Word for Word: Adz

I’m in a writers’ group that meets on Zoom, though before the pandemic we met in the back room of a nonprofit bakery. Every week, we do a writing prompt: someone gives a page number, and our organizer picks a word from a huge dictionary. In this example, the word is: Adz.

A photo I took hiking by the Columbia Gorge.

I enjoyed living in my log cabin in the woods, far from people. My only companions were the flora and fauna and the wind in the trees and the distant whisper of the ocean.

That was until a stranger wheedled his way into my cabin and my life. It began with charm, but after many months he was so confident in how he’d slowly chipped away at my confidence and how he assumed I believed all his lies — that his verbal abuse and manipulation increased.

After a year, I plainly said, “Leave now.”

He didn’t move, reclining in the hammock he’d talked me into making. “I like it here.”

I said, “This is your last warning. You will move on and never return. You will do that now. I’m giving you five minutes to pack your bag and leave!”

He chuckled and remained in the hammock.

After five minutes, I took my adz out of the shed and carried it toward him. “I warned you. I gave you a chance.”

I stood over the hammock and I raised the adz.