Outside on deck chairs looking up at the stars talking late into the night waiting on the kiln, or just enjoying the small signs of the silence. How much can you tell of what is going on at night out in the desert by just listening on a deck lounger by the swimming pool in the dark?
Coyotes howl, of course. And maybe prey squeaks when it becomes dinner for one or them. Do you hear birds? Owls? Can you hear creaks from metal contracting from the cooling off? Maybe you can hear the castle cooling off?
"Somebody got it."
"Poor thing!"
"Yeah, poor thing. Became some other animal's dinner."
"Probably a coyote."
"Probably"
"Is that always the way it is?"
"Coyotes aren't vegetarians. The larger animals eat the smaller ones. Always been that way."
"Same for us?"
"Same for us. The bigger one eats the smaller one. The stronger one defeats and destroys the weaker one."
"Unless something changes that."
"Like what?"
"Like change the rules."
"Or make sure you're not the smaller animal."
"Yeah, but I don't like that solution. I don't want to be bigger than some one else. Why can't we just be people, living together without the bigger ones eating the smaller ones?"
"Then what do we eat?"
"I don't know. Vegetables, I suppose."
"Do carrots have souls?"
"Stop that. And check the kiln."
"I can see it from here. It's still there. The red light's still on. And I won't mention carrots again."
"But what does it all mean, Rose? Why go to all the trouble of scamming money from people with mental problems just to buy a fake property and turn it into something else? Why not just buy the property and build the houses on it like everybody else does? Why be deceitful?"
"There must be some other money moving around. Money from the government for addiction treatment, or for the mistreatment of all those Indians who come to the treatment center. Grant money maybe. And remember, the treatment center was supposed to fail. He can't get the money directly from his wife so he had to con her into the idea of the treatment center as a charity."
"Lame, but possible, I suppose."
Naked bodies glistening in the moonlight Stretched out on air mattresses, hair wet from recent dunking warm from the tiles below still hot from the heat of the sunny day and just starting to feel the evening breeze from above. It was sundown, and they had a couple of hours yet to wait on the kiln to cool off enough to open up. It was too early yet for coyotes to begin the evenings musical performance but the sound of evening insects was beginning.
The small puffs of air carried the scent of the pool, then the distinct smell of the cactus just east of the pool, stretching all the way to the Indian reservation, mostly impassible on foot or by horse. The cactus was too thick to navigate, you couldn't avoid the thorns.
The pool wasn't chlorinated, but you could still smell the water.
Claire turned her head towards the pool and the mountains far behind it. The mountains and a little bit of the sky was reflected in the absolutely still water. She wondered if she would ever see a coyote and stared along the edge of the mountains, where it met the sky, but didn't see anything move. An owl hooted. Claire wondered where an owl could live out here, there were so few trees, but there it was who-whooing in the darkness somewhere. Maybe it lived somewhere in the roof of the castle. We have owls in the attic, and maybe bats in the belfry, if we had a belfry.
She had never lived like this before, where she could identify everything she heard. The crickets, if that's what they were, were having a conversation, in her mind at least. She could hear them clicking back and forth, making plans for the evening. No sounds from the road, no sounds of humans at all. Humans are such noisy creatures, civilization makes so much noise they can't make out half what they hear. Out here you could almost hear paint dry, unless you were making noise yourself.
Claire looked over towards the castle, looming up into the moonlight. It really did look like a castle when you looked up at it from the swimming pool tiles and the moon was behind it. So who lived in the castle? A faery princess or a vampire? Right now, it looked more like a castle the princess would live in, peaceful and powerful in the moonlight. She wondered once more at the silliness of building it out here, and how lucky she was in being assigned to watch over it.
If it really was a faery castle, then who was the faerie? Me? I should practice walking down the circular stairs like a faery, or at least the mistress of the castle, dressed in a long white flowing robe encrusted with jewels. The picture loses something when I do it naked. Does this mean the people would rather see the robe than me? Probably. Her ladyship looked ravishing in a something something robe with something something jewels. Yep, sure enough, more about the dress than the hanger. If clothes makes the woman then where does that leave me? Scary thought.
And she had a pretty good pot in the kiln, she thought. It was the first serious attempt at a painted pot, painted by Rose. Rose had painted some earlier experiments, on shards and mistakes, but this was the first time the women had coordinated on a real project. If it fired properly, it might be worth some money. There were some ifs in that, but it was possible.
They had fought over the design, Claire accusing Rose of having too much imagination and Rose accusing Claire of having too little. But both had agreed on the compromise position and had committed the pot to the fire by late afternoon.
The kiln didn't need watching once it got below a certain temperature, but both women wanted to see the pot as soon as they could, and didn't want to leave it until morning.
They were laying at right angles to each other, Rose had moved out her mattress so that she could see the red light on the kiln by turning her head towards the garage. When it went out, the kiln was cool enough to open up.
Naked bodies glistening in the moonlight Stretched out on air mattresses, hair wet from recent dunking, absorbing heat from the tiles below cooling in the evening.
Warmth from the tiles below still hot from the heat of the sunny day and just starting to feel the evening breeze from above. It was just sundown, and they had a couple of hours yet to wait on the kiln to cool off enough to open up. It was too early yet for coyotes to begin the evenings musical performance but the sound of evening insects was beginning.
The small puffs of air carried the scent of the pool, then the distinct smell of the cactus just east of the pool, stretching all the way to the Indian reservation, mostly impassible on foot or by horse. The cactus plants were too thick to navigate, you couldn't avoid the thorns.
The pool wasn't chlorinated, but you could still smell the water.
Claire turned her head towards the pool and the mountains far behind it. The mountains and a little bit of the sky was reflected in the absolutely still water. She wondered if she would ever see a coyote and stared along the edge of the mountains, where it met the sky, but didn't see anything move. An owl hooted. Claire wondered where an owl could live out here, there were so few trees, but there it was who-whoing in the darkness somewhere. Maybe it lived somewhere in the roof of the castle. We have owls in the attic, and maybe bats in the belfry. If we had a belfry.
She had never lived like this before, where she could identify everything she heard. The crickets, if that's what they were, were having a conversation, in her mind at least. She would hear them clicking back and forth, making plans for the evening, she thought. No sounds from the road, no sounds of humans at all. Humans are such noisy creatures, they make so much noise they can't make out half what they hear. Out here you could almost hear paint dry, unless you were making noise yourself.
Claire looked over towards the castle, looming up in the moonlight. It really did look like a castle when you looked up at it from the tiles and the moon was behind it. So who lived in the castle? A faery princess or a vampire? Right now, it looked more like a castle the princess would live in, peaceful and powerful in the moonlight. She wondered once more at the silliness of building it out here, and how lucky she was in being assigned to watch over it.
If it really was a faery castle, then who was the faerie? Me? I should practice walking down the circular stairs like a faery, or at least the mistress of the castle, dressed in a long white flowing robe encrusted with jewels. The picture loses something when I do it naked. Does this mean the people would rather see the robe than me? Probably. Her ladyship looked ravishing in a something something robe with something something jewels. Yep, sure enough, more about the dress than the hanger. If clothes makes the woman then where does that leave me? Scary thought.
And she had a pretty good pot in the kiln, she thought. It was the first serious attempt at a painted pot, painted by Rose. Rose had painted some earlier experiments, on shards and mistakes, but this was the first time the women had coordinated on a real project. If it fired properly, it might be worth some money. There were some ifs in that, but it was possible.
They had fought over the design, Claire accusing Rose of having too much imagination and Rose accusing Claire of having too little. But both had agreed on the compromise position and had committed the pot to the fire by late afternoon.
The kiln didn't need watching once it got below a certain temperature, but both women wanted to see the pot as soon as they could, and didn't want to leave it until morning.
The women were laying at right angles to each other, Rose had moved out her mattress so that she could see the red light on the kiln by turning her head towards the garage. When it went out, the kiln was cool enough to open up.