In Darkness, In Light


She was sitting that afternoon on the swing her father had made for her with sturdy rope and a plank of oak five years earlier. Above her Cicadas sang in the August heat, and she seemed able to understand a little of their song, she thought. Something about a kingdom in a far and distant land. And then the meaning slipped away in the rising monosyllabic clatter. She cocked her head a little.

She felt the vibration first. A slight back-folding of the air around her hands that held the ropes firmly, and then its ripple across her face. A car was approaching on the dirt and gravel road that passed by the boundary of the property fifty yards away. Had you been standing in front of her watching, you would have seen her eyes focus straight ahead, as if the vehicle was rattling in from the south field instead of from her right where the road came up the contour of the hill from Amerysville, five miles away. And even before the sound of it reached her, she knew the vehicle rattled. The vibrations told her as much.

She leaned forward slightly and let her heels dig into the soft dirt beneath her, and then she came to a stop, holding tight, still, to the ropes. She turned her head slightly and shifted her eyes right, though there was no logical reason to do it. Sighted people did this to direct their ears, as if by seeing the road, the ears could better pinpoint the precise location of the sound, or align the senses into a clearer picture. But there was no picture in her mind, clear or otherwise, because she’d been blind since birth.

Now the distinct sound of gravel being shoved sideways, being crunched beneath tires, grew louder. She focused. No, this wasn’t Grandpapa’s old ’65 Chevy pickup, nor was it Reverend Palladin’s Nova. It was a car, though, she was certain, judging from the evenness of the engine and the lighter clanking of its carriage. It came to the crown of the hill a hundred yards away, passed over, and then slowed as it descended, nearing the front drive. The car came to a labored stop with a drawn-out screech of the brakes. She waited and concentrated, and then the door on the far side opened. Someone stepped out.

It was a man. His footsteps were heavier than Mother’s or Auntie Jule’s, or even Grandpapa’s for that matter, and now he was approaching her. Her instincts told her to run, yet she hesitated, and then suddenly it was too late.

“Mother?” she whispered. But she knew.

The Cicadas sang louder. A breath of cooling breeze descended from behind her out of the north. The sound of heavy rope on the thick branch—the slightest of creaks—all of this fell upon her a second before the stranger halted two or three feet in front of her. Anna Patchett’s heart raced. For the first time in her life she felt absolutely isolated. He stood motionless, she knew. Staring. Silent. She wondered, would he strike her first? Long seconds passed that were eternity as these and a thousand other thoughts bombarded her head; shrapnel from her exploding heart.

From Raphael LeMere’s vantage point there was a marvelous and simplistic beauty in this child. Her hair was auburn; trimmed short, just below the lobes of her ears--this to facilitate its care, certainly not for beauty. It shown in the afternoon sunlight...

To be continued…

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Texte: (c) Patrick Sean Lee, 2012
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 04.05.2012

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