The Woodcutter

The crunching of gravel becomes a rhythm. The shallow, gasping breaths tear at your chest. You stumble, hands forward, into a tangle of thorn bushes. They are coming and they will tear you to pieces and they will topple the sanity you have glued together piece by piece. You close your eyes to seal it all out into where it belongs. Your hand reaches for your pocket. You can envision it, detached, pushing away red flannel and forcing past blue cotton into white. The cold chrome secured in your grasp, you open your eyes. The steel box absorbs the pain of your calloused and blistering hands. Flint clicks and butane catches. You inhale your last cigarette slowly, down to the orange. You sigh, press a hand to your shirt pocket, remembering the magnet. You press it to your forehead. You pull pull it thoroughly over your face, searching. The chip is somewhere under your skin. They are tracking you. You sigh again. You move the magnet down your neck, over your collarbone. At the sharp pain you stop. Your chest tightens at the pain in your left shoulder. They are coming. You will trick them.

The men in black, with boiled wool coats and high laced boots come. They track you on their device. The are led to a tree where you once stood. You are gone.