The Orphan of Salt Winds by Elizabeth Brooks

Author:Elizabeth Brooks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Epub3
Publisher: Tin House Books

Virginia wasn’t intending to use violence. All she meant to do was fetch her nail scissors from the dressing table and snip through one of the wires to make the telephone impotent. And then, since she was passing the wretched thing on her way to the bedroom, it seemed simpler—less destructive, in fact—to unhook it from the wall and hide it.

The trouble is, it won’t unhook. She’ll need a screwdriver, and even then she’ll have a job, because the screws are fiddly small and rusty and difficult to get at. She tries to unplug the cord but it won’t budge, so she yanks at it, first with one hand and then, instinctively, with two, growling through her teeth as her walking stick falls to the floor.

The cord rips apart, leaving bits behind in the socket, and now Virginia begins to grapple with the rest of the machine, tearing at the casing, the dial, the wires. She snags several of her nails, but she doesn’t care. The telephone creaks and pings and rattles; bits of plastic crack under her hands and skitter across the floor; wires spray from broken fibers; plaster tumbles off the wall. The phone is unrecognizable by the time she’s finished: a mutilated corpse still screwed to the wall, with its spilling entrails frozen in midair.

Virginia stumbles backward and leans against the opposite wall to see what she’s done. There’s the sound of the kitchen tap gushing: thank God the girl didn’t witness this. Virginia covers her eyes with her crooked hands. A moment ago she wanted to laugh with elation, but now she wants to cry quietly, with someone’s arms around her.

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