I.
The woman sleeps in the basement. Tools line the shelves: pliers, a hammer, and a socket wrench. Two-by-fours stretch across the workbench at odd angles. Beneath the bench, a bird’s nest sits in a drawer upon the floor, two small eggs inside: one blue, one speckled. Wires from the drywall, naked and menacing, fall about the bed like a curtain. A single bulb hangs from a string. A web stretches across a corner where the light cannot reach; an empty mantis carcass dangles within.
She sleeps on her side, her back to the workbench, her long, white hair across the dusty pillow. Her body jerks. She has stopped herself from falling.
II.
The girl is no more than eight, small for digging such a big hole. Her long blonde hair hangs about her tanned face. She tucks a vagrant strand behind her ear with a sand-crusted hand. It is summer. The sun beats down. But the girl doesn’t care. She is at the beach, and she is digging a hole just out of range of the tide. The red plastic shovel plunges in and scoops out the sand. All the while she sings: I’m on my way running. I’m on my way running. Looking toward me is the edge of the world. And I’m trying to reach it! The edge of the world is not far away. I’m on my way running. Soon, the top of her head disappears in the hole. The sun arcs across the cloudless sky. The girl emerges no longer a girl and climbs from the hole, her mons shadowing her thighs as she walks across the beach, then through the desert. Muscles boil beneath keening skin.
III.
She slips into the window well and pries open the pane. She lowers herself through, stepping onto the workbench. Her eyes scan the basement. Springing to the floor like a cat, she grabs the speckled egg and gulps it down. Her bare feet pad over stray boards and rusty nails. She stops before the woman on the bed, stares into her shuttered eyes. Slowly, she takes the woman’s hand and holds it to her face. They are almost identical. The girl closes her own eyes, pressing her lips to those of the woman. They stay like that, taking in each other’s breath.
The woman raises her other hand, waves as if calling to someone or something. It’s then the exposed wires snake about them, crossing back and forth. The woman and the girl remain fixed there, caught in each other’s embrace, as the bulb burns out.
About the author:
Peter Grandbois is the author of The Gravedigger (Chronicle Books, 2006), a Barnes and Noble “Discover Great New Writers” and Borders “Original Voices” selection as well as the hybrid memoir, The Arsenic Lobster (Spuyten Duyvil 2009). His second novel, Nahoonkara, is forthcoming from Etruscan Press. His essays and short fiction have appeared in magazines such as: Boulevard, Post Road, Gargoyle, and The Writer’s Chronicle, among others, and received an honorable mention for the 2007 Pushcart Prize. He serves as associate editor for Narrative magazine and is a professor of creative writing and contemporary literature at California State University in Sacramento.
