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<h1 class="title">Stump</h1>
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<section class="content prose"><p>He walked into the woods for the first time in months. It was a bright summer day but under the canopy of leaves it was cool and quiet and twilight. <a href="music-433.html">There was no sound but his footsteps, his breathing.</a> Instead of an axe, his right hand clutched his notebook. His left was in his pocket. A pencil perched behind his ear.</p>
<p>He walked aimlessly until coming over a short rise he saw a stump. He recognized his handiwork in the way the stump made a kind of chair back—flat until the axe had gone through far enough, then a frayed edge like a torn page. Paul walked over to the stump and sat down.</p>
<p>He looked up and tried to find a pattern in the placement of the trees. There was none. They grew randomly, beginning nowhere and ending in the same place. <a href="squirrel.html">A squirrel</a> ran down one and up another for no reason. He opened his notebook and took his pencil from his ear but could think of nothing to write.</p>
<p>A crow called hoarsely to another, something important. Paul looked up but could not see the black bird in the <a href="death-zone.html">leaves of the trees</a>. He looked back down to the cream-colored pages of his notebook.</p>
<p>He was surprised that he’d written <em>YOU CANNOT DISCOVER ART</em>.</p></section>
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