Cut to Care by Aaron Dries

Author:Aaron Dries
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: IFWG Publishing International
Published: 2022-04-22T04:01:24+00:00

Moonlight carved the bedroom into light and dark with the precision of a blade. A ticking clock somewhere, crickets. Miranda tossed and turned.

CRACKING ICE CUBES. CHEWED PENCILS. TIN BETWEEN TEETH.

The night was long. It was like she could feel time pushing back on her. Trying to crush her. And there had been no dreams to wake from because there had been no sleep to begin with. Only aches and hurts, sweats despite the chill.

I give up.

Miranda thumped the pillow. Was it full of rocks herded from the shore and not the duck feathers mentioned in the promotional material? Sure seemed that way.

Why should I be surprised? Nothing listed in the pamphlets reflects the experience I had today. ‘Enjoy nature and serenity,’ it said. ‘A respite from the modern world,’ it said.

What a crock of shit.

Miranda buried her face in her hands. The camera called.

She swung out of bed, feet brushing uneven floorboards that creaked when she crossed the room. The dark in the adjoining kitchenette/living room had no depth, as she imagined Lula Bell Lake to be. Her eyes adjusted to make out the cabin’s architecture by the time Miranda reached the coffee table. Shadows danced in the periphery of her vision, something scuttling just out of sight.

Miranda picked up the NEX-3. Before switching it on, she chanced a look out the bay windows. Lula-Bell was dead calm, fog blurring the line between horizon and sky. No stars. The lake didn’t so much fill the landscape as create an absence in it.

The camera’s ON/OFF dial under Miranda’s thumb. Flicked it. It whizzed, screen flashing. Brightness made her squint, pain behind her temples. It was worth the discomfort, that terrible glare. There would be no sleep until she reviewed what had been captured. Because this was why she was here. This was why she’d come. To catch beauty by the wings and pin the moment for display like a butterfly on a board. Only this butterfly wasn’t dead. Miranda swore she could still hear it screaming.

(Help! Help! Help me! God! God, no—)

She lifted the camera. Ready.

The first photo was the last one she’d taken: a police car heading in the direction of Long Swamp Bay. It wasn’t a spectacular shot, kind of sloppy. The shutter speed dragged those taillights into ruby squiggles that made Miranda think of doctor’s signatures as they signed off prescriptions for the ‘ines’. Her heartbeat raced. CRACKING ICE CUBES. CHEWED PENCILS. TIN BETWEEN TEETH. CRACKING ICE CUBES. CHEWED PENCILS. TIN BETWEEN TEETH. She trembled, inched closer to the display. Looked closer.

Closer.

The naked, bloodied pilot stood in the corner of the frame against a chorus-line of trees. Alive. And she was staring straight into the lens.

Wind rustled inside Miranda. It was laced with ice shards that speared her lungs and frosted her breath. Pain twisted in her guts again, harder this time.

“Oh, fuck.”

Water slid across the cabin floor and gushed between her toes. Lula-Bell had opened one of its veins and bled just for her. Miranda smelled its stink and was repulsed.

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