WHEN NIGHT FALLS ON A LONGER THAN USUAL DAY BUT SLAVE CAN’T GET INTO IT,
he does what he sometimes does and tiptoes to the closet that houses the Bethany costume, which Eye compels him to wear when people like Stan knock on the door trying to track him down.
It’s a non-standard thing to wear now, when the only knocks on the door are ones nobody wants to answer, but Eye is deep in his stupor and Slave can’t sleep and wants to see the Infanta, so …
It’s a non-standard thing to wear now, when the only knocks on the door are ones nobody wants to answer, but Eye is deep in his stupor and Slave can’t sleep and wants to see the Infanta, so …
BETHANY STANDS IN THE STREET BETWEEN THEIR TWO HOUSES,
in the zone that isn’t quite waking or dreaming, but a place she shares only with the Infanta, a place they will, a few years from now, wish and wish they could get back to.
The memory of having been Slave feels ancient, like a version of the world that some creating spirit considered and rejected, or shunted onto a distant planet, opting instead to release Bethany and the Infanta with a picnic lunch into an Alpine Meadow scored by larks.
That’s where they are now, tramping through grass in a day bright not with sun but with something else – a light that only shines on times like these and without which all such times would be dark.
The grass comes up to their shins and they worry about ticks, but only enough to keep moving, their nostrils open to a freshness that bears no relation to the smell of their town. The meadow is flat as far as they can see, but they know there are mountains hidden behind haze in the distance.
The prosciutto and wine in their picnic basket rattles like two small animals in a cage. They sit in the grass and share a pomegranate, cracking it open and counting its seeds.
The seeds are so beautiful they hate to eat any. So as to never run out, they spit some onto the ground and press them in, feeling new pomegranates take shape beneath them.
There is thorough peace for an instant.
The memory of having been Slave feels ancient, like a version of the world that some creating spirit considered and rejected, or shunted onto a distant planet, opting instead to release Bethany and the Infanta with a picnic lunch into an Alpine Meadow scored by larks.
That’s where they are now, tramping through grass in a day bright not with sun but with something else – a light that only shines on times like these and without which all such times would be dark.
The grass comes up to their shins and they worry about ticks, but only enough to keep moving, their nostrils open to a freshness that bears no relation to the smell of their town. The meadow is flat as far as they can see, but they know there are mountains hidden behind haze in the distance.
The prosciutto and wine in their picnic basket rattles like two small animals in a cage. They sit in the grass and share a pomegranate, cracking it open and counting its seeds.
The seeds are so beautiful they hate to eat any. So as to never run out, they spit some onto the ground and press them in, feeling new pomegranates take shape beneath them.
There is thorough peace for an instant.
THEN THEY LOOK UP
to see a mare collapse on her side, a smile on her face.
She heaves her last and her belly splits open and thirty horse heads spill out. Thirty more are stuffed in so tightly they don’t budge. They’re all she has in her.
Bethany and the Infanta wait to see if anything else is about to happen. When it doesn’t, they put their pomegranate husks down and pick up four horse heads apiece, black and red as slick seeds.
They dig in the soft dirt until eight holes appear, deep enough to plant the heads in a row on top of the pomegranate seeds they’ve already planted.
When they’ve covered them over, they lean back against the mare, who smells like clean, toned leather, and open their wine and prosciutto, savoring the complementary aromas.
They wait for their eight horse trees to grow with the patience of two people semi-certain that where they are is outside of time.
She heaves her last and her belly splits open and thirty horse heads spill out. Thirty more are stuffed in so tightly they don’t budge. They’re all she has in her.
Bethany and the Infanta wait to see if anything else is about to happen. When it doesn’t, they put their pomegranate husks down and pick up four horse heads apiece, black and red as slick seeds.
They dig in the soft dirt until eight holes appear, deep enough to plant the heads in a row on top of the pomegranate seeds they’ve already planted.
When they’ve covered them over, they lean back against the mare, who smells like clean, toned leather, and open their wine and prosciutto, savoring the complementary aromas.
They wait for their eight horse trees to grow with the patience of two people semi-certain that where they are is outside of time.