Shimmer - Issue Number Fifteen by Shimmer

Author:Shimmer [Shimmer]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 0000000000000
Publisher: Unknown
Published: 2012-10-05T04:00:00+00:00

Come the next morning, the apple he had left for the angel was gone. Gray clouds gathered overhead, threatening rain. The angel sat cross-legged and gazed up at the sky. The clouds were fast-moving. They seemed to swell close to the earth and then recede. Childer made coffee and took a cup of it out to the back porch. The wind was high, the coffee hot and sweet. A brown bird perched on the packed earth in the garden. Childer could tell it was a mockingbird when it took flight; the fine white bars that marked its feathers stood out against the sullen sky. It seemed to rise and rise, till Childer could not see it. It loosed a single, insensible cry.

“Should be moving on for the winter, anyway,” Childer said aloud. He glanced at the angel. “If I built a coop I could keep some, maybe through any season. Have to get a manual on it for next year.”

The angel said nothing. It inclined its head. Its eyes were a light shade almost like seawater, suspended between blue and gray. The cashier’s tattoo had been that color. Like a bruise in the shape of a star.

“Hard to keep them warm, though,” Childer said. “Same with the plants. I try all the tricks they say on the radio. Garden shows. Still lose a few come that first freeze or a hard storm. Some people’ve got a knack for it, I guess, that I don’t have.”

The angel blinked. The vines it had produced were climbing the wall. They bore large, dark, insistent leaves. They clutched at the garden fence as well. On the ground, small white flowers had sprung up in clusters like weeds. They grew even over the graves of the boys, where the soil was loose and new. The angel seemed unaware of the effect it was having.

“Reckon we’ll see what makes it through the winter,” Childer said. He returned to the kitchen, placed his coffee cup in the sink. In the base of the cup some fine slough of sugar remained. He tilted the cup; the sugar took on a shape. Continent-like, a mass of land. In his mind he mapped the contours of it. A private country. A moment later he twisted the tap and washed the whole of it away.

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