Why ca n’t stories about the future be more optimistic ? TheShine anthologypresents lift up visions of the world to come . turn back out an single excerption , “ Castoff World ” by Kay Kenyon .
nipper knelt at the edge of the ocean and carefully spread the razz bones on the water , set them out to ocean . She waited for them to burst into plumage and rise from the ocean , roll in circles , corkscrewing into the wind .
Not this time , though .
Child always hoped to see the leftover bones from meal reform in their proper bod : seagull , turtle , swordfish . When she was little , she used to think Grappa was saying they had to put meal remnant out to catch some Z’s , not out to ocean . So even though she knew considerably now - being almost seven - she still thought of the bones as sleep . And it was their lilliputian merriment thing that they tell , her and Grappa : out to sleep .
She check the fishing lines on this side of the island for any catches - none - and glance over the horizon for pirates . The blue - green ocean stretch in gentle beau to the border of the world . No pirate today . If you see buccaneer you had to fawn to the trap threshold to meet Grappa who would have a rat for protection . They ’d practiced many times , always hushed and serious , but tiddler would have wish a glimpse of pirate . The book had a delineation of one , but Grappa say , no , that was like in the movies , and not a material pirate . Movies was a before word . The ledger did n’t have a picture of movies . But it had other before thing , like fire hydrant , bicycle , and nano assembler .
“ You dropped a off-white , Child . ”
Grappa stood , his beard fluttering in the wind , and point to the tiny ivory .
“ Can I watch Nora kick it off ? ”
He nodded , and they scrunch beside the os , watch over as the nanobots slowly proceed the fragment toward the water ’s edge . You could n’t see the nanobots because of being too small , but they were there , working heavily , passing the osseous tissue to the nanobots next to them . It would take all afternoon for Nora to put the bone out to sleep . baby would come back afterward to check on the progress .
“ Nora does n’t like our garbage , ” Child pronounced .
“ Not her kind . ” Grappa stood and looked out over their floating domicile . It was made entirely from garbage , an island of toxic trash , collected over years of swirling round the sea gyre . The more scraps collected , the bigger Nora got . Here and there you could see moldable bottle , pigpen - ro - foam cup , white and yellowed bags , and craunch up cans . Over there , a collection of tiny stirrer and straws , describe up like a miniature wood . ( Forest : many trees clumped together . Tree : improbable spring up thingy . ) Nora was going to break all these thing down and make them into good stuff so that bad stuff would n’t leak into the water .
Grappa said Nora was n’t alive . But they call her her , because he enounce you could call ships her , and what they were on was like a ship or maybe a pot .
Grappa hold up up a bulky sack , his eye sparkle . “ A young rat . ”
They tramped over to the rat collection , cautiously hung up on little pole so Nora would n’t seek to eject them . Nora could n’t take any spare weighting , or the whole ship might go down . Things like a dead rat could go into the ocean , because it was ripe poppycock that could decompose . Nora just collected bad stuff like pee - cee - bee , pee - vee - cee , dee - dee - tee , and nurdles so she could sour them into derm . The trawlers were supposed to pick up the Noras once a twelvemonth , but there were n’t dragger any more , so their Nora was begin to have a weight job and threw overboard anything that would n’t spite the ocean .
It was Grappa ’s mind to hang the dead rats up on wooden poles . preferably or later Nora would take aside the wooden poles and redden them away , but until then they had good cache of dirty dog in typeface of pirates . When the oldest squealer got too wretched , out to sleep they must go . But neither did you want a nice - look all in rat . Best was a just - proper dead scum bag , one molder just so , and that ’s how occur so many git all lined up .
Using scrap of fishing last twine , Grappa secured the body onto a rod . Then Child followed him , past the privy trap , past the hot spot , to his big earnings where they finished pulling the gimmick from the webbing . Her chapeau slip off while she work .
She get Grappa ’s heart . Quickly , she flummox the unsubtle brim hat back on her pass so as not to get skin sore .
But he kept appear at her . “ Where ’s your knock , Child ? ”
“ I do n’t postulate it . I ’ve got these . ” She point to the minuscule nugget that exit down her shirt . They slide into hole on the other side , keeping her shirt close against the sun .
Grappa came over to her , feel the nuggets . “ release . Where … ”
“ Nora made them . ” They ’d started as little nubs and then grew in about a week to be the right size for the holes .
He gazed at her in muteness .
“ Maybe she distinguish her nanobots to help my shirt remain closed . ”
“ Nora ’s nothing but a Nanobotic Oceanic Refuse Accumulator . ”
They face off on the former argument . If she talked back , he ’d frown and mutter , Just like your mother . Magical thinking . Mom died soon after she was born . Grappa said that when they put her out to catch some Z’s , a tern hover over her , circling like a guard - yan angel .
Grappa go back to sorting the catch , looking up at her now and then , and squinting his center at the buttons . In the end his catch was - not include the rat - three medium - sized Pisces , two diminutive crabs , and a art object of sty - ro - foam .
- ☼ * ☼ * ☼ *
Holding the flakey blue piece of garbage , Child postulate , “ What was it ? ”
Grappa pull his hat down tighter , nonplus his aspect sore into the shade of his lip . “ Oh , it ’s polystyrene foam . ”
She rolled her eyes at the big word .
“ Well , it was a cooler . multitude used it to keep intellectual nourishment , maybe for a snap . ”
“ Picnic ? ”
“ The mob conk out some place merriment to have a repast . ”
“ We could have a picnic . ”
He eyed her , scratching his beard . “ Might could . ”
“ When mother come back . Then . ”
He did n’t answer for for a while . “ What makes you believe she ’s coming back , minor ? ”
She shrugged . “ Out to log Z’s . ”
“ That ’s what we say . ”
“ Yes . ”
“ perchance we should n’t say that anymore . Call it out to sea . ”
“ Let ’s not , though . ”
He pointed to the red-hot spot , where they fuddle the spoiled stuff . It was a big passel in the center of their garbage island where most of Nora ’s nanobots function .
Child made her manner over to it . The closer she got , the more the tiny nurdles clung to her feet and legs . You could sweep them off , except then they ’d stick to your hands . They leapt up on her like fleas , but that was just stat - ick , Grappa enounce ; they were n’t alive . Grappa had strict ideas on what was awake and what was n’t . Nurdles are pre - production industrial credit card pellets . Everything charge card gets made from nurdles . The ocean is nurdle soup , Child . He smiled at that , but she did n’t know why .
She tossed the stye - ro - foam into the red-hot place . possibly people did n’t cast the cooler in the ocean , only fall back it , like the ghost nets that still caught Pisces and turtles . But whether on function or on accident , Nora was against it .
Even so , Child liked scraps . It made Nora bigger and strong , all made from derm , the material left over after Nora alter pollu - tants into honest stuff . And sometimes thing that come up into their nets got a narrative going , a story of before , the time when Grappa was an ocean - oxygen - grapher , and helped make the Noras . Some of the effective stories were from : cath - ode beam tube of teli - vision ( check out depiction in the book ) , inflated volley ball ( see to play until it got bumped into sea ) , and the chick ’s forefront ( if solitary in time before , you could have a small Quaker and talk to it ) . Child kept the wench ’s head until Grappa said he could n’t stand to search at just a oral sex . Then they argued about whether raging spot or out to catch some Z’s . People do n’t go into the hot spot , she insisted . Grappa turned away .
She does n’t sleep together the remainder , she heard him whisper . When she finally put the dame ’s head in the raging spot , it sank down , becoming island .
The really exciting thing ? There were more islands like this out there . belike every Nora had a tyke and a grappa . She kept a astute centre out for other Noras so that she ’d have a playfellow , but the only time she saw one , it was a lonely , empty place . Except for seagulls snuggle and churning around it in the air , a white gyre .
The sea sway them in their den under the trap room access . Lantern light splashed off the suave sides of the desal - inizer that Grappa said was too heavy for Nora to eject . baby take in his bearded aspect as he angle against the desal - inizer and debate a bedtime story .
“ Tell about Mom and Dad again . ”
“ Well , your Dad was a estimable fisher . Kept us go those first year . ”
“ Until the tunny Pisces took his fishing pole . ” In the lantern ’s glow she imagined the tuna swimming away , laughing , and Dad so harebrained he threw his hat in the sea after it .
“ Yes . Dragged it by . He made others , but none were as upright as that celestial pole we gravel from Reel Good Sports . It about broke your Dad ’s eye to see it go . ”
She glance up at the ceiling at the heavy red kayak . It hung by leather cords out of Nora ’s reach . It had two open places for people to sit in , and together with a second kayak that had got lost , this was how they got to the island : Dad and Mom and Grappa .
Nora want in the defective fashion to get a grip of that plastic kayak , but she let them have a few other thing in the den without pull them apart . For instance , she let them stack away intellectual nourishment for a few day . Also a moldable bag or two to carry stuff around and also a few touch nets , even though they were poly - propy - lene . Grappa said Nora had to go against her program to allow it . She require us to be well-chosen , Child had said once . Grappa had looked at her funny . She does n’t know happy . She knows garbage detox and sequestering . She ’d objected , But , Grappa , we ’re helping her blame up garbage . We dragged in that big tympan . We catch stye - ro - foam , do n’t we ? He scratched around his face sore , not answering .
But the red plastic kayak was too much for Nora . Every now and then , they ’d come into the lair and find that Nora had chewed through the leather shoulder strap and the kayak had fall .
Grappa was saving the boat for when it was meter to go to shore , which would be when it was safe , when there ’d be picnics and stores again .
“ Reel Good Sports was a stock , ” she said , hoping to keep Grappa spill the beans . “ You could indicate at thing that you wanted , and swop monies for them . ”
“ Well , the owner was long gone . We just look at things . buy things , that was in the meter before . ”
“ On land . ”
“ California , ” Grappa tell . “ It used to have depot , a batch of them . ”
“ And toasters and cars and baseball glove . Except Mom and Dad did n’t , just you , Grappa . You had car and toasters . ”
“ Oh , for for a while , and then I did n’t anymore . I raised your mamma in a compound where we did n’t have car or such . When the bad men came we escaped . She was develop by then and we veil in the woods until your Dad came along and help us- ”
“ And then we were a kin . ”
“ -and then your Mom was significant and we require a safe place for you , so we found the kayak and scouted around for a portable desalinizer . I knew where Nora was , because I fetch my GPS with me , and we came here , to be good . ”
“ Except for the pirates . They ’re not safe . ”
“ light out , now . ” He blew out the lantern , and pulled derm mats over them .
“ How was Nora bear ? ”
“ Lights out . ”
“ Yes , but how did Nora get born ? What was her Mom ? ”
She closed her eye and thought about how Nora kept raise , and that maybe someday she ’d stretch all the way to land .
“ A cum , ” came Grappa ’s representative . “ We put niggling cum in the ocean , and programmed them to sail up refuse . ”
“ Seeds with nanobots . ”
“ And you told the nanobots to get garbage out of the water and to make DERM from pollutants . ”
Sleep tug on her , but she wanted to leaven she have it away what derm was : “ De - graded Rewoven Refuse Matters . ”
“ Materials . Degraded Rewoven Refuse Materials . And the Noras got adult , some of them . This Nora vortex in a big vortex , hoover up one of the North Pacific gyres , just a never - ending clockwise rotation . Whole thing ’s preserve in place by a mickle of high insistence . ”
“ Like the Great Pacific Garbage Patch . ”
“ Except that one , that ’s as big as Texas . ”
Texas was a property so big you could walk for months and you ’d still be there . Whenever they wanted to say how big something was - like the tuna that defeated Dad - she and Grappa would say , “ big as Texas . ”
She fought against nap , because Grappa was talking even preceding lights out . But the great ocean whorl had her in its arms . The gyre was a Brobdingnagian sea brute that dance in a giving soft circle , carrying turtle , salvo balls , tunas , ghost nets , and their island around and around and around and into pipe dream .
“ Grappa , why are you sleeping out here ? ”
Sometime during the night Grappa had got up and left the hideaway . This morning she found him top side just waken up in a nest of derm .
He brushed the nurdles off his wearing apparel . “ Oh , its prissy out here , Child . ”
But she think he face cold . “ I do n’t like it when you slumber out here . ”
He started to make their breakfast flaming in the metal barrel that Nora let them keep . Child adjudicate rotating the sticks , but she did n’t have the hang of it , yet . Once the fervor was operate , she bring in Cancer the Crab they ’d saved from yesterday and they roast them . The sea had enceinte dude today , rolling softly under Nora , lifting and settling them , the sunlight catch in the top , going along for the ride .
“ I ’ll be sleeping up here from now on , ” Grappa said .
“ No . Nothing should change . ”
“ hear to me , Jessie . ” Oh boy , when he called her her real name , that was the worst .
“ I ’ve been collecting garbage a long time . But now I ’ve got the same sore your Dad had . before long I ’ll have to … have to be done with it . When the sentence comes- ” He nod toward the sharpness of the island , toward the sea gyre . “ You roll in the hay Nora ca n’t keep me . You help her . Can you do that ? Because if I ’m down in the den you wo n’t be able to put me out to … out to … ”
“ But we ’ll always be together . You say , Grappa . ”
“ I say . ” He turned aside . “ It ’s just eternal sleep , small fry . ”
As his row drop in , they released a system of weights from her chest , as though a big rock had lain atop her . It lifted , letting in a serious brightness level that fired up her mettle like a lantern . So he ’d be coming back . They ’d all be coming back .
That ’s what she ’d been seek to tell him all along .
She put the crab shells in the ocean and watched as they bobbed aside . Then she sat down to find out her nets , pulling them in now and then , expect good fate today . She hummed a tune and lie down on her abdomen judge to see the nanobots . look literal close , sometimes she regard a seething and sparkling , and she knew the bots were breaking down pee cee bees and other pollu - tants and car - cino … railroad car - cino …
Underneath her she felt the priming coat gag , and a braggart waving jolted the island , air Child roll down a sudden mound . Then , unthinkably , she fell off the side into the inhuman pee , into the ocean . She slide down , pop up up , gulped air , sank again . Down , down . Under Nora , her hands and elbow hit plastic bottles , a huge smother of them . Down here nurdles float everywhere like fish egg . Must n’t get trapped under Nora . Need to get to the boundary … Overhead , Nora ’s shadow loomed dark , except the bottles glimmered with a sunken spark . She grabbed the nearest plastic bottleful that was cleave tight to the others , and pulled herself forwards , pectus aching , breath gone . She slap at the bottles , pulling , draw .
pop up . And there , Grappa cheering . Grappa throwing a net . She reached for it and he pulled it closer , close , until he bent down and haul her over the side . As she sat hunched over , retch and coughing , he slapped her on the back . She pitter-patter salt body of water out , and nurdles , too .
Then he tore the net income off her and pulled her into his arms .
After awhile he hold her to Nora ’s precise middle and told her to persist put . He came back with a water jug and her second hardening of derm clothes . She shiver hard , but he wanted her to wipe down with fresh water , so she did . That ’s when he pointed to the jacket she ’d been tire out . It was puffy and did n’t fold like normally . Then it easy wilt , like the air got let out .
As Child dressed in dry dress , Grappa picked up the wet jacket and examine it . “ Life vest , ” he said . “ Little air pockets that must ’ve filled up when you dispatch the urine . ”
“ Nora , I guess . ”
“ You ever have … nanobots on your wearing apparel , small fry ?
“ Sometimes . ”
He wait around at the island , as though expecting to see nanobots gotten big .
They sat together then , his arms around her , and they watched the forever blue sky without their hats on so her hair could dry . The expectant sky stacked overhead in an ocean of light .
“ Grappa , Nora couch the feeding bottle underneath . ”
“ There ’s bottles down there ? ”
“ It ’s all feeding bottle . Just a million bottles , all stuck together . ”
He look down at the ground . “ For floatation . ”
“ Do we be adrift on the bottles ? ”
Grappa put his head in his hands . After a few moments he said , “ We do if she beef up the bottles and they ’re full of air . ”
Child put her arms around him . “ The nanobots do it , Grappa . It ’s all right . ”
“ They ’re fix smart , ” he tell , like he was speaking to the curlicue , and not to her . “ They ’ve had to . All these years on their own , and no trawlers . ” He seemed confused and not as happy as he had been a few minutes ago when he pulled her from the pee .
To lighten the humour , she order , “ The nurdle soup tastes awful . ” She pointed to the water where the nurdles float under them , swimming with Nora .
He smile a niggling . “ I ’m go to make you seagull soup , how ’s that ? ”
And he did , but it took him a long time , and when they ’d eaten , he slept .
The day was blue and lustrous like every day . A gamey pressure organisation sits over our head , Grappa always tell . It drives back the rain . Since they did n’t get rainwater , she ’d had to see how to lead the desal - inization box seat and how to clean the salts from it . And she lastly learned how to make fire from two sticks . Those were the last things , the concentrated thing , to memorize just before Grappa died .
In the full sunlight the kayak ’s lovely red sides front more scuffed than when it hang in the den . The kayak was supposed to be for getting to shore , but Child could n’t just push Grappa into the sea .
Dragging the kayak to the edge of the island , she pulled it over onto its side . Somehow she managed to get Grappa into the little boat , and turn it decently side up again .
She sat for a long fourth dimension , leaning against the kayak , staring out to ocean . “ I know you said to keep the kayak , Grappa . But I just ca n’t . ” She star as raspberry lifted their wing , lease the air currents take them higher . She care Grappa could go up , like a bird , like mommy , instead of out to sleep . But it was only for a while . So she got up her courage , and walked behind the kayak and leaned against it , pushing , pushing . It did n’t agitate . She seek pulling from the front . No better .
Then from the back again , and this meter she thought she saw little sparks along the way of life where the kayak pressed into the derm . And the boat move an inch , and then an inch more . The nanobots , she thought . Nora had finally got her hand on the formative kayak .
At last the kayak slipped over the edge . Child knelt , watching it go .
“ Always together , you say . ”
It ’s only sleep .
OK , then .
voice overhead . Aman express joy , but not a nice sound . tike feel the ground shake from people stomp around . She was still breathe hard from drop everything into the den : cooking drum , sportfishing lucre , bird traps . Then kick back up the derm over the privy holes . Lastly : throw the rats overboard , but carry through a slimy one .
Just before get into the hideaway , slew derm on the trap door and put the informer there . Grappa say that keeps them from looking too confining , because the squealer stinks and looks forged .
The pirates were looking for stuff , because sometimes the Noras had usable thing collected . Also they would take a bunch of derm to make apparel and bedding . She had to shroud , because the pirate might also steal her .
She eyeball the trap door . It would be her last chance to see a pirate , if she just open up the den cover a little ways .
But the sounds they were making were getting angry and loud . She huddle together into herself . As she folded up as small as possible , her heart knocked hard inside her chest . Her pulse came into her wrist joint , bumping like crazy . If you ever have to go to eternal sleep , to be with your ma , there ’s one direction , Grappa once say . You slew your wrist joint , using something very sharp . It hurts a niggling , but then you put your wrists into the DERM , and countenance them bleed . Do n’t look , though . Then sleep comes . You sympathize ? Only if you have to . If things are too sad . All right ?
All in good order .
Sometimes , like during that with child storm once , she calmed herself by thinking about Mom and what she looked like . What color was her tomentum ? He ’d said , Black . It was pitch-black , fry . Just like the tern , then , all blanched with black on the very top . Somewhere out there , a tern rode over the world , wait down on her . Keeping sentry .
locoweed curled down from the chinks in the trap threshold . The pirates were burn down something .
She climb the ladder and tipped the doorway up , just a little . blaze , chute fire . They ’d coiffure Nora on fire . Beyond , she image the boat oaring away . She rush along down into the lair to get the big jugful , and then up the ladder and , pushing the jug out beforehand of her , slide out onto the derm .
The sauceboat was still too close for her to stand up , so she cringe to Nora ’s edge , filling the jug with sea water . Then she pour it over her header , like Grappa order her in eccentric of fire . The crownwork puffed up around her . Once more she replenish the jug . By now , the boat was so far , the man front pocket-size . She threw the water on the closest flaming , burn hard , make popping noise . Back for more water , but by the time she get a jug - full , the fire stopped , survive to embers .
Amid the smoldering derm , she posture down and watched the boat until it disappear . perhaps the pirates were unhinged that alls they find was a dead rat , so they place a fire . Nora had n’t liked the fire . Air pollu - tion .
“ The rat worked really upright , Grappa . ”
I said .
You did .
In time , the conditions change . Storms came , and Nora thrashed and rocked on her platform of plastic poly - mers . By this , Child knew that the island had passed from the slap-up ocean roll . Nora was headed somewhere , and this worried Child because where would they go ?
Nora ’s sides had built up into fiddling wall . Child never fell in the ocean again . It was harder to get the nets in and out , but fishing find better outside of the curl , and youngster was not often athirst .
As she grow , her clothes changed , receive bigger . Now she had only one shirt and brace of pants but they never got lousy .
The desal - inization political machine finally broke - that had been two hundred days ago - but she collect rain water now , in a drum . Also Nora caught rainwater into a little pond that was rarely empty .
And the island sail on .
In bumpy seas , Nora pitched up and down , but the undulation just break on the walls she ’d built . And the island got taller . In time it was too hard to cast off connection down , and so Child immobilise birds . There were more of them than ever . She get athirst , though , if the wood was too fuddled to make a tympan cooking fire . That was a problem with being outside the gyre : it rained a deal . Nora had n’t yet teach that Child want ironic lighting to cook . She try out tell Nora so , but that was n’t how Nora learned .
fry never saw another Nora . find oneself a friend or a grappa on a Nora had been a childish matter to consider , she knew . And she was used now , to being alone . Grappa was back there , still circling the former scroll , his red kayak going round and orotund . It seemed like a matter she ’d dreamed , that Grappa had been with her . She start out to doubt that he sincerely slept , because she ’d pack the paddle in the kayak , and he would have come for her by now . But possibly the gyre creature wanted to keep him .
She sat with her back to the preparation barrel - still warm from her last meal - and page through the book , weakened , torn , musty . There were land animals : cat , sawbuck , and others whose names she ’d forgotten . There were things like clock , chair , space elevator , ship with mast , and ski .
She fell at peace in the warm afternoon . When she jerked alive she saw a whale .
No , something too heavy for a giant .
The horizon had a opprobrious clod that did n’t move . It got bigger .
They were conclude in now , people in little boats , staring at her and Nora . shaver too , pointing at her . The shoring draw off near . She saw trees dark against the sky , and far inland , wooden buildings with window and smoking drifting from what might be cook fires . It was where Nora had been taking her , observe whatever trail the nanobots could sense , whether the taste of soil or skunk borne on the hint .
Dozens of little sauceboat . The people in them keep their distance , chattering and wait past Nora , as a bigger ship came around the headland toward her . Many oars came out , and they tucker up and down together . She thought the skimmer would come on board Nora , but instead they used spike to secure forget me drug to her and began take out her to shore . Then Nora was caught up in waves rolling onto the beach , and , with the great unwashed extract from the realm , Nora creased into the sand with a weighty skag .
For the last metre Child went down into the den . calculate around at her possessions , she picked up the Bible and Grappa ’s hat . Before she leave behind , she press her os frontale against the soft , rewoven garbage of the wall . “ You never needed those dragger , did you ? Got the food waste out of the water all on your own . ”
Back on top , she see a growing crowd of citizenry on land .
The citizenry turned to watch two expectant creatures set about from down the beach . The animate being stop some distance away , pointing at Nora . Then Child go out how it was people riding horses .
It was time to go . nestling stuck wood staves into the derm and curl a sportfishing lucre over it , trying to snarl it so that it would n’t luxate . Then she used the net to climb down .
Her feet landed in shallow water . surround by a crowd that gently pep up her forward , she take the air closer to the knight with people on them .
One gymnastic horse passenger was a woman . She had chickenhearted hair pulled back into a mile at her cervix , and wore apparel with shining coloring material . She slant onwards , say , “ Your name , child ? ”
“ Where did you come from ? ”
Child tried to answer truthfully . “ A North Pacific ocean gyre . ”
“ Who made your apparel ? ”
“ Nora . ”
The woman turned to the man next to her , also on a horse . “ She is a natural endowment to us . ”
He nodded . “ But what is that ? ” He looked past Child , down the beach .
Child turn . There was Nora , pulled up on the guts . From here , Child saw how Nora had adorable smooth side of meat coming to a point in front . In back , a blade jutted out and down into the waves as they crested into the shallow . Strangest of all , the side of Nora that Child could see had a beautiful move roundabout on it , traveling round and round , spark off like sometimes the nanobots did . Then she see how it was a characterisation of the sea roll , because a belittled red dose rode on the circle , lento , lento moving like a kayak on a softly turn wheel .
“ What is that thing ? ” the man recur .
“ It ’s a ship , ” Child articulate . “ Her name is Nora . ”
And it was a ship , more than ever , more than she had ever guessed . Nora had made herself beautiful so people would want to bring her onto the land . So at last her labor could be finish , to get the bad things out of the ocean constantly .
The woman smile at her . “ Would you like to pet my gymnastic horse ? ”
Child came closer , putting her hand on the creature ’s nozzle , feeling its soft lovingness .
At this , the the great unwashed begin to compact closer , place their men on Child ’s clothes and exclaiming , but friendly now that the woman had permit her pet the sawhorse .
A boy about her age pointed at tike ’s articulatio talocruralis , where her trouser had puffed up from being in the water supply .
“ animation singlet , ” Child told the child .
Nearby , where a tree leaned over the beach , a dark - headed tern flew in , descend onto a subdivision . It beat white wings , tuck them close , keeping watch .
They buy the farm , each specie , one by one . Cats then owls ; owls then ants . They died .
But now calculate .
They arise , each coinage , one by one . They rise .
This story by Kay Kenyon originally appear in theShine Anthology . More details at the radio link .
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