The point of this exercise was to re-write the same scene four times with four different points of view: omniscient third, limited third, objective third, and first. I thought it would be more interesting if I wrote one continuous narrative that used all four points of view instead of four individual ones.
The Earth’s orbit is not as perfectly round as you might suspect for a celestial body. Nor is its axis perfectly vertical. As the Earth revolves around the Sun, it lists from side to side. Its rotation wobbles like a top. This tipping causes inequities in sunlight, creating seasons. There are twice in the revolution, however, on opposing sides, when the balance is equal. If we zoom in, we can see what forms this balance takes. If we zoom in, we can see the trees and hills sloughing their downy jackets, the crocuses showing their faces, the tulips and daffodils puncturing up through the soil, quite erect, making their presence known. If we zoom in we can see the these two characters, George and the neighbor, embarking on their solemn annual ritual. The Sun today has just broken the horizon. Tomorrow, there will be inequity again, and the day will outshine the night, but today, the first day of Spring, the light and dark are in perfect balance. George is impatient. He is short and angular with eyes like daggers. His hands are leathery and liver-spotted from a lifetime of labor out of doors. He lives alone, but is not a lonely man. He prefers the loyalty of his dog and the satisfaction of his work to the company of others. To George, everyday is a day closer to a reunion with his wife. The neighbor looks quite like he has the blood of a gorilla in his veins. He is large and ugly, and he is keenly aware of how his appearance affects others. A lifetime of shame has damaged his soul, and so he conceals it: the shame of his looks, the shame of a broken spirit, and the shame of its concealment. George faces the ritual with anticipation. Once this chore is done he has his apple orchards to himself, and the rest of the productive year to pass in peace. The neighbor too anticipates the ritual. While his dark pines awake from hibernation, and the rest of the land stretches its limbs toward the glorious Sun, this maintenance, to the neighbor, is another layer of insulation, a patching up of the familiar cocoon. Together George and the neighbor move down the length of a stone wall, each one on their own side. They restack the stones into the gaps from where they’ve fallen during the course of the previous year. Let’s watch.
The neighbor, barefoot, wriggles his toes in the grass. He lifts two stones at once, by their tops, one in each hand. He drops the stones wherever they might fit. If they tumble back down, he stacks them again. If the stones refuse, he uses force. George takes a more deliberate approach. He searches out a stone to fit a notch. He builds so the strata are even and the layers interlock. The work gets done. A bird sings. George ignores, but the neighbor listens. The pair labor, quietly building up the wall until it obscures the other person. “Why do we do this again?” says George, stacking a stone on a stone. “Good fences, make good neighbors,” says the neighbor; his voice is a low rasp. “Them are the only five words I ever heard you say,” says George. “You don’t say nothing else, ever, you know that?” The neighbor keeps his eyes downcast. He turns his back to find stones that may have rolled astray. They arrive at a hole in the wall where, over the winter the ground froze and swelled tumbling stones from a space wide enough for the two of them to pass through together.
As the two build the wall between them, George finds a stone pocked where a bullet struck it. He holds it up for the neighbor to see. “See this? See this pock mark here? A hunter’s what did this, looking for rabbits. And I know sure as hell they ain’t come through here from on my property.” George curses the neighbor under his breath. What the hell was the point of a wall if you ain’t walling something in or something out? And who was the fool who used these fool stones to build this wall. Sure, it delineated what was his and what was not, but every year George finds himself thinking he should have brought a hammer and a chisel to turn this stone loaf into slices, and add corners to this stone grapefruit. He would be so grateful should his apples grow to be as round as these stones. They seem to grow rounder every year, their unwitnessed tumbling down upon one another wearing off their edges. His aching back and knees, “I’m too old to keep at this forever,” George says to himself. He stops to drink water from his canteen. The sun and heat of the day are rising. With his kerchief he wipes the sweat from his brow. He keeps his keen eyes trained on the neighbor, watches him unabashedly, stares. The neighbor’s slow movement seems to occur underwater. There is a fluid grace in the clumsiness. The neighbor continues to laboring, absorbed in the task, unaware of the scrutiny. George wonders, Who is this man? What does he do the other days of the year in his house in the pines, beyond the hill? Is he touched? Is he a widower like me, living alone? What if I’m the closest thing he has to a friend, and this is his only interaction he gets all year? Surely his heart wants what it wants, and surely there must be ideas behind that high sloping brow. And surely those ideas go beyond the dim five words he’s wore out. George continues laboring. Not much more wall to go until he can finally rest. He looks forward to the end of his labor, but in the back of his mind the thought stays, what is the neighbor thinking?
Of course the little apple farmer hates me. I deserve it. Laser beams of hate shoot from his eyes. It scars me. It hurts. But I deserve it. Not even a mother could love this face. Really. Not even a mother. Having this stone barrier will help protect me from people like him and the others. I know he hates the way I stack the stones, but I can’t help it. I’m not clever like him. I’m clumsy and stupid and I muddle through this task trying to get it done. But it will never be done. I will always be building this wall. He blames me for the hunters, but I don’t know about that. Maybe they came through here. Maybe it’s my fault. It probably is my fault. I don’t care if they did come through here. Just as long as they leave me alone, then I’ll be happy. I’ll never be happy. How could a big stupid clumsy ugly person be happy? I don’t even have shoes. The little apple farmer has a dog. I wish I had a dog. I’d probably kill it, though. I hear a bird, a plaintive whistle. Genus species Conoptus virens. Eastern Wood Pee Wee. My heart moves a little when I hear it. The little apple farmer doesn’t hear it. It’s getting hot out now. It’s the hottest part of the day. If I had a dog, it’d be panting. The little apple farmer is panting. He’s drinking water from a bottle, and wiping his forehead with a rag. It makes me think of the rag that mother used to put in my mouth when I was bad. He looks old and tired. It makes me sad to see him so tired. It makes me sad to see this little old man worn out and used up, so I turn away. I keep my eyes down looking for more rocks that I can stack clumsily like a jerk. I stack the rocks, but they fall. I stack them again and they fall again. I get mad and shove the rocks to where they ought to go until finally they stay. I look up to see if I’ve made the little apple farmer mad with my clumsy stacking. He’s not mad. He’s sad too. I wonder if he’s sad because I’m sad. Our eyes connect. I can look in his eyes because the laser beams are gone. His eyes seem to be asking something, but I’m too dumb to know what they’re asking. It’s like there’s a spell holding his eyes to mine and I can’t look away. But then the rocks that I stacked fall down and one lands on my foot and the spell is broken. My foot hurts and I want to cry. I want cry because all this work of stacking the rocks is unfair and because it’s unfair the little apple farmer is so old and tired and because the hunters intruded and it wasn’t my fault and because I’m sad because he’s sad or because he’s sad so I’m sad. But I don’t cry because if the little apple farmer saw me cry he’d probably hate me more. Mother taught me that crying is for sissies. I just keep stacking rocks. I stack them up until they’re up to the little apple farmer’s chest. Then I stack more until they’re up to his neck and then above his head where I can’t see him anymore. The bird sings again, but my heart doesn’t move this time. My heart is like one of these rocks that I have to stack. I know the birdsong means now it’s Spring. Mother said Spring means the whole world is being reborn, but that’s only partly true. On the bottom half of the world it’s Fall.
The Earth’s orbit is not as perfectly round as you might suspect for a celestial body. Nor is its axis perfectly vertical. As the Earth revolves around the Sun, it lists from side to side. Its rotation wobbles like a top. This tipping causes inequities in sunlight, creating seasons. There are twice in the revolution, however, on opposing sides, when the balance is equal. If we zoom in, we can see what forms this balance takes. If we zoom in, we can see the trees and hills sloughing their downy jackets, the crocuses showing their faces, the tulips and daffodils puncturing up through the soil, quite erect, making their presence known. If we zoom in we can see the these two characters, George and the neighbor, embarking on their solemn annual ritual. The Sun today has just broken the horizon. Tomorrow, there will be inequity again, and the day will outshine the night, but today, the first day of Spring, the light and dark are in perfect balance. George is impatient. He is short and angular with eyes like daggers. His hands are leathery and liver-spotted from a lifetime of labor out of doors. He lives alone, but is not a lonely man. He prefers the loyalty of his dog and the satisfaction of his work to the company of others. To George, everyday is a day closer to a reunion with his wife. The neighbor looks quite like he has the blood of a gorilla in his veins. He is large and ugly, and he is keenly aware of how his appearance affects others. A lifetime of shame has damaged his soul, and so he conceals it: the shame of his looks, the shame of a broken spirit, and the shame of its concealment. George faces the ritual with anticipation. Once this chore is done he has his apple orchards to himself, and the rest of the productive year to pass in peace. The neighbor too anticipates the ritual. While his dark pines awake from hibernation, and the rest of the land stretches its limbs toward the glorious Sun, this maintenance, to the neighbor, is another layer of insulation, a patching up of the familiar cocoon. Together George and the neighbor move down the length of a stone wall, each one on their own side. They restack the stones into the gaps from where they’ve fallen during the course of the previous year. Let’s watch.
The neighbor, barefoot, wriggles his toes in the grass. He lifts two stones at once, by their tops, one in each hand. He drops the stones wherever they might fit. If they tumble back down, he stacks them again. If the stones refuse, he uses force. George takes a more deliberate approach. He searches out a stone to fit a notch. He builds so the strata are even and the layers interlock. The work gets done. A bird sings. George ignores, but the neighbor listens. The pair labor, quietly building up the wall until it obscures the other person. “Why do we do this again?” says George, stacking a stone on a stone. “Good fences, make good neighbors,” says the neighbor; his voice is a low rasp. “Them are the only five words I ever heard you say,” says George. “You don’t say nothing else, ever, you know that?” The neighbor keeps his eyes downcast. He turns his back to find stones that may have rolled astray. They arrive at a hole in the wall where, over the winter the ground froze and swelled tumbling stones from a space wide enough for the two of them to pass through together.
As the two build the wall between them, George finds a stone pocked where a bullet struck it. He holds it up for the neighbor to see. “See this? See this pock mark here? A hunter’s what did this, looking for rabbits. And I know sure as hell they ain’t come through here from on my property.” George curses the neighbor under his breath. What the hell was the point of a wall if you ain’t walling something in or something out? And who was the fool who used these fool stones to build this wall. Sure, it delineated what was his and what was not, but every year George finds himself thinking he should have brought a hammer and a chisel to turn this stone loaf into slices, and add corners to this stone grapefruit. He would be so grateful should his apples grow to be as round as these stones. They seem to grow rounder every year, their unwitnessed tumbling down upon one another wearing off their edges. His aching back and knees, “I’m too old to keep at this forever,” George says to himself. He stops to drink water from his canteen. The sun and heat of the day are rising. With his kerchief he wipes the sweat from his brow. He keeps his keen eyes trained on the neighbor, watches him unabashedly, stares. The neighbor’s slow movement seems to occur underwater. There is a fluid grace in the clumsiness. The neighbor continues to laboring, absorbed in the task, unaware of the scrutiny. George wonders, Who is this man? What does he do the other days of the year in his house in the pines, beyond the hill? Is he touched? Is he a widower like me, living alone? What if I’m the closest thing he has to a friend, and this is his only interaction he gets all year? Surely his heart wants what it wants, and surely there must be ideas behind that high sloping brow. And surely those ideas go beyond the dim five words he’s wore out. George continues laboring. Not much more wall to go until he can finally rest. He looks forward to the end of his labor, but in the back of his mind the thought stays, what is the neighbor thinking?
Of course the little apple farmer hates me. I deserve it. Laser beams of hate shoot from his eyes. It scars me. It hurts. But I deserve it. Not even a mother could love this face. Really. Not even a mother. Having this stone barrier will help protect me from people like him and the others. I know he hates the way I stack the stones, but I can’t help it. I’m not clever like him. I’m clumsy and stupid and I muddle through this task trying to get it done. But it will never be done. I will always be building this wall. He blames me for the hunters, but I don’t know about that. Maybe they came through here. Maybe it’s my fault. It probably is my fault. I don’t care if they did come through here. Just as long as they leave me alone, then I’ll be happy. I’ll never be happy. How could a big stupid clumsy ugly person be happy? I don’t even have shoes. The little apple farmer has a dog. I wish I had a dog. I’d probably kill it, though. I hear a bird, a plaintive whistle. Genus species Conoptus virens. Eastern Wood Pee Wee. My heart moves a little when I hear it. The little apple farmer doesn’t hear it. It’s getting hot out now. It’s the hottest part of the day. If I had a dog, it’d be panting. The little apple farmer is panting. He’s drinking water from a bottle, and wiping his forehead with a rag. It makes me think of the rag that mother used to put in my mouth when I was bad. He looks old and tired. It makes me sad to see him so tired. It makes me sad to see this little old man worn out and used up, so I turn away. I keep my eyes down looking for more rocks that I can stack clumsily like a jerk. I stack the rocks, but they fall. I stack them again and they fall again. I get mad and shove the rocks to where they ought to go until finally they stay. I look up to see if I’ve made the little apple farmer mad with my clumsy stacking. He’s not mad. He’s sad too. I wonder if he’s sad because I’m sad. Our eyes connect. I can look in his eyes because the laser beams are gone. His eyes seem to be asking something, but I’m too dumb to know what they’re asking. It’s like there’s a spell holding his eyes to mine and I can’t look away. But then the rocks that I stacked fall down and one lands on my foot and the spell is broken. My foot hurts and I want to cry. I want cry because all this work of stacking the rocks is unfair and because it’s unfair the little apple farmer is so old and tired and because the hunters intruded and it wasn’t my fault and because I’m sad because he’s sad or because he’s sad so I’m sad. But I don’t cry because if the little apple farmer saw me cry he’d probably hate me more. Mother taught me that crying is for sissies. I just keep stacking rocks. I stack them up until they’re up to the little apple farmer’s chest. Then I stack more until they’re up to his neck and then above his head where I can’t see him anymore. The bird sings again, but my heart doesn’t move this time. My heart is like one of these rocks that I have to stack. I know the birdsong means now it’s Spring. Mother said Spring means the whole world is being reborn, but that’s only partly true. On the bottom half of the world it’s Fall.
