I got my suspenders. I got my flannel. I got my boots. And most importantly, I got my axe. Lemme tell you something if you see someone walking down the street dressed in rags carrying an axe you think ‘maniac!’- but if youre suited up the way I am you think ‘lumberjack.’ And its normal for me to be walking around with an axe. Granted, in the city it does seem a tad out of place- but it’s the city and people are willing to take things as they come. Even if that thing coming is an axe blade to the throat. I’m humming a manly lumberjack song and rocking my head from side to side carrying the axe at my side. People indeed are side stepping me as I wander through the crowd but theyre too ashamed to actually run from me. And goddamn it I seem do fuckin friendly. Like Paul Bunyon and the Blue Pig, right? I see a guy talking on a pay phone and I decide to wait patiently behind him whistling. I start whistling louder and louder and without looking up he puts a hand up toward my face and waves it in a go away or shut up manner. I switch the whistling to a new humming song that I’m making up on the spot. It’s not a particulary good song but it sure is loud. It’s kind of like doo doo doo and la la la rolled up into one mish mosh and if you ever play those songs together at the same time you know as well as I do that they simply don’t go. I look down and see that the person on the phone is on crutches so I pull them out from under him and he collapses. Nothing funnier than I guy with legs that don’t work. And why the hell should he have to lug them around all day anyway. So I separate him from his useless appendages. I hack down at his thighs and chop away till he’s in three. He seemed slightly- ok I’ll come clean- very very upset by my axe work. I tell him that it seemed like he didn’t need them but apparently it was only a problem with one ankle. Whatever. A lumberjack has work to do and I split him up good. He was rude to me earlier if you recall. There. Once people are dead theyre very close to wood y’know. They burn and everything. I know. I’ve burned lots! I pick up a leg and continue on my journey. I walk into a hardware store and ask the clerk if I can trade this leg for his ribs. I slap the leg up on the counter and tell him it’s fresh (you can tell by the blood that’s pouring out from the stumpy part.) He stares back at me frozen face and I stare at him back. For a good minute. I ask suspiciously if he’s made of wood. Smartly he shakes his head in a quick no. So I ask him again my proposal for his ribs and ask him if we got a deal. He shakes his head in no again. I tell him to look again at the leg and tell him how fresh it is. I stick the stumpy end right into his face and make him feel the blood and flesh. Makes a good doorstop I tell him. I’ll let you keep the sneaker too I tell him. I ask him if he’s made of wood. As god says sometimes it’s better to give then to receive so instead of the ribs I give him a new lease on life a certain freedom that comes only with being decapitated. I get behind the counter and assume the store clerk position. I got one hell of a smile friendly store clerk smile on my face when the little bell rings as a customer whose obviously made of wood enters the store. Look at you walk wooden man. Look at you talk wooden man. Look at you just like the tinman but wooden. He asks me for a size 6 jimmy bar or something I tell him that I don’t work here I’m just filling in because the real store guy got killed by me. The clerk might have been wooden but I’m not sure. The running sap from his gushing neck may be sap but I havent tasted it yet. He hasn’t heard much talk like this before I can tell so I walk right up to him and put my axe blade against his throat and back him up against the wall. He’s telling me about his family and his kids and how he wants to live and he starts crying like a woman. No not like a woman. Like a tree. Like a crying tree. A weeping willow if you please. I bring him down and don’t even remember to yell timber. I swing the axe over my head again and again and bring it down on his torso and on his legs and on his arms and on his face. Again and again I chop and chop and chop and chop. I am oblivious to the door bell ring as someone walks in (bad for business- people steal yknow!) An old man lets out a girlish scream and I tell him not to worry. I tell him everything is ok. I show him my clothes and say see I’m a lumberjack! He backs up against the counter and puts his hand in the blood. He looks at it and screams out. I scream out too. We scream together till I get bored with the screaming and split his face like a healthy piece of birch- his skull falls away and look! a brain inside! Trees do think! A tree that thinks...who would have thunk it. I have to look at things all differently now. Reassess my wood chopping and work as a lumberjack. However this one tree may have been a fluke- maybe a super evolved tree with an actual brain. I decide to compare it with others and take my experimenting to trees standing around outside.
jkhk