02-09-2022, 04:37 PM
“Can’t you. Really?” she asked. One more swing and hit to punctuate. Apparently Jude’s portents of coming badness failed to move her, and Near – a sliver of Near – warmed to the woman. Just a little. They fell on the same side of the Jude debate.
“You’ve had plenty of time to go anywhere else. Now you have to stay here.” Here: she arced the hammer wide over her head toward a canopy leaning in to listen. Behind her, her distorted shadow performed a blown-up parody of the same gesture.
Warmed or not, Near considered the strategic possibilities of bolting while her attention was on Jude, but he couldn’t bring himself to commit while visions of broken ankles danced in his head.
“It won’t take long.”
She plucked the avian offering from Jude’s hands and hefted it upward once, testing something: its weight, its deadness. One wing dangled below her hand and swung limply. Whatever she was doing, she seemed satisfied enough with the result to turn around and nestle it down at the feet of her pounded-in posts before swapping the hammer for something longer, sharper, curved, by which she began to string the dead thing up, stitching quick loops into feathers and out, tight around rebar and back through, one wing at a time until it hung outstretched between the poles in a grotesque imitation of flight, at which point she straightened, brushed detritus from her knees, and walked a wide circle around her project.
“Stand there,” she said, pointing with the needle toward the space directly in front of the bird.
“You’ve had plenty of time to go anywhere else. Now you have to stay here.” Here: she arced the hammer wide over her head toward a canopy leaning in to listen. Behind her, her distorted shadow performed a blown-up parody of the same gesture.
Warmed or not, Near considered the strategic possibilities of bolting while her attention was on Jude, but he couldn’t bring himself to commit while visions of broken ankles danced in his head.
“It won’t take long.”
She plucked the avian offering from Jude’s hands and hefted it upward once, testing something: its weight, its deadness. One wing dangled below her hand and swung limply. Whatever she was doing, she seemed satisfied enough with the result to turn around and nestle it down at the feet of her pounded-in posts before swapping the hammer for something longer, sharper, curved, by which she began to string the dead thing up, stitching quick loops into feathers and out, tight around rebar and back through, one wing at a time until it hung outstretched between the poles in a grotesque imitation of flight, at which point she straightened, brushed detritus from her knees, and walked a wide circle around her project.
“Stand there,” she said, pointing with the needle toward the space directly in front of the bird.