Just past noon and the boy is, at last, sleeping beneath the kitchen table. Difficult, the girl said, as if the child was a problem to solve. Now she understands. There’s some rage within him—his little fists are constant. Unless, like now, he’s sleeping, his anger gone. As if sleep possesses us, infuses us with a goodness that isn’t really us. She peeks at the boy, at his tiny unclenched hands, at his dirty elbows, at his stomach rising and falling. Or what if it is us? What if asleep is the only time we are true? If so, who are we when we’re awake?
She takes Obadiah’s glasses out of her apron. Often he declares them lost and she finds them at various places around the farm. She begins to read.
Most days she lets the wind decide the page. Other, rarer times, like now, she goes back to the beginning.
The beginning? Does one remember being born? I was always at Goas. Even before I was at Goas, I was at Goas. Before the dry land was the water and the firmament. Out this window, I see the dry land. At night, I see the firmament. Where’s the water?
They say there was an ocean here once. It must have dried up.
And the boy, scrambling out from under the table, makes for the door.