076 - rattle tone

Joshua pulled the starter on his chainsaw. Like the well-oiled machine that it was, it started effortlessly, with a little plume of surplus oil burning off in the form of white smoke. It roared to life, idling but sounding menacing nonetheless.

He looked around at all of the trees in his vicinity. "Lots of work to do, today," he said to himself. Of course, that was always true, there were always more trees than Joshua could get to. The hippies may have protested loggers like him cutting down trees, but as Joshua saw it, there was a never-ending supply of the things. It was certainly nothing to be worried about.

Joshua walked up to the first one, the undergrowth of the forest crunching under his heavy boots with each step. He felt its bark briefly. Birch. He then stepped back, having already mapped out the way in which he intended to fell the tree.

After stepping back, he revved the chainsaw up, and drove it into the trunk of the tree. The wood gave way like butter being worked with a warm knife. Joshua did not lose his focus, nor did he become overly confident, though. He guided the chainsaw deftly, making sure it clawed its way through tree smoothly.

It did not take long, before he pulled his saw back and stepped a safe distance from the tree. It was falling just as Joshua had orchestrated it, and in a few more moments the deed was done. The tree that had been previously living, rooted to the soil below it, now lay horizontal, ready to be turned into paper or whatever else they had planned for it.

He felt good. It wasn't that Joshua hated trees. In a way, he felt that actually he relied on them. Without them, he wouldn't have any job, any means of supporting himself. He knew that wasn't actually true, of course. He could probably have found another job, he might have even had skills that would have landed him a career with a higher income or more prestige.

But Joshua knew that felling these trees was the right job for him. He felt it in his heart. And so, he drew a certain pleasure from a job well done, whenever he knocked another one down. Just as he imagined that other people were perfectly suited for other kinds of jobs, this was what he was perfectly suited for.

The chainsaw still rumbled slightly as he walked over to the next tree. He left in his wake the tree trunk now separated from its stump. He approached his next target. While Joshua didn't hate trees, he didn't feel like he was doing them much harm, either. He would never have referred to one of the trees he felled as a victim. They were just doing what they were designed to do, and he felt no remorse decimating a forest of trees to a clearing of roots and stumps.

Joshua did the same thing he had done to the first one. Felt it slightly, trying to pick out the best location and angle to do his work. It took only a moment, and then the chainsaw got to go back to work. A minute later, and he once again got to feel that brief moment of satisfaction of a small part of his job completed.

The air was crisp with a slight hint of cold and of course with a strong hint of fresh timber. Joshua wouldn't have it any other way.