Jeff Zentner - In the Wild Light

The Serpent King

Goodbye Days

Rayne & Delilahs Midnite Matinee

The human eye can discern more shades of green than of any other color. My friend Delaney told me that. She said its an adaptation from when ancient humans lived in forests. Our eyes evolved that way as a survival mechanism to spot predators hiding in the vegetation.

There are as many tinges of understanding as there are hues of green in a forest.

Some things are easy to understand. Theres a natural logic, a clear cause and effect. Like how an engine works. When I was eleven, my papaw pulled the engine out of his Chevy pickup and took it apart, letting me help him rebuild it. He laid the pieces outreeking of dark oil and scorched steelon a torn and greasy sheet, like the bones of an unearthed dinosaur. As we worked, he explained the function of each piece and what it contributed to make the engine run. It made sense, how he said it.

He wasnt sick then. Later, when he was, I understood that when he used to say Dont nobody live forever when accepting another piece of his sister Betsys chess pie, that wasnt just a phrase he used. That was when he still had an appetite.

Now his appetite has moved to his lungs, which are always starved for air. His breathing has the keening note of the wind blowing over something sharp. Its always there, which means he has something sharp inside him. People cant live long with sharp things in them. I understand this.

Some things I understand without understanding them. Like how the Pigeon River moves and pulses like a living creature, never the same twice when Im on it, which is as often as I can be. Or how sometimes you can stand in a quiet parking lot on a hot afternoon and perfectly envision what it would have looked like there before humankind existed. I do this often. It brings me comfort but I dont understand why.

Other things I dont understand at all.

How Delaney Doyles mind works, for example. Trying to comprehend it is like trying to form a coherent thought in a dream. Every time you think youre there, it blurs.

Youll be talking with her and shell abruptly disappear into herself. Shell go to that place where the world makes sense to her. Where she sees fractals in the growth of honeysuckle bushes and elegant patterns in the seemingly aimless drift of clouds and the meandering fall of snowflakes. Substance in the dark part of flames. Equations in the dust from moths wings. The logic of winds. Signs and symbols. An invisible order to the world. Complex things make sense to her and simple things dont.

Shes tried to explain how her mind functions, without success. How do you tell someone what salt tastes like? Sometimes you just know the things you know. Its not her fault we dont get it. People still treat her like shes to blame.

Some arent okay with not understanding everything. But Im not afraid of a world filled with mystery. Its why I can be best friends with Delaney Doyle.

A carload of girls from my high school is trying to exit out the entrance of the Dairy Queen. I pause to let them. Then I pull in, my lawn mower rattling in the back of my pickupthe same truck whose engine my papaw and I rebuilt.

The early evening July sun blazes like bonfirelight on the hills behind the Dairy Queen. Theyre a soft green, as if painted in watercolor. Gleaming soapsud clouds tower behind them. Delaney told me once that the mountains of East Tennessee are among the oldest in the world, but time has beaten them down. Sounds about right.

Delaney stands outside, her shadow long and spindly against the side of the building. Shes wearing her work uniforma blue baseball cap, blue polo shirt, and black pantsand holds a cup with a spoon sticking out of it. With her other hand, she twists her auburn ponytail and presses her thumb on the end, tufted like the tip of a paintbrush. Its one of her many nervous tics.

The expression on her face is one she often hasher eyes appear ancient and able to see all things at once, unbound through time and space. Its what I imagine Gods face looked like before summoning the world out of the ether.