*
Slushed rain clings to the limbs until they’re heaving with ice. When they break and
collapse it’s like hearing someone’s femur snap in half, entire forests which bend then lean, arms
spread to embrace a natural world that cannot give a damn.
“Hold it up higher, sweetie,” Agriss says to his daughter. The flashlight’s oval gyrates as
he puts on his snow-boots, cursing into laughter.
He falls down, and from the tile floor, cackles out something.
Marianne blank-eyed, to herself: “Mom is out of town.”
“What a piece—of a pair of boots,” hollers Agriss, then kicks them.
At this, Marianne rushes the kids out but returns with Celeste at her shoulder.
Agriss, snarling, turns to the two others: “Something’s wrong with my good boots. One
of you hasn’t been wearing them has you? . . .” Dolt and Forner answer No into the floor . . .
“Well good. These boots are made for men,” . . . Dark laughter. Agriss laughs alone. “Get on
your boots, ladies, what’s wrong with you?”
Outside, darkness ascends to a limitless height. Nothingness has a presence more
engulfing than all objects sometimes. But nothingness can never surpass the motion things
follow. The tiniest sound has more vigor than all nihility, the sun against a shadow. Each unseen,
silent power thrives at the perfect moment, through an exact object. Behind the things we touch,
waits a life you witness by hearing, gathered as the secret of living.
Tough work, this generator, rented for the winter, difficult enough to startup in daylight,
imagine now, in absolute dark, too much booze in their guts to keep steady.
Dolt Cameron does not understand his thoughts, his mind for finding what good can
come, a déjà vu gone up to screen and waiting for the untold things. Like how he can see flashes,
a soundless whir of instants, of moments just hours away. Like right now. He envisions later,
inside, after the light comes back on, Forner will be asleep in the bathtub and Agriss shivering
huddled on the guest room bed, mumbling, numb; the children will be draped into the floor
together, back-to-back under their blanket.
Dolt will awake and find Marianne on the couch, nursing. Dolt will look at Marianne, lift
his eyes, and between breaths he will remember what kind of nurse she is. That she spends her
days mending the incurable, though it’s a mend that carries on alongside you. She works in the
terminal ward. But watching her as she smiles and coos with Celeste, smiling, he won’t know
what to do. She will be the one who’s lighthearted; her laughter, her joy; she will glance up at
him by accident, notice his gaze, and return it with a smile—and so his face will be the one
covered from patches.
He will burp. She will pardon. “What’s it like, your job?” he asks.He will remember the
stories; Marianne at age nine, comforting her mother through DTs, and hiding bottles and
cigarettes but not able to find enough space; Marianne at 16, upper left arm branded by an angry
boyfriend’s cigarette; and a scar hidden over one of her ears that simply the mention of will
change the mood.
“It’s sad,” she says, “Sometimes, it’s too sad. You go home, you go home and you cry.
But that’s expected, isn’t it? Other days, it’s beautiful. You get to see, in a person’s eyes, see how
they’re replaying their life, how they’re ready for what’s next, how they decide to live, because
life is never over, it’s not over at the end,” her pale blue eyes drift off like clouds in sway, “Some
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