Recapitulation: Slapstick abounds with exhaustion. After exhuming Gertrude Wilborough’s grave, they’ve unearthed several treasures, including a possible last will which may change
For as long as they’d known each other, all these long hours, it seemed like they’d been pulling each other down, scrabbling over each other to get to the top of their two-person heap. Once again, the subtle tracings sketching out their life stories laid some subtle irony at their feet. Barry rubbed his lower back, now aflame with pain, and looked over to a quiet-for-once Jenna, blood oozing from her temple. Somewhere within, he wondered if this all happened quite different in another universe.
Even knocked out, her hair exuded signs of a life independent of the body they became attached to. It may have been more an effect of the scattered dirt bed she’d come to rest on, it might have been how, despite the shadows filling the hole, each strand delineated itself. The bright blood, seeping forward, colored everything in its path a duller hue of the incipient sunrise above them.
Always forgetful of just how light she was, Barry scooped her into his arms, then pressed her body above his head, tipping her forward onto the ground above. A simple euphoria flooded his body, much as harsh exhaustion threaded his musculature. Stepping to the other side of the grave, Barry traded up, passing through the air in order to get himself to a more tenable position. He rolled onto his back, right arm draped over his chest, left arm still dangling into the pit. Wheezed, wheezed, wheezed. What a race.
His vision gained an unfocused quality. The golden-red sun bled indistinct, its edges blurring into a vague arc, the blue-black sky beyond finishing the cold irradiated burst. a few clouds stranded through this smooth color schema, little more than what might have been early-onset cataracts cottoning his eyeballs. His head lolled, and broad basic colors gave way to cold slate and granite slabs peppering the faded piney green grass. An inch from his face, sharper grass extruded from the ground, and Barry counted the uniform veins striping the length of each blade. Somewhere in the distance, a large blob, white and tan and brown and large and filled with so many color gradations it stood out for its uniqueness, looked very out of place. It took Barry a few efforts to focus in on the elderly man holding a flower bouquet, and an additional try to recognize the utter lack of movement at all, signifying what?
He turned his head the other way, saw the pile of dirt, the fresh grave, the unconscious woman bleeding out from her heard. Turned back to the old man. Turned back to Jenna. Even if she was in any shape to explain this, she wouldn’t have explained this. No, it fell to him to assuage this man’s fears, explain that he wasn’t a murderer. He loved mornings.
Barry edged into a semi-sitting position much more appropriate for a chaise lounge than an exposition. He turned to the old man, still frozen in a temporal amber, preserved in the scene that he drew his own conclusion for. “Everything’s okay, there’s a perfect explanation for all this.” He beckoned across the field, across the dirt heap and the half-dead woman and the open grave. “There’s no perfect explanation for all this. But I have an explanation for you, if you’ll just give me a chance.” In the old man’s shoes, Barry would have worn off the soles gunning for the nearest constable.
“Don’t hurt me, please. I’m not seeing anything, there is nothing to see here.” The old man raised the flowers before his face.
Barry nodded. “Well, yes, this is true, this is all completely ordinary, everyday run-of-the-mill business.” He sighed.
“I’ll do whatever you want.”
The phrase, fraught with potential, yet extended with such desperation, didn’t register in Barry’s mind for a few seconds. He’d just been in the old man’s position. Now it was time to take some advantage of the situation.
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