the gun
Bringing a gun into a house changes it.
You lay it on the kitchen table, stretched out like something dead itself: the grainy polished wood stock jutting over the edge, the long metal barrel casting a grey shadow on the green-checked cloth.
At first it’s just practice: perforating tins dangling on orange string from trees in the garden. Then a rabbit shot clean through the head.
Soon the fridge fills with creatures that have run and flown. Your hands reek of gun oil and entrails. You trample fur and feathers. There’s a spring in your step; your eyes gleam like when sex was fresh.
A gun brings a house alive.
I join in the cooking: jointing and slicing, stirring and tasting – excited as if the King of Death had arrived to feast, stalking out of winter woods, his black mouth sprouting golden crocuses.
Vicki Feaver
