Kids rode by on bikes and punks rode by on skateboards. Couples
wandered through the park across the street, their murmurous
conversations clear on the whispering breeze that rattled the leaves.
He hadn't gotten any writing done, but that was all right. He had plenty
of time, and once the soundwall was in, he'd be able to get a good
night's sleep and really focus down on the story.
A Chinese girl and a white boy walked down the sidewalk, talking
intensely. They were all of six, and the boy had a Russian accent. The
Market's diversity always excited Alan. The boy looked a little like
Alan's brother Doug (Dan, David, Dearborne) had looked when he was that
age.
Doug was the one he'd helped murder. All the brothers had helped with
the murder, even Charlie (Clem, Carlos, Cory), the island, who'd opened
a great fissure down his main fault line and closed it up over Doug's
corpse, ensuring that their parents would be none the wiser. Doug was a
stubborn son-of-a-bitch, though, and his corpse had tunneled up over the
next six years, built a raft from the bamboo and vines that grew in
proliferation on Carlos's west coast. He sailed the raft through
treacherous seas for a year and a day, beached it on their father's
gentle slope, and presented himself to their mother. By that time, the
corpse had decayed and frayed and worn away, so that he was little more
than a torso and stumps, his tongue withered and stiff, but he pled his
case to their mother, and she was so upset that her load overbalanced
and they had to restart her.
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