I was angry beyond words. Even had i found the words to fit the situation i wouldn’t have been able to speak them. I felt powerless to change the outcome of a vast and unfortunate situation. I had been having trouble sleeping. I would have this recurring dream. In the dream there was a train. The train was leaving the station and the destination was the bermuda triangle. No matter how many buttons i pushed or didn’t push, how many passengers i enlightened to our chosen destination, or how many times i kicked the engineer out of the room and tried to steer the train to a halt myself; in the end of every scenario we all arrived at the bermuda triangle. The only decision i had in my lap was whether to be on the train or in the ocean. The train had oxygen, food, water, and working toilets. The ocean had dehydration and sharks. Had it been just me, i may have jumped from the train and died in the ocean for my principles but i had Sili and Cashew with me and i couldn’t watch them eaten by sharks. So i sat in silence and watched as the train sped in the wrong direction, faster and faster towards certain doom, the only alternative being the end of our lives at the hands of salt water and hungry sharks.
I had zero effect on the outcome and worse; because i chose to sit on the train for Sili and Cashew’s sake, i had no voice.
I said nothing. I slammed the car door with all the force i wished my silent voice held. I drove home. i walked to the shed and grabbed an axe and a shovel. I split and dug up all the young tree stumps on my 2 acres. I could now purchase a riding mower if i so chose. I felt no better than i had before. I laid in bed and stared at the ceiling. I maybe slept 2 hours.
The following afternoon i found Cashew enjoying the fruits of my labor. While she had been in the house the yard had become littered in hunks of wood; the kind she liked to chew. You would have thought i had taken her to Disney Land. She walked out one day and the yard was littered with chew toys. She was having a ball. I stood nearby and watched her. I had run out of stumps. The anger was not gone. Perhaps tomorrow i would take the axe into the wooded area and chop up the dead cedar i had seen there. I was glad Cashew was so thrilled but i could not join in her enthusiasm. I knew the cost of what i had done on one’s soul.