The Chair
by
Timothy L. Rodriguez
When Norman arrived on the last day—the seventh day of the shift—he found a chair. Hill was already there, of course.
The two worked at the paper mill. In the wood room. Not a room in the conventional sense. To call it a room was tantamount to calling a globe the earth. Nevertheless, it was a room. It had been named such.
The room had only one purpose—to cut logs into chips. Everything in it was designed to meet that end. There were no excesses. It was in a constant state of change, though; having to be cleaned, renovated, and improved. It worked best when its operation was balanced.
Logs came up from the wood yard on a long conveyor belt and fell down one of the two winding shoots into barking drums. Inside these mammoth, revolving centrifuges the logs cudgelled one another as they tumbled—and ultimately stripped themselves of bark. After the centrifuges the logs fell onto another conveyor which brought them into the wood room to the chippers. There they were cut. The chips were then sent on to the pulp mill.
Perhaps it’s misleading to say Hill worked. He was the chipper feeder. He controlled. He did. Whether it was he who gave the room purpose was a moot point, but certainly the room was purposeless without him. The entire operation, even those activities before him and after him, came under his influence. In his booth, suspended in air, was every switch necessary to control, and from it he commanded a view of every machine, every corner. He could spot a rat under a barking drum. Nothing escaped his notice.
Norman didn’t notice the chair at first. He went directly to the doorway to check the bark drags. These were the chain-linked belts that swept the bark from under the drums. Occasionally a small log would slip through the seams of a drum, become entangled in the chain, and eventually derail the drag. So it was necessary to watch for any mishap. That was part of the drum man’s job. Of course Hill also watched. He used the lights on either side of the doorway for eyes. If they were blinking, the drags were working.
Stepping out onto the catwalk, Norman looked down and saw the two drags dumping load after load onto no. 6 conveyor. He followed the bark as it ascended to no. 5, to no. 4, to the shedder, and then on to no. 3. Unlike Hill, he couldn’t see after that.
A crack diverted his attention. Of all the sounds the machines made, he heard—no, he listened for this one. It alarmed him. Only silence or Hill’s whistle inspired more fear.
His eyes reverted to no. 1 drag. A stick fell onto its conveyor after being broken at the bevelled tail pulley. He followed it until it passed under the magnet halfway up no. 5 belt. Experience taught him that from there it would continue on without interruption.
With the stick moving away, Norman forgot what he was doing and gaped at the logs. They seemed to be charging at him. But one after another they tumbled into the drums. Though deaf to the pounding the chutes took, he winced as he stared at the cascade of logs. Hill controlled this belt as he did all the others. But Norman knew where there were switches with which he could control the belts. He had seen Hill use them when he came out to supervise the breaking of a log jam. Even so, it never occurred to Norman to use these switches.
Norman felt Hill. He turned quickly. He saw the shadow behind which was a multi-colored blinking panel. He averted his eyes. He walked back inside. He scanned the belt which brought the stripped logs up to the chippers. The belt came up underneath the floor. He was on the lookout for concrete, metal, or any other object that would dull, if not ruin, the knives of the chippers. But the steady stream of wood got to him. He stared. He forgot what he was doing.
Hill’s whistle reminded him. Norman grabbed the broom set against the I-beam near the doorway and began to sweep up the sawdust. He worked quickly and methodically. Keeping his back to Hill. He went up the aisles between the enormous, pan-shaped screens. He continued on along the walkways that ended where the steps to Hill’s booth began. Then, with the sawdust in neat piles, he shovelled it onto the belt.
When he returned the broom to the I-beam he noticed the chair. At a glance it didn’t look like a chair at all. More like a small table. With four rusty legs, crossbars to support them, and on top a piece of plywood. Perhaps it was a table but it could also be used as a chair. To be sure Norman didn’t know which one it was. But whatever it was, a welder had made it. The scars from a torch were apparent.
Norman looked to Hill for an answer. If it was a table, then it had a reason for being there. Someone, maybe Hill, intended to use it. But if it was a chair, it didn’t belong in the wood room. Only Hill sat down, and he already had a chair. Norman never sat down, mainly because there wasn’t a chair for him. Besides, if he sat down, he couldn’t do his job. It was impossible to sit and work.
Hill was watching him, so Norman peered out the doorway. Before it was possible to make a thorough check of the drags and belts, he looked back. He swung around and stared at the chair. His brow knitted with wonder. His curiosity threw spears at it. They ricocheted off in confounding patterns.
He felt Hill and went outside. The lights were on. They were a great help for seeing through the dark. Help or not, Norman wouldn’t have known the difference. He didn’t know dark. He’d never experienced any kind of opacity. There was always some sort of light provided.
After he checked the drags and belts he came back in and shot a glance at Hill. His attention turned away from the booth and reverted to the chair, then to the floor. It needed to be swept. He took up the broom and began. He worked with his back between Hill and him, looking at the chair his memory reproduced.
Upon finishing he returned the broom to the I-beam, not to signify an end to the task. That was impossible. Sweeping was an endless task. It never stopped raining sawdust. He returned the broom so he could have a better look at the chair. It was a chair. He had decided that much.
Since it was a chair and not a table, a problem arose. Hill knew it was there and yet he did nothing about it. And since there had never been a chair there before, Norman didn’t know what he should do.
While he scrutinized the welded structure, it came to him that he ought to check the drags and belts. He didn’t. He continued to examine the chair. He couldn’t ignore it. Its presence made demands on him.
With his arms he braced himself against the I-beam. Touching the cold steel sent a shiver through him. Steel was always cold. It never thawed. And if he happened to cut himself on it, the coldness would sit painfully on the open wound.
A shiver prompted him to leave and check outside. Perhaps it’s misleading to say he left on account of the effect an open wound would have on him. It wasn’t simply that. It was many things, and Hill was at the center.
Outside, standing on a sheet of plywood covering a hole in the catwalk, Norman saw that the bark had accumulated behind the tail pulley of no. 5 belt. It needed to be cleaned. He went downstairs. Near the door he found a shovel and climbed down into the pit through which no. 6 belt ran and in which no. 5 began. He worked quickly. But being so familiar with this task, he forgot what he was doing.
Silence reminded him. He threw down the shovel and ran upstairs. Hill was removing an oversized log from the belt. To Norman the log seemed small enough to pass through the chippers. But then there was no sense questioning Hill’s judgment.
Hill already had the cable around the log and was lifting it off the belt with the electric hoist. Needless to say, he had his back to Norman, who came up from behind and waited. When the log cleared the belt, Hill turned and looked directly at Norman’s feet.
Norman shook his head to indicate that his feet weren’t cold. Hill had told him that he ought to get a new pair of boots. Ones with fur lining.
Hill went up to his booth. In an instant the chipper filled the room with a howling screech. By pulling on the chain looped through the pulley, Norman moved the carriage to which the log was attached by a cable. Rolling on a beam twenty feet above, the carriage followed Norman. He sought a place to drop the log without it hitting anything. He positioned the log, slackened the cable, slipped it off, and let the log fall. Thirty feet to the ground.
He brought the carriage back in line with the stairs and went to the doorway. He had forgotten all about the chair. That was why it gave him such a start when he noticed it.
He scratched himself. From head to foot. It seemed he remembered more than he forgot. He began to play with the chair. Cautiously at first. He even went so far as to touch it. Nothing happened except that it fell over.
He set it upright and withdrew. He felt Hill. His gaze jumped from Hill to the chair. Neither would leave him alone. So he went out onto the catwalk. He saw that he hadn’t finished cleaning behind no. 5 tail pulley.
He went down and discovered that the shovel was missing. He found it in the pit and went to work. His pace was quick between the pauses his perplexity induced. The chair bothered him.
He finished cleaning. He loitered near the door under the red exit light. He liked the color. But then the whistle blew. He answered by running upstairs. As he reached the doorway, he looked to the booth. The shadow made gestures. They meant that he was supposed to pick the screens clean of slivers.
To an observer these gestures would be meaningless. To Norman they were explicit; above all demanding. It was unusual, often unnecessary, for them to exchange words.
Norman started at no. 4 screen. He yanked the slivers free from the stainless-steel mesh placed over the agitated pan. When he had an armful he deposited it in no. 1 chipper.
At no. 1 screen Norman changed his mind. It wasn’t a chair. Neither was it a table. Just something that could be anything. Whatever it was mattered little to him. Or at least that was what he told himself. Upon picking the screens clean of slivers, he ambled to whatever it was. He had no reason in mind. He just went over there.
But once there he sat down. NOW! NOW! It was a chair. Norman made it a chair. And he knew exactly what he was making. He had planned to do it all along. The notion that it didn’t matter to him what it was was just a trick he played on himself.
As soon as he sat down he began to feel tired. The tension which held him taut slackened. He relaxed, a lump of drooping flesh. He sampled an unknown sense of peace, a peace which asked for nothing in return. He surveyed his surrounding from the vantage the chair offered, concluding that everything seemed in such a hurry. About to stretch his legs, he remembered Hill. He sprang in fright to his feet. His fear attenuated when all the shadow did was watch him. Soon he dismissed all concern when he discovered that if he didn’t look at Hill he could scarcely feel his presence. Such insight was a gift he did not expect but certainly welcomed. He sat down and experimented with his ability to protect himself by deliberately using his back to keep Hill at a distance.
He remained seated for a long time, too amused with what he had made to be bothered with work. Time to him was now a privilege. Ye the threat of the whistle remained constant. He knew his work had to be done. The floor needed sweeping, the drags and belts checking. With great reluctance he came to his feet. Grimacing, he attended to his duties.
At length he dropped the broom. The chair beckoned him. He responded as he would to the whistle. He plopped down in the seat, utterly confounded by how he had ever finished sweeping without a rest. He propped his long face up with a loose fist. His vacant stare slowly rearranged itself; pinching the mouth at the corners, narrowing the eyes at the ends, and furrowing the brow from temple to temple. In no time his expression cleared when he happened upon an answer. He decided to work within a timetable. His strength renewed, he set about organizing a schedule, busily itemizing all his responsibilities. He made drastic changes in the way he operated so as to do the most work in the least time with the least amount of energy. Satisfied with his plan, he relaxed, stretching his legs out with a longwinded sigh.
Just then, something unexpected occurred to him; he was cold. A chill crept over him, energized by shivers. Before he became too uncomfortable, he decided to test the timetable. He started sweeping, but only those areas with the deepest accumulations of sawdust. While he worked, comparing techniques to find which one required the least effort, the cold disappeared. Warmth clothed him, although he was too involved to feel it.
Having accomplished what he set out to do, namely, as little as possible but enough to be passable, he returned to the chair. Proud of all that he had just done, he sat down, feeling almost ascendant, in command of all that he surveyed after a few minor alterations to his timetable. He breathed deeply and knew his grasp of time and space was nearly perfect. He was master. The more he thought about it, though, being master meant that he had to keep a vigil on time, and with that came untold concerns. A sigh punctuated his regret at having to work to monitor the time. With vacant eyes he cast a look about the room. What he saw stunned him.
The wood room had changed. It was a hideous sight, a jungle of belts, machines, catwalks, all tangled in an incomprehensible knot, all as confusing as a thick forest, all so awesome that he couldn’t move lest this muddle overcome him. It was maddening to hear the logs crashing down the chutes, the chipper mercilessly mutilating screaming logs, the crazed, relentless groan of motors and the clink of pulleys sounding as so many drips of steel. To feel the floor shake as if on the verge of collapse smashed any hold he had on himself. The cold, which followed the wind and the sawdust, which gave him purblind fits, so disturbed him that he hurried out to change what he saw and heard and felt.
With the blade of a shovel he battered the room’s exterior walls, intent on cutting out large rectangles. Before beginning he had no reason to hope for success, because he never suspected he might fail. But when the corrugated siding refused to yield, when he couldn’t so much as chip its surface, hope swelled and then festered. At last he threw down the shovel. Panting, stammering, squeezing his fist, he had to resort to an idea he previously discarded as preposterous; building sawdust walls around the chair. He seized the shovel as if to choke it and worked at a furious pace. Before too long he outstripped his limits and yet he doggedly persisted, his mind issuing the same command: Faster… Faster… Faster… At last he disobeyed. He dropped the shovel, seeing that his efforts were in vain. The wall would be too wide before it ever reached the desired height, and that was based on the assumption that the wind wouldn’t blow the dust away. Gasping for air, he sat down and wanted never to want again; most of all wanting to punish himself. Gradually he calmed down, only to find that the horrors of sight and sound were waiting to assail him. He ran in search of some material with which to construct a shelter.
He raced past a stack of bags, not really noticing them at first. He returned to the mound, fifty-pound bags of cement mix, at once intimidated by what he envisioned and baffled by how he had become so eligible for pain. The task before him was onerous and invited despair. He estimated he would need at least fifty bags. He hunkered down on his heels to consider.
At length he decided he had no other alternative and began hoisting one bag at a time up the stairs. By the third trip he felt a growing nausea, which he tried to defeat by swallowing, gulp after gulp after gulp.
Setting the eighth bag down, he smiled, for now he had the foundation. He also reckoned he would need far less than fifty bags; perhaps as few as thirty. He proceeded on with renewed strength and a stouter will. With the twenty-fourth bag in place, he needed only sixteen more. At forty he needed only eight more. At forty-eight he needed only sixteen more. And at sixty-four he deemed his shelter built.
As soon as Norman finished, he studied the edifice and came to the understanding that it bore a similarity to Hill’s booth. He made himself at home. He sat with his back to the plywood door, a piece of scrap he had found to cut down on the need for more bags, and marvelled at what he had done. His appraisal enhanced the rewards of his labor; for once he had done something that didn’t require him to repeat it twenty or thirty times a shift. That he had constructed a sanctuary amazed him. He was now clear of the horrors of sight and sound; he had reduced the noise to a tolerable level, and even though the floor shook, the tremors were milder. His pride shot a needle right into a vein, and he didn’t even shiver when he thought about Hill.
Yet Hill came after him. Just the thought of Hill made Norman look in that direction. Now a new perspective frightened him. Norman viewed Hill as if through the wrong end of a telescope. Hill was a long, long way off and way out of focus. The idea that Norman had lost something he could not name troubled him. He hunted for its name and became desperate when he could not find it. But certainly he felt it. It was a fear, a new kind of fear, very subtle, cunning, contagious, permanent, a fear which directed itself at the very source from which it came. And that source was Norman. Fear turned on him, and he shrank away from himself until he felt squeamish, anxious. He was acutely aware of being alone, displaced, of dissolving. He turned to Hill. All he saw was the wall he had made. Hill had seen all that Norman made; the chair, the sanctuary, the timetable…
The timetable! Norman jumped and slowly sank down, wincing and covering the pain he incurred when he hit the wooden ceiling. The ache opened the way for him to suffer all the other smarts and sores clamoring for attention. He knocked down the door and scampered out of his hole. The shadow made gestures, none of which Norman understood. Frantic, Norman looked around for trouble. The sight of his shelter covered with sawdust startled him. He paid it no mind, continuing to search for a problem.
At a loss, he signalled back to Hill, who repeatedly pointed a finger at him. Jarred by what he took to be an accusation, Norman swung around and saw a long jam in the chutes to the barking drums. He rushed out onto the catwalk; almost falling into the hole he created by removing the plywood sheets for his shelter. He took up a long pole with a hook at the end and tugged at the logs. While he pushed and pulled, jabbed and stabbed the logs, the suspicion arose that Hill wasn’t at all qualified to run the wood room. At the same time the notion that it was merely by accident that things went as well as they did presented itself.
Norman broke the jam with an unexpectedly mighty heave. He went over to the switches he had seen Hill use and started the belt himself. He smiled as the logs plunged into the drums. He stood erect, his chest out, his shoulders square. His posture by this time had developed to where it was crucial to Hill to have him around; otherwise the wood room would disappear in silence. Without him Hill was useless. In triumph Norman marched back, again just missing the dark cavity he created in the catwalk. As soon as he stepped inside the wood room, the horrors of sight and sound converged on him.
He fled into his sanctuary. The moment he pulled the door shut he heard the crack of wood. At once he denied hearing it. He took his seat and thrust his coupled hands between his legs and let his face fall between his knees. He moaned. He whined. He shook his head. At times violently. He rocked and whimpered. Eventually he acquired a rhythm that calmed him. But the peace was short lived. A wild, inexplicable sensation struck hard. Now he was free but missing something essential to his equilibrium. He felt unreliable and yet very susceptible to a force not unlike gravity, but whose center had been shattered and was now scattering. Norman screamed when he sensed he was falling without a destination.
He punched down the door and ran downstairs. Outside, he saw bark piled high around the derailed no. 1 drag. His thoughts flew in many directions, all aiming at the desire to return to this old ways. But Norman didn’t know the way back, he didn’t know why things had changed.
The whistle blew, and Norman realized he was already screaming.
The Chair
by
Timothy L. Rodriguez
When Norman arrived on the last day—the seventh day of the shift—he found a chair. Hill was already there, of course.
The two worked at the paper mill. In the wood room. Not a room in the conventional sense. To call it a room was tantamount to calling a globe the earth. Nevertheless, it was a room. It had been named such.
The room had only one purpose—to cut logs into chips. Everything in it was designed to meet that end. There were no excesses. It was in a constant state of change, though; having to be cleaned, renovated, and improved. It worked best when its operation was balanced.
Logs came up from the wood yard on a long conveyor belt and fell down one of the two winding shoots into barking drums. Inside these mammoth, revolving centrifuges the logs cudgelled one another as they tumbled—and ultimately stripped themselves of bark. After the centrifuges the logs fell onto another conveyor which brought them into the wood room to the chippers. There they were cut. The chips were then sent on to the pulp mill.
Perhaps it’s misleading to say Hill worked. He was the chipper feeder. He controlled. He did. Whether it was he who gave the room purpose was a moot point, but certainly the room was purposeless without him. The entire operation, even those activities before him and after him, came under his influence. In his booth, suspended in air, was every switch necessary to control, and from it he commanded a view of every machine, every corner. He could spot a rat under a barking drum. Nothing escaped his notice.
Norman didn’t notice the chair at first. He went directly to the doorway to check the bark drags. These were the chain-linked belts that swept the bark from under the drums. Occasionally a small log would slip through the seams of a drum, become entangled in the chain, and eventually derail the drag. So it was necessary to watch for any mishap. That was part of the drum man’s job. Of course Hill also watched. He used the lights on either side of the doorway for eyes. If they were blinking, the drags were working.
Stepping out onto the catwalk, Norman looked down and saw the two drags dumping load after load onto no. 6 conveyor. He followed the bark as it ascended to no. 5, to no. 4, to the shedder, and then on to no. 3. Unlike Hill, he couldn’t see after that.
A crack diverted his attention. Of all the sounds the machines made, he heard—no, he listened for this one. It alarmed him. Only silence or Hill’s whistle inspired more fear.
His eyes reverted to no. 1 drag. A stick fell onto its conveyor after being broken at the bevelled tail pulley. He followed it until it passed under the magnet halfway up no. 5 belt. Experience taught him that from there it would continue on without interruption.
With the stick moving away, Norman forgot what he was doing and gaped at the logs. They seemed to be charging at him. But one after another they tumbled into the drums. Though deaf to the pounding the chutes took, he winced as he stared at the cascade of logs. Hill controlled this belt as he did all the others. But Norman knew where there were switches with which he could control the belts. He had seen Hill use them when he came out to supervise the breaking of a log jam. Even so, it never occurred to Norman to use these switches.
Norman felt Hill. He turned quickly. He saw the shadow behind which was a multi-colored blinking panel. He averted his eyes. He walked back inside. He scanned the belt which brought the stripped logs up to the chippers. The belt came up underneath the floor. He was on the lookout for concrete, metal, or any other object that would dull, if not ruin, the knives of the chippers. But the steady stream of wood got to him. He stared. He forgot what he was doing.
Hill’s whistle reminded him. Norman grabbed the broom set against the I-beam near the doorway and began to sweep up the sawdust. He worked quickly and methodically. Keeping his back to Hill. He went up the aisles between the enormous, pan-shaped screens. He continued on along the walkways that ended where the steps to Hill’s booth began. Then, with the sawdust in neat piles, he shovelled it onto the belt.
When he returned the broom to the I-beam he noticed the chair. At a glance it didn’t look like a chair at all. More like a small table. With four rusty legs, crossbars to support them, and on top a piece of plywood. Perhaps it was a table but it could also be used as a chair. To be sure Norman didn’t know which one it was. But whatever it was, a welder had made it. The scars from a torch were apparent.
Norman looked to Hill for an answer. If it was a table, then it had a reason for being there. Someone, maybe Hill, intended to use it. But if it was a chair, it didn’t belong in the wood room. Only Hill sat down, and he already had a chair. Norman never sat down, mainly because there wasn’t a chair for him. Besides, if he sat down, he couldn’t do his job. It was impossible to sit and work.
Hill was watching him, so Norman peered out the doorway. Before it was possible to make a thorough check of the drags and belts, he looked back. He swung around and stared at the chair. His brow knitted with wonder. His curiosity threw spears at it. They ricocheted off in confounding patterns.
He felt Hill and went outside. The lights were on. They were a great help for seeing through the dark. Help or not, Norman wouldn’t have known the difference. He didn’t know dark. He’d never experienced any kind of opacity. There was always some sort of light provided.
After he checked the drags and belts he came back in and shot a glance at Hill. His attention turned away from the booth and reverted to the chair, then to the floor. It needed to be swept. He took up the broom and began. He worked with his back between Hill and him, looking at the chair his memory reproduced.
Upon finishing he returned the broom to the I-beam, not to signify an end to the task. That was impossible. Sweeping was an endless task. It never stopped raining sawdust. He returned the broom so he could have a better look at the chair. It was a chair. He had decided that much.
Since it was a chair and not a table, a problem arose. Hill knew it was there and yet he did nothing about it. And since there had never been a chair there before, Norman didn’t know what he should do.
While he scrutinized the welded structure, it came to him that he ought to check the drags and belts. He didn’t. He continued to examine the chair. He couldn’t ignore it. Its presence made demands on him.
With his arms he braced himself against the I-beam. Touching the cold steel sent a shiver through him. Steel was always cold. It never thawed. And if he happened to cut himself on it, the coldness would sit painfully on the open wound.
A shiver prompted him to leave and check outside. Perhaps it’s misleading to say he left on account of the effect an open wound would have on him. It wasn’t simply that. It was many things, and Hill was at the center.
Outside, standing on a sheet of plywood covering a hole in the catwalk, Norman saw that the bark had accumulated behind the tail pulley of no. 5 belt. It needed to be cleaned. He went downstairs. Near the door he found a shovel and climbed down into the pit through which no. 6 belt ran and in which no. 5 began. He worked quickly. But being so familiar with this task, he forgot what he was doing.
Silence reminded him. He threw down the shovel and ran upstairs. Hill was removing an oversized log from the belt. To Norman the log seemed small enough to pass through the chippers. But then there was no sense questioning Hill’s judgment.
Hill already had the cable around the log and was lifting it off the belt with the electric hoist. Needless to say, he had his back to Norman, who came up from behind and waited. When the log cleared the belt, Hill turned and looked directly at Norman’s feet.
Norman shook his head to indicate that his feet weren’t cold. Hill had told him that he ought to get a new pair of boots. Ones with fur lining.
Hill went up to his booth. In an instant the chipper filled the room with a howling screech. By pulling on the chain looped through the pulley, Norman moved the carriage to which the log was attached by a cable. Rolling on a beam twenty feet above, the carriage followed Norman. He sought a place to drop the log without it hitting anything. He positioned the log, slackened the cable, slipped it off, and let the log fall. Thirty feet to the ground.
He brought the carriage back in line with the stairs and went to the doorway. He had forgotten all about the chair. That was why it gave him such a start when he noticed it.
He scratched himself. From head to foot. It seemed he remembered more than he forgot. He began to play with the chair. Cautiously at first. He even went so far as to touch it. Nothing happened except that it fell over.
He set it upright and withdrew. He felt Hill. His gaze jumped from Hill to the chair. Neither would leave him alone. So he went out onto the catwalk. He saw that he hadn’t finished cleaning behind no. 5 tail pulley.
He went down and discovered that the shovel was missing. He found it in the pit and went to work. His pace was quick between the pauses his perplexity induced. The chair bothered him.
He finished cleaning. He loitered near the door under the red exit light. He liked the color. But then the whistle blew. He answered by running upstairs. As he reached the doorway, he looked to the booth. The shadow made gestures. They meant that he was supposed to pick the screens clean of slivers.
To an observer these gestures would be meaningless. To Norman they were explicit; above all demanding. It was unusual, often unnecessary, for them to exchange words.
Norman started at no. 4 screen. He yanked the slivers free from the stainless-steel mesh placed over the agitated pan. When he had an armful he deposited it in no. 1 chipper.
At no. 1 screen Norman changed his mind. It wasn’t a chair. Neither was it a table. Just something that could be anything. Whatever it was mattered little to him. Or at least that was what he told himself. Upon picking the screens clean of slivers, he ambled to whatever it was. He had no reason in mind. He just went over there.
But once there he sat down. NOW! NOW! It was a chair. Norman made it a chair. And he knew exactly what he was making. He had planned to do it all along. The notion that it didn’t matter to him what it was was just a trick he played on himself.
As soon as he sat down he began to feel tired. The tension which held him taut slackened. He relaxed, a lump of drooping flesh. He sampled an unknown sense of peace, a peace which asked for nothing in return. He surveyed his surrounding from the vantage the chair offered, concluding that everything seemed in such a hurry. About to stretch his legs, he remembered Hill. He sprang in fright to his feet. His fear attenuated when all the shadow did was watch him. Soon he dismissed all concern when he discovered that if he didn’t look at Hill he could scarcely feel his presence. Such insight was a gift he did not expect but certainly welcomed. He sat down and experimented with his ability to protect himself by deliberately using his back to keep Hill at a distance.
He remained seated for a long time, too amused with what he had made to be bothered with work. Time to him was now a privilege. Ye the threat of the whistle remained constant. He knew his work had to be done. The floor needed sweeping, the drags and belts checking. With great reluctance he came to his feet. Grimacing, he attended to his duties.
At length he dropped the broom. The chair beckoned him. He responded as he would to the whistle. He plopped down in the seat, utterly confounded by how he had ever finished sweeping without a rest. He propped his long face up with a loose fist. His vacant stare slowly rearranged itself; pinching the mouth at the corners, narrowing the eyes at the ends, and furrowing the brow from temple to temple. In no time his expression cleared when he happened upon an answer. He decided to work within a timetable. His strength renewed, he set about organizing a schedule, busily itemizing all his responsibilities. He made drastic changes in the way he operated so as to do the most work in the least time with the least amount of energy. Satisfied with his plan, he relaxed, stretching his legs out with a longwinded sigh.
Just then, something unexpected occurred to him; he was cold. A chill crept over him, energized by shivers. Before he became too uncomfortable, he decided to test the timetable. He started sweeping, but only those areas with the deepest accumulations of sawdust. While he worked, comparing techniques to find which one required the least effort, the cold disappeared. Warmth clothed him, although he was too involved to feel it.
Having accomplished what he set out to do, namely, as little as possible but enough to be passable, he returned to the chair. Proud of all that he had just done, he sat down, feeling almost ascendant, in command of all that he surveyed after a few minor alterations to his timetable. He breathed deeply and knew his grasp of time and space was nearly perfect. He was master. The more he thought about it, though, being master meant that he had to keep a vigil on time, and with that came untold concerns. A sigh punctuated his regret at having to work to monitor the time. With vacant eyes he cast a look about the room. What he saw stunned him.
The wood room had changed. It was a hideous sight, a jungle of belts, machines, catwalks, all tangled in an incomprehensible knot, all as confusing as a thick forest, all so awesome that he couldn’t move lest this muddle overcome him. It was maddening to hear the logs crashing down the chutes, the chipper mercilessly mutilating screaming logs, the crazed, relentless groan of motors and the clink of pulleys sounding as so many drips of steel. To feel the floor shake as if on the verge of collapse smashed any hold he had on himself. The cold, which followed the wind and the sawdust, which gave him purblind fits, so disturbed him that he hurried out to change what he saw and heard and felt.
With the blade of a shovel he battered the room’s exterior walls, intent on cutting out large rectangles. Before beginning he had no reason to hope for success, because he never suspected he might fail. But when the corrugated siding refused to yield, when he couldn’t so much as chip its surface, hope swelled and then festered. At last he threw down the shovel. Panting, stammering, squeezing his fist, he had to resort to an idea he previously discarded as preposterous; building sawdust walls around the chair. He seized the shovel as if to choke it and worked at a furious pace. Before too long he outstripped his limits and yet he doggedly persisted, his mind issuing the same command: Faster… Faster… Faster… At last he disobeyed. He dropped the shovel, seeing that his efforts were in vain. The wall would be too wide before it ever reached the desired height, and that was based on the assumption that the wind wouldn’t blow the dust away. Gasping for air, he sat down and wanted never to want again; most of all wanting to punish himself. Gradually he calmed down, only to find that the horrors of sight and sound were waiting to assail him. He ran in search of some material with which to construct a shelter.
He raced past a stack of bags, not really noticing them at first. He returned to the mound, fifty-pound bags of cement mix, at once intimidated by what he envisioned and baffled by how he had become so eligible for pain. The task before him was onerous and invited despair. He estimated he would need at least fifty bags. He hunkered down on his heels to consider.
At length he decided he had no other alternative and began hoisting one bag at a time up the stairs. By the third trip he felt a growing nausea, which he tried to defeat by swallowing, gulp after gulp after gulp.
Setting the eighth bag down, he smiled, for now he had the foundation. He also reckoned he would need far less than fifty bags; perhaps as few as thirty. He proceeded on with renewed strength and a stouter will. With the twenty-fourth bag in place, he needed only sixteen more. At forty he needed only eight more. At forty-eight he needed only sixteen more. And at sixty-four he deemed his shelter built.
As soon as Norman finished, he studied the edifice and came to the understanding that it bore a similarity to Hill’s booth. He made himself at home. He sat with his back to the plywood door, a piece of scrap he had found to cut down on the need for more bags, and marvelled at what he had done. His appraisal enhanced the rewards of his labor; for once he had done something that didn’t require him to repeat it twenty or thirty times a shift. That he had constructed a sanctuary amazed him. He was now clear of the horrors of sight and sound; he had reduced the noise to a tolerable level, and even though the floor shook, the tremors were milder. His pride shot a needle right into a vein, and he didn’t even shiver when he thought about Hill.
Yet Hill came after him. Just the thought of Hill made Norman look in that direction. Now a new perspective frightened him. Norman viewed Hill as if through the wrong end of a telescope. Hill was a long, long way off and way out of focus. The idea that Norman had lost something he could not name troubled him. He hunted for its name and became desperate when he could not find it. But certainly he felt it. It was a fear, a new kind of fear, very subtle, cunning, contagious, permanent, a fear which directed itself at the very source from which it came. And that source was Norman. Fear turned on him, and he shrank away from himself until he felt squeamish, anxious. He was acutely aware of being alone, displaced, of dissolving. He turned to Hill. All he saw was the wall he had made. Hill had seen all that Norman made; the chair, the sanctuary, the timetable…
The timetable! Norman jumped and slowly sank down, wincing and covering the pain he incurred when he hit the wooden ceiling. The ache opened the way for him to suffer all the other smarts and sores clamoring for attention. He knocked down the door and scampered out of his hole. The shadow made gestures, none of which Norman understood. Frantic, Norman looked around for trouble. The sight of his shelter covered with sawdust startled him. He paid it no mind, continuing to search for a problem.
At a loss, he signalled back to Hill, who repeatedly pointed a finger at him. Jarred by what he took to be an accusation, Norman swung around and saw a long jam in the chutes to the barking drums. He rushed out onto the catwalk; almost falling into the hole he created by removing the plywood sheets for his shelter. He took up a long pole with a hook at the end and tugged at the logs. While he pushed and pulled, jabbed and stabbed the logs, the suspicion arose that Hill wasn’t at all qualified to run the wood room. At the same time the notion that it was merely by accident that things went as well as they did presented itself.
Norman broke the jam with an unexpectedly mighty heave. He went over to the switches he had seen Hill use and started the belt himself. He smiled as the logs plunged into the drums. He stood erect, his chest out, his shoulders square. His posture by this time had developed to where it was crucial to Hill to have him around; otherwise the wood room would disappear in silence. Without him Hill was useless. In triumph Norman marched back, again just missing the dark cavity he created in the catwalk. As soon as he stepped inside the wood room, the horrors of sight and sound converged on him.
He fled into his sanctuary. The moment he pulled the door shut he heard the crack of wood. At once he denied hearing it. He took his seat and thrust his coupled hands between his legs and let his face fall between his knees. He moaned. He whined. He shook his head. At times violently. He rocked and whimpered. Eventually he acquired a rhythm that calmed him. But the peace was short lived. A wild, inexplicable sensation struck hard. Now he was free but missing something essential to his equilibrium. He felt unreliable and yet very susceptible to a force not unlike gravity, but whose center had been shattered and was now scattering. Norman screamed when he sensed he was falling without a destination.
He punched down the door and ran downstairs. Outside, he saw bark piled high around the derailed no. 1 drag. His thoughts flew in many directions, all aiming at the desire to return to this old ways. But Norman didn’t know the way back, he didn’t know why things had changed.
The whistle blew, and Norman realized he was already screaming.
Timothy L. Rodriguez has published in English and Spanish. Warren Publishing of Charlotte, NC, recently introduced his latest novel—Never is Now. His fiction and poems have appeared in over two dozen national and international publications including Main Street Rag, Heyday Magazine, Stoneboat Literary Journal (2017 Pushcart nomination), The Raven’s Perch, and The Dead Mule School of Southern Literature. His essay “The Problem Now” appeared in the 5th edition of New Theory.