Excerpt from Said Sayrafiezadeh's "A Brief Encounter with the Enemy:"
To get to the hill you have to first take the path. The path is narrow and steep and lined with trees that are so dark they couple be purple, and so dense it feels as through you're walking alongside a brick wall. You can't see in and you hope that no one can see out.
The first time I went up the path it was terrifying. I could barely take a full breath, let alone put one foot in front of the other. If I'd had to run, I wouldn't have remembered how. Besides, I was loaded down with fifty pounds of equipment that clanged and banged with every step. I might as well have been carrying a refrigerator on my back. But after the first month the fear dissipated and the path started to become fascinating, even charming. I was able to appreciated the "beauty of the surroundings" -as the brochure had said - even the trees that I was constantly bumping against. "What kind of trees are these?" I asked out loud. I wanted to learn everything I could. I wanted to get everything there was to get out of this experience.
Christmas tress," someone answered back. He was being funny, of course, and everyone laughed, even though we were missing Christmas.
Excerpt from John Kinsella's "The Fable of the Great Sow"
....I could have gone around. But
I'd done it before, and she looked so distractedly
Blissed in her deep scratch that I took the plunge.
Many times my weight, and half my
Stretch again in length. Reacted quick
And cut me off. Back then it would have
Been easy to talk of her malevolent eyes,
Her snottty nose, her deadly teeth.
Of all human warp embodied,
But beyond anthropomorphism.
My wits were dulled. She was total pig,
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