Clearing in the forrest

by Harvey Birdman

1. The Clearing

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You awake to an awful noise one shouldn't be subjected to, at this hour of the morning *RING RING... RING RING... RING RING...* The phone pleads to be answered. "Ugh, fuck that phone, why did I haft to put it under my pillow? Hello?"

"Stephan you lazy fucker, what are you doing!?" The voice on the phone yells. "I've called you three times now, it's 10:30 in the morning!"

"Get fucked Philip, I fuel your fun, I get to sleep for however long I fucking want." You retort, "what do you want at such a time?"

"I want to know how my good friend the Mountain Man is doing? How goes the mission?" Philip asks

"You know the answer to that, I'm doing great as always! I get to wake up, look out my window and see my own rally built car and motorbike! It's a dream come true! As for the mission? it's going fucken sick," You beam, not minding the rude awaking anymore. "Pushed a track through to the upper part of the block last night, motorbikes should get through the rest just fine now. Going to scope it out after lunch"

"Mad! We haven't been up that far yet, not even on foot! I'll haft to come up on my next free day. Soon we'll have a track that will take us around your entire property!" Philip sounds estastic over this news, as he should be, you two are finally living the dream you've shared since you went to see the 100 acre wood rally for the first time when you were kids. "Oh, Stephan, I'll be needing some help in the shop in a few days, not that you need the work. I have a big job coming in in next week, I'll be needing a another set of hands that don't belong to a clueless apprentice, not that they are shitty workers, I just wouldn't quite trust their work on a build like this. STI are asking us to hook up one of their rally teams with a 98 WRX Impreza build of our own. How does that sound to you?"

Boxer engines weren't your speciality, but this was an offer you couldn't refuse. "my hands are your hands, Philip, metaphorically speaking of course, fuck knows where those filthy things have been." You joke excitedly, "I'm more than happy to help, I love the sound of that job. As for the tracks, not many more need to be widened before we have a full scale rally track throughout most of the property. Once I have this top section scouted, we'll be right as rain!" As you finish, you hear the signiture sound of your friend's Sil80 fire up and caress your ears. "Ahh, never get's old does it Philip?"

"Never, I will own this car 'til the day I die." You can hear a certain tone in your friend's voice change when he's in his car, the same kind of change you hear shortly after he's taken a hit.

"Philip, you aren't about to drive your 600hp sports car high as a kite are you" You know the answer, but need to bring it up regardless "I'm not helping you fix another car because you enjoy yourself FAR too much."

"What are you on about? I'm as sober as a judge!" Philip exclaims. "You're the one who's always fucking up cars here. You and your fucking lotto money, I swear"

You laugh in responce, "Haha, It's not my fault There are trees fucking everywhere! yeah right, Tell that to my glassy Bonglord!"

"That's my name and don't you forget it!" Philip announces proudly. "Anyway, good to know you're up to the challenge! I'll let you know when the car's in the shop. I'll bring my Patrol over to help you with that track widening. How does Sunday sound to you? I'm free over the weekend"

"You know I'm always up for a challenge. Weekend's good for me! I only have shenanigans planned and that Patrol should be a good bit of help." You hear your stomach grumble. "It's been a long sleep, I need to cook myself some brunch and go tear up the scrub! Drop the clutch before as you take off for me yeah?" You ask excitedly, you haven't heard that car in about a week. He doesn't get it out much, uses too much fuel. Lucky prices are down at the moment.

"Sick, some tree pushing is exactly what I need to look forward too! You don't need to ask me twice bro! I'll hold the phone out the window for you. ENJOY THE SCRUB, SCRUB!" a moment of silence bef- WOOHHUUAAAAAAMMMMPPHHHFTT-TU-TU "WHOO! FUCK YEAH!" The line disconnects

"humph, what a sick cunt." You think aloud to yourself, "time for food. I'm feeling extra all out breakfast today. So I'm thinking a 5 egg batch of scrambled egg with Bacon, Cheese, Tomato, Chilli and last but not least, Mushrooms!  This is gonna be a mad.

***30 Minutes later***

You finish your well deserved breakfast and down the last of your coffee as you bring your dishes up to the sink. "You'd think with all this spare time on my hands I'd wash the fucking dishes... Eh, I'll do 'em when I get back later." You stroll down the hallway of your cabin and duck into your room. "Time to get dressed and pack for the day." You say under your breath. You throw on some tear proof pants, a flannel jacket and throw a spare change of clothes and shoes into your backpack in case you hit a wet patch and get soaked again. You grab your helmet and gloves and make your way for the kitchen, resting you helmet on the bench, you throw a few snacks from the pantry into a lunchbox, along with a few cold bottles of water and a energy drink. With all this, you grab your helmet and head for the door, slipping on your boots on the way out.

You drop your gear by your patiently waiting bike as you go into your workshop, admiring your EVO VII and LandCrusier on your way to grab a fuel container To refill the bike with. Should be more than enough. "What else should I grab? You ponder... "Oh I know!" You quickly fill the bike before your last trip back into the shed. " I know what I may be needing." I slight smirk playing across your face, You dip your hand into your cookie jar and pull out a small bag of herb and box of rolling paper. "Today should be an alright day." You slipped the baggie into your backpack, slipped on your gloves and turned the key in your bike's ignition. It greets you with it's ever so humble 2-stroke greeting. VERM-BEMBEDEMBMBER! "Good morning sweet heart" you say sweetly  it continues to idle as it should.

You lift your leg over the seat and slip your helmet over your head, do up the clips. You look at your options for trails to take. "Hmmm, I'll go the quickest way across the property." You set your eyes on the small clearing ahead of you which leads to a slight decline at the edge of the valley that runs through to the neighbouring farmland. "Let's go." Your bike screams into action as you pull on the accelerator and release the clutch, this bike used to scare you before it's workings became second nature, now the bike may as well be scared of you, making it do the things it does.

Within moments, you have rocketed into the trail, swerving around trees, through dips and over jumps, the bike struggling to keep traction, being on a slight slope throughout this experience. The adrenaline pumping through your body is pleading for more speed, pushing you to do more, begging you to do more. You can only obey when the end of the trail is within eyesight along with the kicker you and Philip built a few weeks back. You ever so slightly begin to lean forward as the jump approaches. Eyes wide, fists clenched, your wheel hits the kicker, at this moment you rip back, arching your back just as the bike leaves the ramp and begins it's rotation. As if you slowed down time your neck craned back watching, waiting to see the landing ramp at the apex of the jump.

It comes into view, what you've been waiting for, ever so slowly coming towards you encouraging  you to complete the rotation. With an almighty thud, the back wheel before the front, a near perfect landing. "

WOOOWHOOOOOO! FUCK, HOLY SHIT! I FORGOT MY GOPRO! PHILIP IS NEVER GOING TO BELIEVE THAT!" Your voice is booming with excitement and happiness. feeling drained, you slow to cruising speed inspecting your surroundings and the recently belted in track through the bush. You decide to slow to a stop and let the bike cool for a few minutes, it's going to be first and second gear from here on out.

You take a seat on a bashed down tree, skulling half a bottle of water you retrieved from your bag.

"Phew, that was one hell of a ride." You exclaim. " I need to calm down a bit, maybe that bag will come in handy." You laxly reach into you bag, taking out a few small nuggs of that dutch stuff, rolling it. Before lighting it, you decide that you want to walk through the bush you're about to ride through to plot out the best course before your judgement is clouded, you see a nice clearing up ahead, it's a wonder you hadn't come this far before, it was a nice clearing, the ground mostly being moss, some large Mann Ferns scattered around the outside and three large Blackwood trees making up a large canopy only letting sunlight through the middle of them. "

"This is surreal, never did I expect to see this. Such calmness, tranquillity... Fuck bringing the bike here. I'm leaving this area untouched. How it should be." You declare.

After a brief moment of admiring the clearing,  you decide to go to the centre, where the sun is beaming through. Directly in the middle of the three trees, there is a sizeable dip in the ground, still all covered in moss, it looks like an amazing spot to lay down, so that's exactly, what you do. You are able to stretch out, you head resting on the lip, at the edge of the dip, and your feet in the centre. This was the perfect time to spark up as you lay there, bathing in the sunlight, you ever so slowly inhale, closing your eyes, listening to the Wrens singing their beautiful melodies, and finally, exhale, letting the first draw hit you, feeling as if you were laying on clouds. Then once more, slowly, you take in another deep breath, laying there. The Wrens singing with their ever so gentle voices, lull you into the sense of absolute, serenity.