At
first it was the smell, accompanied by a dry and noxious taste on the roof of
her mouth so immediate as to have her fear something inside the house
itself was burning. She left the bed unmade and was about to rush downstairs
when through the window she saw the smoke, a viscous inky black pouring into
the air from behind the railway bridge, from what she assumed would be the
little wooden shack she passed twice daily with the dog.
cog
(shouting): HOWARD!
Her
husband was downstairs.
cog:
HOWARD!
cog:
Yeah, what’s up?
cog:
Come up here a second. Come and
cog
(climbing stairs, entering bedroom): What’s the... Holy God what is that?
cog
(pointing to the old railway arch): Look. I think it might be the little hut
over behind the
cog:
Is the window... Ho God it smells like they’re burning bones.
The
following afternoon as she walked the alsation back across the field she found
a scrap of paper clinging to the damp mud, its spreading biro letters hemmed in
carbon:
“shaved a little of his leg and gave him
the injectio-
-ith him until it was all over. Dad said
that is was all ver-
-ting to it, looking behind the kitchen
door to see if looking for him in the kitchen. I half expected to”
Back
home she dried it out carefully and later that night without any real notion as
to why stapled it into her journal.
