(Continuing)
Soon the restaurant downstairs reopened and it was packed with people. So many in fact that it became a bit of a chore for him to get downstairs in a timely fashion and get back to his station. It was the best seat in the house and optimal for looking out at the street and enjoying the grand parade of humanity.
Living in the city was different to say the least. After living five years off the grid, chopping wood each day to keep the stove hot through the winter months, it was strange to have a real address and to take an elevator up to his apartment. Most often of course he would use the stairs and keep track of it as a percentage of his weekly exercise to have done so. He ate better than ever with so many offerings around the city, but he still did dearly miss the taste of trout, fried potatoes and salmon, and venison Sloppy Joe.
He had tried to take Zoe for a walk and it was a complete disaster. He absolutely refused to push or tug the poor little animal in any direction whatsoever, which led to much sitting and waiting for one of them to decide which direction they were going. It occurred to him after nearly 20 minutes of frustration and cajoling, with nothing but meow and meow responses (as she was more prone to avoiding English when out in public) that the cat was more interested in hanging out than in getting anywhere in particular. Let's lie down, let's be here… Okay over there? Fine, now that we're here, let's relax… What's with all of your pesky pressing us away from the soft grass we are glowing in right here and now.
While at the northern cabin he'd filled many pages of the spiral-bound notebook with crude narratives and brief sketches of stories he'd longed to assemble as a way of living, word-worlds he could inhabit.
Before meeting a few friends on his precious plot near no man's land just west of Kalkaska he picked up the materials for the teepee. It was all they had to live in while they got the house framed in and the stove delivered via helicopter. All the while, those many days as they worked to turn that cabin into a palace, he carried the thought in his head that once it was built he would never leave. The sense of permanence was profound as they finished up hanging doors and staining the railings of the wraparound porch which met a drop off on three sides with an amazing view of the forest just beyond as it ran down the hill toward the river bed. He'd sit in a rocking chair early mornings there quite often watching the deer take their morning drink in silence, the glow of dawn alighting them like spirits in the wood.
Looking back now on those few sketches in the spiral notebook both warmed his heart and brought a sting of acid as he remembered now his obligation to finish the essay he promised the theological journal by April 1. He was nowhere getting started. Too many distractions. That coupled with the sense that he could talk himself blue in the face, even to some of the most influential people in the church, and they would never listen to what he and so many had been trying to say. His wasn't the only warning about the dangers of such a vile construct, this sickening first principle so many claimed as orthodoxy.
Of course, Zoe knew nothing about anything of something called by many "the sinful nature." You're not missing out on a thing, he thought to himself. I wish I and everyone else could forget about it as well my little feline and faithful friend.
Just then as he was finishing his last sip of coffee an odd figure walked by the coffee shop. It was a tall woman, with long blonde hair wearing a sandwich board and a blue bodysuit beneath with red boots. At first the messages were obscured but as she stopped and turned once round completely, nearly directly in front of him, the messages became clear:
NO USE TRYING TO POOP TOMORROW'S TURD
LOVE IS A PAPER DREAM
ART IS THE ANSWER
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