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Mary O. R. Paddock |
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Jack's House Over the sands, east of Goole, rose the red sun. Further inland, errant owls, late, late, late winged to trees, tucking deep into boughs, shutting firmly round gold eyes, bellies full of rats, voles, Luna moths. The rats who survived the night's hunt, farmers traps, foxes and cats, took up their sleep in the crawl spaces of the farm house, tails twirled round haunches, over noses, full of Jack's corn. Jack's woman was curled into him. A blood and bone spooning. He watched her eyes pulse beneath lids as she dreamt. Off and gone, afield somewhere no doubt, her body unattended; up for the grabbing by any entity. She was full only of him and their child. Still a speck, she told him yesterday, but a speck with legs and wings (no fingers yet) and a sleeping mind. He could hear them, owl, rats, cats, foxes and woman, winged child breathing. All of them soulless husks. Yes. That was what he meant. Soulless. Sleep was an absence of soul, a light out in the attic and nobody home. He knew--death entered a little more with each dawn, just before the waking. Crept in so's nobody'd notice it, catch it and stop it. Not bold, death--but a weasel prowling. It took its time, but it came in all the same. He couldn't abide it. He might not be able to keep the rat from the corn, but he could keep death who never slept, never emptied out, from his husk and hers. So he lay, eyes open, guarding the woman, the rats, the cats and the owls. A few more hours and he could rest. Not sleep, but rest. Milk the cows, feed the pigs, start the tractor. Break the soil. Seed the furrows. Watch the sun until dusk. Ready himself. Hurry child, he thought, his own hand cupping round her still so small round abdomen. I need help out here. I need a son to carry the lantern out to the barn, wake the cows, call the woman back from where ever she goes. I am emptied and poured out with this. A few miles off, the sun took the beach at Goole, no longer red. His alarm went off. Rest. Now. At last. [Index] |
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Thunder Sandwich #26 - Summer/Fall 2005 |
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