I caught a fairy. A freaking fairy, can you believe it? Nasty looking thing, too. Two feet tall, scaly skin, big floppy ears, slanted eyes and a mouth full of teeth that could shred a side of beef in seconds. Freaking pirranha teeth. "You know, fairies can skeletonize a cow in 15 seconds" teeth. It's sitting over there right now staring at me and gnashing those rippers. Freaking unnerving, man.

You don't believe me? Guess I can't blame you. You don't know me from Adam after all and this isn't exactly the most commonplace thing in the world. A literal fairy tale with me as the main character and no idea how the story ends. Except that fairy tales have an annoying tendency to end with BAD THINGS happening to Joe Hero so I'm not all that happy to be cast in the role. Okay then, fair's fair. I'll give you the 411 and then you can activate your suspension of disbelief for my benefit and your edification. My name is Charles but I go by Chuck. Some of my old friends still use Charley 'cause that's what my folks saddled me with as a kid. I'm a journalist who's trying to be a writer. Aren't those the same thing, you ask. No, my friend. Journalism is regurgitation. Writing is creation. I'm a text puker for the "other" paper in Buffalo, NY. The one without enough circulation, sales or advertisers to stay afloat much longer. The one that isn't owned my a multinational conglomerate. I take stories of the AP wire, edit, pundit, submit. Original content is not encouraged. I want to be a writer. I want to CREATE.

But I can't write at home. There is always something that intrudes. Work. Women. Neighbors. Noise. I just can never seem to sit long enough for the creative process to start up. My muse keeps leaving messages but I don't have the time to call her back. I've got outlines, plot lines, storylines, anecdotes, characterizations, you name it. I've got all of the pieces and I just need a bit of Me time to glue them all together.

So I came up here to Lake Mazinau in the glorious province of Ontario in Canada, the 51st state of the Union. I've been here before, as a kid. I came up on a two week vacation with my folks and the one thing that stuck about the experience (besides catching them en flagrante delicto) was how unbelievably peaceful the place is. Dad got me in touch with the folks we rented a cabin from back then and they got me in touch with the folks that they sold the cabin to. Badda boom, badda bing, I'm on sabbatical. Two months in an isolated cabin on the lake. No phones, no neighbors, no interruptions. No television but a satellite uplink for the laptop (the place is billed as a businessmanÂ’s retreat now). Well, thatÂ’s not exactly fair. There is satellite tv set up here but you have to bring your own tv and I didnÂ’t. After all, IÂ’m here to write, not to entertain myself right?

Except I canÂ’t write. Not a fucking word. Since I got here I havenÂ’t written a single worthwhile sentence. I spent days going over my notes. I donÂ’t have any idea what I was thinking when I wrote them. ItÂ’s like some other person jotted all of that crap down and none of it fits together in any way I can see. My muse got pissed that I didnÂ’t return her calls and has gone looking for a more attentive partner. This isnÂ’t writerÂ’s block, itÂ’s writerÂ’s noose. This is my one and only chance to get a book written. I am not wealthy. This two month sabbatical is draining every bit of my savings. I cashed in my retirement account. I am totally fucked.

After a week of not writing I figured I was just too tense. I had to relax, let the spirit of the place infect me, ya know? I took the boat out each morning for a cruise around the lake. ItÂ’s a little 14 foot open fishing boat with a little outboard in the back. I had to rent it to get to the cabin since thereÂ’s no road coming anywhere near the place. No phone or electricity lines either, did I mention that? Yeah, I guess I told you about the phone but thereÂ’s no juice either. ThereÂ’s a bank of deep cycling marine batteries and a generator. ThatÂ’s mostly for the water pump; house water comes from the lake and you have to fill the reservoir early in the morning before the boats on the lake kick up too much silt and crap. While the generatorÂ’s going you can run a couple of appliances and still charge the big batteries. Those will hold a decent enough charge to keep the satellite receiver and one or two lights going throughout the night. I charge up the laptop batteries while IÂ’m filling the reservoir.

Damn, I’m doing it again. I get on these freaking tangents and don’t even realize it. Yesterday I was grilling up pancakes and ran some trash out to the compost pile. I ended up shooting the bow for like 15 minutes until I noticed the huge gouts of smoke coming out of the kitchen window. Anyway, I decided to take a week off – no writing. More correctly that would be no attempting to write ‘cause I sure as hell wasn’t writing anything anyway. So I started taking the boat out in the morning. Early. I kept it slow and quiet (it’s a little engine but those two strokes can get freaking loud) whenever I came near one of the other cabins. I let the place seep into me and just enjoyed the lake, the forest, the mountains, the sunsets, the sunrises. The whole place.

It was really tempting to go native. Just say “screw you, world” and walk off into the woods. My sanity was saved by that annoying voice of reason in the back of my head that reminded me of my total and complete lack of survival skills. Still, it was tempting.

I started fishing in the afternoons. I know, I know. ThatÂ’s not the best time to fish. I wasnÂ’t fishing to catch fish, I was fishing to relax. Actual fish would have been a distraction. So IÂ’d take the boat back out, drop an anchor, drown a few worms, replenish the lake with some thoroughly bioprocessed LabattÂ’s. Yeah, I know it sounds gross. I was pumping my house water out of the lake and I was pissing into the lake. Do you honestly think a couple bladder-fulls of my urine made a difference? YouÂ’ve got a million birds, fish and critters pissing and crapping in there. Besides, I never fished anywhere near the cabin and the tap water is filtered.

Anyway, thatÂ’s when the weirdness started; when I started to fish.

End Part 1

So, let me know how you like it so far and if you think I should put my short stories up on the blog. I don't do many of them any more but I'm happy to share if you'd like.

Posted by: Jim at 08:57 AM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
Post contains 1225 words, total size 7 kb.

1 so far, so good

Posted by: Ted at October 14, 2003 09:11 AM (bov8n)

2 I am impressed. You can blog, you can write short stories, and you can suck cows off. I liked it. Keep 'em coming. And I am going to plaguerize "writer's noose" from you. Hope you don't mind!

Posted by: Helen at October 14, 2003 10:49 AM (ADrg6)

3 Glad y'all are enjoying it. I used to write quite a bit but that slowed down after a certain nightmarish professor put the whammy on me and then close to disappeared after having kids. I hope "plaguerize" was a typo and not a Freudian slip. LOL

Posted by: Jim at October 14, 2003 11:10 AM (IOwam)

4 Oops. Stupid Helen. Stupid stupid!

Posted by: H at October 14, 2003 11:35 AM (ADrg6)

5 Normally, if a story starts with a description of a fairy, I'm bailing by the second paragraph--but this is good. You have me wondering what happens, anyway; does that count?

Posted by: ilyka at October 15, 2003 02:53 AM (b0Boo)

6 I'm generally the same way, Ilyka. That's because the "modern" fairy is a cute little thing with gossamer wings or a pot belly and a pipe. The legends of the unseelie wights are absolutely nothing like the Disneyfied crap that the world has been subjected to for the past 50 years. I'm a traditionalist. >

Posted by: Jim at October 15, 2003 06:41 AM (IOwam)

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