|
57845bc
|
Then her mind had wandered into a place she could not follow, taking with it all the people she knew, their names and connections, whether they still lived or whether they'd died. But her body lingered, shed of an inner being, empty as a cicada husk.
|
|
|
Ron Rash |
|
42060a1
|
Rachel kneeled beside Jacob. She took the child's hand and pressed it to the dirt. Her father had told Rachel that Harmons had been on this land since before the Revolutionary War. "Don't ever forget what it feels like, Jacob," she whispered, and let her hand touch the ground as well."
|
|
|
Ron Rash |
|
0020af7
|
When deep summer comes and the dog star raises with the morning sun, the land can scab up and a man watch his spring crop wrinkle brown like something on fire. It's the season snakes go blind. Their eyeballs coat over like pearls and they get mean. A rattlesnake allows no warning and a milk snake that would have cut the dust to the tall grass in June quiles up and strikes at anything that steps its way. It's a time when foxes and dogs go ma..
|
|
|
Ron Rash |
|
a3f63de
|
Jacob closed his eyes but did not sleep. Instead, he imagined towns where hungry men hung on boxcars looking for work that couldn't be found, shacks where families lived who didn't even have one swaybacked milk cow. He imagined cities where blood stained the sidewalks beneath buildings tall as ridges. He tried to imagine a place worse than where he was.
|
|
|
Ron Rash |
|
26c8c2b
|
The Release In those last moments before the platter of salt and dirt lay on his stomach, wax-light had waved across a mute heart, his son waited by the bed. Raised to believe the soul left the body with its last breath, he listened for death's rattle, then pressed his lips like a kiss to his father's lips, and took into his mouth the breath that had given him breath, a life distilled to one stir of air soft as moth wings against palms, h..
|
|
southern-gothic
|
Ron Rash |
|
f790476
|
You are not quite ready yet, though. For the next six months, practice until your arms ache and your lips bleed. The suffering will be good for you. A slight smile crossed the conductor's face. If you haven't already found a woman who will break your heart, find one. What we played tonight, especially the Mozart, requires suffering.
|
|
|
Ron Rash |
|
73d226c
|
you got one choice at the beginning, but if you didn't choose right..things got narrow real quick.
|
|
|
Ron Rash |
|
6110da0
|
It was the kind of early-fall day Rachel had always loved, not warm or cold, the sky all deep-blue and cloudless and no breeze, the crops proud and ripe and the leaves so pretty but hardly a one yet fallen--a day so perfect that the earth itself seemed sorry to let it pass, so slowed down its roll into evening and let it linger.
|
|
early-fall
linger
proud
perfect
|
Ron Rash |
|
12c2ea1
|
A car horn startled her, and she knew if she lived here the rest of her life, she'd never get used to the busyness of town life, how something was always coming and going and whatever that something was always had a noise. Not soothing like the sound of a creek or rain on a tin roof or a mourning dove's call, but harsh and grating, no pattern to it, nothing to settle the mind upon. Except in the early morning, those moments before the city ..
|
|
|
Ron Rash |
|
37db08c
|
Libenter homines id quad volunt credunt." "Men are glad to believe that which they wish for?" Miss Calicut asked. Professor"
|
|
|
Ron Rash |
|
17a5cba
|
a day so perfect that the earth itself seemed sorry to let it pass, so slowed down its roll into evening and let it linger.
|
|
|
Ron Rash |
|
086bf19
|
You cut up your feet pretty good, but nothing deep enough to need stitches. That was almost a mile walk and you sick as him, and barefoot to boot. I don't know how you did it. You must love that child dear as life." "I tried not to," Rachel said. "I just couldn't find a way to stop myself."
|
|
|
Ron Rash |