"Dinner At The Revolution" An Excerpt From Bleak Eden

Dinner at the Revolution

copyright Jason Savage 2007

It was nearly three years to the day since the Revolution, and the sun was no brighter, nor the air any warmer, as John Bovian trod home to his wife and three young children. Every day, he reflected, seemed to run headlong into the next, and he was unsure of whether it was his age or the village which seemed to bring this uneasy sense of time slipping and rolling faster each day under the balls of his weary feet. He was a fresh fourty last week, as his wife had just reminded him that morning, and he felt anything but. Annaliese was almost thirty seven, and on most days seemed much fresher than he.

Nearly every man in the small village was working in the munitions factory that had been built the previous year, located centrally between four villages of similar size. Most days John would walk, in his old familiar leather casuals, which had always been the only sort of shoes which felt natural to his feet. They were now the only pair he owned, all the others having been bartered off in exchange for fresh vegetables in the previous winter. On the occasion that the shuttle bus was operating and a seat was found empty John might smile all the way to work, at the oppurtunity to extend the life of those old shoes for one more day. Such was life, for the savoring of small moments.

John figured it for luck, perhaps a bit more, when the local Principal, who was also a Captain in the revolution, had called him into the head office at the factory early that morning;

"Your name Bovian?" the Principal was a thick, dark man, whose black moustache reflected his general appearance and demeanor.

"Why yes, sir, it is." John had been nervous since he had turned the heavy brass doorknob more than a minute before, and entered the silent room to face the Principal, who stared out through the window, deep in thought.

The Principal moved close to him now, so close in fact, that John could smell the remnants of scotch and cigar on his clothes and breath. The former was illegal in the Revolution's Republic, and the latter prohibitively expensive.

"I've heard good things from your supervisor about you." a smile eked out from beneath the moustache, it was contrived and fleeting, but it eased John Bovian nonetheless.

"Yes sir, well thank you, I work hard for the Republic, always have, sir."

"Yes Bovian, I see you do, and I hear that you're an honest and trustworthy citizen."

"I sure am Sir, tune into the weekly address without fail, read from our manual each night to the family, sacrifice daily for the cause, Sir." he managed a meek smile, which seemed more of a nervous twitch than bona fide happiness.

"The reason I've called you in here this morning, Bovian, is that I have requirement for a volunteer household in the coming months."

"Really, sir." John Bovian's response seemed to be more an exhalation than answer or question.

"Yes." the principal paused, then pressed his enormous frame from the desk he had been leaning against, to return to his post at the window. Bovian breathed discreetly.

"You see, Bovian, I have been called away to the front lines of battle, the Revolution needs me."

"Yes sir." John Bovians chest swelled imperceptibly with surrogate patriotism inside his blue checkered flannel shirt.

"I need a family to see after my daughter, Bovian. As you know, I lost my wife in the Revolution, and so as it stands, I am all that my precious daughter Cornelia has, now."

"Yes sir, I know who your daughter is, sir, and we would be overjoyed to host her while you are away, Sir Principal."

"I trust she will be treated with the same nature of respect and dignity which you should afford me, if I were ever a guest in your home?"

"Yes sir, of course, sir. But if you don't mind, sir, I do have one concern I feel I should express in the moment."

"Yes Bovian, quickly, quickly, I have many affairs to see to before I leave tonight."

"Well sir, lately, breads and meats have been quite short, despite the figures of the weekly address, the surplus does not seem to be relieving our local, er, what some have rushed to label a famine, sir." John Bovian paused, his apprehension was apparent as the Principal stared down at him, crooked and thin in the worn leather chair of the handsome office. He should be careful, with these words, one misspoken word, a single overstatement or fallacy of arrogance could land him in a stockade, and opposite the favor he seemed to have found with the Principal.

"I would have a bit of concern, Sir Principal, in regards to maintaining fair portions on the table, sir, until the food stocks improve, at least."

"I am sure Bovian, that you understand the importance of my peace of mind, for my daughter, my only remaining family, while I am fighting for this country, for the revolution?"

"I do sir, I would gladly sacrifice my own meals to ensure such, should it be necessary, or my wifes, or the children for that matter, should the need arise, sir. I was only inquiring on the matter of any special considerations under the circumstances, perhaps even a small bit to help."

The Principal threw his head back to laugh deep and loud with a heartiness only such a well fed man could muster. John Bovian felt the jealousy rise in his gut, and he forced a smile, a nervous, thin facade.

"Bovian, I would not dream of making arrangements to have my Cornelia stay in your home without providing amply for her. She is a growing girl, what kind of father could do such a thing? Would you actually expect such a thing from me, citizen?" the Principals voice had risen contemptously in the midst of his final question, and John Bovian shrank from it, shriveled.

"Of course not, Sir Principal, I don't know what I was thinking, sir, please, please, accept my apology." his words felt weaker than his legs as he shifted them side to side in the chair.

"Citizen Bovian." the principal paused, and removed a thick brown cigar from a case in his left hip pocket, John Bovian was surprised at its similarity to the Principals three fingers and thumb. "So long as my daughter is under your roof and care, your family will recieve double rations, plus an executive dessert on Sundays, she will continue to recieve executive rations all week long, which are not to be shared with your family, understood?"

"Yes sir, yes sir, thats wonderful of you, sir, thank you so much....."

"Yes Bovian, do be on your way now." the principal had intersected his spineless gratitude. "Cornelia will require a bedroom of her own, and adequate dining accomodations, apart from your family, I trust that if you leave the factory now, you will be prepared for her arrival after dinner tonight?"

"Yes sir." John Bovian rose, his right arm twitched in a desire to salute the stone like officer in his fore, it was wholly inappropriate for a citizen to do so.

The principal's eyes never left the window and the barren brown tundra below it , "Do enjoy those Executive desserts, Citizen Bovian, and remember, my Cornelia will not hesitate to report any misdeed immediately upon my return."

"We will not disappoint you, Sir Principal."

"Dismissed, Citizen."

"Yessir."

John Bovian trembled and brimmed with joy on his breezy, frost kissed walk home. The fragmented pavement fell away under his thin soles, and soon he was forsaking his cobblestone walkway and shortcutting the lawn to the front door of his small house. As John Bovian entered the front door, flushed with his lungs full and his eyes wide, his wife turned to him from the kitchen, and the three children, a small dark haired boy and two identical blue eyed, ringlet tangled girls, who rounded out the family.

"John, what's going on, why're you home so early? Is everything alright?" Annaliese had turned away from the children and stood with a towel hanging loosely from her left hand, the towel floated to the floor in anticipation of his answer.

"No, no dear. Nothing's wrong, matter of fact, I've some exciting news for you. It'll require some work today, but is should pay off long-term, might even be our break out of this goddamned common citizenry."

"What is it John?" Annaliese exhaled a smile, which grew as it mirrored his expression.

John Bovian recounted the story to his wife as they cleaned the children from their lunch time layers of oily government issue peanut butter, and pasty white flake bread. The children, at least for now, seldom refused the less than savory repitition of the lunch. John Bovian always told himself it was because they wore more than they ate. He would never admit that any human, especially his own offspring, could enjoy such rubbish.

John and Annaliese worked through the afternoon, while young Andrew, his son, and the twins, Norma and Mary Ellen, played downstairs, fenced inside the front parlor. The girls had recieved lucid directions to call out should little Andrew decide to partake of the loose threads which were quickly rolling and snagging from the parlor rug, with no hope for replacement in sight. By dinner the partially finished attic had been refurbished into perhaps the nicest living quarters on the block, with John and Annaliese each sacrificing several personal items to complete the transformation. The last touches were completed just as the couple heard a car pull in the drive and stop. John straightened the brass mantel clock, inherited from his grandfather, which now was a bedside piece for the guest, and Annaliese fingered a streak of dust from a gold gilt mirror which had only hours before hung before her vanity chair in the couple's small bedroom.

The Principal examined the habitat with remote approval before allowing his daughter, a portly girl of seventeen named Cornelia to enter. The Principal said very little, apart from a fleeting compliment to the comeliness of the twin girls, and a stern warning aside for John Bovian. He checked and restraightened his red wool coat, trimmed in black and heavy with the silver bars of the Revolution. The officers uniform was complete with the gold cross on the left shoulder, crescent blade on the right. They might have been freshly added, as the Principal displayed some concern that they were straight, but perhaps not level. In just minutes he was gone with his entourage, and Cornelia was silently ascending the stairs to her untried quarters.

The Bovians let the night pass without burden, in tacit understanding of the circumstance of the teenager now residing over them. The children went to sleep easily that night, without fuss or complaint, and the warmth between John Bovian and his wife seemed softer and sweeter than it had felt for months. The last words Annaliese spoke to John that night, before they drifted away, were in reference to the meal of the following day, followed by a vaguery on seizing oppurtunities.

The war continued on for weeks, but food was plentiful, and the work at the munitions factory, while heavy, was high spirited and swollen with purpose. John Bovian enjoyed a single promotion, soon after the war began, which took him off the line, and removed him from the always ominous possibility of a disfiguring accident.

The grumblings about the factory and villages were that the citizen rations had been cut again, to nearly half what they were. Some men said they could not survive on the new rations. John Bovian did not tell a soul of the extra beef and fresh potatoes, coconut chocolate cake and two bottles of milk that were delivered to his home the previous afternoon. He did spend some time that day, in his new office on the third floor of the factory, regarding ways which he might share his families good fortune with the others. It seemed there was no safe manner to do so which was not sure to bring beggars to his back door each evening.

Cornelia spent most days in her lofty private quarters, but occasionally found her way down in the evening, where she enjoyed reading to the children, or might help Annaliese with the dishes. One evening, when Cornelia had laboriously scaled the stairway for the evening, Annaliese whispered to John, "I'm worried about the girl, did you notice her pants, John?"

"Of course not. What'd I be thinking, to be staring at her pants?" he was curiously offended by the question.

"Not that, John, you dunder-head." Annaliese rolled her eyes."She can't button them any more, any of them."

They were cleaning the kitchen now. Winter had swept into the village. Cold daggers rode through on every draft in the home. Firewood was scarce, and the electricity was uncertain. There had been a rumor at the factory the previous week of oil tankers en route, enough diesel to fill every tank in the four villages, but it had not materialized. Later in the week another rumor, of a missile attack on the supply chain, had chased the last hope of such warmth away. Now they washed dishes in cold water, with hands so cold they felt brittle, and frightfully numb.

"Perhaps she could go out, in the daytimes, and get some exercise." John Bovian studied the wall opposite his wife during the suggestion.

"Oh sure John, let the wife offend the Principals daughter, call her fat and all. I will do no such thing." Annaliese slammed a dish down on the counter with a sudden force that brought John to worry she would wake the children.

"There are worse things to be right now, than fat." John Bovian toothed the words to his disapproving wife

"No, no. We'll just let her get fatter and fatter, soon she won't fit down the stairway." Annaliese paused, fingering her wash rag apprehensively. "Poor girl, she is quite friendly, spends some time with the children during the day. Sometimes though...." Annaliese trailed off as she stared out the single paned window. The back yard was pitch black, framed by the chipped paint edge of the window and frost crystals in a starburst pattern within it.

"Sometimes her eyes just turn dark, and she floats away to her room." she blurted the sentence, as though she were ashamed to notice. As if emotion were forbidden or simply not apportioned to her common class. "Must be so hard, with only her father left."

The conversation was complete. It was spoken and could no longer be avoided, nor could it be remedied. Minutes after they had turned down the last lamp, as John and Annaliese lay close and warming, Cornelias sobbing fell all too woefully upon compassionate ears. Annaliese left the warmth of the small bed and drifted across the cold floor of the house, then up the staircase. John watched her first as a phantasm then as a faint glow through the open bedroom door, until she was gone. Annaliese would not return to bed until early that morning; a line had been crossed, a wall toppled and a monument to pity erected.


* * * * * *


War became more than an export at the munitions factory the following day. John Bovian had just finished a supervisory scan of the assembly floor, through his wide office window, when a skyborne whine ripped a path through the humming factory. He ran back to his window to see one of his men opened just above the left hip, his right hip becoming little more than a flesh and bone hinge. The man was wide eyed, his mouth expressing terminal disbelief as he attempted to capture his intestines, slippery as a string of greasy blood sausage, unfurling to slide and slap down his leg. Six men were dead, dozens were wounded. The Imperialists were real.

More bombs would follow, the radio station, the Executive Building, the bridge across the ravine. The silence that followed each grew in power and scope. After dinner, home-bound conversations across the set of humble villages shifted ominously to the ordeal, to what could be shared, and what would. There was one last whine, that terrible evening, at just dark, but then there was light. The sky over the food bank lit gold in a sparkling triple burst against the shimmer of the white snow. Nature's beauty, it seemed, was all that remained of elegance. It was now a lonely backdrop to their ugly peasant lives.

John and Annaliese Bovian watched the fire from the front steps. The flicker on the horizon prodded his desperation, teasing and tickling the the bottom of his stomach even as he tucked the children in, his eyes full of frightened tears.

An hour later the men of the neighborhood, and several women, gathered around the corner from the Bovian's, on a lawn where the snow was blown thin. There was no food. Perhaps a potato or two here, a few slices of bread or a half stick of butter, but no sustenance. All the food that the villages possessed was but smoke in the dark sky now. The men made a plan to begin a hunt at dawn, all men with rifles must attend, those without would go to the food bank, on a salvage operation, if possible. John Bovian had a rifle, but it needed oil and care. He left the barren lawn before the others, to begin.

Cornelia and Anneliese sat up with John, and partook of the smell of iron and walnut and oil as he cleaned and recleaned his rifle. The stove was low of wood, and John went to the shed slowly, with the old iron hatchet.
That old hatchet, older and tougher than he. John smiled to himself. It was sharper too.

The wood shed was empty, he already knew. He used back side of the hatchet to punch several thick pine boards clean from the back wall and onto the white ground behind the shed. He scooped them up, clutched them at his chest and stood upright with a labored grunt. A minute later the wood satiated the chill of the house. A faint vapor of paint tinted the odor. In the kitchen, Annaliese and Cornelia were drooping with fatigue as the sun rose, and he stepped into a brilliant white morning so crisp and thin that he struggled to inhale. A wisp of black vapor tickled the blue horizon. Three miles away the crack of a rifle violated the serenity. The neighborhood men were gathered in the street, each squinting in the direction of the sound.

They hunted until noon. John's feet were so cold that they curled and writhed in pain, then went numb. As he waddled home and up the walk, he imagined himself in shackles, but instead of dragging the balls behind his feet he stood on them, struggling to balance as well as overcome the weight. It was awkward, and embarassing for the children to see him in such discomfort, but he would not tell them to look away.

Annaliese fetched more firewood from the back wall of the wood shed, and set to warm her shaking breadwinner. John Bovian felt blue in dimensions. The children ate a small breakfast of oatmeal and water. Cornelia stood in the front window, patiently, until she was sure her food would not arrive. Her eyes expressed no emotion as she passed Annaliese to the staircase. Her arms slacked as if she were lugging heavy weights as she climbed the stairs, shoulders soft and defeated.

When the children were down for their nap and Cornelia in her room, John and Annaliese commenced the solemn discussion of what was, and what must be;

"The factory is out, totally, no power. There's a gaping hole in the roof, crater in the floor. Even with a supply truck coming in every day, it'd be six months before we could fix it. The soldiers haven't picked up a load of shells for a month."

"What about the food bank? Is their anything left that can be saved, rationed, anything John?"

"They say it was a total loss, but I'd imagine that if anything did survive its being hoarded by another village. It's every neighborhood for itself, from what they're saying out there."

"Well." Annaliese stood and hopscotched across the small kitchen, from one thin dirty rug to another, trying to keep her bare feet from the cold of the floor. She knelt and opened the door under the sink, "I've managed to squirrel away a few days worth of dried goods and grains, just in case."

Annaliese returned to the table where John sat, quietly as he nodded and stared out the window at nothing but white. She sat again. "How long do they figure it'll be before the bridge gets repaired? Is there another way around?" Her tone suggested that she still did not grasp the severity of the situation.

He shook his head slowly, thought things through before answering. His eyes blinked with a long pause and he swallowed. "Can't fix the bridge until spring, and nobody can cross the ravine until the ice and snow melts down to at least half what it is now."

"What're we gonna do? The kids won't last long on what we have, how're you going to keep your strength up-and mine-if they're to survive. And what about Cornelia?"

"Cornelia? Cornelia?" her very name sparked rage within him. She was this Revolution embodied. Everything that was corrupt, its glorious hypocrisies, its gluttony. "Worry about your own goddamned kids, Annaliese, to hell with her, to hell with her and all the other hellspawn of the goddamned revolution! To hell with them all!"

"I'm sorry honey, I thought you wanted to help the cause, to raise the Revolution up-"

"This fucking Revolution was never for us, Annaliese. It was for them, for their wars. For their bombs and guns and jackets and medals."

"But what about the pride of freedom, the gift-"

"There is no freedom Annaliese, and we're the goddamned gift, we're the spoils, the slaves. They fight for our mastership, to hold tight the whips of our bondage."

"So we starve? Is that it. We just sit here and starve, and hope our masters will drop some crumbs on their piteous beasts? Is that what our children are, John Bovian, just beasts, cattle for the Revolution? I will not accept it, never, and I will deny you the same, husband. You will find a way, John, you must make this family more than commodity, more than a body of slaves."

"We'll hunt again tonight, but some of the men say that the food ministry over-harvested this fall, that there might be nothing left."

The fire was warm and John Bovian felt flushed. He fell asleep in the bedroom through the afternoon, hiding from his hunger in the dreams. He woke several times and let his mind dance among the happy sounds of the children, who were playing in the main room down the hall. He rose just before dark, when a rapping on the front door required his attention. It was a clerk from the Principals office, he did not carry the black insulated flat bag full of food he had so often delivered. He requested Cornelia with the corners of his mouth quivering, and bit his lip before John Bovian turned to call to her. The cold wind cut through the open doorway, but the clerk would not step in. The landscape behind him turned to blue in the dusk, as if it was asphyxiating from the scarcity of air.

A radio transmission that morning had brought the grave news; the Principal had been killed in a surprise raid by the imperialist commandos. His body displayed on television halfway round the world. The clerk relayed it all from a surprisingly blunt, almost emotionless angle.

Cornelia retreated to her room, almost falling over Andrew as she stumbled with runny eyes. Annaliese did not chase her. The front door closed a moment later, and the heat from the stove gained leverage in its battle with the cold.

"I'll leave her be for a while. Must be horrific, though, she's got nobody left." Annaliese searched her husband for an answer, and shrugged anxiously when she found none.

"Just leave her be unless she calls you, Annaliese, and pray for this hunt." He kissed her once on the lips, and let the kiss slide down her neck, resting at her collar, for thee full breaths. His eyes focused before he stepped away. John Bovian carried his rifle out the back door, to evade the children with the sight of the gun. Most of the men were already waiting, it would be ten more minutes before they left.

* * * * * *

Eight men drove a white-tail deer to within feet of the menacing ravine that night. John Bovian trained his sights at just behind the front leg of the deer and squeezed the trigger in melody to three other men. The beast ran ten yards before it fell, even closer to the edge. The men were ecstatic. The crimson spread wild in the grainy white ice, refusing to commit to a single path.

One man produced a steel blade, affixed to a brown, bony handle. The blade glinted with a life that valued death above all. It sang treacherously in the moonlight against the ashen background. The blade was passed, once, twice, through unsure hands, before it found its mate. The man who deserved the blade knelt and began to gut the deer. The slurp and gurgle that was at once a beginning and an end fashioned the background of a rising conversation.

"Doesn't really matter who made the kill shot, does it? We're still gonna split it even." Mark Albertson was smiling with his ever present arrogance. John Bovian thought it was a miracle that the man had survived as a citizen for the last three years, given his attitude.

Several men agreed to the comment, John Bovian stood silently, looking down at the man with the blade.

"You like watching people work, don't you Bovian?" Mark Albertson again, same smile, more arrogance. He was a large man, much larger than John Bovian, and still in possession of his shotgun. John Bovian's was leaning against the trunk of a solid pine twenty feet away.

"I watch when I'm to watch, work when I'm to work. Just try to do my part." His response was a straight monotone, the same way he'd spoken to Albertson at the factory when the arrogant bastard worked under him.

"To watch when we're to starve, you mean, Bovian?" As Mark Albertsons voice rose, two of the men shouldered through the crowd to put some distance between themselves and Albertson.

"Something bothering you, Mark?" He thought to keep his cool, at least until his meat was cut.

"Yeah, Bovian, you sneaky, ass kissing bastard. My son's almost starved to death, my wife's hardly strong enough to put wood in the stove when I'm gone."

"Things are tough all around, Mark. What do you want me to do? I came out here, I pitched in." John Bovian sensed a tilt in the mood, suddenly anger and sympathy were out of balance.

"Are they, Bovian? How are those Executive desserts, big thick cakes and cherry pies, double rations John, how are they? Did you think we hadn't heard?"

"So what was I supposed to do, Mark, feed my family or yours? Give away our only chance? Deny my family?"

"Doesn't really matter what you should have done now, Bovian. What matters now is what you did." Mark Albertson lifted his thick pump shotgun at that moment, turned to the pine tree leaning post of John Bovians rifle and fired three rounds into the night. John Bovian screamed in muted terror, as no scream could suffice, when he read the formula behind the action.

"Go home, Bovian, and enjoy those Executive Desserts, I hope they were worth it." the smile had still not left Albertson's mouth, it might have grown.

"But-I've got kids too, come on you guys, you can't let us starve down there." He was frantic, and now his nose was running, he fell to his knees from the stunned pose he'd struck.

"You would have let all of us starve, Bovian. To hell with you, you made your choice when you didn't offer to help us. Go home Bovian, and go to hell. They're goddamned close to the same I bet, just about now." Mark Albertson was laughing now, his voice bouncing like a coyote's howl off the sheer slate walls of the ravine. John Bovian turned away broken, shamed, snot-nosed.

He stumbled down through the thicker snow they had avoided on the way up. Just before his profile blended into the profile of the thicker trees below the men, the man with the blade stood, and tossed his last handful of gore off the edge. He called down the hill, behind Bovian, with his crooked, yellow smile.

"Hope you still got some o' them desserts laying around, you greedy bastard!"

Five of the men laughed but the two who had broken away did not and hung their heads. By sunrise each of the men had returned to his family with a fair portion of the venison. The white tail lay skeletal, atop the ravine, frozen, mocking.

John Bovian would not return as a scavenger. He told Annaliese that the hunt was unsuccesful, and laid down in the bedroom.

The hunt was unsuccesful. It was true. John Bovian closed his eyes and crossed to tormented dreams.

The children ate sufficiently that day, Annaliese was under the impression that the hunts would soon prove fruitful, which they would not. Late in the day Annaliese noticed the absence of her husband's rifle. He came into the kitchen just moments later. His eyes were softened and sad and she couldn't bear to ask. She handed him a mug of hot coffee.

"Enjoy that honey, it's the last of the coffee until a food drop comes along." she tried to shine a positive light.

John Bovian nodded, but did not speak. Annaliese continued to talk, John Bovian continued to listen, to disagree silently if only to permit hope. They were dying slowly.

Cornelia played with the children on a blanket near the wood stove. The floor was frigid, almost dangerous with cold. The back wall of the shed was almost gone. Annaliese continued to slaver hope. John Bovian began to measure the children against the size of Cornelia's limbs. The twins were half each the size of her thigh, left or right, or one ass cheek in the fetal position. Little Andrew was no larger than her upper arm, maybe just past the elbow. A morsel of Annaliese's hope a'la carte caught his attention as it sped through the kitchen - "Well, at least Cornelia'll be able to fit into her pants again soon."

John Bovian stood and turned to look at his wife. The bare floor so cold on his feet that it burned. His eyes burned also, with contempt for his pale wife, for what she'd just said, and what it meant to him.

John Bovian returned to bed, but he would not sleep, not now. The hunger in his stomach grew for hours, gassy spears twisting into his innards. He had been two days without eating, nearly three. The agonizing, taunting pain in his stomach was what Andrew and the twins would feel in just days. It was only a fraction of what Annaliese would endure to sustain the children, at all costs. Would he let it happen? Was there another way? Could he admit it to himself? John Bovian closed his eyes and retreated to a place in his mind that most men never visit, which a sane men could never admit exists.

He stayed there a long time. The hunger was powerful, but his will to survive did prevail. He'd fought a battle to ensure his family would not need to fight. If he succeeded, it meant survival, little more. Survival was all he wanted- needed-until spring. Not approval or acceptance, not even sanity. He would sacrifice it all to keep his family breathing. His stomach growled again, and he imagined a great mouth in his gut, gulping and belching acidic air, the same way a tree inhales gases and exhales oxygen. His stomach began to feel bloated, a blistering irony for its emptiness.

When Annaliese Bovian had put the children down and kissed Cornelia good night on the forehead, she rolled into the cool bed next to John. He was staring at a crack in the ceiling, his heart was pounding, his pulse visible through a scraggle of dark whiskers. A bead of sweat tickled his hairline. Annaliese did not notice, in her false suggestive euphoria.

"So, when are you going out again, to hunt." her face still glowed with hope. John Bovian turned to look and to swim in her eyes. She had no hint to what her hope had brought him. He turned away.

"Tonight, late. I'm almost ready now."

Annaliese turned back the oil lamp. The house soon assumed an appropriate shade of reddened brown. The impression was, at least in appearance, warm.

It took John Bovian an hour more to rise from the bed. The fire was almost out, the house rattled from a gust of wind against its south wall. He shivered. He finished off the back wall of the wood shed, stripping it with the hatchet.
He returned to the house, left the hatchet in the snow on the floor of the wood shed. It was snow that had blown in fresh that filled the empty space. The pine boards satisfied the wood stove, the house began to warm, it would do for now. He bundled himself with a scarf and an extra layer of clothing, the wind outside was biting cold.

A simple walk. As John Bovian passed the wood shed his gloved hands found the hatchet in the lighlyt powdered snow. The house was behind him then, and the wind was strong. It gusted strong and wide once more. A sharp edge cut into his lungs as he gorged himself on the thin air. He stopped and bent at the waist to regroup.

The small village was graydark, tiny candles eked weak tips out from a few frost settled windows.

He walked to the end of the street, toward the only fork in the road. John Bovian wavered then, at the choice, and let a single wind blow him to the right, up the hill. The ravine was up the hill, a footpath past three more shacks, the fresh snow was unbroken white, rolling drifts.

Sweat was forming on his lower back, his wool shirt was beginning to itch in chicken scratches on his back. He stopped at the base of the footpath, it was unpassable. He stared up the dark evergreen tunnel, the wind challenged him to climb. He could not. He recalled the shock of the hunt, of the men who would let his family starve. The sound of the knife in flesh, the smell of life and hope in the aroma of the fresh blood and the fading spice of burnt gunpowder. Then the scalding venom of Mark Albertsons words. The betrayal was certainly stark in its existence, but who had truly transgressed? He could not doubt himself for the moment, and he turned away from the sight in his mind, as he had turned from the men and the kill.

He could do it. He'd found what they had in abandoning his family that night. He returned through the snow in the same narrow path he'd carved moments before. The wind had begun to cover it, filling in and softening the jagged edges. He returned to the intersection, and looked to Mark Albertson's house on a sharp hill, in a sliver of moonlight. The landscape was so clear and pale and fragile under the moon. A painting of morbid glass. He gripped the hatchet tightly, as though he might smash the scene, like a window. Yes, like a window, that blocked his view to a warm place.

John Bovian shuffled past Mark Albertson's house. It was slightly larger than his, more square and better looking. For a brief moment he thought he'd seen a sharp movement in the window. The back of his hand felt paralyzed in the cold, in contrast to the sweaty palm, soaking his knitted wool mitten. He spat a huge throaty yellow clump into the snow, and moved on.

His home was in the distance. There were three more houses between them. His blood plummeted downward. He gulped for breath, the gale denied his lungs. His senses were surreal. The cold was something more now, an urge. A bead of sweat runneled the skin of his spine, it was torment. The wooly itch increased violently down his back. His legs and feet tingled, and both his ears throbbed. The houses passed quickly by, as he floated, entranced, mouth agape. He might hide behind this face, he thought, as he imagined himself, jaw cocked, pupils taken.

The warm air of the fresh fire greeted John Bovian as he returned through the back door. The familiar scents rushed in, slightly unclean, a sliver of pungence passed his nostrils by. He threw off the mittens, his overcoat and scarf, his leather shoes, dark and wet. John Bovian wiggled his toes and scratched his back nervously, it made his heart race. He shook his head and blinked hard. The sweat poured, racing across his skin. He wiped his palms on his long johns hard, over and over, and grabbed the old wooden handle of the hatchet.

The staircase whimpered under his feet, the door brushed silently through its arc as he stepped through.

Utter silence was intersected by the sharp southern wind. In the shadows John Bovian lifted the brass mantle clock from the bedside table. He walked softly across the room, bent slowly and laid it next to the open door.

Her eyes were open when he turned back.

The pitch of his voice was too high when he spoke his rehearsed words. The words he knew he'd speak, no matter the pains he'd taken to avoid them, squeaked...trembled from deep within him. From that dark place he'd explored just once.

"Starvation is a lonely idol, Cornelia. My family will not worship at its feet. I have only this choice."

His hand went numb as he swung the hatchet once. John Bovian hid behind that face, that blank dumb trance, until her last breath, a sliver of air whistling past the sharpe edge of the weapon. Her eyes fixed upon him.

He remembered the white-tail deer. That smell, the fresh kill.

John Bovian turned away, resisting the twitch at the corner of his mouth, the sweet relief; the hunt was complete, they would survive the famine. The Revolution was over.