Board Thread:Writer's Workshop/@comment-25383866-20150122141230

'''Looking for some feedback. I've been writing this for about a week or so and am about halfway done, I think. I can never tell with these things, but I want to see what people think so far, make sure there are no glaring errors before I move on.'''

He’d set up camp in the early hours of the morning by the light of a Coleman lantern. The clouds in the sky had blotted out the setting moon and the stars so that the canopy of trees above was lit only by the yellow flame of the propane-fuelled bulbs. It was cold, very cold, and snow fell out of the blind sky in lazy drifts. He worked quickly, pitching the tent, his shadow tall and gangly against the stark backdrop of the forest, jerking and twitching like a spastic puppet.

The air was filled with the itinerant silence of winter, the whooshing emptiness of the soft wind as it weaved through the thin limbs of dormant trees. He labored on in the midst of it, watching his breath appear and disappear like a playful ghost. Condensation froze on his beard, turning it white, giving him the aspect of some fearsome god of winter.

He was dressed for the cold in lined gloves, a camouflage parka and pants, and heavy boots of the same pattern. He wore a thick wool watchcap, pulled down tightly over his ears.

This trip had been on his mind for the last month. He’d been worried that he wouldn’t make it in time, that the road would be swallowed up in the snowy holocaust and that he’d have to turn around and go home in defeat. But luck had been on his side, or some measure of it, and the road had been clear. Enough.

His truck had struggled mightily, the old workhorse fighting inertia and Mother Nature herself, but the vehicle had borne him through to his destination unharmed, and it now sat parked several yards away, slowly being consumed by the falling snow. That worried him, but not greatly. He could dig it out if need be.

His mind turned to thoughts of civilization, and his choice to abandon it for a time. A heavy exhaustion had come over him recently, brought on by the soft rigors of life in the city; a depression of sorts that he had no right to, but sought a cure for regardless. The idea of a hunting trip had been in the back of his mind for a while, and he finally decided to bring it up one morning when he and his wife Alma were eating breakfast. It was a mild fall day, the world still mourning the loss of summer, not yet willing to usher winter in.

He was standing at the sink, looking out the window into the front yard. She was seated at the table, reading a book. On the cover, a muscle-bound Adonis was dipping a slender, bosomy Aphrodite, his lips an inch from hers, permanently frozen in an almost-kiss by the artist’s hand.

I think I need to get away for a while, he’d said to the smudgy glass.

Oh? Alma said, not looking up from her book.

Yeah. I’m thinking a hunting trip.

Where? She asked, realizing that he intended to have a conversation with her. She grudgingly set the book face-down on the table and turned toward him.

I’m thinking the mountains outside town, he answered, still facing the window. Get on the highway, take a few left turns and see where I end up.

Okay, she said, going back to her book. Do what you want. I can go visit my mother.

He had been amazed at her immediate acceptance of the proposition. He had expected her to fight him on this, as she had done with any number of things in the past. Naturally, he was suspicious.

That’s it? He asked, turning away from the window. No fight? Nothing? You’re just okay with this?

Yeah, Michael, she sighed. I’m fine with it. Go out in the woods and freeze. He opened his mouth to retort, then closed it. She could play that game better than he could.

I’m thinking I’ll go at the end of the month, he said. She ignored him, turning a page.

Alright, then, he said, and left her alone in the kitchen while he went out to the garage and sifted through the inexplicable clutter of domesticity for what he’d need.

“Ah, shit,” he muttered into the cold, the memory filling him with a tepid, unreasoning guilt like cheap wine in a chipped glass. The words hung in the air, heavy, unacknowledged.

The tent was pitched. He stowed his sleeping gear inside, and for the hundredth time checked his pack.

Food.

Water.

Medical supplies.

A handheld GPS navigation system.

Extra ammo.

He checked the rifle he’d brought with him, an old Smith & Wesson .30-.30. It was wrapped in an army surplus blanket he’d had since he was a kid. He pulled the blanket off, and slid the bolt back just far enough to see the glint of brass inside the slide, and chambered it back up. He slung it over his shoulder, barrel down. He tossed the blanket into the tent.

“Let’s get on with it, then,” he said, and trudged off into the trees.

He saw nothing for a long time; it made him feel strangely insubstantial, fleeting and pale as a ghost as he moved through the trees. Life moved all around him; spritely boughs of evergreens shook and jittered as small animals cavorted over them, knocking clods of wet snow down onto his back.

The snowfall had begun to lessen, becoming thin flakes flurrying down in ecstatic little spirals, melting onto the shoulders of his jacket. The trees had thinned out as well, and he found himself on a ridge overlooking the valley out of which he’d bullied the truck.

He paused on the overlook, his eyes sounding the pale expanse. The world looked strangely contained as he gazed out at it. All that was visible to his eye seemed to be held under a great, gray dome of cloud, below which the valley spread out in a muddle of brown and green.

He sat down, and unslung his pack. He ate a small lunch there on the ridge, perched at the edge of the bubble of the world. He removed his gloves, the fabric catching on his wedding band. As he ate, he remembered leaving that morning, the hushed, rushed goodbyes he and Alma had exchanged.

The truck was almost packed. She stood on the front porch, arms crossed against the cold morning air over her small breasts as she watched him put the last of his things into the bed. 