Page 43, Paragraphs 4 and 5; Note

Wow, I've really been slacking off on this blog. I'll try to do better in the future.

***

Page 43, Paragraph 4:

Now the poultry is all gone, and the sun, likewise, is gone from the sky. Now there's only darkness, and chewing on bones.

Paragraph 5:

Because there's nothing to see, I can hear the sounds of things better. The sound of a rat running across the hay of the pen. The sound of the river that says, "quick-lick, quick-lick, quick-lick" away in the dark. Now there comes a faraway noise like the settlers as they walk by the river. They're all laughing, and must be doing it loudly for me to hear them at all, because they're very far away. Far away, I can hear the high sound of someone blowing into a bone-pipe, and a drum beat, and they're singing, like the girl did to me. The wind comes and goes, so I can't hear all they're singing, but there's one song I hear.

Make a fire and make it hot
And bone he'll be, and bone he'll be
The path is long, but we are not,
And by the valley go we...*

There's more to the song, but the settlers go further downriver, so that there are many huts between them and I and I can't hear their song or their drums or their bone-pipes. Off downriver, the village's many fires make a little red light in the sky, up on a high, dark cloud [?]. I put one hand and then the other in my clothes, to cover up my penis and warm my hands, and I shut my eyes. There's nothing at all...

*I got the rhyme and cadence again, I think.

Page 42, Paragraph 8; Page 43, Paragraphs 1 - 3; Notes

I'm back. Hope everyone had a merry Christmas/happy Hanukkah/joyous Meán Geimhridh/whatever you chose to celebrate (or avoid celebrating).

***

Page 42, Paragraph 8:

This is better than I thought possible. She says we can leave in the early morning hours before dawn. She says, "If we're going to be walking far, it's probably a good idea to fill up our bellies before we do. I'll come back before dawn with more and better things to eat. We'll make our bellies full, after which we'll journey a long way off, just you and me."

Page 43, Paragraph 1 (first full paragraph):

She says, "I'm going to go now, because Hob will be back soon. One more night of lying in the pigpen, and then you'll sleep with me." She bends over and licks my cheek and my mouth. I lick her face back, where the taste of semen is strong, dried on her cheek. She stands and smiles. "Before dawn," she says, "we go out the gate, shut it, and go."

Paragraph 2:

The sun becomes low in the sky, and I eat the poultry* down to the bone. Hob's come back here, and I hear him and the girl whispering in the hut. Hob says something, and the girl laughs. That's good, because I think the girl wants Hob to [still] like her, so he doesn't think she's planning on going away and not coming to see him anymore.

Paragraph 3:

I smile at this. It's great that the girl can lie to Hob. If she's smart enough to do this, she'll be smart when it comes to foraging food and finding it for me. Through the reeds, across the river, the sun's become so big and low that its heat makes the world's edge smoke. The river's so still that I can look on the darkening of the other world there beneath the world there beneath the water, where another bird flies silently.**

*Probably chicken, but who knows? Maybe the girl went duck hunting or something.

**That's a beautiful little image, isn't it? I keep thinking about how much I'd like to teach this book - it's exemplary in so many ways.