With The Wounded

Thwack!
A chunk of firewood jumps a few inches off the chopping block. It parts down the middle with a tearing sound. The two halves fall on either side of the block.
Thock!
Another piece, stove-length, splits in two. The pieces fly across the yard in opposite directions.
Crick!
The axe misses the center of this piece and merely shaves a slice off bark off the edge. The piece wobbles a little, then falls sideways off the chopping block. I set my axe down, pick up the piece, and put it back on the block. I pick up the axe again and raise it high over my right shoulder. Its blade shines in the steely sun. The axe falls with single-mindedness of purpose and cleaves the waiting piece of wood.
I set the axe down for a moment. My arm is just beginning to ache. It feels like there is a steel band running the length of my upper arm, buried deep beneath the muscles and sinews, slowly getting tighter. I miss my other arm. They talk about people experiencing phantom pain, but I think there's more to it than that. I feel my missing arm all the time. I feel it working beside me, silently tightening its grip on the handle of my axe. But the help it offers is only imaginary; my good arm tires quickly. Looking at the pile of wood that remains to be split, I figure I have a good three hours of work ahead of me. In a half hour or so the pain will begin. The steel band will tighten and extend, across my shoulders, down my arm, down my back.
All the same, I've gotten pretty good at chopping wood one-handed. It's almost twice as slow as doing it two-handed. It can be dangerous, too. Without that second, steadying hand on its handle, an axe can often turn treacherous and slip as it bites into the wood you are splitting. Often as not, it ends up trying to split you. The toes of my boots have several notches and nicks that were taken out by a hungry axe. Fortunately, the axe hasn't reached my own toes yet.
Despite the frustrations and dangers, the work has its own pleasant rhythm. Stand a piece of wood on the block, pointing it upright as it grew when it was part of a tree. Pick up the axe that you left leaning against the chopping block. Slide your hand along the smooth wood of the handle to that critical point where you will have maximum control and power. Raise the axe over your shoulder. Bring it down, letting the strength of your arm, the weight of the axe head, and the pull of gravity come together to deliver an irresistible force. Feel the axe bite into the wood. Feel the impact punch the breath out of you. Watch the pieces tumble across the yard with the musical rattle of well-seasoned wood. Stand the axe against the chopping block, pick up another piece, and start again.
The cycle is soothing, almost hypnotic. I become a chopping machine, full of power,. My arm bulges inside its shirt sleeve. Below the elbow, where I have rolled up the sleeve--no mean trick for a one-armed man-the veins swell under the skin like serpents.
It's getting warm out here in the yard. Warm, but not hot and ugly, as it often gets on the other side. It never gets very hot here. It never really gets cold, either. Here you might think it was always the middle of October. Air as cool as water, sky the blue of an aster. The sun burns yellow and kind overhead. You almost expect to see a face on its glowing disk, crayoned by a little kid's fat hand. Every evening is cool and purple and quiet. Every night is black and star-spangled, with a peace that is scarcely broken by the sound of waves on the shore, an owl in the woods, the bark of a fox in the meadow. The weather here is truly perfect.
Still, here in the dooryard of the parsonage where I have been sent to split wood, standing in front of the gray pine siding of the woodshed, just beyond the hollyhocks which buzz with lazy bees, it is a little too warm for splitting wood. I pull off my shirt and hang it on a rusty nail that is stuck in the door frame of the wood shed.
My right arm is brown and hard, and it looks like it has been carved out of oak. The stump of my left arm is round and smooth, a hard cylinder that projects from my shoulder. The skin at the end has healed in a curious point that I like to touch.
I offer my back to the sun, stretching and working out the kinks in my back, shoulder, and arm. The sun embraces me as it embraces the whole town, gently warming its entire length. Our town is spread across a long, narrow island that is some ten miles long and no more than one mile wide. We are about eight miles from the mainland. That explains the weather, at least to some extent. Here we are well away from the stuffy, muggy summers and frigid, damp winters of the mainland. Most of the time we can't even see the other side. It is usually obscured by vast banks of fog which smoke and roil above the water. The fog never touches us. It hugs the opposite shore. When the ferry comes through it on one of its infrequent trips it appears to be cutting through a palpable gray wall. Very rarely, when the wind is from the right direction, the fog rolls back for a few hours. Then we can see some houses on the green, enfolding hills, and a lonely white tower. A low pier juts out into the water over there. Nine or ten sailboats are tied up in the harbor. Sway-back lobster boats chug from trap to trap. The horizon is spiky with pine trees. Then the wind suddenly swings around and the fog snaps shut with a clang we can almost hear.
Though we rarely see the other side, no one ever longs for it.
We on the island are content. When the ferry comes it might be carrying seven, eight, or even ten people. It always leaves empty. No one ever leaves. Leaving is forbidden, of course, but that doesn't bother any of us. No one wants to leave. We have everything we want right here. Everything is clean and trig, spruce and trim. The island is beautiful. We have hills wooded with oak, pine, and hemlock, and cool marshes where we can hear the great blue heron utter his low, prehistoric croak. We can go from the waters of a quiet pond to the cold, hissing sea. We have quiet, rock-strewn coves and tremendous sandy beaches where the surf pounds and the spray flies higher than a man's head.
Our houses are well-kept and pleasing to the eye--steep-roofed Capes, saltboxes with gray, weathered clapboards and leaded windows, Victorians with gingerbread molding. Every house, from the sea captains' mansions to the sturdy fishermen's huts, has a well-tended garden and a lawn that is rich and green and never needs mowing. Our roads are narrow and winding, but always smooth and quiet and safe to travel. There are no cars here. We travel by foot or on horseback. Our blacksmith is a genial fellow and does a thriving business.
There is no crime on our island. No one ever locks his door. Everyone feels safe here.
Everything that we need is provided for us. Our clothing comes from the general store, where we can pick out whatever we want at no charge. If we leave our soiled laundry outside the door when we go to bed at night, we find it washed and pressed and neatly folded on the doorstep the next morning. Meals are served in the Town Hall three times a day, but those who choose to cook at home can find tempting fare at Lawson's grocery store, all of it free. Our medical care is excellent and costs us nothing. Our library is open on Tuesdays and Fridays. There are concerts, dances, and discussion groups in town every week. Without exception, everyone is cheerful and friendly. It's no wonder that no one ever wants to leave. And as long as each person satisfactorily performs the job he has been assigned, his place here is guaranteed indefinitely.
Everyone works here. Everyone is a productive member of our quaint preindustrial society. Job satisfaction is high, for we have all been assigned jobs that are uniquely suited to our needs. Butcher, baker, or candlestick maker, each does the job that is best for him. If each person does his job to the best of his ability, all is well.
An ell is attached to the back of the parsonage. It leads to the woodshed. With the parsonage it forms a sheltered corner, open to the south. A barn and a white picket fence comprise the other two sides of the square that is the back yard of the parsonage. Beyond the fence is four acres of pasture, giving way to the harbor where the ferry lands. In the ell there is a door and four windows. A face appears in one of those windows. It is a frowning, disapproving face. Its features are distorted by the wavy, old-fashioned glass; I can make out its expression and nothing more. I must get back to work.
I reach for another chunk of wood. Maple this time. It splits easily and cleanly. The newly exposed surfaces are white and almost shine in the sun. The next piece my hand falls on is elm. I've been avoiding this piece. Elm is difficult to split. But it has to be done, so I grab the large piece with my one hand and set it on the chopping block. I raise the axe.
Before I let it fall I glance at the window. The face is gone. That is good. I don't think we are watched constantly, but they always seem to know when one of us is shirking or slacking off. I've learned that it's best not to attract their attention.
I let the axe fall. It sticks in the elm, buried in a nest of tangled elm strings that smells like old cheese. I tug at the handle of the axe, then try to lift the whole thing, axe and log, to pound them both on the chopping block. My arm stump flails wildly in the air beside me, trying to help. The elm chunk crashes down on the block with a thud and sprays open into three or four pieces. My body is pulled forward by the momentum of the falling axe and log. I lose my balance and tumble toward the block. Now free of the elm, the axe continues downward. My right arm, still obeying an order my panicking brain can not countermand, buries the head of the axe in the dirt where my right foot was before I fell,., Continuing my fall, I hit the chopping block with both shins, then roll over onto the heap of already-split wood.
I sit up and slowly raise my pant legs. Blood is oozing like oil from both legs, but the scrapes are shallow and not serious,. I pull my bandana out of my back pocket and mop up the blood.
I look at my axe, buried deep in the earth and wood chips in front of the chopping block like the sword in the stone. Excalibur. I know I should be feeling frightened or upset, but I am not. I merely get up and pull the axe out of the ground. With my bandana I wipe the black, sour smelling earth from the blade. Luckily, there were no nicks. I would surely catch hell if there were. I run my thumb along the blade and find that it is nearly as sharp as ever. Certainly sharp enough to cut off the end of my foot if I hadn't fallen first. Not that cutting my foot off would have mattered.
You see, part of me is already missing. That's why I am here. Here, in this town, with its white houses, neat lawns, village green, town hall, well-attended church, tree-lined roads--here in this town which could pass for almost any quaint New England island town peacefully going about its business under a placid October sky, every single one of us is maimed, disfigured, or wounded. That is why we came here, and that is why we will stay.
That may be hard to imagine. Let me show you. Take the house next door, the one with the big barn--much bigger than the one attached to the parsonage--and the large fields. That's the most prosperous farm on the island. It is run by a man with no hands.
Across the green, in the small brown saltbox beside the general store lives a man who lost both feet in an accident. He's the town postman. His wife, who was born with a twisted arm, raises everlasting flowers and sells dried arrangements.
Two houses down from them, in the red Cape with eye dormers, lives a strange case. This woman has no apparent defects, yet her wound is probably one of the most grievous of any who are allowed to walk about freely in town. One day, back on the other side, she was in the dentist's chair. The dentist had just drilled out a cavity in one of her six year molars and was preparing to fill the hole. Without warning, the woman suddenly decided that she had had enough and got out of the chair. She tore off the little blue paper bib the dental assistant had fastened around her neck, threw it on the floor, and walked calmly out of the office. The dentist chased her into the street, ordering and then begging her to return. The three men sitting in the waiting room took one look at what was going on and left. Two of them never came back. The dentist was distraught. He searched for the woman for weeks, calling her apartment several times a day and even running ads in the local paper. Nothing worked. He never found her. In a fit of depression he closed his office for a week. When he reopened he found that he could no longer work. He moped around for a few months, then suffered a nervous breakdown and retired to Florida.
The woman, on the other hand, found a new apartment in a nearby town. The hole in her tooth felt like a cavern when she probed it with her quivering, delighted tongue. It was actually only an eighth of an inch in diameter. It became her secret joy. She carried it around inside her mouth like a treasure. She lived this way for three or four months until she was found and brought here. They gave her a comfortable house to live in and found her the perfect job. She runs the Island Candy Shoppe. The spelling was her idea. She makes the most delicious nougats and cremes on either side of the water. Of course, she is required to sample all of her wares before they can be sold. Each piece of candy she tastes melts in her mouth, flooding the hole in her tooth with sweet syrup. The pain it causes her is excruciating. She tells me so every time I visit her shop. "I am that hole in my tooth," she says.
Notice the long white building on the west side of the green, the one with the green shutters and the horse chestnut tree on the lawn. We call it the Inn, though it has never been used as such, at least since I've been here. The Inn is reserved for other uses. It is in the Inn that they keep the special cases, the ones who should not be seen. In the Inn there is a woman who has plucked out every hair on her entire body and lies naked on a cot, as white and soft as a larva. There is a man who will eat nothing but the skin from the bottoms of his feet. There is a girl who hides under her blankets every night and digs at the palms of her hands with the point of a rusty safety pin. They're not pretty, the residents of the Inn. That is why they are kept out of sight. Out of sight, but not quite out of earshot. If you go by the Inn on a quiet evening you can hear them all inside, moaning in the sweet ecstasy of their pain.
The windows of the Inn look out, but no one may look in. The curtains are always drawn. The doors are always kept locked. Even the massive chimney with its four flues is screened at the top to prevent escapes. Once you go into the Inn, you never come out. But even in the Inn you may lead a productive life. The woman with no hair weaves wigs. The man with the peculiar appetite prepares the menu for the meals that are served in the Town Hall. The girl with the safety pin works in the laundry, plunging her torn, infected hands into hot soapy water every day.
The demand for places in town is quite high on the other side, I hear. It is easy to understand why. The food is good, the accommodations comfortable, the weather perfect. Once you are here you are assured of an appropriate job. It's no wonder that people are anxious to get a place here. It's like the joke about cemeteries and fences. People are dying to get in. That is why the town was built on an island, accessible only by ferry. Guess who runs the ferry,.
Still, people keep trying to get in. Some of them will try anything to get a place here. Just yesterday the ferryman told me about a woman who claimed her pierced ears made her eligible for admission. Of course, she was turned away.
So how did I get here, I hear you asking. You're hoping that I will shed some light on the true nature of this place by giving my side of the story. Let it suffice to say that I was one of the first to arrive here, when the town was built, and the town has been here a long, long time. I've seen them all come in, all maimed, all wounded. I've heard all their stories. I've felt all their pains.
You think, perhaps, that I might be one of them, the overseers of this place. Because I seem to know so much about the place and seem to know everyone's story, you suspect I know more than I am telling. That is very funny. Ha ha ha ha ha. Unfortunately, you are wrong. I am one of their favorites, and therefore have a little more mobility than most of us here, but I am not one of them. I may be, one day, but not now.
As for the story of how I got here, I am afraid I will have to disappoint you. Dear reader, I remember nothing before the moment I stepped off the ferry, bewildered, with the left sleeve of my shirt pinned up over the stump of an arm that shed not one drop of blood.
Even though I've been here for years and years and years, I remember very little. It's even difficult to remember what happened yesterday. You see, the longer you stay here, the less you remember. Each day is good. You labor each day under the clear autumn sky and go to bed every night feeling tired and satisfied. But every day is the same. Nothing changes. No one gets older. Everything stays the same. It feels like I've been here forever. Maybe I have.
Rap! Rap! Rap!
A sharp motion at the window brings me quickly to my feet. The blurry face appeared behind the curtains again, indistinct except for its angry expression. I nodd nervously in the direction of the window. I know I am in trouble now. Quickly, I set another chunk of wood on the chopping block, pick up my axe and get back to work.
The sun is lower now, a bright gold ball touching the spiky tops of the dark pines. The water in the bay beyond the house has settled into a deeper blue. A light breeze, scented with the clean tang of salt and balsam ruffles my shirt where it hangs on the nail outside the woodshed door. I begin to feel cold, but I don't dare stop to put my shirt on again. I work with a fury. The split pieces form a large jumbled stack beside the chopping block. Yet, with every piece I take the pile of unsplit wood seems to grow larger, not smaller, until unsplit wood fills the yard and spills over the back fence into the pasture.
Thwack!
Chunk!
Thock!