Issue 3 - Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art

cloth from a New York mill, the colors twisted and integrated
into patterns that boggled our eyes, loops and
curliques and spirals which did not begin before they
ended, and radial fibers and fingers and paths—a
handkerchief with many coins in it, gold and silver and
copper. He spread all of this out on the small table,
which we had not well cleared of crumbs; and we
gathered around to watch.
He looked at our baby, but he was not much interested
in him; he was interested in our stove. We
needed that stove, we told him, we could not buy
another for so much as he would pay us. He shrugged;
then he was interested in the rifle on the wall.
We let him take it down and look at it.
Oh, believe us, we were living in the country then;
we knew the back roads and path to the waterwell, the
nearest neighbor's house, the bark of trees in autumn,
the swollen mud of creek-banks. We saw the leaves
turned yellow on our own roof; we saw the rabbit skirting
the wood, his tail pumping the air like a lever handle
as he ran. We had a dog that slept and would chase
rabbits, and now we had a baby. What did we know of
the rifle that hung on the wall, but that Uncle Tinthorn
had placed it there? We were pleased: we grabbed the
antique buyer by the armpit part of the arm and pulled
him out from beneath the chandelier; we sat him down;
we found some bourbon, would he like some bourbon?
We would pour him some bourbon.
It was boring living in the country.
Dust turns into dust; all the drugs in our bathroom
cabinet were stale; the water tasted of rust; the neighbor
borrowed our rake; then it rained. We went for trips
into town; we brought things back for our house; we
spent too much; we quarreled; our females had cramps,
and our males looked at them pityingly. Our dog liked
every kind of food we offered him; he romped in the
yard; it was cool at dusk; we threw things to him; we
wormed him; he survived and survived. We sat on the
porch; we were dying in the country, ha ha! Then it
rained.
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We noticed it, and closed the windows all the way,
so the curtains wouldn't get wet.^We drank bourbon
with the stranger. He wanted ice. We had no ice; we
were sorry. He would buy the gun. Oh, yes, we were
interested in selling that gun; how much would we take
for it?: we dont know. It grew cold in the house with the
stars coming out . . . why did he want ice? there, there
was our ice, in the black sky. The antique buyer left
everything on the table and he walked out with the
musket. We did not want to put the record back on
while he might still be near. It had stopped raining as he
stepped outside.
It did not happen immediately. Perhaps we
thought it would not happen if it did not happen immediately;
perhaps that was the fairy-light thought in our
minds; perhaps each second that raced away leaving
only echo relieved us more than the last, and the last—
but we could have known, and must have known in the
anchor of our mind, that it would not happen like
that—it would happen later. How long did it take? we
could not say: we sat motionless until the chandelier
fell. We could have come alive, we thought. We went outside
and stood in the still wet grass to watch: Tasha held
the baby; Christina sat on a log; her thin dress grew
damp where and beyond where it touched the greysoaked
wood, mostly barkless, stretched across the
ground across tufts like fists and fingers of weeds.
Tasha turned the baby on her hip, rocking and rocking
through a slight angle, watching the house, Christina,
then the baby, tucking its blanket. Bowler's hand burst
from his red hair—he threw up his hand—then he let it
drop to his side. Lamont, Lamont squatted, squatted
and balanced with one hand; and stood and idled
around; and lost attention, then returned attention to
the house. Raymond stood looking at the house.
Therese, so young, legs like wings in retirement, thin,
looked through her always soft eyes at the house. And
the house began to fall.
We could have come alive, but this is fun to watch.
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