ManicDDaily

The above is my pictorial take of Tess Kincaid’s photo prompt for The Mag this week;  the original photo was by ParkeHarrison.  And here’s my verbal take:

Man Nesting

He felt like an idiot.

They’d taught him to crawl again; now this.

The crawling had been a bitch; he’d ruined three perfectly good pairs of pants–(yes, they said wear knee pads.  Yes, they’d suggested jeans.)  But the jeans chafed, and who has knee pads hanging around–

You need to find your inner child, she’d insisted.

You need to find your inner adult, he’d hissed back.

But she’d wheedled, wept, then even moved out for a couple of weeks, and had the softest skin ever at the nape of her neck, and a smell that even now as he shut his eyes over the brittle earth scent of mud-crusted stick–(the words “bird spittle” flashed for a single alarming instant)–

–that, even now as he shut his eyes over the scratch of crusted twig, made his whole being ache, rejoice–the feel of her side beneath his palms. He  held the nest sides gently to not further crush the construct, feeling the callouses at the sides of his hands as if he himself were the branches, broken, bound together —

–even as he shut his eyes, lowering this last still-good pair of pants into the wound wood curves—it was a nest, yes, a one-man nest–where did they come up with such things? 

He had said, please, when he found her–he had said, don’t leave me; he had said, ever.  (He hadn’t been able to help himself, the anger whooshing instantly into need).  He had taken her face in those slightly roughened palms–

Tracked with tears, that face had nodded; his own eyes filled too, like a child’s.

So, now, he settled his crooked pants over the annoyance of straw, clod, bristle, knowing knowing knowing, even without this further lesson, that when he went home afterwards, she’d assure him, with both arms, that she saw a difference already.

(Have a great Sunday–check out all the great writing at the Mag, and if you’ve got time, please please  also check out my comic novel, NOSE DIVE,  available on Kindle for just 99 cents and in print for just a bit more.)