All That Is Solid Melts into Air by Darragh McKeon Page B

that his father was willing to work for it, for him. His father brought it home but gave no indication of his efforts. To an outsider, it might have seemed that his father merely found the object sticking out from a hedgerow at the end of the lane, that it was simply an advantageous quirk which interrupted an otherwise unremarkable day.
    Artyom knew differently, though.
    His father showed him how to line up the sights of the gun, demonstrated for him the different stances required when kneeling or standing, and when the boy was finally allowed to take his first shot at a depressed football they had hung from a branch, he was astonished at the power of the kickback from the weapon, causing him almost to lose his balance; despite the fact that he had anticipated it, been warned of it, had lodged the butt of the gun firmly into the notch between his shoulder and his collarbone. The compressed power of a weapon. This was what it was to hold power in your arms.
    Crossing the second field, Artyom changes his path slightly, walking in an arched trajectory so he can approach some of the scattered bullocks chewing lazily in the morning air. He likes to rub his hand along them, the quivering life they hold underneath their hairy exteriors passing itself into his fingers. He likes the packed concentration of muscle beneath the beasts. When he was younger, he and his friends would punch the cattle hard, hoping for a response, but they never managed to provoke anything more than a disinterested look.
    Artyom runs his hand over the head of the nearest one and feels the morning dew slicking his fingers, the heat emanating from its neck. The dew feels different than on previous occasions, as though it has the texture of fine material, and the boy looks at his fingers and finds them tipped with liquid. He scans the body and sees a channel of blood slowly pouring from the animal’s ear, dripping to the grass below. He checks the next bullock, ten feet away, and finds precisely the same.
    He deliberates whether to call his father, by now almost out of earshot, but the decision isn’t a difficult one: cattle are important here, the difference between livelihood and starvation; he had known this even as a small child. His father hears the shout and stops, irritated, but then makes his way back to the boy. Andrei’s son always displays good judgement. If he considers something worth stopping for, it is worth at least some consideration. The other men are as unhurried as the beasts; they rummage in their pockets and light another cigarette and watch and wait.
    These cattle belong to Vitaly Scherbak. Though all the men work for the kolkhoz, each of them has an acre or two of their own upon which they keep a few thin animals. These cattle will spend next winter wrapped in old newspaper, sitting in stacked lumps in old fridges or packed underneath hard clay. For now, though, they stand, bemused, chewing their cud, looking at Andrei Yaroslavovych and his son walk amongst them, tilting their heads to the morning sun.
    When Andrei returns he consults the group and they decide to let Vitaly sleep an extra hour. The beasts will need attention but they seem in no great distress and their neighbour could do with his rest. But the news brings some conversation to the remainder of their walk, murmurs of speculation as to what could possibly cause a whole herd to bleed in such a way. And Artyom is proud of this; he has gained further degrees of respect, a boy who could notice such things would soon no longer be a boy, could soon make jokes and observations and judgements of his own.
    They nestle into the ditch and Artyom takes in the sky once more. The great, roiling sky, looming over the earth, drawing all things together in their relative insignificance.
    The men load their guns and stabilize themselves with their legs. Each one focuses on a particular bird and readies himself to shoot. A single shot would scatter the flock and leave the rest of the men