Saturday 16 February 2008

CASSETTE

By Ben


The sun is coming up bloody and undercooked.

A second before she jerks awake, she feels the sensation of plummeting. There’s no sense of surprise anymore when she feels the tape cassette under her pillow. She thinks of the tooth fairy and their reliable contract. Fifty pence per tooth. No questions asked. Exchanges carried out under cover of darkness. She thinks of the ivory trade. She wonders what she is giving in exchange for these cassettes.

The first one arrived a week ago. Now she has three. She is going to play the first two, and then the new one. She can feel a lead bird nesting in the pit of her stomach. She starts the first cassette and as the tape picks up the slack and starts to reel forward, she feels the bird laying a lead egg in its nest.

Hissing tape.
The crunch of ice underfoot.
Under hoof.
The breath of an animal.
Hoof steps fading gradually.
The wind in pine branches.
In the distance, the rough bleating of a goat.
Click.

She remembers that dream. A black billy goat appeared out of the forest with moonlight caught in the fog of his breath. Walking past her like a matted, reeking ghost, it had turned its yellow eyes towards her for a second. She waited for a long time, watching the moon carve a path behind the shivering pines. She realised she was alone. She had woken feeling as though she had been given a warning.

She loads the second tape. Three days had passed between the arrival of the first tape, and this one. She played it once, the morning it had arrived. She plays it now for the second time. It is less clear, the sounds more jumbled and chaotic, than the first tape.

Barking, wild.
The splash of water.
Laughter.
A tangle of noise, splintering wood, louder barks.
Underneath, the scuffling of feet and paws on dusty ground.
Click.

The sounds are hazy, but her memory is as clear and sharp as a splinter of glass. It is a dream that has followed her for years. Even without the tape, without the dream, she still has the images of that day acid-etched into her thoughts. A summer day when the sun was heavy on their shoulders. The grass in their garden had dried and turned to yellow dust weeks ago. Her baby brother playing in the paddling pool while she kept watch. The pack of dogs that carried him away before she had time even to scream. The slow spread of water from the pool, seeping darkly into the parched ground.
Third tape. The new one. She turns towards the window where the sun is still low and red, and a light breeze is breathing the curtains back and forth. She loads the tape.

The deep growl of trucks.
Rain pats down on hot tarmac.
A tiny bird sings.

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