Jesse Ball - The Curfew

Up the slope of the fort they go, and there indeed is the nut vendor. They buy nuts and walk some distance to the shade of a single tree. There are ants, then, with little bits of fur glued to their carapace, that scurry about on the stage.

*Do you think, says Molly to her father, that this fortress repelled any grand attacks? Or was it always just landscape without human function?

— Look around for bones, says William. Then you’d know.

*Not if they were very neat about caring for their dead.

— There is no agency of neatness capable of finding all the casualties after a battle, declaims William.

Reaching behind the tree, Molly produces a long bone. A fateful impression comes over her. Even when this bone was the leg of a man, it nevertheless was awaiting its intended use. It was privy to this knowledge from the beginning.

William takes out a little knife. He holds the bone gently on his knee and sets to carving. He carves awhile and then rubs delicately with a small gray cloth and then carves awhile more. He is very fine in his motions, as if he has done this before. This is one of his talents — to appear accomplished when just beginning.

Molly runs about.

He presents the bone finally to Molly. On it is a long series of arcane directions.

— This is how to find a thing we hid, your mother and I. Keep it safe. These directions will not be accurate for another fifteen years. Then they will lead you straight where you need to go.

Molly tucks the bone under her arm. William hefts her up onto his shoulder and, taking the bag of nuts under one arm, walks homeward.

CURTAIN

A chair has been continually scraping. Molly turns around. It is a large pheasant puppet in a topcoat. He looks Molly right in the eye and sniffs.

She waves to Mrs. Gibbons. The pheasant is removed immediately.

Despite her quick action, Mrs. Gibbons appears somehow complicit.

AND

OH

HOW

TIME

HAS

PASSED!

A beautiful day, as anyone can see. The light is shining with brave intensity upon the springtime. Molly is older now, and walking ahead of William. She is signing out her multiplication tables and he is nodding or correcting as needed. They pass along the set, and as they do, the set itself changes. First they are in one street, then another. Time passes. The angle of the sun shifts. They arrive at the gates to the cemetery. William unlocks the gate with a long key that hangs like a sword from his belt. In they go. He intends to show her many of the epitaphs he has written. The paths in the cemetery are long and winding. The trees are ancient and well cared for. Moss abounds. Weeping willows are used judiciously to separate sections and give meaning to various points of prominence. Obelisks are strictly banned, or were at some point in the distant past. Those few that are evident predate the ban. They are so old that they can no longer be read. Their greatness shines no light on the ones they were meant to memorialize.

— Here, says William, is one of the very first I did.

A small stone, surrounded by tree stumps.

Elinor Gast

Drowned .

Molly stares at the stone for a long time.

— It wasn’t true, actually, says William. She died of a heart attack. Her husband felt it would be exciting for the both of them, however, if the stone said drowned . It was his idea, entirely. That’s what really established the tone of my epitaphry.

*And the next?

— Over here.

They cross a little bridge over a stream and come to a grove of sycamores. The entire Eldritch family in rows and circles.

*Let me see if I can find it, signs Molly.

She goes around from grave to grave. Finally, she shakes her hand up and down.

She and William inspect the stone together. It reads:

ELDRITCH

Mara Colin

A short, hurtful dream .

*Who exactly did you speak to about this one?

— The husband’s father, an extremely old man.

*He didn’t care for his daughter-in-law?

William pats Molly affectionately on the shoulder.

— You could say that.

They hold hands and continue through the cemetery. The figure of the veiled jester can be seen watching them from behind a distant tree.

Now they are passing under a ridge of pines. There are small pink stones, roughly square, with little crosses blooming from their tops. Molly pauses and kneels by them. Her tail wraps around one. There is a sound from across the cemetery, the ringing of church bells. Her ears perk up.

— Soldiers, all, says William. Dead in the same blast of gunfire.

And indeed they had all died on the same day.

— But this isn’t my work, says William. Long before my time.

Up the next hill they go. There at the top is a little stone house. In the house, a marble bench and a bare window. The window looks out across a stretch of the cemetery and the river. Part of the old city wall is visible where it once ran.

*Ignazio Porro, who invented prism binoculars .

— That’s right. I believe that’s actually true.

There is a stone sculpture of a pair of binoculars on the floor near the window.

Molly tries to pick them up. They won’t budge.

— Come on.

— Do you know, says William, when I was a young man I expected that I would never marry.

*Not ever?

— Not even your mother, said William. But your mother, you know, she was always asking me to go with her walking in rainstorms. It was her very favorite thing to do, to feel the rain and see the flashing of lightning. They are hiding in their houses, see them , she would say.

And we would go on running over the canal, and there was a song she would shout out.

William’s voice trails away. He is speaking, but the sound has gone.

As they exit the little house, a face peers in from the other side. It is the jester. Molly and her father leave the stage. The jester climbs in the window.

— Molly, he says. Molly. They are all asleep. Look around.

Molly looks behind her. Sure enough, the puppets in the audience are all sleeping. Some have fallen off their chairs. The heads of others lounge oddly upon their chests. Mrs. Gibbons is dozing in the corner.

Molly signs:

*It means nothing. Continue.

The puppet stares at her without understanding.

She writes on a piece of paper:

*CONTINUE.

The puppet laughs.

CURTAIN

Molly is thinking about trees. Her tail curls and uncurls.

*What remains of a tree in a violin?!

— That’s the permission, he says — but it is not in every violin.

*Nor perhaps, says Molly carelessly, in every tree.

To the south there is a passage of birds, thin but stretching on. Molly tears at the grass with her hands and the smell is thick and fresh. They are in the shade, these two, and never farther from the world.