More than that, though, the trees grew up like the earth’s own thick hairs – unkempt, unfettered. Cattails like whiskers filled in the low areas. And from every direction, the rot of the earth’s flesh puckered his nostrils.
For now though, there was a hitch in my gate, a stutter in my stride. I moved like a broken automaton, a machine aware of the hows of survival but unaware of the whys of survival. I pulled my lips back from my teeth, licked my lips, and repeated that motion five times to loosen up the muscles that allow such an facial expression.
He would sit there, with his tight frown, his pent-up bowels, his shoulders narrow again like a boy’s, his paper-thin skin shaking and he’d wait.
Would you beat Old Franky like a rented mule rather than just let Old Franky be Old Franky?
As I got closer to the door, I thought less of the thing on the other side and more about the flow of light – the way it cascades like water in undulous, radiative motion. The way it comes, brilliant, from a source, and spreads like the rays of the Sun King’s crest – a halo of crespuscular rays.