The Axe

Axe

 

It’s not like everyday you get to taste the flesh of a tree and the flesh of a well-known menacing wolf. People still ask me what was going through my mind when it was me who was slaying that big bad wolf, I have never really been able to answer that question as it wasn’t really me who slew the wolf, it wasn’t me who got the rewards and the praise from all the humans. I still get praise from the hammers, screwdrivers and once from that saw. Never me though, without me that lumberjack is nothing, I chop down the trees, I slice the logs into pristine shapes, do I get any recognition? I think not!

 

I remember when I was young, the rash decision-making, the constant chopping, and the ladies. It was the life. Now I am old, just another axe gathering dust in the lumberjack’ shed, granted, he isn’t going to be doing any chopping anymore. Ever since his back gave out and the arthritis caught up with him he has been house bound and requires his grandson to do most things for him. This grandson of his can’t be over ten years of age but, I can tell he has the spirit, sometimes when ol’ lumberjack is sleeping he comes in and admires me. He knows of my story, sometimes he reenacts the famous scene but, instead of a wolf he uses the tree outside, my edges have blunted and no longer leave the crisp clean cut in the aged bark. My days are over but each time that child raises me over his shoulder to take another swing at the tree I go back to that famous day.

 

The shaking of lumberjack’s hands made me dizzy, I couldn’t make out where we were until he opened the second of the two doors. I can notice Grandma’s robe from anywhere, there was something suspicious about the robe as beneath it, strands of wiry hair were visible. That was when I finally clocked on, the wolf hand taken Grandma’s position, Grandma had never been thin, however, she was never as fat as the creature that had taken her place. That was when, as if in unison with my wielder I swung down upon the great beast, it was easier than chopping trees. My finely pointed edge tearing through the tendons, the strength of my swing was so mighty that bone snapped as easily as a twig, the sound similar to that of the crunch of fresh leaves, accept there was a hundred of them, stacked on top of each other being stepped on by a giant.

 

After the events of the wolf had passed, the satisfaction that both the lumberjack and me received from the crushing and crunching of the wolf’s bones was always our high point in life. Lumberjack used to try and mimic the sound by tackling the biggest and strongest trees, hoping for that loud crunch which was witnessed once before, he could never reenact the noise. If you are asking me, that is how he threw is back out so early, he may have a grandson but he can’t be older than sixty. Myself, I am only two years old, in axe years that makes me about twenty. Other tools tell me, “it is very un common to find an axe of two years so badly blunted” my usual reply is “it is also extremely un common to find an axe that has tasted wolf flesh”.