Page 35, Paragraphs 7 - 9; Page 36, Paragraph 1

Page 35, Paragraph 7:

"Today we're going up to the valley's edge," she says, "above the animal pen up on the hill. From there we can see the river valley and many other things."

Paragraph 8:

I put my penis back in my clothes. "Yes," I say, "this is good," and so forth, but I feel myself blush. She stands up to walk by the gate. The wind pulls at her long, bright hair, so that she has to pull the band of aurochs hide around it down tighter. It looks good, flying in the wind. "Come now," she says. "Come up to the valley's edge."

Paragraph 9:

[We go] between the reeds and through the thicket of trees, and now down in the wet mud, where the stumps are all black with rot. The girl follows a path in front of me, so that she doesn't step into the mud holes (neither do I, as I'm following her), and by this route we come up a big hill that runs up the valley's edge. Around us are stumps, and the open sky is above us. To the west is the hill with the building on it, where I can smell ox and pig and hear the noises they make, because the wind is coming from there toward me.

Page 36, Paragraph 1 (first full paragraph):

As the girl and I are walking up the hill, the wind makes many dried leaves run at us, all across the grass. End over end they come, very quickly, like many little animals running before a forest fire.

Page 35, Paragraphs 3 - 6; Note

Okay - time to stop playing with the widgets and start blogging again.

***

Page 35, Paragraph 3 (first paragraph after the break):

My feet and hands are cold now. I try to open my eyes but they're held shut with eye-snot*, which I now scratch off so I can open them better. Daylight has come, but it's a grey day. There are so many sky-beasts that they make one beast so big that it hangs across the whole sky. The old wind blows hard, and it howls here above the pigpen.

Paragraph 4:

Now I smell cooked fish. Now, apples. I smell flowers.

Paragraph 5:

"Come," she says, "here's some food. Where do you want to go today?"

Paragraph 6:

I eat the apples and the fish while she kneels quietly beside me. I stand up to take a piss. The old wind is so strong it carries the smell of my piss far away, so I can piss on the pigpen wall without being afraid that Hob will find me. My penis is big, but it gets smaller as the water comes out of it. I turn and see that the girl is looking at my penis and smiling.

*And what do you actually call that stuff, pray tell?

Off-Topic: Boogie With Bob; On-Topic: Page 34, Paragraphs 5 and 6; Page 35, Paragraphs 1 and 2

Posting kind of late tonight, but I don't mind - I had the pleasure of seeing the great Bob Dylan in concert, courtesy of my friend (and fellow blogger) Doug Smith. I have to admit, it was a much more rockin' show than I was expecting, heavy on the rockabilly- and blues-flavored numbers and light on the introspective acoustic ballads. Bob's current sepulchral vocal stylings take some getting used to, but once you do, it's really kind of a groove, especially on the more sarcastic and cynical numbers. All in all, a great show - I'd recommend seeing him if he rolls into your town. (Caveat emptor: Some familiarity with the Dylan oeuvre is advised, as Bob's reworkings of his old tunes can be pretty radical at times.)

***
Okay. Back to business.

Page 34, Paragraph 5 (first paragraph after the break):

Now another strange thing comes. I hear a noise, and know it's my mother, hopping on one foot through the trees to find me -I open my eyes to look at her but don't see her. There's only the pigpen, quiet in the dark, and the noise is coming from behind the wall with the gate in it. I stand up to walk to the wall in the light of the moon, which has climbed high in the sky while was unaware. Now I'm by the wall, and I look across it.

Paragraph 6:

All around the rise, the reeds have become white and sharp, like ice in the moonlight. Walking in the grass, bent over*, is Hob, and a boy walks by him. Like the moon and the reeds, they're white, and everything is white, and I see now that Hob's face isn't black anymore except where the black is rubbed dark into his eye-sockets, so he can't wash it away.

Page 35, Paragraph 1:

The boy walks by Hob, and the hair on his head is black and cut short. I see that he doesn't have hair on his chin or face, so I think he's even younger than me. Out of the reeds now, their white shapes walk up the rise to the little thicket of trees, and Hob walks hand in hand with the boy. The moonlight falls whitely on their backs and their asses, which go into the trees and turn into pieces in the blackness of the branches, where I see no more.

Paragraph 2:

For a long time I look at nothing, and now I sit back down in the hay. I think that boy is Hob's son. I think of my mother, leaning on the tree and saying, "Where did my foot go?" It's a strangeness of the dark. The dark makes it so we can see spirit-dogs and dead people. The hay is warm. The dark presses on my eyelids now, as I don't have the strength to hold them up. And warmth. And dark.


*the best I can do with "low to he's belly"