The Tinweed Man Read online

  The Tinweed Man

  and his fond imaginary world

  DANIEL SCOTT WHITE

  LONGSHOT PRESS

  Published by Longshot Press

  Copyright © 2018 by Daniel Scott White

  longshotpress.com

  No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, without the written permission of the publisher or the author.

  ISBN 978-0-9981243-9-1

  Smashwords Ebook Edition

  Compass

  Part One: Into The Woods

  Part Two: The New World

  Part Three: The Spring of Truth

  Your Turn

  About The Author

  Longshot Press

  Part One: Into The Woods

  Jon Tinweed got an urge. It began with a tingling sensation. He searched frantically all over his little pockets until he discovered something there. In one of his pockets was a bit of wood-sponge, the kind you find growing on trees after it rains a lot. Wood-sponge isn’t useful for much of anything, other than wiping your butt. And Jon Tinweed carried a bit of spare wood-sponge around with him in case the need to defecate in the woods ever came calling.

  Who was he? Jon Tinweed was a tiny man. He was so little that even the little people didn’t want him. Somebody had to be smaller than everybody else in the whole wide world and it fell on Jon Tinweed to proudly carry this title. Although he often boasted about his tiny weed-like frame, nobody gave him much notice. This was probably due to the fact that you could hardly hear his voice. Whenever Jon Tinweed spoke, it sounded like an echo, as if the original voice had already disappeared and you might just be hearing only a fraction of it, if you heard anything at all.

  How did he come to have the name Tinweed? We really don’t know, because we don’t know much about his mother and father, who wanted to discard him at birth, thinking he was just a miniature set of clothes and a tiny hole to feed, nothing that would ever amount to anything of any stature at all. The Tinweed family had been big, bigger than most, with somewhere around 20 children, give or take a few, all of grand appearance. Nobody really knows how many children, because we don’t know much about the Tinweed family. But one thing we do know, they had little room for one tiny insignificant Jon Tinweed, who didn’t take up much room at all. When he ran, you could say he flew across the land inches at a time. But that was only when he was in a hurry.

  Why was he there? Earlier in the day he’d been evicted from his shoe box of a home by a pair of kittens who thought they owned the world and had a right to sleep where he slept every night, down at the end of an alley next to an odd assortment of broken and discarded manikin parts, the one place you’d never expect to find them.

  Jon Tinweed had a heart made of metal. He was not someone you could easily mock. One time he toppled over a three-year-old girl for laughing at him, when all he had done was drop a cup, chipping off a piece of the handle. From such a small height it is hard to imagine any cup could be broken at all, but in fact the cup had already been weakened by many similar falls. Therein lays the trouble with small hands and drinking too much wine.

  On this particular day it just so happened that Jon Tinweed was out in the woods, alone, looking for a new place to live, when the urge to shit hit him. As he wandered about the woods, frightened by the dark towering trees, he was overcome in an instant by the need to drop his shorts and bare it all to the wind, depositing on the moist ground the things he’d eaten the day before and returning them back to the earth from whence they came. He grunted once, twice, three little times and out popped a smelly pile of you-know-what.

  As he was cleaning up with the wood-sponge, a tree-gruel, one of those strange but hard to spot fungus-covered snails, came sliding across the damp floor of the woods in search of something to eat. And when it came to Jon Tinweed’s tiny pile of shit it found a feast to delight a tree-gruel king. In fact this tree-gruel was a king of sorts, king of its own domain, overseer of a vast population of about three other tree-gruel who were all too old and too slow to move on to better lands.

  This tree-gruel’s name was Bart. Just Bart. But it preferred to be called King Bart. However, no one called it anything at all. Who would be caught alone in the woods talking to a tree-gruel, especially one that thought it might be of noble lineage?

  “Well, lookie here,” said Jon Tinweed, regardless of how absurd this might seem, talking to a tree-gruel all by himself somewhere in the deep dark woods.

  The tree-gruel paused, as if considering where such a small voice might be coming from.

  “I hope you are enjoying yourself there, little tree-gruel,” Jon Tinweed said with a hint of satisfaction, now that he had found something more little than himself.

  The tree-gruel burped.

  “That meal will cost you three pig’s feet,” Jon Tinweed demanded. Only the greedy type would ask for four.

  But he got no response, for how could a tree-gruel say anything? After pausing a moment, and then giving the tree-gruel his best glare, Jon Tinweed realized nothing was going to be paid to him. So he stomped on the tree-gruel, swiveling his foot about, tearing it to pieces. In reality he’d just stepped on his own pile of shit, which left his shoe stinking and brown.

  Quite angry now, for it seemed like the world was always against him, he plopped down near the base of a tree and tore his shoe off, careful not to get anything brown on his hands. With a twig he pried at the cracks in the bottom of his shoe until he had most of it cleaned up. Then he turned and rubbed it against the tree behind him, using the rough bark to finish the job.

  “Stop this evil nonsense!” a voice boomed.

  Jon Tinweed jumped. He spun left, then right, looking everywhere but behind him, where the old tree protected his back. Nothing in the woods moved, expect the shadows, as clouds darted in front of the sun. The clearing grew dark in a hurry, which amazed him. The whole woods took on an aura as if night had fallen, cast into a peculiar blackness, much like the kind you only find in your wildest nightmares. Truly afraid now, Jon Tinweed swung his stinking shoe back and forth in case there might be an attacker coming his way.

  “Who’s out there?” he asked, his voice barely carrying as far as the next tree.

  “Turn and face me,” the giant call came.

  He spun around. The old tree, with fresh brown turds smeared on it, was talking to him. The tree swung its branches like they were on fire, but really, it could not harm Jon Tinweed. The tree was too big and he was too small, something he was happy about for the first time in his life. Today, he thought prematurely, he was fighting against the world, and the world had not won.

  “What-what do-do-do you want?” he asked in a faltering voice.

  “For smearing your stinking shoe all over my bark, you owe me a favor. But first, you must come inside and have something to eat. I think we can discuss your payment over dinner.”

  “What?” he peeped, but nothing came out, so he tried again.

  “What?!!” And now he thought he might just sound as big and as impressive as the old tree. “Why shouldn’t I just run away?”

  “I can’t hear you. Could you come a little closer and speak a little louder?”

  Jon Tinweed scratched his head. It might be a trap. He looked around, but no one was watching him. He danced around the tree one time quickly to be sure no one was on the other side, someone who might be pretending to talk in an ominous voice. He stopped again when he returned to his original spot. It couldn’t hurt to talk to a tree alone in the woods, he thought. At least, he’d never heard of anyone running into any kind of trouble in this way. He leaned in a bit closer.

  A hole opened up in the side of the tree and the ground beneath
him heaved in such a way that he fell into the darkness. The hole closed with a snap and he was trapped inside the tree. He sat petrified, not even able to breathe. He heard a rustling, as if delicate feet were dancing about inside the tree, circling him, around and around. His head spun as he tried to imagine who might be there, sometimes tapping him on the shoulder, like in a game of duck-duck-goose. He sank lower than ever before, groveling on the rough floor in the hollow in the tree. He noticed at this time, for no particular reason, that he was missing a shoe.

  Somewhere in the dark, he heard a chuckle. It sounded both evil and menacing. But Jon Tinweed had been heckled many times before in his life and he wasn’t affected by this. Really, the only thing on his mind was finding his shoe, because he hated to walk around with only one shoe on. He especially needed his shoe if he was going to walk around on the floor of this old tree, which was so rough and barren. Finding the shoe took over his mind until finally he sat up, determined to do something about it.

  “So I’m stuck here inside this tree,” he thought rather loudly to himself. “And there’s nothing I can do about it, as far as I know. Ho hum.”

  “I can hear you,” said the voice in the dark.

  “I think she can hear me,” he said.

  “I’m just a little girl, you know. Don’t be afraid,” she said, and stopped her dancing.

  “Yes, that voice sounds just like a little girl’s voice,” he exclaimed. “Nothing to be afraid of here.”

  “Wait a moment and I’ll light a match.”

  Jon Tinweed lost his mind at the mention of fire. He was about to burned alive inside a tree by a little girl who was playing with matches. He stepped back, and back again, until he came to the rough wall on the inside of the tree. He pounded his fists and elbows behind his back, against the inner bark, but it wouldn’t budge. For a moment he thought he smelled smoke. He pounded harder again, not daring to turn around and face the trunk, in case the girl set fire to his hair.

  “Stop!” he yelled. “Wasn’t there something you said about a favor? And dinner? What’s all this talk of fire so suddenly?”

  “I’m just going to light the stove so I can warm up the lamb. You do like lamb chops, don’t you?”

  That was when he thought he smelled it. Mixed within the decaying stench of the tree, and the hint of smoke in the air, there it was, the smell of cooked lamb! Mercy, he thought. He hadn’t had a piece of lamb to eat in years. Could this dark cavernous place really be a little bit of heaven?

  “I can still hear you, even when you’re thinking,” she said.

  His curiosity was piqued to no end. He thought he’d test his senses and try just a bit of the lamb, in case it might really be real. What could it hurt? Slowly, in this way, he overcame his fear of dark places hidden inside trees.

  A spark appeared and from it a remote flame grew, which moved slowly, carefully, so as not to go out, into the belly of some deep distant black pit. A bit of wood  caught fire, and the fire blossomed, colorful as a leaf on a tender autumn day. The glow was magnificent, here in the darkest depths of the tree, so much that Jon Tinweed took a step forward away from the safety of the wall.

  At that moment came a gush of wind. A shadow flew around inside the tree, circling overhead, moving lower, around and around, until it disappeared behind him. The little man felt two gentle hands pushing at his back, ushering him forward to a chair by a table. The hands moved to his shoulders and pushed him downward. He landed in the chair with an unceremonious plop.

  The shadow fluttered once more, faster than the eye could follow, always just on the edge of his vision, regardless of how hard he tried to look right at it, until it arrived opposite him in the chair on the other side of the table. For the first time he could see the barest outline and catch the slimmest features of whoever it was that lived deep inside the tree.

  She was just a little girl, a maiden, simple and beautiful, possibly a tree nymph, although he’d never seen a tree nymph before. He couldn’t really be sure. He stared at her in silence, quite lost within himself. He really had no idea what to say or even what to think, and he let his little mind wander, awed and empty.

  “Wow,” the girl said.

  “Wow, what?”

  “You’re so little, yet your empty mind is so big. So big and empty,” she informed him.

  He had no idea what she was talking about. It could have been an insult, or even a compliment. But these things rarely affected him, as in his life he’d been called many things much worse than big and empty. It struck him that the girl had said his mind was big. Nothing about him, as far as he’d even known, was big. Maybe this was a trap, but it was starting to be a rather enjoyable one.

  “Do you mean it?” he asked.

  “Well, if you need a compliment, I could give you a hundred. They’re easier to deal out than they are to sort out. I mean, how would you ever know which one was real and which was just phooey?”

  Just then the lamb on the grill started to sizzle and the girl turned around without getting up, cramped as the space on this side of the tree was, and dished up the meat and handed him a plate. He took it from her and placed it on the table. As he searched for utensils, they appeared out of nowhere and landed in his hands.

  After he’d taken a few feverish bites, his stomach softened and he started to relax. Trap or no trap, he was content for the first time in a very long time. His mind stopped skittering around like a moth in search of light and he thought he could stretch out and take a good nap.

  “Good. You like it,” she said. “I haven’t had a guest here in a long time. In fact, I’ve never had one, not in all my lifelong life. I always dreamed about this day and wondered if I’d upset someone, or make them feel right at home, just like you do now.”

  But Jon Tinweed had already let his head fall and was snoring softly. She quietly returned the uneaten lamb to the top of the grill, keeping it warm. Then she leaned over the table and blew gently on his nose. It started to itch, but he failed to respond. She huffed three more times, stronger than the wind, but all he did was brush her away with his arm as he draped it over his head.

  She sat back and paused for a moment, thinking of what to do next. Then she picked up a spoon and thumped him on the knee. His foot jerked and he sat upright.

  “Hey, no sleeping in the middle of dinner,” she reprimanded him.

  “Where-am-I-why-does-my-knee-hurt?” he said, the words all coming out in rapid succession.

  “It’s time to discuss your payment. You offended my sense of dignity when you smeared your stinking shoe on my tree. For that I demand you apologize. You also owe me a favor. Do it, or I will never return you to the real world again.”

  “Why should I say I’m sorry? Why should I do anything for you?” he asked, thinking himself more clever than any little girl living in the middle of the woods. “Maybe I like it here. Maybe I’ll just set up shop and call this place home from now on. What are you going to do about it?”

  She sat and thought for a long minute, peering deeper and deeper into his eyes, as if she was searching his mind for the oldest and most longed after possession in his life. Finding little there in the empty halls and coliseums he had erected to hide in, she seized on one remote thing in his empty brain that he had recently desired. She decided if necessary she must use it to her advantage.

  “Do you ever want to see your stinking shoe again? Do you want to limp around with only one shoe on for the rest of your little life?”

  He looked around inside the tree in the firelight, but the missing shoe just wasn’t there. The stinking one wasn’t there, that is. The other one was doing well keeping his other foot safe and warm. His heart dropped like a rock an inch from the floor, as there wasn’t far for his little heart to fall, considering the size of his little frame. But he hadn’t been mocked all his life without some benefit. He still had a heart made of metal, even if his heart was now lying on the bottom of his rib cage.

  Jon Tinweed needed to find a w
ay out of this trap. He decided he would pretend the shoe really mattered, for it did matter to him, so it wouldn’t be that hard at all to pretend such a thing like this was really important to him. He would use her as she was using him, but when the moment came, and surely it would, because moments always come and go, he would find his freedom.

  “Yes. Yes. I’ll do whatever you want,” he cried. “Just help me find my stinking shoe!”

  “First, you must cut a door in the wall. I need a way out of this tree and I can’t release myself.”

  “Where would you like me to start?” Jon Tinweed asked, looking around.

  “Anywhere would be fine. Just make me that door!”

  The barest of a thought crept into his head: the idea of a door also appealed to him. Maybe he could use it to create his escape. Before she could peek into his mind, he hid the thought of his departing her presence in the farthest corner of his skull. He didn’t want her to know it was there. He hid it so well he almost lost track of it. Only a thin string, which he had mentally tied to the thought, followed him back as he retreated from that distant place and returned to the living, conscious part of his brain. The string stuck to the inside of his skull like a sticky spider web plastered against the wall.

  “Ha!” he chuckled. He reached over and tagged her lightly on the shoulder as if she were a drinking buddy who’d just ordered another round of his favorite beer.

  “What’s so funny?” she asked.

  “A door sounds just wonderful. Let some fresh air into the place. While I’m at it, why don’t I make us a couple windows, as well? Now, if only you could provide me with something to cut with.”

  She looked down at the knife lying on the table. He followed her gaze and reached the same conclusion. It might just do. He picked up the knife and weighed it in his hand. It had a nice balance to it. He turned and flung it at the inside of the tree. There it stuck and there he would begin to cut.