Log Gym

Amanda dumps twigs and herbs into the water, mutters, tattooed and ringed fingers twisting in an arcane gesture. “Do you believe in magic, Jones?”

“How can I after all the bombs we dropped?” Just two retired drone operators meeting in the forest, one a gypsy, the other a bohemian. Three days ago, her brother, Iraq vet, blew his face off. I have made myself available.

“At least he’s free of pain now,” she says. “I just sent him a message and now he’ll find a way to talk to us.” We pause to sit by the waterfall that trickles into the lake in the centre of the forest; swans shake their feathers in the spray. “My mother thinks he’s gone to hell.” Amanda lifts her hands and fake-shrieks as if she’s roasting, roasting, and laughs at the superstition of it. More softly, “Yesterday I spoke to him and he made it rain.” Her long black hair is tied in knots too.

Strolling around the lake in silence. Other times we chatter. An otter breaks the surface with a fish in its teeth. She stares into the water and asks, “Did you ever strike the wrong house?” 

“Yes… They were the worst.” Black ducks float near, craning their necks to stare with white-skull faces. I blink and the ducks have plunged. “Sometimes I’m afraid the people we killed are stuck at the moment of the strike. If I’m living it over and over, maybe they are too.”

She raises an eyebrow, “Now you definitely sound like a believer.” 

Her laughter cut short. Phone call. Mother. Amanda listens and eventually interrupts, “Stop apologizing, stop apologizing,” and this is the first time her eyes are sad, as she twists a bear-claw pendant around on her neck. She tells her mother she loves her and clicks the phone shut. “Every morning she wakes and cries for hours.”

I don’t know what to say. I offer my elbow and we stroll beyond the lake, deeper into the forest, and are ancient together, older than the trees.

I ask, “What does your PTSD look like?”

“Can't tolerate stupid shit, can't make small talk, can't jump through the hoops of a first date, can't go shopping. I've lost the will to pretend.”  

And here I thought I’d just grown wise. Branches crunch underfoot as we wander deeper into the woods. She explains her coping strategy: “Whenever I am suffering, I imagine having my legs blown off, and that gives me perspective.”

When we reach a glen where the leaves are lit like stained-glass windows, I explain mine: “This is my temple. I work out here sometimes. With the logs.” I’ve stacked them like bodies—ten or so, carefully selected, knobby bastards, each a different weight.

 “Show me,” she says. So we throw the logs around and lift them over our heads. Sprint to the wide-armed maple with trunks on our shoulders. Spin them around like bo staffs, toss them like cabers. She flips a big fucker, end over end, and we start to laugh, two maniacs in the woods, our voices bouncing off the leaves like we were still whole. When I open my eyes, the branches have filled with owls and crows. Every bird in the forest maybe, filling each branch to the music of rustling feathers. Their heads tilt to the side as if listening.

I don’t know if it’s real or if I’ve finally lost my mind. I want to turn to Amanda—can she see this too? Are we ever going to be OK? 

“Now do you believe?” she asks.