George Saunders - Lincoln in the Bardo

roger bevins iii

Faces reduced to gauzy unreadable smudges.

hans vollman

Torsos gray and shapeless but for the slightest torpedo-shaped suggestion of arms and legs.

roger bevins iii

Indistinguishable except that Mr. Twood’s movements retained a touch more vitality. Every now and then, as if making an attempt at persuasion, one of his arm-like appendages would pop up, as if to indicate, on a shelf, something to which he wished to call Mr. Randall’s attention.

hans vollman

Mr. Twood having been, we believed, in the retail line.

roger bevins iii

Drag out the big signage Immediately put it away again Drag it out again Not let slip from grasp Significantly reduced women’s.

mr. benjamin twood

In response, the gray faceless wedge that had been Mr. Randall would sometimes enact a little dance.

roger bevins iii

Yield the seat Here’s a fellow who can really Tinkle the twinklers And the blokeat the piano would proffer his Then it was all me.

jasper randall

Sometimes, near sunrise, when all of the other swamp denizens were weary and depleted and had self-stacked and gone mute near the lightning-blasted black oak, Mr. Randall could be found bowing over and over again, as if to an imagined audience.

roger bevins iii

Leading us to surmise that he must have been a performer of some type.

hans vollman

Thank you thank you thank you!

jasper randall

EXTRAORDINARY VALUE WITHIN:

Only recall your thin weary mother who mightyet be saved By the auto-iron, the cranking grater, the cold-box, the auto-salter, her once-fine posture revived, her winsome kindsmile revived, as of yore, when, in shortknees, you sported a branchsaber among the general pie-odor.

mr. benjamin twood

Slam, arpeggio, pause for smokedrink When I slammed a good one, small ripples would appear in the golden drink set before.

jasper randall

Any admiration we might once have felt for their endurance had long since devolved into revulsion.

roger bevins iii

Were we destined for a similar fate?

hans vollman

We thought not.

roger bevins iii

(Regularly scanned each other’s features for any indication of facial-smudging.)

hans vollman

(Continually monitored ourselves for the slightest degradation in diction.)

roger bevins iii

And they were far from the worst.

hans vollman

Consider Mr. Papers.

roger bevins iii

Essentially a cringing gray supine line.

hans vollman

Of whom one would only become aware once one had stumbled over him.

roger bevins iii

Cannery anyhelpmate? Come. To. Heap me? Cannery help? Can any wonder? Help. Conneg ayone heap? Unclog? May?

Place hepMay.

l. b. papers

We had no idea what Mr. Papers might previously have been.

roger bevins iii

There being so little of him remaining.

hans vollman

Go on Move along Else receive an unglad message in your bentover I’ll come right up under and ventilate your undertenting.

flanders quinn

Flanders Quinn.

hans vollman

Former robber.

roger bevins iii

Bevins, I’ll piss a line of toxic in yr wretched twin wristcuts Gropping you by yr clubdick, Vollman, I’ll slang you into the blackfence.

flanders quinn

I, for one, was afraid of him.

roger bevins iii

I was not afraid of him.

Exactly.

But we had urgent business. Must not linger.

hans vollman

And trot-skimmed off along the swamp-margin, Quinn cursing us, then reversing himself and supplicating us to return, as he was frightened to stay in that place, and yet more frightened to leave it (and go), since what must become of a sinner who had slit the throats of a merchant and his daughter beside a broken-wheeled Fredericksburg cariole (plucked the pearls from her very neck and wiped them blood-free with her own silk wrap)?

roger bevins iii

Regaining higher ground we put on the speed, passed through the leaning toolshed, crossed the gravel road, and made good time along the old carriage path, which still retained, to my nostrils, some faint mysterious scent of newsprint.

hans vollman

Just ahead now, past the slightly left-leaning Cafferty obelisk, a crowd had gathered around a freshly filled sick-hole.

hans vollman

Mr. Vollman approached the group.

Is the new arrival still…with us? he delicately inquired.

He is, yes, replied Tobin “Badger” Muller, bent, as always, nearly double with toil.

Shut your traps, so I can hear ’im, barked Mrs. Sparks, on all fours, ear to the ground.

roger bevins iii

Wife of my heart laura laura

I take up my pen in a state of such great exhaustion that only my deep love for all of you could so compel me after a day of such Unholy slaughter and fear. And must tel you frankly that Tom Gilman did not make it through the terrible fite. Our position being located in a copse. Much firing during which I heard a cry. Tom is hit & fallen. Our Brave & Noble frend laying upon his Face upon the Ground. I directed the Boys that we would avenge even if it meant stepping through the very gates of Hell.

Such is the state of my Mind that tho I know we set off in that direction & with that Intent, what happened next I cannot recall. Only that all is Well and I embrace my faithful pen to inform you I am at present safe and hope these lines find my Dear little family enjoying the same great Blessing.

I arrived here at this place by Distant journey. And confin’d all the while. It was a terrible fite as I believe I rote you. Tom Gilman is ded as I believe I rote you. But He who preserves or destroys by his Whim saw fit to preserve me to rite these lines to you. To say that although confin’d, I count my Blessings. I am Weary to the point I can scarcely tell where I am or how I got here.

I await the nurse.

Trees hang down. Breece blows. I am somewhat blue & afrade.

O my dear I have a foreboding. And feel I must not linger. In this place of great sadness. He who preserves and Loves us scarcely present. And since we must endeavor always to walk beside Him, I feel I must not linger. But am Confin’d, in Mind & Body, and unable, as if manacled, to leave at this time, dear Wife.

I must seek & seek: What is it that keeps me in this abismal Sad place?

captain william prince

A figure now burst up from the mounded earth, like some wild creature sprung from a cage, and began pacing about, anxiously gazing into the faces of Mr. Muller, Mrs. Sparks, and the others.

roger bevins iii

A soldier.

In uniform.

hans vollman

Don’t be afraid, someone drawled from the crowd. You was in that old place, and now you is in this new place here.

roger bevins iii

The soldier became translucent to the point of invisibility, as sometimes happens with us during intense cogitation, and, head first, re-entered the sick-hole.

Then of the instant was out again, look of bleak wonderment upon his face.

hans vollman

Dear wife of my Heart O Laura-Bunny,

Inside my Confin’men is my trapings. I have just now looked. My cheek mole & hareline exact. It is uncomfortable to behold. With a sad look on the (burned!) face. And the torso marred by a grave wound difficult to

I am here, am trapped here and I see of this instant what I must do to get free.

Which is tell the TRUTH & all shall be

O I cant tel shal I tell shall I tell all?

I feel I must or

stay forever

In this drear & awful

Laura send the little ones away & see that they cannot hear what comes next.

I consorted with the smaller of the two. I did. In that rude Hamlet. Consorted with the smaller of the two and she asked after the Loket you had given me and asked Is she a good wife? even as she, atop me, gave a little thrust of the hips and looked me in the eye as to disgrace yr Honor but I assure you that (even as she thrust twise more, eyes still loked on mine) I did not give her that satisfaction, did not sully Yr name or memory, although to serve TRUTH (& thereby escape this place) I feel I must freely confess that as she bent low to proffer her womanly Charms, one of them and then the other to my mouth, asking did my wife do this was my wife as wild? I made an expulsion of breath that we both understood to mean NO my wife does not, my wife is not as Free. And all the further time we consorted there in that dirty leaning shed where her 3 babes did sleep on in there crude crib & her 2 pale Sisters and her Mother did kakle from the Yard, she kept the loket clenched in one hand and, when done, asked could she keep it? But my foul lust now rung out of me, I answered sharply that she could not. And took me to the woods. Where I wept. And there thought with true Tenderness of you. And desided it was kinder to deceive.