Free South Village (Ash McKenna) by Rob Hart Page A

I have most mornings. I don’t need to carry a cell phone. That’s a nice thing.
    There’s a half-empty bottle of water on my desk. I suck it down, put that and the three empty whiskey handles into a canvas bag, and head out. The forest is quiet in every direction and the sky is overcast, washed in dingy gray light. No sun to make a guess at what time it is.
    After stopping at an outhouse and then a recycle bin to discard the jugs, I head toward the main domes, passing by the yoga clearing, where a dozen people are doing downward-facing dog on a rainbow of foam mats spread on the dusty ground. Moony is leading them, her black hair spilling over her bare shoulders. I’ve considered joining them. Some days I feel a tug in my lower back. Whether that’s age or sleeping on an old cot, I can’t be sure. Maybe I need to start some body maintenance.
    Alas, today is not that day.
    I pass the art space—a deck with a slanted roof held aloft by wooden columns. It looks like it should blow over with a slight breeze but somehow has been standing since this place was built. There’s a clay kiln, which is currently belching white smoke, and a thick canvas the size of a bedsheet stretched taut between bamboo poles.
    The canvas depicts a swirl of colors, like a wave curling up, one side of the wave a treescape, the forest reaching out and growing in on itself. The other side of the wave a starscape. They come together like they’re part of the same scene, but encroaching on each other in small measures. It reminds me a little of a van Gogh. But different. Bigger. Trying to find a middle-ground between two different worlds. I look at it for a little bit, because every time I look at it I think maybe it’s finished but it’s still a little bit different.
    Cannabelle steps onto the deck in a loose tank top and shorts, barefoot, holding a brush tipped in white, and taps at the starscape. Adding more stars to the sky. The trance breaks and I walk away, but she calls after me. “Hey Ash. C’mere for a minute?”
    I climb up onto the wooden platform. “What’s up?”
    “Why don’t you give me a hand. Pick up a brush. I’ve still got a few billion stars to go.”
    I shake my head. “Not my jam.”
    “You should give it a try sometime. It’s therapeutic.”
    “What’s the point of a painting that’s never finished?”
    “What’s the point of a life that’s never finished?”
    I try to come up with a wiseass remark, can’t, shrug, and walk away.
    The picnic benches outside the main domes have an assortment of people sitting at them, reading or smoking cigarettes or eating fruit. The smell of tobacco drifts my way and it smells a little like my old life. As I’m approaching Eatery something smacks my chest and falls to the ground. I stop and look down, see it’s a blue and white hacky sack.
    A couple of guests are staring at me, apparently having lost control of the hacky mid-game. I pick it up and Joe, an older guy with sleeve tattoos and a slight limp, says, “Little help?”
    I toss the hacky into the woods.
    “Watch where you’re kicking that thing,” I tell him.
    This results in some grumbling, which I ignore. Aesop leans out the front door of the kitchen and waves me over. Inside he’s standing with a little elf of a kid. Latino, probably no more than just out of college, big wet eyes and a little stubble on his chin, like he’s heard about beards and wants to know what the fun is about.
    “Ash, meet Zorg.”
    “Zorg?” I ask.
    The kid nods. “I am Zorg,” he says, with a swell of body-lifting confidence.
    Sigh. People like to shed their names when they get into camp. The real world doesn’t come to bear here. Mostly the nicknames are easy to remember, which is nice. This is among the more ridiculous.
    Though I used to hang out with a group that included Ginny Tonic and Bombay and Good Kelli and Bad Kelli, so who the fuck am I to talk?
    “I have to run and take care of something,” Aesop says. “I’m