Master Caswell's First Essay

Tomorrow's the day; I turn in my first essay to Caswell.

My prompt was to "write about an encounter you've had with a wild animal" the word 'wild' being a loose term. I wanted to post it on here because my first post to this blog included the encounter I chose to write about. I didn't let myself read the old post until after I wrote the essay. It's kind of interesting to see how memories change.

You know what's really funny? When I read this in class during workshop time, people thought it sounded beautiful and wanted to go there. Before the final draft, it wasn't especially clear where I was, so they thought it sounded really cool. Cooper? Beautiful? And then I realized it's the same phenomenon as me thinking Lubbock is beautiful when a lot of people who grew up here hate it. It's just like having fun washing someone else's dishes...

Anyway... here it is:

My Most Attentive Audience

On sad days, lonely days, I sometimes find my thoughts too heavy to carry. I’ve discovered over time that motionless thoughts only grow heavier, so on those days, I set them aside for a while. I pick up a musical instrument, leave my shoes inside, and walk out of the house.

One particular day, I picked up a relatively new instrument—the pennywhistle. My new friend was a very simple creature. She was made of a rolled sheet of tin capped by a black plastic mouthpiece, almost small enough to fit comfortably in my pocket. Small, rounded holes of various sizes lined her body, and she wore an even coat of dark green paint.

The pennywhistle is a very friendly instrument; anyone can play a pennywhistle. Simply close all the holes and blow. The notes ascend with the musician’s fingers, and when the player wants to change octaves, he or she simply blows harder. The drawback to this is that low notes are quiet, high notes are loud, and not much can be done about it. The pennywhistle is a very fun instrument to play, very exciting if you are the musician, but typically grating on the nerves to others unless played very well. When played well, the whistle sings pure tones, slips gently through the air like flowing water, high-pitched and sweet. Or, when played not so well, as is more often the case, high-pitched and raspy. And so Penny and I sought a large, open, unpopulated environment.

Pennywhistle in hand, I walked outside. I felt the ground changing beneath my feet—the coarse wood of my porch deck, the gentle prod of gravel, the sharp pressure of rock—until the land gave way to grass. Typically spending my time inside or wearing shoes, my feet are very sensitive. When I walk outside barefoot, I am acutely aware of every object, every change of the ground. The heavy thoughts fall as I slowly escape the house behind me, and my focus shifts to my feet, to the feel of the grass.

That day I walked over a spectrum of grass, some patches rough as sandpaper, sharp as rocks, and some deliciously soft, like strands of spun cotton. I walked over grass and twigs, fallen leaves and pecan shells, until I reached the center of a large field marked by a fence at its far end. I chose this place because it was a completely open field, empty of buildings, trees, or bushes. When I lay on my back in that spot, I could look up and see nothing but the sky, could fill my eyes with the sky. With nothing but sky in my vision, nothing but shades of blue, puffs of white, streaks of grey, I could imagine that the rest of the world did not exist, or at least that I did not live there. I could imagine I was a cloud or a little piece of the atmosphere. In the freedom of an undivided sky, I could imagine a million things.

There was magic in that sky and in that bed of grass, but there was also reality jutting at the edges. It was a typical field in rural Texas, complete with a pasture beyond the wire fence, a mobile home off to the side that wasn’t going anywhere, a few bits of plastic stuck to tree branches, the spore of people who chose to mess with Texas. There was birdsong, the overwhelming screech of cicadas, and the occasional moan of a truck begging for a muffler, choking on exhaust. There is a quality to that land, to that air, that hazes the brain and imbeds a chronic laziness in the bones. But as with all places, if you waited, there was quiet, and if you looked, there was beauty.

When I reached that spot, I lay back on the ground for a few moments, collecting myself in the expanse of air that stretched above me. Just a few moments, enough to remember how to breathe. Then I sat up, crossed my legs, and began to play.

I played hesitantly, fumbling gently through a simple scale. After a few minutes, I played freely, unafraid of misplaced notes and rhythms; these sounds were for no one but the field of grass, the sprawl of sky. I had brought no written music with me, so the songs I played followed the whims of my fingers. I played as I felt, as I thought. Just simple rhythms and unrefined nuances. The melody did not matter. I simply played.

Several minutes passed this way, the world around me calm and uneventful, surrounding me just as I left it—until I heard a sudden, unexpected sound. The sky above me was an unperturbed blue, so I was surprised to hear a sound like thunder. It came from behind me as a gradual crescendo, like the rolling of mallets on a timpani, but much heavier. I let the last note drift from my lips and turned in curiosity. When I turned, what filled my vision shocked me.

A cloud of black hurtled toward me.

A herd of bulls stampeded toward me.

I scrambled to my feet and stumbled backward a few steps, watching wide-eyed as the crowd of cattle approached. The bulls began to slow as they reached the fence, trampling to a stop at the edge. They settled, planted their hooves, and stood motionless. Watching me. Thirty or more large brown eyes, watching me. In silence.

Cows and bulls are a part of the landscape in rural Texas. They can be seen loitering in their pastures and moseying along fences from most roads, swinging their tails as if the air is thicker than water, chomping on grass at the laziest tempo with slack-jawed disinterest. They gaze out at the world blankly as if they know their end and can see no reason to move quickly in life. Bulls are large creatures, especially compared to small female humans. But like everything else, they look small from car windows.

Not at that moment. Sitting on the ground, just Penny and I, these dark giants towered over me. I felt the weight of their gaze on me and my little tin friend. They stared. Intently.

Surprise kept my feet rooted to the ground, but the unexpected adrenaline found expression in my fingers. In that surreal moment, an idea occurred to me; they had come to hear music. It was the most logical thought in the world at that time, so I decided to test it. I drew the pennywhistle to my lips and began to play a random melody. A few of the bulls took a couple steps closer, and then the bovine crowd continued as before, watching me, standing absolutely still, absolutely silent.

After about a minute, their constant gaze, the focused points of their huge eyes, was too unsettling; I allowed the music to drift into silence. Nothing changed. I took a few steps to the right, and every eye followed me. I began to play again and continued walking; the herd followed along the fence, step after deliberate step. Again, I stopped, and again, they stood waiting attentively. All of Texas had fallen away behind us. They were a crowd of breathing statues, and every brown eye remained fixed on me. Unnerved, I began to walk away, back toward the house.

Behind me I heard lowing, gradual, sporadic calls from the bulls until they became a chorus. I turned to see them all straining their necks over the fence and over each other, watching me walk away, calling after me. As the distance increased, a few gave up and broke away, ambling back in the direction they came. When I reached the porch and turned to look again, all but a few had ventured back. I stood and watched them go.

Finally, I could see nothing out of the ordinary—just an empty field, a pasture beyond it dotted with the black shapes of lazy bulls scattered across the land. I stood at the edge of my porch, left with nothing but my thoughts and the now silent whistle. I wondered if they had really sprinted across the field to better hear my music, or if I had imagined their attentiveness to me. What else could possibly invoke such behavior, such apparent reverence for such simple music? Why would such passive creatures stand so motionless and stare with such intensity? During that time, however brief, not a single one of them twitched an ear, shuffled a hoof, or swiped at a fly with his tail. They were absolutely motionless. I wondered.

Imagined or not, I’ve never had a better audience.