High up and out of the way, fort Riopelle spent over a hundred years in isolation. This civil war stronghold, which never saw a battle, seemed doomed to a permanent existence without purpose. Until, in 1975, a group of artists and intellectuals saught refuge in the primitive South.

They needed a place to test their utopian ideals without reality or taxes. They found the fort just as it had been built, too well to attack. 101 years after the last battle of the Civil War, the Yankees took Fort Riopelle. The renovation brought power, radio, satelite, and eventually high speed internet to the hilltop fortress. Powered by streams, rivers and the TVA; funded by grants and the Tennessee tourism bureau, Riopelle became a vacation destination and an artist commune.

As a good fortress ought, it protected the inhabitants, particularly the children. The youth of Riopelle have adventures and then they have books and sometimes coffee or italian soda. The forts isolation and loose class schedule, affords many a free minute.

Several such minutes occurred on a Thursday afternoon in late August. The tourist season was slowing down, it was too hot, and school was starting, and gas was high, and it was hurricane season, and the south was under water. Not Riopelle, of course, it was too far North and too high up; but from there you could see everything.

There's something about an afternoon off, they always seem infinite in possibility and always end with disappointment and a nice nap.

The chidlren, particularly Cameron and Zoe, were not about to let another lazy summer afternoon slow them down. Cameron had recently purchased a chainsaw. 12-year-olds should not purchase chainsaws, but he bought one online using Hallie's computer. Hallie had the internet and she let other children borrow it to purchase online items like chainsaws, showtime knife sets, and cellular ringtones.

Hallie started the trend when, on a spring day in 2003, she purchased 5000 superballs on eBay. The price seemed cheap, 15 £, which turned out to be 27.6 USD. Then the shipping was astronmical. Bouncy balls are light weight until you get, like, 5000 of them.

Hallie meant to count them all, but then they just started bouncing. All approximately 5000 of them. Two hours later there were 14 bouncy balls, a choking basset hound, a broken bay window, a broken collar bone, a train derailment, and an unsolved murder.

So that started the trend. Riopelle allowances went directly to pay pal. Cameron had saved most of his money for 10 months, ever since the Octoberfest and its influx of folk artists, notably a chainsaw sculptor. The finished works of art were actually pretty lame: birds, bears, what have you. The interesting part was that he used a chainsaw. His name was Chuck; he had a big beard and a flannel shirt, and he said things like, "Timber!" and "Watch out now!"

Cameron was, in a way, in love. He knew that he'd found his craft. He had trees, he had imagination, he just had to find a chainsaw. That morning in late August, a delivery truck arrived with a box for Cameron. His father signed for it.

"What is this, Cameron?" asked the concerned parent.

"Art supplies." Cameron replied.

"It's heavy."

"It's lead paint."

"They still make lead paint?"

"You have to special order it." Cameron took the box from his father and went into woods.

Most people thought Cameron was taller than his height permitted. He always stood up straight with a posture so perfect he often carried books on his head just because it was comfortable. His thick, dark hair provided a cushion for books, baskets, and drinks (a practice his father called, "Asinine").

When carrying the chainsaw, in it's grotesque packaging, Cameron had the lurching, slumped stature of mad scientist's apprentice. It didn't help that the box itself looked like a murder weapon. Cameron won the Ebay auction held by one Jeffrey Watkins from 1120 Rural Route 3, Ziegler, IL 62999.

Jeffrey, who had obviously shipped the box on his own without the assistant of a FedEx-Kinkos or UPS store, used tape around a large egg box. The mangled container had four blacked out labels: eggs, knives, Christmas, and birds. Eventually, 200 yards into the wilderness, the box fell apart revealing it's contents: a chainsaw, a print-out of the sale, and a year's worth of crumpled Gun Digests.

Making a mental note not to litter, Cameron picked up the chainsaw and trudged deeper into the sloped forest. Two hours later, he stood in front of a birch tree that would soon be an obelisk.

His sister Zoe, was already waiting at the agreed upon tree, marked with a yellow ribbon. Zoe and Cameron were twins but didn't look alike. For one, she was a girl, but more importantly they had different hair and eye color. Zoe was taller with light hair, all the shades of fall foliage. Later, they would share the same nose, but only because Cameron broke his in another art accident off a roof. The shingles, unfinished, read, "Google can see through your roo—."

Zoe shouted over the roaring chain, "What's it gonna' be?"

"An obelisk!"

"How big's it gonna' be?"

Cameron switched off the saw and raised his eyes to the canopy. "I don't know, 'bout tree size."

This presented a problem. Though it wasn't a terribley large tree, it was larger than, say, a 12-year-old boy. His sister was taller, but not birch size. A simple solution would have been a ladder. A more avavalable solution was to sit on the others shoulders.

All the spectators, Hallie, Lillian, and Roland, declined to shoulder Cameron. The burden fell solely on Zoe. Luckilly Cameron wasn't that heavy, he was her brother.

Zoe was also the obvious choice based on her height, balance, and relation to the artist. Hallie was actually taller but prone to accidents; such as dropping 5000 bouncy balls or crashing a snowmobile into a greenhouse (destroying a crop of poisnettas and basically ruining Christmas). Hallie was also heavier, though not stronger. She was not a fat child, but still had the unfortunate build of an inflatable punching bag, one of the ones with a clown on it. Hallie was not the best choice for shouldering a young man with a chainsaw.

Lillian, most likely the ghost of a real 11-year-old, had the pale complexion of a molerat. She had the build of a life size poster. She often fell down with too many books in her backpack. She also wasn't very keen on the chainsaw art idea. The noise bothered her. She wore a large pair of airport traffic ear muffs.

Lillian was the only child who took any safety precautions. Cameron knew that the flying shards of wood could, forseeably, get in his eyes. No one had safety goggles so Cameron wore aviator sunglasses. He looked like, pretty much, like, the coolest 12-year-old ever.

Roland thought so. Roland was two years younger than the other children, but the only kid with a video camera. As such, despite his youth, Roland went to all the exclusive/dangerous events.

"Roland, you rolling?" Cameron shouted as he ripped the cord and started the chain.

Roland saw the world only through a camera LCD screen. He gave a thumbs up without looking up.

The work went well, at first. The branches fell with relative ease and minimal hazard. It was the trunk which caused the most problems. Carving a birch tree with a chainsaw isn't like carving soap with a pocket knife. Cameron had previously only whittled a small bird out of a large bar of soap. The bird showed promise, but it's difficult to make the carving leap from soap to wood. Especially when the wood is still a tree. Chainsaws are also different from swiss army knives. Something Cameron realized as the saw kicked back while refining the point of the egyptian monolith.

Zoe lost her balance and tripped over a cut branch. Cameron flew backwards with the saw raised high. Roland zoomed in. Lillian put her hands over her ear muffs. Hallie ate popcorn. Hallie brought enough popcorn for everyone but didn't share. She ate more popcorn as the danger intensified.

Cameron vaulted to his feet as the saw whirred and kicked dirt. The children looked around for blood or body parts. For the most part, no one was severely injured. Cameron decided to continue the mission.

"Thanks for your help, Zoe. I can take it from here." Cameron picked up the saw and attacked the trunk.

Zoe, tired and in desperate need of a soft chair, nodded, grabbed a handful popcorn, and slipped in line with the other children.

Cameron worked on the obelisk all afternoon, till the sky grew dark, and Roland had to adjust the aperture. The others grew very, very bored. The problem with an obelisk is that it looks like a stick. Cameron had chosen the ancient form for its simplicity, but even he had to admit that the finished piece was cut rate and uninspired.

At 7:30 the sun set behind the hill, and Cameron made the final cut in his masterpiece: the cut which caused the tree to fall directly onto the young lumberjack.

Roland shut the camera off, and went to help Zoe lift the burden. At 9-years-old Roland's strength was enough to lift a video camera, but not a tree. He would eventually grow into a large man with a rugged beard, looking just like his idols, Copella, Spielburg, and Lucus, back when they had beards and made good movies. For now, he was a scrawny boy helping a scrawny girl lift a tree.

The best Lillian could do was stand near the others and breath deeply on her inhaler. Hallie had left earlier to get more popcorn, and maybe a sandwich. Back at her house, she caught the end of a Law and Order and went to bed.

With the tree removed, Cameron was free to stand up and then fall down again. Zoe shouldered her brother again, this time back to the fort. The next day he would have a vertical bruise in the exact shape of an obelisk. He told his parents that he was walking through a house with loose board and one flipped up and hit him. His father did not believe him, but he had no other information. The chainsaw was never used again, and within the year Cameron had moved on to ice sclupting with a chissel and drimmel.

The day after Cameron's first ice sculpture exposition, his father went out for firewood to warm the house, which had previously been an ice sculpture studio. He tripped on a bare log in the middle of the woods.

Wiping the snow from his eyes, Cameron's father saw the obsticle that foiled him. It looked just like an obelisk.

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