From the high canopy, shafts of light segment the forest like windows in a cathedral. Clicks and hoots echo through the boughs. The air is warm and wet.
The woodsman halts. Considers what he is about to do. He takes a seat on a log and runs a thumb over the blade of his axe.
If he does not cut down these trees then he will not be paid. If he is not paid, then he and his family lose everything. That has always been a simple enough arrangement. Nothing has ever caused any doubt before.
But now he’s stopped to think and he doesn’t know why. Perhaps it is the beauty of the place, but he has never been the kind of person to be moved by something as intangible as beauty. Just as he wouldn’t be moved by just a feeling of wrongness. But there it is. Squatting on his chest. A sense that touching this place is inherently a bad thing.
But why? It is just another stretch of a forest he has been cutting for years.
Perhaps it's just that. The time. It’s his birthday today. Forty six. How long has he been doing this? How many trees has he felled? Thousands, must be.
The woodsman weeps. He sets down his axe. Thinks of his home. Then picks it back up again.
Paddy Dobson
1st November 2022