stepped up and put a gun
to the dog’s temple Geryon walked away.
Now leaning forward to peer out the little oblong window where icy cloudlight
drilled his eyes
he wished he had stayed to see it go free.
Geryon was hungry.
Opening his
Fodor’s Guide
he began to read “Things to Know About Argentina.”
“The strongest harpoons are made
from the bone inside the skull of a whale that beaches on Tierra del Fuego.
Inside the skull is a
canalita
and along it two bones. Harpoons made from a jawbone are not so strong.”
A delicious odor of roasting seal
was wafting through the aeroplane. He looked up. Rows away at the front
servants were distributing
dinner from a cart. Geryon was very hungry. He forced himself to stare out
the cold little window and count
to one hundred before looking up again. The cart had not moved. He thought
about harpoons. Does a man with a harpoon
go hungry? Even a harpoon made of a jawbone could hit the cart from here.
How people get power over one another,
this mystery. He moved his eyes back to the
Fodor’s Guide.
“Among
the indigenous folk of Tierra del Fuego
were the Yamana which means as a noun ‘people not animals’ or as a verb
‘to live, breathe, be happy, recover
from sickness, become sane.’ Joined as a suffix to the word for
hand
it denotes ‘friendship.’ ”
Geryon’s dinner arrived. He unwrapped and ate every item ravenously seeking
the smell he had smelled
a few moments ago but it was not there. The Yamana too, he read, were extinct
by the beginning of the twentieth century—
wiped out by measles contracted from the children of English missionaries.
As night darkness glided across the outer world
the inside of the aeroplane got colder and smaller. There were neon tracks
in the ceiling which extinguished themselves.
Geryon closed his eyes and listened to engines vibrating deep in the moon-splashed
canals of his brain. Each way
he moved brought his kneecaps into hard contact with punishment.
He opened his eyes again.
At the very front of the cabin hung a video screen. South America glowed
like an avocado. A live red line
marked the progress of the aeroplane. He watched the red line inch forward
from Miami
towards Puerto Rico at 972 kilometers per hour. The passenger in front of him
had propped his video camera
gently against the sleeping head of his wife and was videotaping the video screen,
which now recorded
Temperatura Exterior (−50 degrees C) and Altura (10,670 meters)
as well as Velocidad.
“The Yamana, whose filth and poverty persuaded Darwin, passing in his
Beagle,
that they were monkey men unworthy
of study, had fifteen names for clouds and more than fifty for different kinds
of kin. Among their variations of the verb
‘to bite’ was a word that meant ‘to come surprisingly on a hard substance
when eating something soft
e.g. a pearl in a mussel.’ ” Geryon shifted himself down and up in the molded
seat trying to unclench
knots of pain in his spine. Half turned sideways but could not place his left arm.
Heaved himself forwards again
accidentally punching off the reading light and knocking his book to the floor.
The woman next to him moaned
and slumped over the armrest like a wounded seal. He sat in the numb dark.
Hungry again.
The video screen recorded local (Bermuda) time as ten minutes to two.
What is time made of?
He could feel it massed around him, he could see its big deadweight blocks
padded tight together
all the way from Bermuda to Buenos Aires—too tight. His lungs contracted.
Fear of time came at him. Time
was squeezing Geryon like the pleats of an accordion. He ducked his head to peer
into the little cold black
to the dog’s temple Geryon walked away.
Now leaning forward to peer out the little oblong window where icy cloudlight
drilled his eyes
he wished he had stayed to see it go free.
Geryon was hungry.
Opening his
Fodor’s Guide
he began to read “Things to Know About Argentina.”
“The strongest harpoons are made
from the bone inside the skull of a whale that beaches on Tierra del Fuego.
Inside the skull is a
canalita
and along it two bones. Harpoons made from a jawbone are not so strong.”
A delicious odor of roasting seal
was wafting through the aeroplane. He looked up. Rows away at the front
servants were distributing
dinner from a cart. Geryon was very hungry. He forced himself to stare out
the cold little window and count
to one hundred before looking up again. The cart had not moved. He thought
about harpoons. Does a man with a harpoon
go hungry? Even a harpoon made of a jawbone could hit the cart from here.
How people get power over one another,
this mystery. He moved his eyes back to the
Fodor’s Guide.
“Among
the indigenous folk of Tierra del Fuego
were the Yamana which means as a noun ‘people not animals’ or as a verb
‘to live, breathe, be happy, recover
from sickness, become sane.’ Joined as a suffix to the word for
hand
it denotes ‘friendship.’ ”
Geryon’s dinner arrived. He unwrapped and ate every item ravenously seeking
the smell he had smelled
a few moments ago but it was not there. The Yamana too, he read, were extinct
by the beginning of the twentieth century—
wiped out by measles contracted from the children of English missionaries.
As night darkness glided across the outer world
the inside of the aeroplane got colder and smaller. There were neon tracks
in the ceiling which extinguished themselves.
Geryon closed his eyes and listened to engines vibrating deep in the moon-splashed
canals of his brain. Each way
he moved brought his kneecaps into hard contact with punishment.
He opened his eyes again.
At the very front of the cabin hung a video screen. South America glowed
like an avocado. A live red line
marked the progress of the aeroplane. He watched the red line inch forward
from Miami
towards Puerto Rico at 972 kilometers per hour. The passenger in front of him
had propped his video camera
gently against the sleeping head of his wife and was videotaping the video screen,
which now recorded
Temperatura Exterior (−50 degrees C) and Altura (10,670 meters)
as well as Velocidad.
“The Yamana, whose filth and poverty persuaded Darwin, passing in his
Beagle,
that they were monkey men unworthy
of study, had fifteen names for clouds and more than fifty for different kinds
of kin. Among their variations of the verb
‘to bite’ was a word that meant ‘to come surprisingly on a hard substance
when eating something soft
e.g. a pearl in a mussel.’ ” Geryon shifted himself down and up in the molded
seat trying to unclench
knots of pain in his spine. Half turned sideways but could not place his left arm.
Heaved himself forwards again
accidentally punching off the reading light and knocking his book to the floor.
The woman next to him moaned
and slumped over the armrest like a wounded seal. He sat in the numb dark.
Hungry again.
The video screen recorded local (Bermuda) time as ten minutes to two.
What is time made of?
He could feel it massed around him, he could see its big deadweight blocks
padded tight together
all the way from Bermuda to Buenos Aires—too tight. His lungs contracted.
Fear of time came at him. Time
was squeezing Geryon like the pleats of an accordion. He ducked his head to peer
into the little cold black
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