Las Vegas for Vegans Read Online Free Page B

postcard from Venice of the Rialto Bridge—a few gondolas ferrying clusters of people. A blank card with nothing to indicate who it was from, who it was intended for, or how it had ended up all the way out at The Mirage Inn.
    On the drive back to Adelaide she made a few decisions, none of which she believed she could live with. She would have to go by Daniel’s family home in Glenelg and reclaim her son. Audrey kept driving and arrived at her house in the early afternoon. Didn’t bother with the messages on the answering machine. Swallowed two sleeping pills and got into bed. She woke up when it was dark, took another two pills, and went back to sleep.
    She had one long dream as she slept—of searching the motel room endlessly, occasionally discovering objects she couldn’t understand. A bottle cap was a coin or it was a button or maybe a war medal. The Venice postcard had a message on the back that said From Us in the square for the message and To Us across the lines for the address. Daniel had written it, or Keenan had learned to write and these were his first words, or Audrey had filled out the postcard, perhaps even in real life.
    She was roused from sleep. She heard her son playing with the metal bell that Daniel had screwed onto the plastic handle of Keenan’s buggy. After every ring of the bell, Keenan happily cried out ting-a-ling! ting-a-ling! Audrey swung her legs out of bed. With her eyes glued shut, she stumbled to the lounge room and stubbed a toe on the way—had to stop with gritted teeth as pulses of agony passed through her in waves. She hobbled another few steps.
    Her husband was sitting on the carpet with the child. Daniel said hi when he saw Audrey. She said hi back as she worked her eyes open with her palms. He must have stopped by Glenelg and found Keenan at Grandma’s house. Audrey asked Daniel if he wanted coffee. He said yes as he placed Keenan on the buggy. From their kitchen she could hear him mimicking his boy, saying ting-a-ling! ting-a-ling!

BELOW ZERO
    I talk through layers of flesh and know it doesn’t matter what I’ve said, but that you hear me and understand me better than words can manage. I measure you out in centimetres and the weights of vegetables like cauliflower. Another three months before the world will grant you that fixed moment of zero, and begin its own measurements in hours, days, and then weeks. But for six months now we’ve slept in a bed together, and I’ve known you in seismic movements only my careful palm can detect. Or there’s that swelling in my mind in the evenings where my own love began as a kind of bruise. There is this way that you have hit me without a touch. The secret kicks and punches when there’s no other way to talk.

BOYS
    There were days the two boys left the house in the morning and didn’t return again until they were ravenous for dinner. They talked about what could be caught in the woods and what were the most effective ways of killing.
    They agreed ducks on the lake would be easy. Sava could use a stone to bash out the brains and Milan would pluck off the feathers and pull out the guts. They could roast the duck and sleep in the boatshed. One night they wouldn’t return late in the evening, as they sometimes did, so hungry that they ate like animals—almost directly from the hands giving them food. No plates, cutlery or a place in their stuffed mouths for ‘thanks’. They wouldn’t return until the next morning and everyone would be astounded by the two boys when they ambled back to Uncle Stefan’s mansion.
    Sava and Milan walked by the abattoir and decided they would go and see how the cows were killed. They heard the noise the animals made as they were herded within steel barricades and the grunts as they were harassed by shouting men through to slaughter. They saw the blood pooled on the ground near the windowless building’s walls. The smell was worse than