Walking the Ground

story nineteen · figures 55–57

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WALKING THE GROUND · THE PLATE AGAINST THE STONE — nine hundred and forty stones · the plate is licensed by the estate, the granite is paid for by the family WALKING THE GROUND · THE PLATE AGAINST THE STONE nine hundred and forty stones · the plate is licensed by the estate, the granite is paid for by the family ROW THE PLATE · licensed, and it speaks to a wrist THE STONE · cut, and it does not WHAT SHE FILES 40 · 12 Devoted father. Fifty-one years in the fish trade. A GOOD MAN ON THE WATER corresponding 40 · 19 Beloved wife of. HERE LIES HER OWN WOMAN sentiment, family-supplied · the softest category on offer 41 · 3 A quiet life, quietly kept. SHE WAS NOT QUIET filed · with a note nobody reads 41 · 8 silent — battery, or lapse, or the estate stopped paying WE WILL COME ON THURSDAYS corresponding · the ground worn in the shape of standing 42 · 1 a name, four decades, a trade HE PAID FOR THE CROSSING OF NINE corresponding · marked twice, which the field does not allow 42 · 6 Taken from us. TAKEN NOTHING FILED · the field stays empty and nobody queries it 43 · 11 starts, stops, restarts — a license inside its grace month DO NOT BELIEVE THE ONE UNDERNEATH cut deep, in the same hand as the name WHEN THE TWO DISAGREE, THE GRANITE TENDS TO BE THE TRUER. A stone is expensive and permanent and is chosen in the first grief. A plate can be edited later, by whoever holds the license — and in the close rows, whichever was renewed most recently is the loudest. THE STONES WERE CUT BY PEOPLE WHO HAD TO FACE THE FAMILY AFTERWARD.
55 · Walking the Ground
WALKING THE GROUND · THE ROW SHE DOES NOT WALK — at three she reaches the row she has been walking toward all week without saying so WALKING THE GROUND · THE ROW SHE DOES NOT WALK at three she reaches the row she has been walking toward all week without saying so nine along her mother SHE STANDS AT THE END OF IT WITH THE TABLET AT HER SIDE AND DOES NOT GO DOWN IT. She marks the row DEFERRED, ACCESS — a category for a gate that will not open, and not for a woman who will not walk. THE PLATE six years on a monthly debit that leaves her account on the ninth she wrote the copy herself, in the fortnight after, out of a list of approved phrases THE STONE blank granite, a name on the base plate, a space above it there was no money for cutting that year · the space has waited six years for a line she cannot choose EVERY MONTH THE DEBIT GOES OUT FOR THE SENTENCE SHE COULD AFFORD INSTEAD. She is the estate. There was nobody else to be it. Tomorrow she has three hundred and eleven stones left, and one of them is nine along a row she has deferred.
56 · Walking the Ground
WALKING THE GROUND · THE CARD ON THE WALL BY THE GATE — put up for two years, replaced whenever the rain takes it · she has looked at it every working day since the spring WALKING THE GROUND · THE CARD ON THE WALL BY THE GATE put up for two years, replaced whenever the rain takes it · she has looked at it every working day since the spring LETTERING. HONEST PRICES. NO SUBSCRIPTION. handwritten · no license · nothing renews what the plate is licensed, renewable, editable, and it costs on the ninth of every month what the card offers a cut line, once, at an honest price, and then nothing further — ever what it would end the debit, the approved phrases, the screen and the fortnight after what it would begin a sentence in granite that no one can edit and no estate can renew what she does with it takes it down at the end of the day and puts it in her pocket THE ONLY THING SHE TAKES FROM THE SLOPE IN 1,451 WORDS IS A HANDWRITTEN CARD ADVERTISING PERMANENCE. AND AT THE TOP OF THE SLOPE THE TWO OF THEM EAT STANDING UP, AND SHE LAUGHS WITH HER MOUTH FULL and has to turn away from the stones to do it, which is the rule, and is also the only rule up here she keeps for herself.
57 · Walking the Ground

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