Sapphic Voices General Fiction

Unfinished Wood

Leah savored the smell of unfinished wood.

Fresh cut. Clean. Smooth.

Feeling the milky edges as she traced and retraced the lines of what was once a tree.

She thought about those things. In ways she doubted other people did. Origins. Desks of wood and wood of trees and trees of forests. But where? Which forest, she often wondered. And when? And chopped down by whom? And did it hurt? Did it hurt the tree to be chopped down?

When people wanted to tease her for being a vegetarian, they would tell her that vegetables had feelings too. And Leah would roll her eyes but deep down she kind of agreed. Was it right? How did it feel? Do grains of wood and pulp scream at each slice of the saw? Do the branches tense up and wait? Just wait for the inevitable slow death as water no longer rushes in from the roots? Do the leaves cry?

And rationally she knew it was crazy. To wonder like that.

A sect of Buddhism doesn’t eat or use anything that would kill the plant. Too much awareness and consciousness, she thought.

Other people told her to stop thinking so much. They told her that often. They tell her that often. Thinking about thinking so much.

And then she wonders, do trees think? Do they ponder their destiny as a sanded and smooth floor or desk or shelf or rocking chair or dollhouse? And when do they stop being alive? At what point is a living tree dead?

Flowers stay alive even after they are cut, remembers Leah. As long as they are in water. But are they alive in the same way as when they were in the ground or on a bush? Or are they in limbo? A kind of flora purgatory.

Leah loved flowers too. She doodled flower after flower in each of her classes. It helped her concentrate.

And some teachers got that. Got that she could listen while also drawing flowers. That her brain was just like that. Needing to focus on more than one thing to help her concentrate. Especially when she cared about the subject. Especially when it got to her.

Some teachers got that. That doodling was a good substitute for note taking. Because the kids who took notes rarely listened and even more rarely processed any of the conversation. But Leah listened. She listened and she talked and she begged to speak and she interrupted all the while filling her white lined paper with flowers attached to leaves attached to vines. And some teachers saw her notebook and got it. The good ones.

But some did not. Did not understand how a student could possibly be talking about the Civil War while bordering her paper with vines and flowers. Some did not. The bad ones.

The same ones who never thought about the wood in their pencils or in their desks. About where it came from or where it started or how it felt. How it felt to be serrated and ripped and hacked and blasted and sanded and scraped and carved.

And Leah knew something about those things. Not in a physical sense but in a spiritual sense.

Because even though she was only 15 she had serrated and ripped and hacked and blasted and sanded and scraped and carved her own brain until she no longer recognized herself. Trying to find it. Trying to find the innocent and trusting girl she remembered being at some point. The one she saw in family photos. The one who made up silly songs and painted her face with Crayola markers and played hopscotch in the front driveway. Somewhere she had lost her. Somewhere in the caverns of her unfinished brain. Unfinished like wood.

And Leah knew something about those things. Not in a physical sense but in a spiritual sense.

Because they had serrated and ripped and hacked and blasted and sanded and scraped and carved her spirit because they were the ones who were miserable. And crazy. And powerless. And they didn’t mean to cause that amount of damage and they probably didn’t realize they were causing any damage at the time. Because they were too caught up in themselves. Their own needs. Their own misery. Their own arguments.

And it isn’t safe for a spirit to stay where it is not noticed. Where it could be serrated and ripped and hacked and blasted and sanded and scraped and carved because people are not being careful. And not thinking. And not understanding.

So Leah wondered about the trees. About when their spirits retreated or left. And she wondered if her own had retreated or left with them.

But the more she ran her fingers along the lines in the wood, the more she caressed each knot, the more she counted the rings, the more she realized that the spirit lived in the cells of the wood. Even after it is serrated and ripped and hacked and blasted and sanded and scraped and carved. Like cellular memories.

If you have enjoyed Lani Radack's "Unfinished Wood", then please be certain to e-mail her at  radacklani[at]hotmail.com  and thank her for posting this Story.

Click here for a list of all of Lani Radack's  Stories and Poetry at  Sapphic Voices Authoresses.