His name was Big Nick Kingdom and he carried an axe big enough to split a house in twain. When he died on account of that woman, falling off down the cliff at the edge of town, he dropped so hard and fast he broke right through the riverbed, rocks and sand and all. As though the impact on the water and the water itself didn’t do a thing to slow him down. As though the sand and the sludgy viscid mud below it and the stones below that didn’t do a thing to slow him down. Heavy as lead his body knifed down through the river from that great height and split the earth below it, the river, with an ear-shattering crack. Then there was a great suck and the river downstream, past the break, reversed course and came flooding back, emptying itself into the crevice. Within minutes the river had vanished and the rocks and pebbles of the riverbed, glistening in the sudden sun and heat, began to dry.
She walked swiftly out of town, down through the forest, past the hoary hemlocks, the light fading by the time she made it to the river and the sky lit up all purple and pink and red. She had loved him, and he her, so she had thought. But then that woman had come between them and over it all went, quite literally.
No comments:
Post a Comment