Page 7, Paragraphs 4 - 7

What a sad story.

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Page 7, Paragraph 4:

"Hold on, Mother", I say. "Don't joke around with me. Our people are getting up and wanting to journey on. Get up, so we don't fall behind them". Now I rub my hand on her leg to hurry her up. She's as cold as stone, and fleas [or lice, or ticks] jump off of her.

Paragraph 5:

I say more loudly, "Get up!", and take hold of her and pull her and hit her. There's no strength in my hold and she falls down. The dots of light move from out of her eyes and hang on the trees. Her head is lying in a puddle, hair floating.

Paragraph 6:

I don't know how to help her. I jump on top of her and go to put my penis in her, so that it will make her warm and make her move. Her legs are hard and crossed at the knees. I'm not strong enough to open them, and my penis is flaccid. I lie it against her belly hair and push and push. Her head moves in the puddle. Her belly hair is cold and she smells different. I push and push.

Paragraph 7 (ends at the top of page 8):

A man from our tribe comes now and pulls me off of her. He says I'm a shit and tries to hit me; I run a little ways off, beneath the trees. Now a lot of people come around my mother. They pull her head from the puddle and say, "She's cold", "She's not breathing", and so forth. Now our wise man [or shaman] comes there and sits by my mother. He's wearing a feather belt that must make his ass itch, because he scratches it constantly.


PS I won't be posting tomorrow as I have to work all day.

Page 7, Paragraphs 1 - 3; Note

We now return you to our regularly scheduled blog post.

Page 7, Paragraph 1 (first full paragraph):

I think of my mother hitting my legs, and now I'm thinking of lying by her and everything being good. The back of my big head lies on dirt which feels gritty and dusty. It prickles on the skin of my head through my baby hair, which is as thin as that on a berry. My mouth is full of breast milk that hangs in strings around my tongue, and I don't want to go anywhere or be anywhere else.

Paragraph 2:

I'm inside blanket-skins, by my mother, warm in her smell, and can smell sour-root on her breath. She is big and I'm as little as one of the [Urk-kine*].

Paragraph 3:

Now I have another thought, where I become big and my mother is smaller. We are beneath trees. It's sunrise and I open my eyes and see my mother, sitting with her back against a white-wood tree. Little bits of light fall on her face and on her eyes through the branches above us and she doesn't move or look away from it. I say, "Mother, get up," but she doesn't make a move. Her eyes fill up with light. I'm frightened.

*Note: I'm not real clear on what Urk-kine means. Kine means "kind". The narrator discusses them on page 12:

I is hear say as many markings is that old as they is make by Urks and people of that kine in big ice-whiles. Now Urk-kine is no more in world, yet many say they little people is in low of hill, deep of they caves, and hide for catch of we above.

So they appear to be some kind of tiny race of subterranean beings, like hobbits or dwarves or something. Maybe Urk-kine means "Earth-kind". If anyone has a better guess, please feel free to comment.

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Did anyone listen to Neil Gaiman yesterday? I thought it was kind of interesting. They actually talked about Alan Moore, albeit very briefly.