Walks with Mway

copyright 2009 - 2013

Walks with Mway is a novel that parodies a blog (and at the same time a blog that parodies a novel), using the blog form for its structure and medium of publication.  The main page matter, the posts, and the comments are all parts of this original work (certain news reports and other materials that have been written by others have been appropriated, to a limited extent, for artistic purposes).  Since this blog novel is a literary work (literary though it explores the realm of the “subliterary”), it must be remembered that all the statements that appear in it are the expressions of fictional characters.  When the blog opens up on the computer screen, it appears in reverse-chronological order.  To follow the narrative of the work, the posts should be read in chronological order, and the comments appended to each post should be read as they appear..

The Author

Whichever Way Mway Goes

August 8, 2010.  Sunday.

Situation:  This morning I search “bindweed” online, and at wikipedia I find a perfect photo of the white trumpet-shaped flower I’ve been seeing, and behind it I can just make out the arrow-shaped leaves.  So, though it’s all in the morning glory family, bindweed it is.  Work all day today, and when I get home, about 6:30, I say to Moi, “Well, I guess I’ll take the little dog for a walk,” half-hoping perhaps that she’ll tell me that she’s just done that herself.  Instead she says, “Oh, she’ll be thrilled about that.”

State of the Path:  The ground, as it has been for the last couple weeks, is hard and almost as white as it was at the beginning of July.  At the juncture to the side path, I tell myself, “Whichever way Mway goes, I go.”  Mway stays straight on the main path.  Down at the start of bug land, I look at the big “chokeberry” bush, its berries now mostly dark green, blue, purple, black, gray, with whitish areas, somehow moonish when taken altogether.  The bush is surrounded by jewelweed, still flowering somewhat but not popping seeds, and below it is an ironweed plant around which I see flittering and flower-sipping a tiger swallowtail (yellow swallowtail?).  Down by the creek, I remark to myself how a stand of jewelweed survived the dry summer up by the “chokeberry” but how another disappeared totally around the plastic barrel, though there are many stands of jewelweed right along the creek.  On the ridge around bug land, there’s another big “chokeberry” bush I never noticed before, its berries as black, purple, blue, or whatever as the one at the other end of bug land.

State of the Creek:  Beneath the tree stand, what water is there, if there is water there, looks from the creek bank like a splotch of mud.   The vinyl siding – should I now say it’s about 5 feet from the piddling puddle of water? At the edge of the puddle is a big flat rock, its top white dry.

The Fetch:  I don’t see any flowers of bindweed at the clearing – are they like day lilies and chickory, in bloom only for a day?  I don’t see Mway anywhere and have to call out to her.  She soon comes running up the path.  One fetch – and, no questions asked, back to the house.  At the porch she drops the stick at the door.  Instead of putting it on top of the bench, I toss it underneath it.  Tomorrow Barb Dennehy will again be watching Mway, and I don’t want her to carelessly lose it.  Moi and I are again making a trip, this time to meet part of her family up at Akwesasne, where they’re all heading to renew their Indian cards. We’ll be away for a couple days, so there will be no walk for Mway from me on Tuesday, and, if there is any on Monday or Wednesday, perhaps no time to write about it afterwards.

Don't Know What to Make of Viney Plant

August 6, 2010.  Friday.

Situation:  This morning when I looked out the kitchen window while getting my coffee I saw in the weed bed by the house (where Steve Gray Wolf fears to tread) a number of the same white flowers I saw yesterday in the clearing.  So I’ve just gone out there with my Audubon to try to identify them.  The flower is trumpet-shaped and appears all white, with white pistil and stamen. The one specimen I looked at (the others were too far back in, and I was not wearing my walking clothes) appeared to be on a vine entwined around a goldenrod stem; its leaves were arrowhead-shaped.  Damn if I could find anything like it in the Audubon.  Then, while out there, I saw some white, pink-tinged, bell-shaped flowers, their leaves thick, big and dark green.  The flowers kind of look like what I see in Aububon for teaberry, bearberry, leatherleaf, nodding onion, and spreading dogbane, but damn if I can tell what they are either.  Moi has gone into town, so I can’t ask her right now for help.  Today looks again like I’ll have to work both afternoon and evening, so might as well take Mway for a walk now.  It’s 9:39.

State of the Path:   Today I do notice berries on the “chokeberry” on the path before the walled garden; it’s the main bush there these days, bigger than the multiflora bush, which, once the biggest bush, now has started (like all the multifloras around) to decline (life span?  weather conditions? competition?).   I see the arrowhead vine a couple times along the path, entwined always around another plant, but I don’t see any more of its flowers again until I reach the clearing.  I avoid the side path along the old orchard, but I do decide to take the one along the skating pond.  When I see it overgrown with goldenrod, though, I just take a quick jaunt over to the creek and back.  The tall meadow rue, I notice, has lost its flowers, and in their place are tiny green, spiky seeds.  I notice a couple of boneset plants standing among the ironweed in bug land; their leaves are indeed starting to look withered, as well as bug-eaten.

State of the Creek:  When Mway goes into the creek, I again hear, instead of the splash of water, the crackling of rocks.  All the pools are shrinking.  The vinyl siding sits a good yard away from the shrinking pool at the narrows.

The Fetch:  Before I toss the stick I take a quick look at the trumpet-shaped flower, with its arrowhead leaves, growing up the branch of a “chokeberry.”  I don’t see the other two flowers I saw yesterday.  Mway surprises me today – she ends up fetching the stick about five times, then coaxes me to play “Put it down” about four or five times, even though I heard her out barking with Moi early this morning.