The Animals by Cary Fagan

Author:Cary Fagan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Book*hug Press
Published: 2022-08-17T22:32:44+00:00

2 14 3

Bail

For the next week, Dorn did little but work on the burning house. The vivid dream about Ravenna gave him an urgent need to get out of his own head, and the only way he knew how was through his hands.

The mysterious commissioner had given him licence to do as he pleased. He had decided that all the windows would be dark or curtained except for three, one per floor.

On the first floor an old man would be sitting in an undershirt and boxer shorts at his kitchen table. He would be playing the solitary card game Ramet while drinking a glass of ale. On the second floor the window would show a bathroom. He imagined old plumbing, with a raised enamel tub and tile walls. A child would be in the tub, its face and shoulders visible above the bubbles, one hand holding a toy boat.

The third-floor attic window — that would be the room on fire.

He had never worked so many hours or with such concentration. By the end of each day his eyes stung from looking through his magnifier. His back ached from hunching over. Each night he fell asleep instantly, not to wake again until daylight and without any lingering dreams.

One morning, opening the front door to fetch the newspaper, he glanced up at a house across the way and saw a row of small faces staring at him through an upstairs window. The faces bobbed up and down, got pushed aside, and appeared again. He was pretty sure they were otters. He remembered that his neighbour had a small pool taking up his whole back garden, the kind with a powerful current that allowed a person to swim continuously while remaining in place. He could only imagine what the otters made of that.

Even while working harder, Dorn kept up his habit of going to the Happy Café. Ravenna still didn’t show. He found it difficult to read Vordram, especially as he had entered that long section, known colloquially as “the abyss from which no student returns,” in which the Woodcutter falls into an unfathomably deep hole. As he falls, the reader is given a series of darkness similes that continues for almost two thousand lines.

Needing a break, Dorn picked up a discarded newspaper and found an article he had missed in the morning.

Wild Home Animal Project — Success or Failure?

There is no longer doubt that the people of our community have embraced with genuine enthusiasm the idea of living alongside wild animals. Conservative estimates put the number of registered homes at thirty-five percent, and while some of those have not yet received an animal due to the high demand, most are already living with one and sometimes a flock, gaggle, or swarm.

“We believe it’s because of the children,” says the village mayor, Lorkiin. “We did not count on the influence they would have on their parents. Kids these days are engaged and knowledgeable. They know all about climate change, pesticide damage, and poaching. Our children hold the key to the future of this planet.

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