Sometimes a writer sees something strange unfold in front of him. He then tries to assay what is happening. He then might turn the experience into an essay that provides some shreds of explanation to the strangeness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But sometimes, the strangeness will be\nso vast and overwhelming that the writer’s attempt at assaying will\nnot amount to anything. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Such is the case to a writer who walked\nalong a beach on a crisp and bright morning, 7:15 a.m. to be precise,\nin month two of the virus, and the writer came upon two young women,\none a red head, the other sporting rainbow-colored hair, both in\ntheir late teens or early 20s, smoking cigarettes and wearing\nblankets. They stumbled down a path to the beach and saw a cave\ncarved into a sandy cliff some 20 feet high above ground. The\nred-haired woman pointed to the cave and exclaimed to her companion,\n\u201cWhat the FUCK!?\u201d and started running toward the cave with giddy\nabandon. Her companion followed. They skipped across a rivulet,\nscrambled over some driftwood and began climbing up the cliff to\npresumably reach the cave and then do something inside it. A chainsaw\nroared somewhere near the cave, perhaps on the road, at the entrance\nto the path. The writer took the path up from the beach and the roar\nof the chainsaw grew louder. This confused the writer because there\nwas no earthly reason for the sound of a chainsaw to emanate from\nthis place. On the road, the writer observed a sagging white Japanese\nsedan from the early 90s, battered, duct taped, parked in such a\nplace and at a particular moment in the morning that suggested its\noccupants had spent the night in the vehicle, and were now just\nrousting. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But the chainsaw? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The writer watched the vehicle and then\nsaw a young bearded man in pajama-like clothing, emerge from behind\nit wielding a chainsaw. He had apparently been using it to cut\nbranches from various stunted shore pines that lined one side of the\nroad. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But why? It made no sense. Was he\ncutting firewood for a morning beach fire? What was he even doing\nwith a chainsaw? What about the women? Had the reached the cave yet?\nWould they smoke cigarettes there, dangle their feet over the edge,\ngiggle and stare at ocean? \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The writer pondered the scene and the\nodd behavior. It had all the trappings of a meth binge and this was a\nbeach that occasionally attracted meth miscreants. As he walked away,\nhe looked back at the sedan and heard the revved up and sustained\ngrind of the chainsaw. It sounded like the man was felling a tree. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Had the women reached the cave yet?\nWhat was going on with them? The writer tried to imagine their\nconversation. It was impossible. His final thought was: what were the\ngoing to cook up for breakfast in the fire? \n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes a writer sees something strange unfold in front of him. He then tries to assay what is happening. He then might turn the experience into an essay that provides some shreds of explanation to the strangeness. But sometimes, the strangeness will be so vast and overwhelming that the writer’s attempt at assaying will not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5992,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-meditations","category-oregon-beaches","has-post-title","has-post-date","has-post-category","has-post-tag","has-post-comment","has-post-author",""],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5991"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5994,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5991\/revisions\/5994"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nestuccaspitpress.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}