Read The Sweet Hereafter Online

Authors: Russell Banks

The Sweet Hereafter (28 page)

BOOK: The Sweet Hereafter
8.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

The sky was a pale sheet of light sent up from the pickups, and tow trucks. The grass was wet with dew.

Except for a couple of drivers seated or snoozing in their vehicles, everyone was over by the stage and the railing, watching the derby, and the sound of the cars as they roared back and forth and collided with one another was dulled and dimmed, softened, like background noises in a bad dream. Over by the midway, the Ferris wheel spun slowly, rising and falling in the distance like a gigantic clock. The faint music of the merry go ‘round mingling with the gravel voiced calls and come ons of the midway barkers was strangely sad to me; it was like the sound of child hood mine, Nichole’s, everyone’s. Even Abbott’s. Our childhoods that were gone forever but still calling mourn fully back to us.

There’s not much more to tell. I got Abbott to the van, situated him by the side door and lowered the lift for him, raised him up and locked the wheelchair into place next to the driver’s seat. Then I came around and got in myself and started driving. We departed quickly from the parking lot, which was pretty much filled, with no more cars arriving this late and no one but us leaving this early, and soon we were on the road, headed home.

When the fairgrounds and all its illumination were sufficiently behind us, the sky darkened nicely, and the stars seemed to come out all at once, a wide swath of them spreading like sparkling seeds overhead. It was a clear night, fresh and cool, and I knew that autumn was going to come on fast now, the way it does up here.

my right. At the edge of the road, low and close to the ground, first on one side, and then on the other, I began to see the eyes of animals suddenly flash and glitter as I passed along the way, reflecting my headlights back at me and then as quickly flaring out. For a brief second, though, their eyes were pure white and flat, like dry, coldly glowing disks, and it was as if the animals had all come to the edge of the forest, and there by the side of the road they had waited and watched for me, until I had passed them by and the safe familiar darkness had returned.

the end.

BOOK: The Sweet Hereafter
8.55Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Top O' the Mournin' by Maddy Hunter
Rock Me Gently by HK Carlton
Losing Ladd by Dianne Venetta
The Invitation by Roxy Sloane
Fishing for Stars by Bryce Courtenay
The Rescue by Joseph Conrad
Trapped by Annie Jocoby
The Billion Dollar Bad Boy by Jackie Ashenden