future, ready for however hard the next however long will be. You've had worse. You've had much worse.
"Life was so much easier when I was a simple country doctor with one anomalous patient in the woods," you joke with Murre later.
Town is near full. When school's out for summer, town will be bursting. The campsites just outside of town will be packed and loud; the car accessible areas people aren't supposed to camp will be packed and loud. The trail medic sits on the rolling stool next to your office chair, doubling the size of your next medical equipment order.
Sheppard arrives at your cabin at 2am because town is too full to come any earlier. He's talking to Murre in French when you sleepily cling to the not-stairs, not awake enough to trust you'll avoid slipping down the deathtrap. Before you fall asleep with him in your arms, you tell him he ought to come back to you for medical treatment again. He laughs against your collarbone. You fall asleep calling him a fucker in your head and his smile that sounds like a laugh is the last thing you register.
