The Seventh Day Read Online Free Page B

Jonjan. It was empty. They did not know that their pill container had been emptied into the waste food we feed to the sow. Though this was not the doing of Lenny, it was he who was given much tongue and trouble and threat by the grey men. They do not speak to me.
    Previously I have swallowed the city pills and thought little of them; still, I have thought little of much since the grey men came. Now I think. I think of Jonjan, and I think of Pa when he swallows his pills. They are for his aches and when he swallows enough his aches go away and he sleeps where he sits. I have had no aches and I did not wish to sleep so I did not swallow the pills. I also did not drink of my cordial for a day, for Jonjan had grown weary when he drank of it; but an illness came fast upon me, and I felt great thirst for the cordial. So I drank it. It did not make me weary.
    I have been thinking much these last days, thinking of time and the great clock at the top of the stairs. Perhaps I will try to set its weights, tease its pendulum into life, make its heart begin to tock-tick-tock once more. Also I am thinking of my belly which is all a flip-flip-flop. I am thinking of Granny’s doctoring book, its separating pages held together by an ancient cord. I have seen that book – somewhere. Perhaps I will look for it.
    I did not wish to eat this morning, and I do not wish to eat now, though my stomach yawns with its emptiness. I make a cordial, then stare at the bottle long. There are measuring lines on it, and a foolish top that dispenses only enough to make the colour of the water pink. I like a stronger colour, and it is not difficult to remove that dispensing top so I may pour what I will to my mug. I have used its strong colour also when I paint my pictures, for when the undiluted cordial is mixed with white clay it makes the delicate pink of a remembered flower. I look at the cordial, but can not yet lift the mug to my mouth, for these past mornings the stuff pours out of me so fast when I put it in, and my need for the cordial is bringing with it fragments of a deeper need. There have been moments these last days when this need rises up inside of me and I hear an inner scream coming from within my head. I must not let that scream begin. I must not.
    And I think I must not place that mug to my lips; my nose does not much like the smell of it and my stomach rolls as a plasti-bucket in the wind.
    I take up the bottle, thinking to sip a little directly from it, for a little in the belly will also be a little to pour out of it. The cordial is thick and of a darker red than blood. My stomach heaves with the thought of it.
    Lord. Lord, what is this illness in me? And this thinking, thinking, thinking. I can not stop it. Before the coming of Jonjan, there was no thinking. Before there was . . . was nothing.
    My hair, not yet brushed, hangs in clumps. Though I have a fine city brush, my arms do not wish to labour at it. I take up a strand or two of the long stuff and look at its colour, which Granny called red, though it is not red. If I should mix paint to make this colour I would not use red at all, but deep orange, and powdered rust with perhaps a touch of black. I wish it were yellow, as Jonjan’s hair. If it were yellow I would clean it well in the chem-tub and brush it well for him – if he were still amongst the living.
    We entwined and were one. He ate of my mouth and the blood in me became fire, and like the fire on the mountain the day I walked with Granny, it exploded and reached so high it set to burning the moons and the stars. Then he drank of the cordial and grew weary. I ran to the chem-tub, washing myself long. I placed my soiled overall in the air-tub then ran to my room where I waited at the window for the grey men’s giant flying machine. No storm nor wind can blow it from the sky. It comes when it wishes to come, bringing with it its own thunder.
    It was from my window that I saw the lights go out, from