IF YOU ARE ON A CELL PHONE, THE ADDED FEATURES (PLATFORMS, SHORT STORIES, YEAR AHEAD, ETC.) CAN BE ACCESSED FROM THE TOP LEFT HAND CORNER (STACKED LINES). ALSO, THE ‘TRANSLATE’ & WORLD CLOCK WILL APPEAR AT THE BOTTOM.

在手機上，添加的功能（平臺，短篇小說，提前一年等） 可以從左上角訪問（堆疊線）。

*** All times / dates: Please remember that all time references (e.g., “dawn”) are PDT – Pacific Daylight Time zone. You can refer to the World Clock in the sidebar for more listings or Google ‘time zone converter’.

Email: suningem@gmail.com

(NOTE: the phone # under “Readings” above, has been fixed. Sorry for the confusion.)

Tim’s YouTube link:  Unveiling Astrology
Unveiling Astrology Part 2

 

START NOTHING: Before 3:58 am Sun., 2:43 pm to 3:04 pm Tues., and 10:01 am Thurs. to 3:35 am Fri.

 

PREAMBLE: (See AFTERAMBLE for “1969”.)

 

WEEKLY FORECAST:

 

 

 ARIES:  March 21-April 19

On Wednesday your monthly focus shifts from errands and communications to family, home and security. Look ahead, see what you might abandon or let go as other more important concerns might arise. This will be an excellent “pruning” month (Wed. To July 22) — in gardening but also in relationships, projects. Cut out the old and wilting, plant the new. Romance remains vibrant. Some Aries will “set up house” with an amour. Dealings with gov’t, large corps or institutions will be delayed now to early November, so don’t bother pushing.

Sunday two mid-afternoon Tuesday (PDT) bring the “down home” influence with a solid nudge, tho’ you still don’t feel quite ready to settle down. (Sunday’s indecisive or deceptive. Best time: Monday through mid-morn Tues.) Romance arrives Tuesday afternoon to pre-dawn Friday. Your luck is jumbled here, but Wednesday pm to pre-dawn Thursday could “cement” some loving couples. Besides romance, creativity, pleasure, beauty, fun, risk-taking are also favoured. Friday dawn through the weekend: tackle chores and protect your health from over-indulgence.

 

  TAURUS:  April 20-May 20

Your “domestic adventures” continue, Taurus (and over this summer might become domestic bliss). Your sensual side will rule. Though a trickle of “extra money” will exist for another week, in general you switch now from a money month to a month (until July 22) of errands, travel, communications and paperwork — an easy time, but not really a significant time. Be curious, ask questions, explore. Your luck is good overall, for almost a whole year ahead.

Sunday to mid-afternoon Tuesday brings a foretaste, of errands, calls, paperwork, etc. , then Tuesday to pre-dawn Friday shunts you into domestic affairs. Sunday’s “iffy” due to unreliable information and social awkwardness. Careful Tuesday afternoon, when alienation is in the air. And skirt disruption Thursday morning. Otherwise, 5 great days to shuffle tings, re-arrange, and settle into your nest. Friday/Saturday are romantic, creative, even joyous! Late Friday, initial disappointment turns into confidence and good fortune.

 

  GEMINI:  May 21-June 20

Midweek, your personal emphasis changes from high energy and charisma to a more practical “stream” — earning/chasing money, buying/selling, casual intimacy and rote learning. It’s an easy, mellow month, Wed. To July 22. Still, you remain restless, communicative, travel-prone, and flirtatious. (To some degree, this “sub-trend” lasts, in a pleasing way, to early October. You might travel to meet love, someone special.) Your dealings with gov’t or “head office” remain fortunate until next May (2024). But if you have enemies (Trump’s a Gemini) they swell and are very lucky for the same 11 months. Bosses remain slow, skeptical; they won’t answer nor interfere now through October.

Chase $, buy/sell, welcome casual intimacy, Sunday (beware [self?] deception) to mid-afternoon Tuesday. Monday to Tuesday morning best. Errands, calls, trips, paperwork, emails, etc. fill Tuesday afternoon to pre-dawn Friday. Most things are good here, but take care Thursday morning, as disruption hovers. (Careful with opinions, law, ethics.) Friday/Saturday are for home, kids, mother nature, security, rest and contemplation. Initial refusal Friday turns to a feeling of cheer, of belonging.

 

  CANCER:  June 21-July 22

Wednesday starts a month of higher energy, stronger charisma, clout and effectiveness, Cancer. Get out, launch things, approach others. You’ll often get your way. “Secret” or gov’t-type knowledge is still available, 1 more week. Your money picture stays bright, fortunate, right into October. (If you’re unemployed, it’s the best time to find, start a job.) You’ll have more friends in the months ahead than you have now.

Your energy and charisma rise even sooner than I promised, Sunday to mid-afternoon Tues. (PDT). Sunday, co-operation will work, but not romance. (Chase romance, creative output, Tuesday morning.) A good interval, but handle relationships with understanding, mildness, Tuesday afternoon. Chase $, buy/sell, embrace casual intimacy, and/or learn something (e.g., read your car’s manual) Tuesday eve to pre-dawn Fri. A fortunate interval, but avoid disruption, accident potential Thursday morning. Errands, calls, communications, paperwork and short trips fill Fri./Sat. Friday’s refusal turns to new (and lucky) future hopes.

 

  LEO:  July 23-Aug. 22

Wednesday begins a month of low energy, quietude, pondering and planning, and liaising with gov’t or institutions or your employer’s administration. Seek advice. Be spiritual, charitable, until July 22. Even before Wed., you can feel the weariness and quiet creeping up on you. Despite all this, a fine streak of romantic charisma hovers around you — strongly to July 10, and more lightly but sweetly, to early October. You won’t be bored! Remember, too, this is your “excellent career year.”

Seek quiet, rest, Sunday to mid-afternoon Tuesday (PDT). Sunday’s deceptive — do NOT invest, nor chase intimacy/sex. And back away from any confrontation Tuesday noonish onward. In-between, success, ease. Your charisma and energy rise Tuesday pm to Friday pre-dawn. A good interval — but avoid disruption, disagreement, Thursday morning. Chase $, buy/sell, learn, embrace casual intimacy Fri./Sat. An initial work refusal or frustration Friday could turn your attention to a very fortunate “career” move or opportunity. (E.g., you’re ejected from the ditch-digger’s union, and become a lawyer.)

 

  VIRGO:  Aug. 23-Sept. 22

You’ve been under “pressure to perform” the last few weeks — but that changes Wednesday, when a whole month of social delights, popularity, optimism, entertainment and flirtations starts. (Actually, you’ll feel like it starts this Sunday which, in a mild way, it does.) The year ahead might hold a legal contract re: property, home, farm. Your interior or private life holds potentially sweet, profitable and affectionate contacts, ideas or “plans” — and spiritual peace, mellowness — to October. Relationships have grown more sober, conservative the last few months. Now to October, you might have to wait a long time for any answers from “crucial others” — including partner, spouse, or lover.

A foretaste of the month ahead arrives Sunday to mid-afternoon Tues. Happiness, social delights, rising popularity and optimism fill these days, but don’t bank on a partner’s co-operation Sunday. Retreat, find a place to rest and contemplate Tuesday pm to pre-dawn Friday. Liaise with gov’t or “head office,” pray, meditate, be charitable, seek advice. Some disruption or a challenge to your intellectual capacities Thursday morning, but nothing big. Your energy, charisma and effectiveness surge upward Fri./Sat. Romance might “reject” you Friday, but one who is mentally compatible will welcome you.

 

LIBRA:  Sept. 23-Oct. 22

 

A month of thinking and learning makes way, Wednesday, for a month of ambitions, prestige relations and worldly standing, Libra. You will feel “performance pressure.” During this ambitious month ahead, keep your eye on financial opportunities: there could be some big ones standing just behind the curtain. Despite all the emphasis on career, etc., you will enjoy your social life — now to your birthday month. Single Librans might attract a friendly love affair perhaps even a marriage partner. If you have to speak to an audience (now to Oct.) you’ll shine.

Sunday to mid-afternoon Tuesday is a kind of “prequel” to the month ahead. Be alert, listen — you could obtain a clue to future career “plums.” But skip hands-on work Sunday. And sidestep any monetary “struggles” Tuesday. Midweek, Tuesday pm to pre-dawn Friday, your social life rises and expands — issue and accept invitations. A great, happy interval, but stay calm if disruptions arise Thursday morning. Retreat from the crowd, find quietude and rest Fri./Sat. Friday night, an initial work or health problem can be solved quickly by a “professional.” For the 11 months ahead, don’t sweat the small, immediate problems — aim instead for the big potential.

 

  SCORPIO:  Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Life, your experience, changes from “secret” to “open wisdom.” The “technical” change occurs  Thursday, but really the whole week brings a tolerant mood and wider vision. Until July 22, international affairs, far travel, higher learning, law, life philosophy, social rituals (e.g., weddings, mitzvahs) and cultural venues fill the days, esp. this Sunday to Tuesday. (Sunday’s deceptive, “anti-romantic,” but Mon./Tues. bring good results in these zones (far travel, higher education, etc.). Until next May, relationships are a source of huge good luck, and many single Scorpios could meet a prospective mate. Relocation themes and fresh opportunities will excite you. Romance, creativity and “pure pleasure,” however, have slowed this spring, and someone attractive becomes “wordless” — won’t answer — now t October. Same period (4 months) blesses your ambitions and career/status efforts. (Marrying is a status action.)

Tuesday afternoon to pre-dawn Friday accents your career and worldly status. An innocent argument Wednesday morning, or a sudden event Thursday morning, might disrupt plans, but otherwise this is a good, rewarding interval. Friday/Saturday are for errands, contacts, travel, paperwork and communications. All’s well.

 

  SAGITTARIUS:  Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Open relationships turn now to their private or hidden side. So cheer, camaraderie, enthusiasm (and perhaps temper tantrums) now yield to careful actions, financial, sexual or power-oriented interchanges, until July 22. Same period accents medical, lifestyle decisions, and research — dig deep for treasure! Honesty, ethics, very important. Respect marriages. A strong streak of wisdom, broad vision and philosophical “rightness” will save you from decadence. This streak lasts to October, and can lift your love life to new, peaceful heights.

You sink into this new, more secretive zone Sunday to mid-afternoon Tuesday. Careful Sunday, when deception exists. Otherwise, charge ahead. Midweek (Tuesday afternoon to pre-dawn Friday) brings that mellow, wise, broad understanding. Be flexible if disruption occurs Thursday morning. Be ambitious Fri./Sat. Initial disappointment Friday can turn to good work/employment luck — within hours.

 

  CAPRICORN:  Dec. 22-Jan. 19

This week shunts you from work to opportunities, fresh horizons and relationships, Cap — a much more exciting scene. Your romantic and creative outlook is great, now to May/24. Your sexual side is awake, seeking, intensely now to July 10, less intensely but more sweetly then to early October. Be sure to answer work communications, but don’t volunteer for more work unless an opportunity is tied to it.

Sunday to mid-afternoon Tuesday brings exciting meetings, public appearances, opportunities and relocation themes. Careful Sunday, all is not as it seems. Tuesday afternoon might bring a show-down — be diplomatic, understanding. Tuesday pm to pre-dawn Friday brings one last chore, one further bit of work. Well, do it. Avoid disruption (or disruptive people) Thursday morning (PDT). A mellow, tolerant mood steals over you Fri./Sat. Good time to buy travel tickets, apply to school, or do anything intellectual, ritualistic, or loving.

 

  AQUARIUS:  Jan. 20-Feb. 18

A month of romance, beauty and pleasure ends now, Aquarius, as a month of work and health concerns enters (lasting to July 22). Relationships remain vibrant and alluring, though, powerfully now to July 10, then sweetly to early October. Remember the adage: honey attracts more than vinegar…money. Might seem to slow down now to early November, or you have to spend more than you want. Hard to get answers from anyone in the money zone, whole time. Your home continues to be a source of hope and delicious plans — and a source of grand good luck — until May/24.

Tackle chores and protect your health with proper nutrition Sunday to mid-afternoon Tues. Careful Sunday — deception lurks, esp. about $. Relationships, distant lands, opportunities, possible fame or public dealings — these are emphasized from Tuesday pm to pre-dawn Friday (PDT). A great interval — be diplomatic and seize opportunities. But watch Thursday morning: don’t let pride impede you. Secrets, privileged information, finances, sex/lust, power plays, medical and lifestyle decisions arise Fri./Sat. Dig deep for treasure.

 

  PISCES:  Feb. 19-March 20

The theme changes now Pisces, from home, shter, privacy, rest and security, to a month of adventure, risk-taking, romance or other passions (music, art, sports, children’s games, etc.). Still, work will form an important secondary theme. Now to October, work-mates will be lively and pleasant, and a promotion or raise is quite possible. Realize communications and paperwork (and maybe travel) are the path to career and social climbing for 10 months. Now to November, you might feel indecisive about your hopes and goals and social needs. That’s okay; be patient.

Romance, creativity, beauty, et al, arrive Sunday to mid-afternoon Tues. (PDT). (With a domestic note Sunday.) Tackle chores Tuesday pm to pre-dawn Friday. Eat, dress sensibly. Computers, machines, might screw up Thursday morn. Relationships excite Fri./Sat. Grab opportunities, contemplate relocation, welcome fame if it comes. A good interval, during which disappointment can turn to opportunity. Be diplomatic.

THE END.

 

AFTERAMBLE:

 

1969 — CHAPTER FOUR

By Tim Stephens

 

I decided the best thing was to go back to the pool – if I’d lost the locket, it was most likely in the water, when I was trying to rescue her. At least I would eliminate that possibility before I accused her. I sensed that if I accused her, it would be the end of – there was no word for it.

I can’t tell you how weirdly pleasing it was to travel across the cut, jumping from log to log in your bare feet, naked, the day cold but the sun warm on your back, your balls cold so they don’t bounce, the breeze hitting your ass, smelling the cut wood and the green and the salal and the occasional gnat or wood bug waking up, and dancing, bouncing, jumping through this – it’s good. I actually didn’t go that fast. I looked as I went, stopping here and there to peer down between the logs and debris.

I reached the pool. I wasn’t sure it was the right one at first, then I was. Things look different from different angles. But it was the same pool. I peered into its depths, but saw no silver glint. I looked around, over the rock, anywhere where I’d been, under the log I’d first climbed, everywhere. No locket. It was silver, so it should be easy to see in the greenery, but no. For a moment I gave up, accepted the fact I’d lost it, and relaxed. I gave the pool another, cursory look.

Now it seemed some sort of spell had lifted. Everything was sunny and benevolent and clear, easy and logical, solid and right. Just a sunny day in the woods. The only thing that puzzled and fascinated me now was the woman, over there in that tent. But I took another peek into the pool’s depths. The water was crystal clear, yet brown, like really weak tea, so finally it disappeared into darkness. I thought I could just see the bottom, a cleft in the rocks deep below, two smooth curved rocks coming together in a cleft. Now I thought I saw a silver gleam, and perhaps even a curve to it, like the breast of a heart-shape would have. But then I couldn’t see it. Waves never let you see, and there’s never water so still it has no wave. There seemed to be a lot of muck deep below, I thought I could see a pile of dead, rotted leaves and rocks. Then it looked like sticks, dead branches. Then I realized I couldn’t see anything, and what I saw could be anything. I straightened up and looked again at the massacred woods, lying all sawn and broken everywhere. I gazed over to where the road was, where I’d left it yesterday, and it seemed like a different world, as if I’d left something safe and warm and relaxed and normal.

But, partly because I had no clothes on, I went back to the tent. First, I studied the pool’s depths  again: perhaps God would make the locket appear for me.

Back at the clearing, I picked up our clothes and laid them out carefully on the bushes nearby, and on the spaces of rock, to dry. Her clothes I lay on the rock, smoothing every wrinkle, the jacket above the pants, as if she were wearing them, and I gazed at them. They carried the same pleasant mystery as she did. They were her.

Wrapped again in the sleeping bag, I went into the tent and sat down at the small camp table. She was still there, hadn’t moved, I guess.

And there on the table in front of her, was the locket.

She looked at me. They were wide eyes, but sunken, and they seemed to sink even as she stared, and she stood suddenly, tall and rigid, and she stared madly at me.

I didn’t know what to say. She caught me by surprise. I sat with my mouth open. Then I shot to my feet.

“Oh – no – not me,” I stumbled. “No, I found – then it is yours, and so he –”

Her face collapsed, like a gold plum had suddenly become a scarlet prune. Her smooth forehead turned into an astonishing amount of deep wrinkles, folds filled her cheeks and corrugated her nose, and tears wet the whole thing. She threw her hands over her face. I pitied her. I had never seen anything like this silent destruction, even my mother’s sobbing. I felt stupid and awkward. I sat down and stared at her.

She snuck out of the tent. Her straight and tall body seemed to shrink as she turned away. I sat there awhile, not knowing what to do. Then, frightened, I ran outside, fearing she was going to the pool again to throw herself in. The sky was crystal clear, warm and blue, and the campsite and wood and bushes all around shone in the light, but a small cloud had come across and the light was peculiar, as if it was silently echoing something you can’t quite grasp. Something half a dream, half awake. At least now it was warmer out. She was just beyond the campsite, walking slowly, very slowly and hesitantly. It was like a dream. There was something about that hesitancy which made me go over, but only to within a few feet of her. Her arms seemed thin, her wrists small. But her neck was soft and thick.

“Can’t I -”

“Please leave me.” She wouldn’t look at me.

“You mean – forever? I mean, totally, away?”

She shook her head vigorously, as if she was saying no, but I knew it was not a no, it was a dismissal, an urging me to leave her alone. She turned away from me, face in her hands.

I hesitated, then walked away. I got my jeans and jacket off the “drying log” and began to pull them on. They were still wet, cold and hard to pull over my limbs. I went into the tent-cabin and put my boots on. My socks and underpants, still wet, I shoved in my back pockets.

She slipped in the tent flap.

“No,” she said quietly, looking at me, “Don’t leave. I’m sorry. Don’t leave.”

I exhaled loudly. I wasn’t going to leave. I’d already decided that, when I threw myself on the ground earlier.

She smiled wanly at me. (Wanly — what a word, eh?) I stayed. She walked absently to the camp table and sat down, as if still stunned a little. I felt trapped. Not by her, and not in an unpleasant way. I enjoyed being trapped like this, but still, it was a trap, I sensed that. I groped around, wondering what the trap was, where it was. It was as if I couldn’t walk out of this small valley, this cut of massacred trees, all jumbled.

I went to the camp table and sat down opposite her. She sat as if utterly defeated, her arms hanging by her sides, her hands in her lap. We must have sat there five minutes. Then she flung her head up and looked at me and smiled and reached out and took my left hand. She clutched it so tightly it was painful, and her knuckles stood out, white and boned.

“How old are you?” she said softly but with a kind of terrible happy face, a false smile.

“Sixteen.”

“Ah. You -” she stared into me, then laughed.

“You couldn’t kill anybody, could you?” she said lightly and brightly.

“No,” I said.

“No, of course not.” She laughed. “Of course not! You silly thing! You… poor silly boy, you silly boy… what? Do you want me? Do you — want me?”

She stared sharply at me with shining eyes and now a smile that wasn’t false, but wasn’t really warm either. I thought in some ways I was seeing the real her for a moment. But that made me feel lost, confused. Like I’d have to learn about a different person.

“You saved my life,” she said softly. She hesitated. “So you can have me. Have me, anytime. Here I am! Sixteen! Well, you’re brave and intelligent and… you’re good hearted too.” She peered intently at me, waiting. But if I was supposed to say something, I didn’t.

“Well, are you? Good hearted? Are you gentle and kind and wouldn’t hurt a woman, any woman, and you’d always cherish her and respect and never ever hurt or hit her?”

I could only stare. Her face changed on me. She looked liken angel.

“Isn’t that right?” she said impatiently now. “You’re as brave and strong as any man, aren’t you? I’ll bet you are!” She laughed. Then she turned away swiftly, her face red.

She looked at me fiercely, as if accusing me, her eyes steady and piercing.

“You… think you love me.”

She got up with a fierce sort of speed, and stood there, and then, I imagine from embarrassment, she went out the tent flap. I sat, not knowing whether to follow or stay. I realized this was my opportunity to sniff the rifle barrel. I snuck over to it, sniffed, and could tell nothing. I stood quickly, afraid she’d catch me. I was getting very hungry. I saw the food box. I went to it and opened the Styrofoam lid. Inside were a lot of things floating in water, some pop cans, some lettuce that had started to rot and had a green slime on it, a loaf of bread in a steamy plastic bag, and a large chunk of cheese in saran wrap. I picked up the cheese. It was soft and had started to go a bit bad. I peeled the wrap and took a huge bite. My mouth smarted from the sudden taste of food, as if my taste buds had sprouted acid. But God, it felt good, filling my stomach. I bit off another big chunk, grabbed the bread, and went outside.

She was sitting at a cold fire circle. I sat near her. I held out the cheese and bread.

She stared at it. “Oh, yes,” she said, her hand fluttering about her forehead. “We’ll go shopping. We’ll go shopping soon,” she said. She stared at me. It was one of those stares that has nothing to it.

“Where is he?” she asked.

“Who?” I said stupidly.

She said nothing.

“Him,” I said, slowly, prompting her.

She didn’t answer.

I tried this: “If you tell me who, I’ll tell you where.”

She just kept staring at me, the same mild, unspeaking stare.

“Yes,” she said, whatever that meant.

“Was he your husband?”

Her eyes said no, I think. Because they were pretty blank. “Your boyfriend?”

She looked away quietly, refusing to answer, or let me into her confidence, I guessed.

“Well, they caught his murderer,” I said a bit cautiously but also cruelly, for her quietly dismissing me like that angered me.

She stared at me, wide eyed. I stared back. I wasn’t giving her anything. I was angry, and a bit tired of all this – this day. And my cold, wet clothes.

“They… caught somebody?” she fell thoughtful. Then she stared at me, that same meaningless stare. “Of course, of course, it couldn’t just …the body. Of course.” She looked at me with an intense, seizing look. “Did you see him die?”

“Yes.”

“Was he dead? All dead? Was everyone dead?”

“Everyone? No, just him. He was dead alright. Dead. He said to go find the girl. So I figured it was you. I mean now. I mean, you know, now that I’ve found you. I mean I wasn’t even looking for you, and I don’t know why I came here. He said, this guy who was shot, he said, ‘Get the girl.’ Or ‘Get her.’ I can’t remember exactly.”

“The girl? The girl? Just… `the girl’?” she asked me anxiously, in a close, intimate and wondering voice, taking my arm in her hands and leaning close to me, looking in my eyes with her round, wondering ones, almost childlike, and it made me feel a strange sad fear. I think she was a little insane.

I rose straight on my knees. She had stopped looking at me. She looked at the sky and there seemed to be huge, hanging bags under her eyes. Her face seemed to flow blue and green shades. I walked restlessly around the cold fire pit awhile. I stopped and looked at her, direct.

“Can I sit beside you?” I said. It meant a lot more than when a few minutes ago I’d just been sitting beside her.

She looked at me, like a horse looks at a snake, but softer. If she’d kept looking at me, I’d never have moved, but she looked away in a way that let me. I shuffled over and sat beside her right leg. She was still sitting on the log, but I sat on my knees on the ground and I stayed there a second, frozen. Then I laid my left arm on her leg and leaned my side into her thigh. I knew what I was doing, but also I just wanted to get warm. I was still shivery. But at first, at least, it only pressed the cold wet shirt into me even more. A major erection pushed up against my wet jeans, and hurt. I hunched forward a bit to hide it and it lifted straight up against my belly, so at least it didn’t hurt so much any more. I crooked my legs and leaned my left leg against hers. She was quiet and I was quiet, just staring at the bushes. Before I knew it some stuff gushed out and wet my stomach and my erection and made it all sticky. Thank God I had my jeans on. I hoped she hadn’t noticed. I pretended nothing had happened, and I stared at the bushes.

She grabbed my hair and pulled my face up so she could see me, and she frowned. I felt like you do when you’ve told a lie and you know they know.

“You’ll never know what he was or where I am,” she said contemptuously. “I’m somewhere you can never be. I’ve done things you can never do – no one can ever do to me again. So you can’t affect me. Don’t get your hopes up. You think you can want me, but I can’t be affected. I’m free… of that.” She cocked her head, as if to say, “Do you understand?” yet her eyes were wild. “That’s… just the way it is. Leave me. Go away,” she said firmly. “Go away. Stupid boy.”

A minute later she smiled gently and said softly, “Don’t worry, I’ll just disappear.”

The earth seemed to change character around us, as if we were both bound in a strange bubble, and around us the sunlight could race or the trees talk or angels could shimmer, outside the bubble.

“What kind of things do you mean?” I said. “No things.” My pride was hurt.

After a minute I said, “I mean, what kind of things do you mean you did that I can’t ever do? I can do anything.”

“Bad. Very bad things,” she said softly.

“With Dieter?”

She looked at me. Her eyes widened. “How do you know that name? Who told you?”

“I found him. He was shot. I watched, and that’s where the locket’s from — him.”

I was searingly jealous of him, that dead man. Why could’t she worry about me?

“You will never reach where I am,” she said, staring at me.

“So go kill yourself,” I said. “I don’t give a damn. I saved you, but I don’t care, so go kill yourself.”

“You’re right,” she said. “You saved me. You saved me.” She went quiet and all the strength and arrogance seemed to flee out of her.

I only now realized she had the locket pressed in her hand. She opened her hand slightly to let it appear, then grasped it even more tightly.

We fell into a silence. I could smell the alder saplings and the ferns. I looked up at her and thought how beautiful she was, how softly and solidly beautiful. She watched me gazing at her. I turned away, content. I could feel her beauty whether I looked or not. That kind of beauty, it surrounded you, it hovered around her, invisible.

She pulled my hair again and looked down at me. “You mustn’t.”

The women on the coast said, “you can’t” or “don’t you,” not “mustn’t.” I could tell she was upper class, from that.

“Yes,” I said. I shrugged the tiniest bit.

She slowly got up, so I had to lean away to take my weight off her leg. I felt awkward and abandoned; I blushed. But she reached down and squeezed my arm, then went inside the tent. When I followed she was on the sleeping platform, lying facing the tent wall. I got the sleeping bag from outside and lay it over her. Then I lay down beside her. After all, we’d already been sort of intimate outside. I left the sleeping bag between us because my clothes were so wet. I had another erection. The nape of her neck was soft and covered with almost invisible blonde fuzz. I touched it, softly stroked it for a few moments. 1 don’t know if she wanted to sleep or not, or if she did sleep. But I couldn’t. I lay there all noon and into the afternoon, with that erection pressed against her back, holding her, suspended in ecstasy. If I’d been older, maybe, I would have tried something more. But this was enough. This was total and prolonged — and different. 1 wanted to hug her but my clothes were wet. I lay for awhile. Then I stood up, ripped off my jacket, and lay down again, this time sliding my upper half under the sleeping bag. I pressed my chest against her back, I wrapped my arm around her. I felt her breast on the other side. I held it. I stared at the light as it progressed over the noon and afternoon, through the canvas. I saw her hair, and the top of the sleeping bag and a bit of the canvas wall and some dirt, and how they all slowly glowed in different ways as the sunlight changed. I didn’t think to move. I was content. I just watched what I could see.

1 heard her softly snoring, like you hear a bear in the woods sometimes, that soft snuff, snuff as it blows through its chest.

Things continued like this for about a week. I don’t mean her snoring, but that I stayed there and she stayed there. She continued to be preoccupied with her thoughts, while I felt suspended. I didn’t need a mind or a big conversation: just watching her soft downy forearm on the camp table was enough, or watching how she washed her hair (I fetched a bucket of water from the nearest pool, for I didn’t want her going near any pools) and the delicate movements she went through as she lifted the hair off her neck, the overly delicate way she dabbed soap on her hair before scrubbing it, the way she extended her chin upward or patted her crotch. Everything was ordinary, yet glowed with – not a mystery – not like the dark type in books, or even the awesome type like the ocean, or the scary, dread type like being totally alone in the forest, and suddenly realizing it. This mystery was soft and blonde, yellow and filled with a comforting mystery. Though, I have to admit, there was a scary thing about it, hovering on the edge, a fear I didn’t exactly face nor want to, because it would be horrible, a horror, a yes, a horror: perhaps she was a murderer.

So we fell into a routine, despite her staying pretty inward. I didn’t go to school, nor even leave her campsite except once, at night, when I walked the entire trail back to the hydro cut, down the cut to the paved road, and home.

I climbed into the dark house through my bedroom window and closed it. Everyone — Paul and Mom — were sleeping. I shucked off my damp clothes and quietly put on a dry pair of wool socks and dry clothes, and took a sweater too. I shoved some extra socks and underpants in my back pockets. Then I took my pillow case and filled it with most of my mother’s fridge and cupboards, then crept quietly out the door, quietly making sure it was locked behind. I really cleaned them out, except for things like flour and eggs, because 1 couldn’t carry them. I got cheese and crackers, a bit of roasted meat, some potatoes, half a plastic jug of milk, half a box of cookies, crackers, a box of cereal, two handfuls of tea bags, a bunch of sweet potatoes, a loaf and a half of sliced bread, a jam jar and the peanut butter jar. There wasn’t any other vegetables or fruit because they were too expensive. But I got other things, too. Then I lugged it all back to our “camp.” The whole journey took a good four hours. I have to say, I was not scared once. Even in the pitch dark parts of the old road. I guess her beauty still surrounded me like a shield, or I lived in her eyes, and I knew that, at least for now, those eyes didn’t want me dead. I didn’t even notice the contrast between my paralyzing fear on that same trail a week or so ago, and my complete absence of it now. I didn’t notice it, I mean, until now, as I’m telling you this.

Nor did I feel any emotions as I ransacked my mom’s food. But outside, when I turned around and saw just the side of the decrepit old house as it crowded the road, I felt sad. As if I were leaving them behind, or leaving a hole in their lives, or in mine; I wasn’t quite sure which.

Then once I was back at the camp, I didn’t think of them again – I mean my family, Paul and Mom – except once or twice in a fleeting way. I put the food-filled packsack on the camp table, then I lay back down, carefully and silently as I could, exactly where I was before, with the back of her thighs on the front of mine. I fell asleep with an erection and woke with one. I don’t know when it ever went away, but it became a major problem by morning, as my balls throbbed, and I couldn’t walk without pain.

I don’t know what I thought I was doing. Nursing her, I guess, would be my official answer. Because she was obviously in sorrow, and the dead man was obviously her dead lover, or maybe her husband. Even worse, maybe she shot him and was obviously sick with remorse. And I was keeping her from leaning right into another pool. But unofficially, I guess, I was just immersing myself in a pleasure I had never known before, never even suspected. It was longer and wider and deeper than I’d ever expected anything could be. It was just being with her, because it made my whole mind glow with this beauty. Even if we didn’t talk much, it was as though her body was intelligent, a mind itself, for its every move, even its every posture, gave a whole story to me, a story without words, but a story, something on the gut level, that I’d never put into words and never figure out. It was as if the ocean had grown lips and spoke: and its word was her body. I don’t know. I was lost in it, and begging for more.

As I mentioned, she didn’t talk much. You probably noticed how erratic her talk was that first day. Well, that slowly eased off. Her face grew more normal, less and less did that glinty, sort of semi-foolish look appear, and more and more her eyes seemed to fill with a kind of nectar of comprehension, as though she were beginning to see the world as a normal place. That nectar fascinated me. It was like I was a thirsty dog in July, and that nectar was a puddle of water. I had to keep returning to it. She didn’t like me staring at her, so I kept sneaking peeks all day long, maybe a hundred an hour.

Oh, yes, how I got rid of my erection pain. I rose from the bed (the sleeping platform, but I hate saying the whole words all the time) and snuck outside, because I thought the only way I’d make it go away was to be away from her, and relax and let the hardness go away. So I stood for a long time in the cold morning, watching the few alders in the breeze and the grey granite cliff walls. Well, the hardness went away. But the ache didn’t. In fact, when the hardness subsided, the ache  bent me over. Walking like this, bent, I crossed the campsite to sit on the log that lay beside the fire circle. But before I got there, I saw her watching me from the tent’s door. Embarrassed, I fixed my gaze solely on the log and kept going. It was only a few steps. There, on the log, was the bucket of margarine I’d brought from my house. Just that, without the lid on. Puzzled, I turned and looked at her. She was still at the tent door. She returned my gaze for about five seconds, then crossed her arms, turned, and went inside. I looked at the margarine again. Well, that’s how I got rid of the pain. I knee-walked into the nearest bush cover with the margarine.

“I didn’t spoil it,” I said when I returned.

“And just in case you’re interested, I don’t feel a bit ashamed.”

Which wasn’t even near true, because I felt worse than shamed. I felt unmanned, a fool, led by the nose. Maybe my face was red with anger and black with a frown, because she turned at my words, looked at me, and burst into laughter. It was a long, high laugh. When I kept frowning, disgusted, she made a sound like a little “wooo” her eyes widened, and she burst into another song of laughter. Seeing my anger wasn’t going away, she pouted to hold the laugh in, she put her hand across her mouth and her eyes apologized and she tried to turn the laughter into a smile but it crinkled right across her wide jaw, and her eyes teared and a “wooooo” came out again. It was the first really normal thing I’d seen her do.

But I wasn’t having any of it. I turned and walked out of the tent. I went away and sat down on a rotted cedar stump. I didn’t go far, nor where she couldn’t find me.

I was angry, but I couldn’t make the anger burn away my shame. Instead, the shame came back stronger, now that I’d made a display of everything. Why did I ever do what she’d led me to? She’d virtually got me to sign a declaration that I couldn’t, wouldn’t — by destiny couldn’t, for God’s sakes — be anyone serious to her now. She’d managed to reduce me to this: a boy beating off. The more I thought of it the more I seethed, and yet the stronger my shame became, until it turned into a kind of self-loathing. For some reason I remembered throwing myself on the ground yesterday, the memory shamed me.

I expected her, even so, to come out and apologize to me. But as the minutes passed and she didn’t, I began to feel trapped. The only thing I had left to offer, to keep me level with her, was my anger, and that meant she had to come out and recognize it, but she didn’t. At first, all sorts of images went through my head. I imagined going in there and throwing her to the ground, even though I was sixteen and she was, maybe twenty-four or something. {This was somewhat how I imagined men and women made love. I’d never seen it, so I had some idea from movies or something – this was the 1970’s, when people weren’t civilized yet – that men just stood over the woman and forced them to have sex just by the force of their desire or their willpower or something. And that the women somehow agreed to this, that they liked the “forcing” or the hot willpower or whatever. But thinking about this just made me more miserable, because I knew I couldn’t go in there and act like that. I didn’t even know where that kind of heat and determination came from, and she’d just laugh at me again. No, she wouldn’t laugh. It would be even worse.

Because she would know, she would know that 1 was unmanned, that even my anger was weak and impotent, and the worst thing of all was that it was her unspoken suggestion that had led me here, it all made me less, and her more, but not more in a good way. I couldn’t stand it. I got up and my body did a kind of weird dance around itself, as if it would go one way, and then the other, and on each pendulum it hesitated, slowed, and then finally it broke. I ran into the scramble of salal and scattered logs and ferns and cut branches. I ran until I smashed my shin and  stumbled over a log and went down. My face scraped against a broken stub and my arms were caked with wet slime. I smacked my face but good, and my right eye exploded into red and white fireworks.

I heard a scream. I pulled myself up. With my good eye I could see she was making her way across the mess of logs. She wasn’t screaming now. “Oh, fuck you!” I yelled, standing up. “Fuck you! 1 know you probably killed him! So fuck you!” I turned and tried to run away again, but I tripped in weariness and to tell the truth I was through with this running and bashing myself, and after only a few paces and I went down again, into a dark, earthy, clayey place, wet and smelling good, actually, of green something. And i just put my head in my hands and lay there. And I wondered why I had said that, I know you probably killed him. Why did 1 even think that?

I knew she was there. She tried grabbing my arm and pulling. No deal.

“Oh get up!” She cried impatietly. This embarrassed me, so I got up quickly, without her help, and leaned my butt against a log.

She was crying, silent tears — of frustration, it looked like. I felt sorry for that frustration, I felt sorry for her. Why should she have to cry? But I couldn’t make myself say anything. I crossed my arms and stared at her knees.

“Oh my God,” she said, “You’re a mess.” She reached out and put her fingers on my cheek. I would have brushed her hand away, except she did it with such a combination of doctor-like professional no-nonsense manner, and tearful, frustrated worry – no, it was a question in her eyes, it was a surprised question that she was in a way biting on and refusing to let it speak, it was – the same look as on the dead man when he came running down the road and stopped, bewildered or a question. As if the whole world was a question. When I saw this in her my eyes must have totally widened, so she looked at me with a new surprise.

“What’s wrong?” Her voice was quiet, as if something snaked around her senses.

“Nothing.” But I was feeling this strange “point of no return” thing again, as if I was stepping into her magic, her beauty, her spell, and I would never get out again. She was so extremely beautiful at that moment, and yet she was almost ugly, and one part of me was terrified, another part thought I was experiencing some sort of strange, mad hallucination – where all the world is the same, the leaves and granite rocks and sky and her cheeks and eyes haven’t changed a bit, and yet they all had taken on a strangeness, potent and powerful, more powerful than anything human, anything so puny – and the third part of me was rejoicing at all this, rejoicing that I was falling deeper in, that I was entering some strange land, and an even another part of me heart-achingly just wanted to be with her, to hold her and say don’t cry, and then of course there would be the erection. At my “nothing,” she tightened her lips and looked away. I sensed some huge, deep frustration which she wouldn’t share.

“Are you scared?” I asked.

“Why? Why do you say that?” she said, looking at me intently. The wind rifled against her blouse, making waves. Here she stood, we stood, still, facing each other, as if frozen. It was weird.

“Because. It’s – it’s scary.”

“What’s scary?”

“This feeling.” I saw her chest subside, and something went quiet in her face.

“What I’m doing,” I tried to explain. I waved my hand impatiently at the ground in front of me. “I mean, what’s going on?” I looked up at the sky and we were in that strange bluish cool shadow. I had forgotten completely about the shame and being unmanned. Bashing my face and everything had brought me to another place. I stared at her and the spell came again, and I shook my head and looked away.

I felt her take my hand and gather my fingers into her hand, and she walked me back to the cabin. Not that I needed help, but I mean she was sort of a moral support, silent and comforting.

Once we were back at the tent my mood picked up, in fact I started to feel elated, I joked and teased her. She bent her head and curved her chest inward at this, sort of rolling her shoulders forward and together, watching me with round full eyes, so I went up to her and pressed my crotch against her and pawed her breasts, and she pushed my hands away and pulled her legs together, retreating, and then she let me paw again; and finally, you know, I was sucking on her nipples and her flesh was coming out all over, out of the shirt and out of her pants and 1 smelled her and – well, in a way it was over in a flash. A golden flash, I couldn’t stop until it spewed its load, as we say at school. Then I lay beside her and she held me in and when finally it shrank so much it slid out of its own accord, there was wet all over and more poured out of her, and I lay in bliss, and then I fell asleep. The next morning she laughed a little at my bruised face and black eye and cleaned it up with a damp cloth a bit, and I undid her pants and leaned her back and slid my erection in. She had such a smooth, slightly outward-curved belly. And so it went every day. She didn’t do anything to attract me, I guess. At least she never approached me. But her movements had a kind of powerful suggestion to them, so that she just had to sit a certain way, or stand a certain way, and it drew me, she would just turn her head a certain way, or be doing anything, sitting, or making sandwiches, or just thinking, and I would stare, fascinated; or as I said it would draw me, I could not think of anything else – well I didn’t even think – I just went, I had to touch her and feel the weight of her breast in my hand, and lick her down there in the soft swell, and slide it in, and if she was doing something like making sandwiches or talking to me, I would draw her back and to me and bend her gently back and cup her in my hand onto the floor or outside onto the dirt and slide it in.

And for the whole week, too, I sat with her. Wherever she went, I sat on the floor at her feet, and sometimes I would rise to my knees and gaze at her, and stroke her legs or just rise on my knees and let my erection bounce away, or just sit with my head and shoulders leaning against her thigh. Despite the fact that she looked strong and healthy and outdoorsy, she didn’t seem to be a walker, not even a hiker. She didn’t seem to want to go anywhere. So I would go out in the morning and afternoon for a climb or a walk. For some reason the sun shone that entire week, it only rained sometimes at night, you could hear it on the canvas. I slid it in her beautiful curve in the dark, too, and lay in the dark watching her breasts and her eyes reflecting the blue-black light. They were the size of fists, as I said, but round of course. She had very thick nipples. The bears were awake and hungry so I spent an hour outside one morning rigging a food cache from some rope and two trees. But then I’d go inside and see her and want to slide it in. Afterward, I would lie beside her or sit at her feet. Often, that week, her eyes went somewhere I couldn’t go. By week’s end we had scarfed most of the food and ate little. I noticed that I didn’t have much energy when I went walking outside. I set up a couple of bird and chipmunk traps from same cardboard boxes she had. These are ridiculously simple. You just prop a cardboard box up with a stick about six inches long. There’s a string tied around the stick, and you lie down about thirty feet away. You throw some seed or bread in there and wait. When some creature hops in there, you yank and the box falls. I caught two sparrows one afternoon. I yanked their heads off, then waited for the big prey: a crow. For this, you have to put some bits of bread in a row about five feet, leading to the box. Inside the box, you can put a bit of cheese or a beer can tab. You have to use a slightly longer stick, because crows are wary of a low space.

I guess I been gone awhile because she came out to see, and I’d just happened to yank the string on a big black crow. She saw the two sparrow corpses beside me and made a face of wary disgust. But when she found I had a crow in the box, she made me let it go. She was very upset and insistent. She made me promise never to hurt a crow again, in my life. I said okay. I tried to boil the sparrows, but I gave up. I’d never actually eaten something like this before. They were just all feather and bone and no flesh at all.

On the fifth day I picked up the rifle that was propped against the wall. “Maybe I can shoot something,” I announced.

“No,” she said. “No, not that.”

“Why not? Is it loaded? I could shoot a deer, maybe.”

“Yes, it’s loaded. No, please don’t kill anything.”

So we slowly starved.

“Did you?” I said one afternoon.

“What?”

“Kill him.”

She looked at me calmly and thoughtfully, as if contemplating something about my nature. “You are a strange one,” she said.

“Why?”

But she didn’t answer. She smiled and put her hand absently on my shoulder.

I didn’t even care at this point. For some reason, the dead man didn’t mean a thing to me. Neither did my mother and brother, nor school, nor the kids at school, nor my friend Gerry, no one, nothing. But, in a logical sense, I thought that if she had shot him, then that man I saw the RCMP take away should be let go. Someone had to tell them. There was no question in my mind about that. But I felt no urgency about it. I would do so, within days. As soon as I returned… And that was the strange thing. I couldn’t somehow return. I mean, I had to, sometime. But did I? Maybe we could go away somewhere. She must live somewhere. Berry. I asked her name and she said, Berry. Yes, I had to go back to tell the cops that man …but that wasn’t so. There was no indication whatsoever that she had killed him. And why should she?

And then the inevitable happened. The RCMP came. A man in uniform just opened the tent flap one morning and peered in. It had been raining and drops spotted his hat, which had a transparent plastic protector on it, like one of those hokey women’s shower caps. His uniform smelled of damp wool. I saw Berry’s eyes widen with sudden terror. It was a heart-breaking terror. I am always slow to react, but I felt a powerful need to protect her, to put my arms around her and around the way she delicately, preciously dabbed herself — because that was at the root of why I loved her, believe it or not, that dabbing was her. It was like a pipeline to the centre of life.

“Hello,” he said. Berry’s breasts were bare, hanging there like fruit. Shocked, she grabbed a towel and turned away from him, and then I saw her handsome back, bent, small, vulnerable. each of the peas running up it, and the small black pores. (We didn’t get a shower, so bathing was by hand. I slapped water around me, but Berry would sit for long sessions like a cat, deftly but with a strange delicacy, as if she feared hurting her own skin, using the wash towel like a tongue. Still, her back was getting some blackheads, and I’m sure mine was full of them too. I had some pimples, too, but I tried to hide them by ignoring them.)

“Hi,” I said.

“How are you folks doing?”

“Okay,” I said.  As he’d asked his eyes went around the tent cabin, he wasn’t going to miss much. He did it in a quick, businesslike way that almost made you feel insulted, but not quite. You couldn’t really feel you’d been pegged with suspicion; the “look around” was too routine or calm. He wasn’t going to see the mens’ boots nor the rifle, though. Nor anything about a man, except my stuff. I’d carefully removed everything like that the day after she had refused to let me shoot anything. It was a kind of rebellion because I wasn’t a boy to take instructions. I was a man now.   and Berry and her curved stomach were mine and I didn’t want his stuff — some adult male’s stuff — lying around looking at me. At the time, Berry didn’t say anything. She just watched me. She had watched me wrap the rifle and carry it outside. I had felt her watching me, and that was the one time that I didn’t feel sexual desire toward her.

“Can I come in? Or would you like to come out here,” the RCMP said.

“Me?” I said.

“Okay,” he said, and retreated to let me step through the flap to the outside. I looked at Berry, wondering about her. I wouldn’t let her be threatened. She stared at me blankly, not giving me a clue. I had socks on, so I peeled them off before I went outside. “What’s going on, son?” he said as I stepped outside and stood.

“Pardon?”

“Is this your family’s?” He indicated the small valley. I shook my head, no. “Do you know who’s logging up here?”

“No, It’s been there a long time, a month maybe. I’m guessing.”

“Have you been here a month, then?”

“Oh no, maybe a few days.”

I didn’t recognize him from the time Paul and I told the RCMP about the dead man, nor when we were at the site of the shooting. But maybe he knew who I was. I didn’t know.

“I see. And the lady? Is she coming out?”

“1 don’t know.”

“Is she your sister, son?” I shook my head.

“How old are you? Fifteen?”

“Sixteen.” I never lie. It just never occurs to me. I always see things “flat,” sort of.

“And where do you live?”

I could see this was not going anywhere that would let me breeze out of it. “On Coast Highway.”

“So you’ve been up here awhile. You said a few days. Could it be longer? You know, time’s flexible, right?” I knew what he meant, he was thinking of Berry, bare-breasted when he came in. I wondered what gave me away. Now I know: I must have looked half wild and smelled even ranker, no shoes on and standing in the April cold, face unwashed, hair not brushed for a week or more, filthy fingernails. I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing. His manner wasn’t pushy, and his questions in a way didn’t even seem prying. He asked them with such assurance and casualness that you felt you were trying to hide something and would look guilty if you didn’t answer. I watched  him. It was a pretty clever trick he had, I admired that a little bit. But I didn’t answer. I shrugged.

“Where are your parents, son?”

“You mean my parents?”

“U-huh.”

“I just have one. Bernice Micawber. She lives on the Coast highway.”

“Mmm. Is the lady going to come out?”

“I don’t know,” I said, and that was the truth.

“Will she mind if I go in?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Why don’t you wait here,” he said.

1 didn’t want to leave Berry alone with that policeman. It wasn’t whether he was good or bad. It was if Berry was frightened or not. 1 didn’t want her to be frightened. Because fright is a harm, just like anything else. I didn’t want her to be frightened. I didn’t want her to be shamed. I didn’t want her to be handcuffed or pushed or handled roughly or made to do anything. I didn’t want her to be soiled or destroyed with indignity. I couldn’t stand that.

I left the campsite in a businesslike way. I was calm and quiet, and in some ways I just felt like I was out for a stroll. I got there, about a hundred paces away up behind the tent where the ground rises into the rock. I rolled an old crumbly log from a crevice, then reached down and pulled the rifle out. I’d wrapped it in the man’s rain slickers, and I’d wrapped the box of ammunition in the slickers too. The box fell out, onto the rock. I picked it up and opened it. I took a bullet in my hand. It felt solid and cold. I fiddled with the sliding bar. I don’t know anything about guns, or cars, or anything, not having a father to teach me.

The bullet seemed to fit easily into a sliding groove. It pushed down and forward and almost disappeared. Obviously, you could put more in. So I tried another, and another. It was starting to feel urgent. I had to finish this. I’d started, never mind nor know why, but now I had to finish it quick, or everything would be wrong. There was a cop here and I was loading a rifle.

That told me I’d better not get caught. I knew there were such things as safeties, so I slid that bar back down the slot, and I had five bullets in there, and I hoped I’d done something right. There was a little sliding knob without any purpose, so I pushed and it clicked forward. Now, either the safety was on, or it was off. Such was life.

I put the rest of the ammunition box in my back pocket and walked down the rocks to the tent. I stayed about thirty feet back, over to the side where I could see the front flap, and I sat down on my haunches. But that didn’t satisfy me. What if she was being frightened right now, or shamed? I imagined her in there, intimidated, her arms crossed, trying to be brave. I rose and walked through the wet grass to the tent and stepped inside. The officer was sitting at the table, a pad and pen out, and Berry was sitting on the edge of the sleeping platform, her arms crossed. I saw her, she saw me, and I couldn’t read her. Of course now I couldn’t act in any way I wanted to. I had come in with a rifle, and he saw the rifle, and he was looking at me very intently and I was backing over in front of Berry and everything was over the cliff. Nothing could be changed now because I’d walked in with the rifle and he’d seen me. I half pointed it at him, so as not to be too adamant about it. I didn’t want to shoot him. But I knew it was all over. I didn’t regret anything, there wasn’t time. I just shot him. I said “Hi,” to him and then I shot him. Maybe I wouldn’t have shot him if I could have told him what to do, but I’m not good at that, telling people what to do. I think, they either do it, or they don’t. So I shot him, because I wasn’t used to asking for anything. Maybe, I think now, if I’d had a father 1 would have known how to tell people what to do, and I wouldn’t have shot him. But I shot him. I knew before I even shot him, that he was dead, soon.

His hand was scrabbling for his holster, and he was launching himself out of the chair sideways. I wasn’t prepared for his speed. I hadn’t thought he would react so fast. Maybe I wouldn’t even have shot him again if he hadn’t thrown himself sideways, if we could have talked. So he was lying on the ground and he shot at me but I had jumped to the side, and his uniform jacket was all pushed up on his chest, against his shoulders and neck, and he tried to turn to fire again but I shot him, and jumped over to where he was and fired a third shot down at him. He fired at me too, but I had already fired, and I fired again, and his guts and chest jerked and I didn’t feel anything. The shots rang in my ears like a crack in the world. Have you ever heard a gunshot indoors? It was like a giant had slapped your ears and made your brains ring. The RCMP lay quiet, on his back, but he wasn’t dead. He was trying to pull his arms up to aim at me. So I walked over to him and shot him in face. Half his nose and his eye caved in. His hands dropped away from his chest. He looked at me; his good eye filled with a sorrowful surprise, yet he was uninterested, too. I could see he was far away. Then the deadness came to him. He was gone. Poor bastard. I turned and saw the afternoon, rainy light on the canvas wall. I went outside and looked out across the cut, the mess of jumbled ponds and salal and massacred logs; it all was quiet and serene and wet with rain and the afternoon light bathed me. So did a huge sadness, like I had nothing to live for.

I went inside. I looked at her, unsure what I’d see. She stared at me, round-eyed. Her hands shot out, palm upward, crooked in disbelief and question. They pumped in the RCMP’s direction and, generally, at the whole scene.

I tightened my lips. There was no answer. The obvious one, that I’d wanted to protect her, was too obvious to say. To say it would reduce it.

I just stared at her.

/30/

(ABOVE NEEDS ONE THING: BERRY’S VULNERABILITY NOT SHARP ENUF TO MAKE HIM SHOOT THE COP. )