Bob and Weave

The Hammock

67 The Hammock At dawn when the old one wakes speaking his own name, William . . . William, he feels the stiffness stretching down his back like a cold wire and thinks of the children. Remembers how close death comes in the dream, a small hand reaching for his to lead him into some slow game where the lights are gradually dimming, the moves no longer clear. Later, he will eat because the children are there, gobbling fast toward their games on the lawn. It’s not that he loves children any more than he hates death. It’s just that their eyes still hold a piece of the darkness that comes before life. Their voices, a touch of the emptiness of not wanting. Sometimes at night his great granddaughter crawls into his lap, both sleeping for a while in the hammock of their dreams, swinging in the silence between two trees. ...