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---
title: Stump
genre: prose
project:
title: "Buildings out of air: Paul in the Woods"
css: paul
order: 34
next:
- title: Early
link: early
- title: Swear
link: swear
prev:
- title: Joke
link: joke
- title: Stagnant
link: stagnant
...
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.
[There was no sound but his footsteps, his breathing.][]
Instead of an axe, his right hand clutched his notebook.
His left was in his pocket.
A pencil perched behind his ear.
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.
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 squirrel][] 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.
A crow called hoarsely to another, something important.
Paul looked up but could not see the black bird in the [leaves of the trees][].
He looked back down to the cream-colored pages of his notebook.
He was surprised that he'd written _YOU CANNOT DISCOVER ART_.
[There was no sound but his footsteps, his breathing.]: music-433.html
[A squirrel]: squirrel.html
[leaves of the trees]: death-zone.html
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