Intruder
Illustration By Carol Zaloom
INtruder
After I exit that part of the woods, wind sighs in the pines with what seems like relief and a woodpecker, rid of distraction, resumes its industry. Like television, I bring what is not wanted to where it is not needed. The dull thwock of gunshots, for instance, and the sputter of motorcycles that dirtily circumscribes the forest—they wouldn’t be here without me. Could that be true of the woodpecker, too, that he wouldn’t be here without me? If a woodpecker pecks on a tree in the woods with no one, that is to say no human, there to hear it . . . but I’m really not planning to lose any sleep over tepid conundrums like that. I exit the woods and I sigh with relief that the trees, unlike the neighbors, are neither armed nor dangerous, and that no intruder—skunk, bear, woodpecker—shares my bed, except the one that sprays, raids garbage, and hammers inside my head. – Mikhail Horowitz