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Nanny
By Seamus Kealy
http://www.seamuskealy.com/
Nanny had not led the kindest of lives. Her time had been spent between nagging those around her - especially her neighbours and colleagues - and walking through the forest to throw stones at small creatures. Her favourite animal-victims were squirrels, muskrats, otters, beavers, moles, field mice, partridges, crows, robins, foxes, ducks, geese, salmon, and newborn bear cubs - in reverse order. She had become a very good shot over the years. Unlike her hunter-neighbours, she resisted ever lifting a rifle to her shoulder for her pursuits, as she felt the velocity of a bullet through fur, scales or feathers was too merciful.

It is best to hold the saw in a mechanical position. By that I mean, upright with the blade on an angle with thick gloves and protective gear. That's how I'd do it - like that on the television. People have been confused by that term - mechanical position - but I don't really care. The snow always crunches under me to compete with the sound of the motor, and I like the way the oily exhaust thickens and becomes slightly sweet smelling in the cold. The caribou break through the trees as I pull on the cord. The tree shudders as I bring the rotating blade up to its bark. I will tear it into pieces. I am tearing it into pieces. I don't care what idiots say about so-called sentient beings. This thing is wood, pure and simple.;
Over the years she had also thrown stones at children passing by under the bridge that led to her house on one side and the tradepost-turned-small industrial town on the other. One boy, Mikka, had felt the wallop of a stone on his temple one day. It knocked him to the ground. He never lost the lump that grew there. It later became a mark of distinction - and even of minor, specialized celebrity - when Mikka grew up into an internationally renowned chemist who developed a serum that would delay the aging of the human species. Of course, Nanny had benefited greatly from the overstock shipments of the serum, which she picked up from behind the corner grocer on late nights, when nobody was watching. She was never accused of being the cause of these nocturnal disappearances. But locals couldn't help noticing how her wrinkles began to smooth into soft baby-like flesh and her notorious dark circles - which had once made her recognizable from a great distance away - vanished.

Too many cigarettes. Those fumes just provoke my lungs now - two bad lungs. Too bad lungs. Get used to it. Lars is talking at me behind. I pretend I can't hear him. I'm pretending I can't hear him. I will continue to pretend I can't hear him. What Lars, I turned around. Why did I do that. I have turned around and I am now facing that guy. He looks concerned, I haven't let go of the saw. I like the vibrating as I squeeze the trigger more now to blast out this voice. He gives me his look - that one with his hands upright and mouth ends going down. He looks like a duck. I stop the blades, hit the kill button. Then he tells me. I knew it would be a waste of time. I turn back and pull the cord, hit the choke. Chips come up off the log, spraying like a small fountain.
In fact, Nanny's age reversal took unprecedented leaps and bounds. Unbeknownst to Mikka, until it was too late, Nanny was the most successful example of the results of his genius. Within six months of her first sip of the serum Nanny became a cover girl for Cosmopolitan. When that issue made its slow but steady way to the local store's magazine rack - about another six months after the magazine's publication date - whispers from ear to ear passed on the rumour that the old woman beyond the bridge was truly a witch.

At one moment, it looked like the wood was weeping. Or bleeding, actually. I pressed the saw down harder, the blades screaming back against knots. Lars better not come over here again. I looked over at my work - about half done now, I thought. That was a moment ago. Now I'm sawing again. That was before I saw the blood and tears, but just before. They were gone now. I was nearly through the full diameter, now I am at the end of the bark again. I'll kick that piece over into the pile. Not quite yet though. The saw will hit the ground if I don't keep focus. That's how Lars lost his finger ages ago. Poor bastard.
Children with lumpy heads peaked their heads from behind poplar and birch trees to see the once dilapidated cottage Nanny so overlooked for years being converted into a trendy bungalow. Just beyond the construction site was the stunning apparition once locally known as Nasty Nanny, surrounded by darkly dressed suitors from the fashion industry. None of the children could have guessed that her inner thighs were still raw from the previous night's activities, but they noticed how she moved her body tenderly, as if her true age still dominated the structure of her new nubile figure. Her posture was excellent, on the other hand.

The workers had to knock down some trees in her yard to make way for the swimming pool and sauna. The wood would burn in that sauna, the children thought, and sweat would emit from her perfect pores and drip down over her perfect body. They wondered who would be the foolish and unlucky one to watch this salty cascade, in awe of her marvellous curves, awaiting her beckoning to commence that uniting of bodies that makes men so mad.

Mikka would correct the view of her wickedness in the near future. He waited for the proper time to come. Nanny had inadvertently become his ideal specimen after all. Until then, she would change her name and soon somehow relinquished her need to throw stones on smaller creatures. She even appeared to be kind, from afar that is. The town-folk kept their distance, even more than before. In the afternoons after school, some local children crept up to her bungalow to try to catch the sounds of her unions with various guests, or the click-wind-click-wind of one of her several photographers shooting her in the white studio that was once her rear television den. As the years passed, some of those children, now strong and handsome young men, would brave a visit to the woman formerly known as Nanny. Few would enter, but those that did exited with a wide-eyedness that spoke of terrible pleasures.

Perhaps tomorrow I'll go into town. Market price was good last time. There should be enough for a brick of cheese and beer. The woman will have a new round of bread for me as well. For now, as I close my eyes and then re-open them, I am just sitting here and that is that. I can look back at myself as I sit here now, go over - yes that's it - go over what it is my mind is churning and as I do that I can see some little knot that is really difficult to saw through. The engine had battled on too long today, my hands are a little shakey. I must have cut through those trees over a hundred and fifty times. No, no, two hundred and sixteen times, to be exact. If Lars has a different number, it would be lower I bet. It should be the same number though. I still have chips and sawdust on my pants. That sound had clipped my mind all day. Wood bits spitting all over me. The saw. I watched it break through knots. I watch it break through knots. I am watching it break through knots. I will watch it break through knots.
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