Andrew Witt

Author: Andrew Witt

  • Weekly Story Series – III

    Part one – unfinished and late

    The thick early morning haze hung low in the river valley trapped by two spiny ridges running in parallel. From the ridges, the crisp clean mountain air offered a view of the moon still hanging on to the horizon in the west and providing more light to the valley than the still rising sun in the east. In the valley itself, only the first inkling of light had begun to mingle with the fog’s dark grip.

    The valley was more farmland than river as the fertile dirt was interrupted only by brambles and rivulets cut and etched into the land by its inhabitants to demarcate their possession. The patchworked farms did their best to resemble clean squares but disputes over the centuries among local lovers and faraway kings had distorted the shapes of the farms so that on a clear day every version of a rectangle could be seen from the tops of the ridges. The only non-conforming shape was the meager river that snaked its way from east to west through the valley. It was a scene typical of the land running up toward the Alpine foothills of France.

    Down in the valley, the morning’s quiet was broken in an instant by the crash of a barn door opening and closing. Fernando was a Spanish man of 50 who’d arrived in the valley after the troubles began in Spain about 15 years prior. If he had known that same kind of trouble would follow him, he would have gone west. He hadn’t wanted to leave Spain, but he was neither a separatist nor a fascist. A grandmother he’d never met had been born in this valley and the papers his family had kept allowed him, his wife, and young daughter to cross the Pyrenees as the front moved closer in Spain. It wasn’t long after they’d arrived in the valley that the front from the north closed in on them too, and they’d had nowhere else in the world to go. They survived much the same way one survives a passing storm. As the forces swirled around them, they’d closed the windows to the outside and huddled together.  

    On this morning, he found himself standing in the still dark barn reaching for the stable latch where, by huffs and rustling he found Inés, the seven-year-old Aubrac cow. Her visible features were dulled by the early morning light, but Fernando often considered the phenomenon of standing in a small space with so massive a beast. It comforted and terrified him as her massive silhouette stood motionless in her stall. He patted her head and moved his hand to her shoulders as she leaned in like a dog. Her demeanor betrayed her size. She was intelligent and affectionate towards Fernando while also being a reliable farmhand. He rewarded her as any boss would their best employee. In this part of France, cows and oxen were still used to till the land and transport heavy items.

    Fernando took her from the barn and led her into the morning light where her features struck him. He stood for a moment admiring his most prized possession. He’d gotten her from a Spanish friend who did not have space after Inés’ mom was more prolific in her rearing than expected. It had been a mutual favor as Fernando got a cow that he should not have been able to afford for a price he could, and his friend now had a favor owed to him. Inés had brown hair that lightened as it moved down her body until her hoofs looked like linen white socks. She was bigger than any female Aubrac Fernando had ever seen so he was always happy to have her pull the cart to town in case anyone had forgotten. He’d sit happily as the veins in her muscles bulged and shifted in unison. Most striking were her eyes. With her face of caramel colored hair her eyes sat like volcanic islands in the sea. A thick outline of black encircled her equally black eyes. They were not empty though, at least not to Fernando, and not in the way often seen in animals. They seemed to accept the fate offered to a beast of her stature with grace.

  • Weekly Story Series – II

    Stranger

    As he sat in the middle of the crowded terminal, nobody noticed him. His metal chair faced the main corridor with a view of a coffee shop and a few of the gates, each pulsing with people, all in a hurry. The throngs moved past him like the withered white leaves of a late August dandelion blown off the stem by a child.

    There are people in the world who, if they saw him in that setting or at all would stop in their tracks. Some would let out a whoop, others would smile and hug him, and still others would break down in tears unable to believe their eyes. On this day, none of those people passed by and he was left alone. But he didn’t mind much. Instead a thought began to percolate, it came first as a feeling before his mind could wrangle it into something coherent.

    He imagined the meals he’d shared where old and new friends alike sat him at the head of the table and served him first despite his objections, engrossed in his stories asking more and more questions until he felt they’d entered his world. With a coffee at his fingers he replayed the words of lovers past whose whispers of affection made him feel like the only man alive. The contrast he found in the midst of strangers stirred his soul. He desperately searched for another person among the crowds who appeared to also be experiencing a conscious moment no matter how liminal, but he could not find anyone and that is why this story is short. After a couple of minutes of searching he turned back to the thought tumbling around in his head that was slowly taking shape.

    Sitting in the terminal he realized this is not a special circumstance, just that it is rare to confront it. Many if not most people live with this blessing and curse as they make their way. He began to look at each person as though he knew them with the same intimacy that he knows his own history. He imagined the massive fights, mountains climbed, and individuals loved by each hurried person as they passed. Rather than them noticing him, he noticed them. Then he stopped thinking so much about himself or yearning for anything in particular. His demeanor lightened and the chaos of the terminal slowed down for him.

    The blessing is to know the love of another and the curse is to remember love even when it is absent. Reversing the curse depends on turning outward toward others. Circumstance lends itself to passing another human unaware of the gravity of their presence. There is something unnatural about this. If the statistics of a person’s life floated above their head would it be this way? Speed leaves the recognition of this phenomena below the surface of most people’s conscience. Only once one stops and recognizes the proximity of another without regard for their beauty or accomplishments are they themselves able to see their own humanity clearly. 

  • Weekly Story Series – I

    5/20/2026 – A silly story to start a self-explanatory series that will have no structure to it until I find one with the only rule being that a story of some kind must be posted each week.

    The streets of the Northwest industrial district are lined with painted brick buildings, pock marked pavement, and disorganized piles of lumber and steel. It has grown smaller over the years; the city’s overflow has pushed the industrial area beyond highway 30 up against the river to the north and the hills to the west. Roving bands of feral cats with malicious intent who through collective force could take on a labrador, maybe even a medium size pit bull, are the area’s most well-known inhabitants.

    One time, a nearby kennel tried to round them up in one fell swoop by cornering the band in one of their preferred hideouts, offering them tubed tuna from a distance. The cunning, almost militant communal structure of the cats could not be broken not only because they preferred the area’s mice and small birds, but because food requires chase. They could not fathom that food could come so easily so they did not approach the khaki-ladened kennel employees. The humans, for the moment, went away in defeat and frustration.

    The second wave led by the passionate and underpaid kennel employees included toys, nets, and reportedly some sort of tranquilizer but that remains disputed. They aimed to dismantle the leadership hierarchy beginning with the middle-aged female leader who had earned the name M. She was a round-faced orange and white cat who had a scar across her right eye like that of a Bond villain, of which she would probably proudly agree. The thinking was that with lions, females hold the dominant position in the herd so it shouldn’t be different for a dozen or so domestic short hairs. If they could get at the leader, the others would surely cave.

    The cats often spent time in the vacant alcove of one of the white brick buildings that had a barbed wire fence across the front. The fence had been built to prohibit all access to the space and did not include a door of any kind. As with any fence, the years had created larger and larger gaps allowing simple access for the tribe of cats. The alcove itself was typical of the industrial district. Uncut grass filled with dilapidated pallets and cigarette butts along with an old lean-to roof were the only things that populated the space beside the cats when they came around. According to the kennel workers, the alcove was perfect for the cats in terms of safety, but the most exposed militarily among the four or five areas of the district that the cats frequented because the building covered them on three sides. After tracking down the building owner, which took nearly a month, the workers called in a specialist to alter part of the fence while the cats were away so that it could be quickly removed for them to enter when the cats returned.

    With a camera planted to know that the cats were there, and with tactics designed as if the cats oversaw a 20th century Latin American country, the kennel workers were ready to march on the encampment. On the day of the attack, the kennel workers, who numbered seven – two to handle the fence, four with toys and treats and nets, and one whose job was left unspecified but likely was the carrier of the disputed tranquilizer gun, had one goal, which was to capture the leader M. She had just given birth a few weeks prior, the father unknown and inconsequential but the mix of gray striped kittens narrowed the pool of potential suitors. The day before she had been spotted for the first time in a month on the camera with her babies in tow.

    The moments before the surprise onslaught were like any other for the herd of cats. M lounged with her babies beneath the lean-to as they nursed, she being the only regal one of the adults. The others were mangy but well fed; their matted and unclean fur a small price for semi-regular food. That was the benefit of the group. M did not mother the others, but she did look after them, and they looked after her. Domesticated cats tend to be communal only in the most necessary and fundamental ways. They are not sentimental, but they are always aware of what the others need. In those moments, the cats avoided the noon sun with ease as most found themselves on their side or curled in a ball having fed earlier on a mix of a disturbingly large rat and the remnants of somebody’s fast food leftovers that had been tossed from the window.

    The kennel employees parked a block away and moved in silence the second the doors of the van slid open. One of them wondered if this is what Seal Team 6 felt. Creeping as if the cats deployed lookouts on the rooftops, the workers positioned themselves in front of the doorless fence and with a single heave shoved the compromised fence off its hinges. The cats should have been helpless but the principled M and her comrades could not be undone. They deployed a defense unknown to the kennel employees. In one of the corners particularly covered by wild grass, there was a water shoot connected to loose pieces of brick that at some point had broken up allowing an escape route into the warehouse where there were dozens of access routes the cats could disburse within before reconvening. The casual observer would not have noticed that where M lay with her babies before the attack was the only spot where she could have gotten all six of them into the gap in the case of a surprise by human or animal alike. Most anybody other than M would agree that the kennel worker’s intentions were good. They wanted to provide her and her friends with food, water, and medical support. But for M and her band, separation was worse than provision of any kind.

    The attempt on the cats led to only one capture – a cat who’d escaped his family’s porch just three days before and likely had only stuck to the others accidentally through fear and necessity. Since then, the legend of the cats has grown leading some non-kennel employed do-gooders to venture into the area with treats and supplies to try to aid or capture some from the band, but with no success. The kennel has since diverted their attention elsewhere, not so much claiming defeat as a draw. The cats on the other hand make no comment, as victors often do.

  • bull rider

    A story is like a bull, and storytellers are like bull riders. The inexperienced storyteller full of inspiration and a bit of pride embarks with a mixture of courage and faith. He or she has a fleeting thought; something profound that is currently propelling them. Maybe they saw a particularly beautiful sunrise, had a monumental argument with a loved one, or broke their routine and in so doing had forgotten memories and dreams rush to them with intense clarity. They hastily make their way to a computer or a note pad but something trips them up along the way. Associated with their newfound clarity is the image of a setting that is paramount to the successful portrayal of their story.

    Nascent bull riders do not set out with only a cowboy hat and faded jeans, calmly climbing into the cage with a one ton beast ready for whatever it gives. No, they start small by being around bulls, riding other animals, and, when ready, begin on a colt with a full cage helmet, elbow and knee pads, and something akin to a bulletproof vest. Storytellers are like this. They have studied and likely done well on a school paper or two. They write for fun and pursue stories where they know them to be. Places and people spark something in them that is both difficult to describe and the only thing worth speaking about. They have read Hemingway but understand that top floor Paris apartments are no longer cheap due to the advent of air conditioning, and that Hemingway is not the author that good authors admit to reading anymore. More often than not they also realize that alcohol does not a writer maketh. But still, the draw of the capital R-Romantic writer beckons. So, they do their due diligence. In search of the maximum level of inspiration and to maximize their diminishing talent, they go from coffee shop to bar to park to closet to kitchen table before repeating the process. But slowly, inevitably, the storyteller, whose story may be a true and even noble story, begins to fade.

    The inciting event that spurred the particular sense of joy or sorrow or desire loses its edge. They forget that they are not bull riders who require protection. Nor that it is not obligatory for them to find the perfect setting to ensure maximum inspiration as it might be for a rider to feel sufficiently capable before hopping on. By the time the storyteller is sufficiently comfortable, and confident, they are left sifting through scraps of the original story in their mind. The real trouble is when they begin frequenting the location they felt most comfortable writing in, but do not write. This must be the reason some coffee shops can sell coffee for $7 and retain a client base so long as they contain teak benches and a nice soundtrack. It is also why rodeos have plenty of spectators wearing cowboy hats who have never ridden anything at all. The idea of riding a bull is often more enjoyable than riding a bull itself.

    The inexperienced storyteller who is determined enough to sit and scribble is often tossed by the weight of the story they are trying to tell. One slip of phrase can redirect the whole narrative in a manner that overwhelms them. This leads to unfinished works and broken laptops. Moving loose and free, conveying story from the soul with clear-eyed direction is not easy and takes practice. The chunkiness of sentences that must be organized and new thoughts that are multiple steps away from the current sentence are jostling when a storyteller does not know what to do with them. How the storyteller approaches what they have to say determines everything. It is a gentle and tempestuous relationship between words and ideas. Most do not realize that their thoughts are not actually linked to language, and that when they try to connect the two, the idea ceases to exist.

    Watching a bull rider handle the animal up close, when you can see the details of both their eyes, you see the personification of something much more powerful than man determining a man’s every move. Like looking at a moonless and cloudless sky, taking in the ocean on a stormy day, or looking out an airplane window, the eyes of a bull make men feel small. This smallness is not meek, but rather inspires man toward something deep in his soul that only reveals itself in those moments. On the back of a bull, one slip or jolt spells disaster or coalesces into man and bull as something other than at odds. Under orange and blue skies, when clothes are sticky and people seem happier, a bull rider does what every author dreams of. He captivates and he dazzles. He holds hostage those in the crowd for as long as he remains in control, but deep down each person knows it is a fleeting exercise. The control is a mirage. The giant beneath him is in control and gives him the semblance of it, but only 8 seconds worth.