Board Walk
Jansen went to get the gun from the counter top. Boning knife in belt, crowbar under left arm, he headed to the south of their floating paradise. Jansen would kill the garden birds, the cat, the badger and hedgehog. He would shoot up the central boiler, waggling it loose from the boardwalk and move on to taking the rest of the place apart.
When the bird’s ends were shot through the Dominican skyline, the cat, badger and hedgehog skinned, boxed and headed for the falls, he would begin to labor the nails. Thirty two hundred bolts, paired with their screws, nails, and rope harnesses, had fixed the water system in place. Years of fissure checks with Jane surveying kitchen and garden outlets, the old man watched the barrels and noodles swim away. The dock was loose. The Great Basin pine was sunk.
The dock, where he and Jane had started, was a small raft they had extended, strengthened with sturdier timber. Lilies of the valley had raised their little bells above the winter-killed ivy and glassine envelopes bordering the walks. Here they had danced for six anniversaries and here they should dance in two days time. The old man looked on. New birds were settling on the drifting pontoons. Between the cliffs the orange licked into harder reds and the blue became green, orange, red.
