Chapter One

“And that...now, up next…and after…playing some good old…hope this…warm…”

Ansel’s makeshift home rattled against the world that attempted to wretch it apart with the help from the outside wind. Icy claws scrapped and dragged their frosted nails at the fragile framing built of assorted things and tore at it all not in vain. Attempting to pull it all down around him as he slept, dreaming of other, safer places and things. This shelter had been built out of a messy mass of branches, as well as three trash bags that were torn apart to add a layer of tarping to the structure itself, and a wet roll of masking tape that Ansel had collected from a distant construction site. Ansel didn’t trust the people that had been there when he got the tape out of their dumpster. They had made him more than simply nervous with their blank eyed stares and mouthed judgements that they tossed to one another, all the while making him unsafe with their tools and coughing. He could only feel safe far, far away from where anyone would ever find him. And knowing full well that he could die alone, out in the wilderness, never dissuaded him for long in finding such a place when he was out in nature.

Ansel coughed. It was hard to breathe after he did so, and hurt his chest enough to wake himself from a frantic, though brief, dreamless filled sleep. All he could recall was feeling empty and alone. That’s all he could ever recall from his dreams the last few months. Perhaps it had been years since he had had a dream at all. Who is to say of such things?

Everything was cold inside and out of the rough looking shelter. Too cold even for snow to fall down in the forest that he had made into his home. Or so the radio informed him. The radio told Ansel about a lot of things lately.

“-tonight is going to be a frosty one out there at best,” the radio cooed over a static whisper to Ansel, “so keep warm everybody. If you have kids, keep them bundled up nice and tight. And if you have a missus, don’t let her outside. You never know if someone else will try and keep her warm tonight.” The sound of an old foghorn etched itself out of the small radio, Ansel dusted crusted bits of rust and snow off the top of it and listened, intently focused on what the voice was telling him. “Tomorrow isn’t going to be looking much better out there sports fans. The Dodgers and those damned Yankees are putting off their respective games on account of-”, static, nothing but static.

“On account of what, Frank?”, Ansel demanded, he smacked the top and sides of the radio, “Come on, on account of what?” He needed to know what it was all on account of. Any answer would do; he just needed to know so that he could avoid it as well. Especially if it was something really bad.

The static grew worse, Ansel could only make out bits and pieces of what was or rather what wasn’t being said, though nothing out of the radio made any sense to him. “In…news…everything…shooting…”, Ansel groaned and kicked at the dirt the wind blew inside of his shelter. “Marie Margarette visited…and no one was hurt…cold front is…”, he turned the dial on top of the radio towards the off position and groaned again.

“Damnit Frank. You have two jobs. Two! Turn on...”, he counted off on his red tipped fingers as he explained, in controlled detail, “…and to tell me things. It really isn’t that hard Frank. I do it every day. And look at me! I look great! I tell me everything that I need to know when I needed to know it!” Ansel wiped off the radio again, though nothing had changed with its outward appearance, and stuffed it in the bag he had found a month before. It was a blue jansport backpack that someone had thrown away, he saw them do it too. Tossed aside, unwanted, unneeded. Right there in a trashcan that was going to take it away where no one could use it for anything ever again. Not believing his luck, he fished it out of the trashcan and ran into the nearby woods before anyone could have attempted to have thought of stopping him. The silly mother of that child had thrown away a perfectly good backpack away, just to get a new one for her children. The insanity, the pure nonsensical insanity of it baffled him. Though that was the case with most of the wastefully tossed aside things he had scavenged over time.

“Good thing I knew better than to do that to you,” Ansel told the backpack. “Would have been such a waste to let something like you go to the dump. Just to have you waste away with all the trash and garbage. A pure waste, that’s what it would have been.” Ansel grinned at his cleverness as he opened up a can of tuna. The contents, though they were partly frozen, he managed to chip them apart with a broken knife that desperately needed sharpening, or replacing. Ansel greedily ate what he could from the can.

He scratched at his legs and eyebrows. A rash might be forming again, he rationed. “If I can make it the two more weeks. Then, then I’ll go to that clinic again.” He thought it over, about the cool rooms there. About how crowded and dusty it used to be before they had changed everything one month long day, making it all look sleek and dapper in quality and sheen. Everything seemed to have gotten so much better and clean when he had stopped in. So many smiles.

“Now they’re running a tight ship there. Everything is clean, and tidy. Clean and tidy. Shame they had to fire that nice lady. Maureen? Mary? Was her name Maureen, Frank?” He paused for an answer, and not receiving one he continued on without a long delay, “She was nice. Always so nice to me.” Ansel smiled. Pulling his hand back from his leg there were specks of skin lining along and under his fingernails from where he had been scratching. His leg now had long red lines as well. “Two weeks and I’ll stop there. They’ll help me. They always do. They’ll help me out if it becomes a rash again. I hope Maureen is still there…

“Hey, Frank?”

The radio said nothing.

“Up for a little walk there, buddy? I need to get some exercise before I get caught up in another bout of cabin fever again from just sitting here. I don’t think I, nor you want to go through with me if that happens again. You up for it? I hate walking around alone. Makes everyone think I’m just a crazy old man. Even if it is through the woods where the only ones around are the squirrels and birds in the trees.”

Ansel turned the dial on the radio to the on position. Static whispered out and became a scratching whimper that grew on loudly as he fidgeted with the knobs for a stronger signal and louder level of volume. Crisp crinkling chirping calcified along the chilled cool frosty air, sloshing static around until the sounds morphed into a series of coherent noises out of the radio’s speaker.

“Later tonight, we will begin the all-night jazz cycle, featuring-”, Ansel made a face and adjusted the dial away from the station. Grunting his displeasure at the prospect of listening to music like that by choice, let alone all night nonetheless. It was all very much something that Ansel would not willingly choose for himself, under this, or any other circumstance.

“Come on, Frank”, Ansel pleaded with desperation oozing from out of his voice, “I just want someone to talk to me, that’s all I want. Is that so much to ask? Is it too much to want something like that? All I ever do is-” a new voice cut him off. He doesn’t recognize it.

“I disagree with his politics, Paul. Plain and simple as that. All the man does is talk, and talk, and talk. Frankly I don’t understand how he came to be running such a large corporation as it is-”

Ansel smiled, cheerful and thankful for the new sounds of company. He closed the backpack back up, leaving the zipper open enough for the radio to be heard. Then he tightened his layered piles of clothes that draped themselves around his cold form closer together, and hobbled his way outside of the makeshifted tent. And into the frosted wasteland of trees and heavy snow.

Everything was etched white, with a simple dashing hint of brown, and some fragments of green. It had snowed the entire day before; until after midnight or so however it had gotten too cold for more of it to fall. Though the damage was more than done on the foliage and weatherworn ground. The roads that cut through the woods were snowed off, with dense trees and foliage making it near impossible for him to find his way back if he hadn’t already known the area. And had expected it to be this way, thanks to Frank telling him ahead of time. Little things that all added up to minimizing the problems that Ansel had to fight and contend with.

A few weeks ago, he had spent a day cutting symbols into the trees, and unfortunately in the process chipping the only knife he had. But it was well worth it. As long as he followed those symbols, Ansel knew he wouldn’t get lost. Not here in his hideaway, far from the others that had tried to steal his things. Here he was safe and sound. Away from anything and everyone that would bother and hurt him.

Two months ago a group of people, teenagers really, just beyond the cusp of being considered no longer children, they had cornered him on the street he’d been walking along. They kept asking him stupid questions, and making horrible noises at him. Asking why he lived outside, where his family wasn’t. Then they shoved him to the ground and grabbed at his backpack. He still had the horrible one back then, filled with holes in the bottom of it that for obvious reasons wasn’t the best to have. But it was all he had. They tore the remainder of the bottom out, and his things had spilled out and all over onto the ground. Ansel didn’t have much with him, nothing that they would have even wanted anyways. They had laughed at him and kicked and stomped on his fingers when he tried to grab the stick of deodorant that he had found. That’s what did it.

He punched the tall one, right in their smug face. He’d knocked them back and off their feet. It hurt his hand so much he had to close his eyes. Then, before anything else could make the situation worse, Ansel scooped up the remains of the torn apart backpack and what he could reach of its contents, before fleeing through the drainage ditch. The mucky water ruined what passed itself off as his shoes. More things that he had found and were useful enough to get him through the long days. But, he was able to get away before they could catch him. The most they could do was hurl small rocks and empty beer cans at him. A few had reached there mark and hit him. He didn’t care about that anymore though.

Ansel hadn’t hit anyone before that. Nor since. He didn’t like the feeling, it twisted itself across his chest that he was capable of harming someone, let alone over something as worthless as a backpack and his collection of little things. This feeling decided for him, that to stay further away from people was a good idea. That it was the right idea. Just in case someone wanted to take his things again. For their safety, and as an afterthought, his own. He didn’t want anyone to get hurt again.

Up ahead of Ansel, he could see a crude number three etched into the bark of a tree with rough frosted bristles. Each of these bristles hung downward, giving the illusion of a Christmas tree loaded to the teeth with tinsel and ornaments made of compacted white snow. He took out a small hand trowel out from the backpack, and dug methodically at the base of the pine tree. A few clumps of broken dirt later, he pulled a small box out of the hole. The side of it had a combination lock covered with a torn Ziplock bag, held in place with a twisted piece of wire over it.

Ansel untwisted the wire, setting it aside, and removed the bag over the lock. “Twelve little ducks,” he sung to himself, turning the dial as he did so, “sitting in a row. Washing their twenty-four little wings, watch as they go. Splash, splash, splash. All brought down, with fifty-five shots from a hunter’s gun.” The lock’s internal mechanisms clicked open, he set it down on top of the backpack so that it wouldn’t wander off and get lost. “Don’t want to lose you. I hated the last song before the duckies came along and made it easy, so, so easy to remember. That they did. Hey, Frank? Mind giving me some alone time? I have family over, and, you understand.”

“…Joel Armstrong, father of four and beloved husband was found today after…”, Ansel clicked the radio’s dial off, and listened to the static dying down as it faded itself out into silence, leaving him entirely alone. Alone. Alone and with his family.

“Hi, everyone.” Ansel wiped at his nose. As he went through the contents of the box, he couldn’t help but to smile and tear up a little at everything. “I forgot how everyone looked”, he pulled up a happy picture of a family, three smiling faces and one ugly frown looked back at him with a mixture of plastered emotion. None of them looked very much like him. All of the pictures in the box were from various places Ansel had been, old houses that were being moved out of, more than a few were from the trash compactor of a ritzy apartment complex. He was chased out of that one by a man with a large flashlight. It had frightened him how much the man screamed for him to leave the trash alone and to beat it. He was so loud and menacing with that flashlight, in the darkness of the complex it had looked like a short length of pipe.

“Get out of here! Go back wherever the hell you came from, you junkie!” Ansel shook off the echoes of the man’s words. The forest echoed silence back at him.

Each time he had found a discarded picture that had remotely reminded Ansel of his family, he’d add it to the box. Dozens and dozens of little moments were what filled the box now. His little time capsule of happier times. Even if they weren’t his memories he was more than happy just to feel included with them, whenever he’d perused the photos of these moments all the same he was included. An uninvited guest that was welcome, as long as he was good and well behaved enough to join the rest of the family at the dinner table with the others that sat there.

“Ah hell, Frank. Wanna come over and meet everyone?” Ansel turned the dial of the radio to the on position, awaiting patiently for an answer. “I’m sure they won’t mind the company so much. They’re good people.”

“Baby it’s cold out…”, crooned outwards from the cold little mass of wires, plastic, and static. “I really can’t stay…”

“Frank. Sometimes, you know just what to say sometimes. And you are so right my friend. We should get going. Goodnight everyone. I’ll see everybody another time. Sometime soon I hope. Maybe when it’s warmer out.” Ansel wiped his nose again, and set the box back the way he had found it. Once it was down and buried in the shallow hole it as it was before, he stood up and dusted a coating of coarse dirt off his knees and the back of his pants. “Come on, Frank. Let’s head back home. I think you’re right about that cold front coming in soon. I might need to find a place to wait it out…”

An old wooden building, out of the foliage and whiteness around the forest, caught Ansel’s eyes. It was beautiful, like something out of a history book. If someone came up to him right then and there, and told him a president or two had been born there, out of that little shack of wood and timber, why, he might have just believed them. It look abandoned, like it had been that way for quite some time. Years, perhaps a decade or four. The porch was falling apart, from where Ansel stood, out in the forest a good ways away, he could see the railings had all fallen into disrepair, and rotted away with the clear as a full mooned night in the sky above signs of both termites and time working there horrid ways through the remnants of wood. The roof looked like it hadn’t caved in, not just yet. But that it may do so soon. Another winter or two might do it in well enough.

What shocked him most was that the windows were all in one piece. Odds were it that no one had stumbled along by this cabin and tossed rocks at it yet. “She’s beautiful, Frank. I wish you had the eyes in your head to see it. A log cabin, a beautiful one at that. What do you think, Frank? Sound as beautiful as it really is? I’m not much one for flowery words to convey my meaning, if you can gather my meaning well enough as it is, I mean.”

Out of the backpack Ansel heard, “Tom, I’m standing here in Clairmont, Virginia. The scene became a gruesome massacre, masquerading as a peaceful protest against the lack of…”, Ansel switched the dial off again, and closed the bag all the way shut.

“Sure know how to ruin a mood…”, Ansel muttered. “I wonder if anyone lives there anymore. Maybe I should go knock and see if they would let us stay a few days. Till this cold passes us all by. Maybe they could-”, something shifted in the window, looked almost like the looming shadow of a person. It may have just been a trick of the light, but Ansel got the message the cabin had sent him loud and clear. Either way, whether anyone was there or not, they could not stay there.

“Nothing doing. Gotta get back. We gotta get back, Frank. Let’s go home. Wouldn’t need to go off bothering the nice folk that may or may not live in such a beautiful home anyhow. Why, I know I’d be quite cross if anyone, strangers off the street at that, simply walked up to my front door, and asked me for favors. Why yes, Frank. I’d be quite cross indeed. Cross indeed. I wouldn’t know what I’d do if that happened. On account of not having a house, per se. But, I do know this, I’d be quite upset indeed.”

Ansel hummed, and made bopping noises with his mouth as he walked through the forest, it was a nervous tick that always made him feel better. Just the sound of-

“You ready not to say sad things, Frank? I could use some good news.” Ansel opened the backpack and turned the dial, hoping for something good to seep out of it. There was enough sadness in his heart at the moment. “Nothing sad, please. For me?”, Ansel fished through the stations, letting the dial cruise slowly till he got a bite from a station that normally, this time of day, wasn’t so sad. To Ansel it was perhaps even the opposite of that.

“Things are looking up lately, Joe. I’ve paid off my student loans.”

“Congratulations, Stu. How much- wait, how could you still have had student loans? You’re older than I am.”

“Joe. Look at me. Do I look like a smart guy that would have taken care of that sooner?”

There was a drawn-out silence. “I suppose not. Then again how smart could either of us be if we’ve been here for thirty years. We’re either good at our jobs, or the people just don’t know anyone better at this point.”

“Ain’t that the honest to God truth, Joe. Then again, why ruin a good thing? My debt to the educational system is paid off. I have nothing but blue skies ahead of me.”

“Grey skies more like.”

“I foresee bald skies in your future.”

“I could use your head as a crystal ball and tell the future with it. Probably could even see what the Powerball numbers would be.”

“Joe, please, I’m begging you. I need those numbers. Please, I have a wife and kids. No one will take them. I need that money.”

“Stu…”, the soft static sounds of a light struggle could be heard, a chair or a small table was toppled over from the ruckus. “Get your bald head away from me.”

“Please. I’ll do anything! I’ll even throw in three wishes! You won’t find a better deal anywhere!”

Ansel laughed as he walked through the frosted woods, “That’s more like it, Frank,” he wiped at his nose again, and lost against an overwhelming urge to not rub at his eyes, “You always know just what I need to hear.” Ansel laughed the entire walk back to his little handmade abode.

Ansel crawled into the makeshift shelter that he had made a week before. After he was burrowed comfortably enough beneath the piles of branches and torn trash bags, Ansel then fell asleep, listening to the sounds of the radio and falling snow. Both blanketed over him and the structure with the caressing strokes of a caring parent upon a newborn child’s head.

A song on the radio once explained how Ansel slept. He had felt that it was the closest anyone had come to describing him as a person, that he had ever heard.

“She dreams in colors, she dreams in red…can’t find, a better man!” The man’s voice had belted this out to countless listeners, over countless lifetimes. A surfer from California, or so Ansel had heard, that captured this comparison and saved it. Now for the world to hear in perpetuity, forever.

Soft wet flakes of snow drifted in through the cracks in the structure, settling themselves lightly in Ansel’s hair. Darkening upon landing, indifferently so onto his face, and melting away from his eyes as he dreamed in colors. As he dreamed in red. Couldn’t find a way to be, better man…

Winter had, as it had always been, remained the hardest time of the year to get through. Surviving it took a certain strength of character, a will of self to do what was needed to be done. However it needed to be done at that. Ansel had hitchhiked, scavenged, and learned how to swallow his pride, and over time how to rely on the kindness of strangers. Surviving outside of civilization wasn’t easy, but it was possible with the kindness of others. Ansel had been certain that he would end up freezing to death, four years ago he almost did just that. He’d ended up limping his was to the medical center, they had to lop off two of his frostbitten toes so that he wouldn’t have to lose any more than that.

“Who needed toes anyways?” He’d joked with the staff, “I never counted on them anyways. They were always just out of reach and walking away from me!”

The nurses had given him the same smile his mother always gave him whenever he had tried his damndest to make her happy. The doctors also seemed familiar; they wore the same stark grave countenance of his father. He dreamed of both of them, for the first time in years…

The static of the radio broke up his dream…

“Snowfall in the area will continue to fall exponentially…A weather advisement has been issued for the following counties…” A static filled silence ensued, briefly, “If you have anywhere to go, be advised…go there now…”

“Frank? Is it getting worse out there?” Ansel groaned, rubbing the sleep from his eyes, arms, and legs. He also made a point to check for any dark spots. He could see little in the place he called his home, but it all looked fine, no dark spots. None so far, just a soft tinge of red was all. “Do we need to leave buddy? Frank? Frank!?”

The branches and bags around him caved in, drenching Ansel in a sheet of thick white snow.

Ansel cursing, scrambling and sputtering sleek snow off and away from his face. “Frank! Are you there, are you okay? I can hear you!” Ansel dug, pulling a fallen branch from the wreckage and used it as a makeshift shovel. “Frank!” He dug towards the fragmented bits static that barely escaped from the mess around them.

Muffled under the snow he could hear, “Tonight at eleven…”, shoving snow aside, he ignored the cold feeling that seeped through his now wet soggy gloves. “…poetry reading from this month’s winners…”

“Come on, come on…Frank!”

Ansel pulled the radio out of the rubble, and held it close to his chest. It’s whispery voice felt as a heartbeat against his own.

“Little Susie Sullivan, with her poem; When daddy come home, is the highlight of the evening. So don’t miss it folks.”

Ansel put the radio in the backpack. He’d been fortunate to have had it wrapped around his arms while he slept. Another lesson he had been forced to learn living around others. Ansel wiped his face, and climbed out of the remains of his shelter. The roof had collapsed under the added pressure of the newest layers of snow that piled down on it. The storm had shifted while he had slept. He was sure of it. “Frank, next time wake me up before our roof tries to fall down! Will ya? I need a better warning than letting me sleep through it. We’ll freeze if that happens. You understand that, right?”

The radio of course, continued on with a sponsored commercial ad break, naturally. “Looking for new windows? Call…”

Ansel clicked the dial on the radio to the off position. The ad stopped with a satisfyingly smothered hush that let the sound of falling snow fill the void in its place. He had enough of that, at least for now. “We’ll talk later, Frank. Need to find a warmer place to stay. Running out of toes,” Ansel grinned a toothy grin that was missing more than a few teeth as well. “Maybe we can stay at that cabin we saw earlier? I’m sure the owners wouldn’t mind the company now. Especially with us not having anywhere else to go now. And I’m sure we can both be quiet and polite enough not to ruin their home. And if we do, Frank. We can always fix whatever we break. That’s right! That’s what we’ll do now! You’ve convinced me, Frank. You always do with your great ideas. Even when you don’t talk so much I can hear you saying so much to me. And all of it is good and great stuff.”

He grabbed what he could, putting it all into the backpack. Ansel kept the radio off; he wanted to listen to the snowfall alone, and he knew Frank would understand that. He always understood Ansel when the moment called for it. They had talked about the snow falling down before. It reminded Ansel of the rain, and how safe he felt watching it from inside his home as a child. Though that was many, many, many years ago, he could remember it quite clearly and that was all that really mattered to him.

“When I was eight or nine,” he elaborated in verbal dictation to the frosted trees all around him, “I camped in the forest behind our house. My parents let me use an old tent and sleeping bag that I found in the attic. At least they would have let me if I had told them.”

Ansel watched a tree branch sag from the snowfall coming down. The branch cracked and fell with a sickening thump. Several shrubs below the tree now had an indentation from the fallen foliage. A broken image of whiteness, with now a dash of green and grew feathered happily inside of it. Giving it a touch of character that only nature could achieve.

“I stayed out there, for what? Three days!” Ansel giggled, “I remember the look on dad’s face when he saw me. He was so proud that I was alright. That I was more than alright. I had survived and flourished. Flourished, you hear me!” His voice echoed and fell over withing trees that stood towering around him as he walked onwards through the forest. He knew the way and was unhurried, and unburdened in his pacing. Ansel knew full well how safe he was out there, alone in the forest. Isolated, yet un-alone. “Dad only hit me when I was bad. He didn’t hit me when I came with them back home. Momma was so happy, so happy that she didn’t cry neither. After all, they had nothing to cry about. I was as fine as the China in momma’s cabinet.”

Ansel passed another frosted tree in a sea of frosted trees. The side of this tree in particular had an etched arrow along it side. The arrow was placed where nature had allowed the tree to enter a state of partial undress and barrenness, etched under a broken branch that faced due east with snow beginning to fill in the arrows edges. He walked in the opposite direction the arrow pointed in. Wearing a concerned smile on his face, he discussed the situation under and over his breathe, “I hope they let us stay there, Frank. The last time I asked people for any help…it didn’t go over so well. It was before I met you…actually…”, Ansel’s voice trailed off, falling mute within the ghostly vapors of his own breathing. He was silent for several minutes and he continued to slosh through the growing snowfall, deep in thought and memories.

A squirrel skittered overhead, across a series of looser branches, releasing tuffs of snow that drizzled down from above like an icy thick rain. Ansel flexed his fingers and rubbed his hands together before shoving them back into his jacket. The temperature was falling, and quickly, from the wind blowing across the forest, Ansel felt that there would be more snow coming in, and coming in soon. He had to pick up the pace before then.

“Frank? I brough some more chili and tuna along with us. Enough to share if you want to eat some of it with me for once. If not, I’ll save it for you. Frank? Are you up for talking to me? Maybe a song will help us both feel better.” He clicked the dial of the radio to the on position. “Let’s see here. Any recommendations for the walk?”

Static whispered out incoherently at him through the speakers. Glimpses of words and phrases bled out of the static forming chipped fragments every few steps that he took. Ansel attempted to fish through the stations with some frustration.

Before, “…And we are back. Now to continue on with our countdown of the best songs in the land…”, a breathe of fresh air greeted the sound with warmth as old friends would do with one another.

Ansel suppressing a giggle, instead smiled broadly.

“I’m Casey Kasem, and this ladies and gentlemen, is the American Top Forty. On the top of the hour we had last heard a song from a young man, named…”

Ansel had always loved the American Top Forty radio block. It was an amazing feat of human understand and creation. An organized list of the greatest songs in the land. Years ago he had been sad to hear when they had replaced Casey Kasem, though he was elated when he learned that sometimes, on certain magical days and stations, they would play vintage recordings of the old broadcasts. In their own way immortalizing his voice and message out into the aether for all people to hear. When Ansel was a child he lived for the letters that were read out on the program. The dedications were his favorite parts, that and that Van Halen had climbed their way up the charts in a breakneck speed. Those were the best years of his life…

He wiped thin trails of melted snow from his cheeks, it had built up on his features with his hair now speckled with bits of white, and his joints hurt him whenever he moved. The very thought of his childhood spent listening to this radio station and the memories attached along with it, all of these things seemed to add an extra weight on to Ansel. A weight that his body didn’t have the strength to carry properly anymore. Everything seemed to hurt Ansel nowadays, even memories felt painful and heavy now. Heavier than they had ever been before.

After the next three songs had all played themselves out, and two commercial breaks had drawn to an end, Ansel switched the radio off. He had had enough remembering of distant and better times, “Sorry, Frank. I need to think by myself for a spell. You’ll understand, I’m sure. I just need-”

Chapter One

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