Into the Woods--Snippet 5

* This is a work of fiction.

....He was glad they were near the river now because he could get home if he could keep following the lazy, brown river because they always spent most of their time near it. Or at least the time he spent with his older brother. The older man always made some comment about the fact that he'd been trying to get away from that damn river his whole life, but it always brought him back, but the young boy knew his older brother liked the river and that made him like it too. He could actually tell that his older brother loved the river more than any other place out here it seemed. The young boy like being in the woods better, but he had to go where his older brother went and really the boy was just happy to not be inside. He always felt restless being inside; even being on the porch was better than being inside. They were always setting up catfish lines and checking them about twenty times a day, or going to the dump at the end of the road to look through whatever treasures people had left for the day. The young boy didn't much like doing this, but his brother had gotten lucky too many times at the dump to quit coming. The only treasure the boy thought was neat was the little, yellow radio that his mother listened to while she folded laundry and all it had needed was a new cord. The young boy guessed he also liked when he and his brother or whomever else would read to each other lines from the love novels that they found piled high at the dump. They would read the lines and then laugh until their stomachs hurt. The young boy didn't understand a lot of the lines, but it was just funny to read them and laugh together. He loved watching the other people laugh. His older brother would double over and his face would redden. He knew his older brother understood the lines they were reading and the young boy looked forward to the day he would too, so they could be even funnier. And the dump was near the river and that meant they could check the catfish lines again.

       The only thing the young boy really liked doing at the dump was lining up bottles or cans and trying to shoot them with his BB gun or his older brother's 22. He would line them up in long rows and try to shoot his way through them. He could do pretty well until someone paid close attention to him and then he would get too nervous. His little sister was pretty good at it too, but he would never tell her that. He wasn't too sure about who was the best at shooting though. His dad was very good, but his granddad was good at it and made it seem flashy. His dad was always very serious about sighting it in and getting your breathing right, but his granddad didn't do any of that. He would shoot from his hip or turn real quick from the opposite direction and then shoot most of them down. He knew his dad was the best, but it seemed he was trying real hard at it, but his granddad was the best to watch because he made it seem so easy. When everyone was watching, he would do it the way his dad had taught him, but when he was all alone, he would try being like his granddad. The young boy knew he wasn't too good at shooting, but he loved the way it felt; for a very brief moment the real world faded away and he was not the young boy, but instead he was Wild Bill Cody or some other character that seemed so real to the little boy he could see him, touch him, be him.

    They kept walking near the river and the boy began to recognize many familiar sights in the distance. It was one of the first times of the day he actually knew where they were. He figured he could get to the river from about any direction they left from his grandparent's house because they never went to it the same way. He liked that about walking with his granddad. They never went the same way to and from somewhere. This made every walk something new where you had to pay attention instead of just following the same, boring path back to the house. He liked that they could go just about anywhere from just about anywhere....

 Be looking forward to Snippet #6,
    David