Archer v. Archivist

The Archer walks to the fence bordering the forest to the east. With some effort she pries a loose piece of flat timber. She uses it as a makeshift spade, digs a shallow grave in the soft earth near the creek, and pulls the hound into the grave. She piles it with dirt, then stacks atop it smooth stones, building a short cairn.

She steps down to the creek and reclaims her bow. She cleans it with the Animator's scarf, restrings it, and returns to the oak.

A sweaty, short-sighted man struggles to sidle through the old wire fence toward the north. His generic sneakers catch the lower wire as he steps free, causing him to trip. He falls, losing his glasses. The Archer watches from the oak.

The Archivist, blinded, undoes his shoe laces, freeing himself from the fence. He stands crouching, one shoe off and one shoe on. Little little setback, he says, drawn.

The Archer lowers herself. Keeping her eyes on the Archivist, she slowly advances, step by soft step through the bright grass. She pulls an arrow from the quiver at her thigh and arms her bow.

The Archivist taps the ground with outstretched hands. He sees something brown and, regardless of the overpowering smell of rot and the dizzying buzz of flies, he - ingenuously - mistakes the thing before him. Maybe they're behind this log, he says. He touches the log. It's not a log, but the bloated blackened face of the Actuary. Skin peels from the bone. The Archivist's hand recoils.

The Archer stops, watching.

He wipes his hands on the grass by the fence, horrified. This is the worst Monday I've had in months, he says.

After wiping sufficiently, he makes another quick attempt to feel out the grass around him. Failing this, he sighs and sits back. He hears a muffled crack. Reaching back, he finds his glasses broken in two. Son of a gun, he says.

The Archer slowly raises her bow. She pulls the string back to her lips - pressing against her lip, the tip of her nose. She holds, releases. Just then the Archivist sneezes. The arrow silently passes, shaving a track of thick black hair on the back of his pasty neck. The Archer frowns, perplexed. She looks with incredulity at her bow, her hands.

The Archivist rubs his nose with the back of his hand. He tries putting his broken glasses on his face, each side tucked under each ear. He sneezes again, louder. His glasses fly off.

The Archer laughs. The Archivist looks up. Who's there? he asks.

What's keeping me from killing you now, before the duel? she asks.

The rules of the duel? he ventures.

No, I've cast those rules off, she says. To keep myself alive.

Either way, you should give me a fair shot, he says, holding the left lens to his left eye, looking over at the Archer.

But I hold every advantage.

The Archivist realizes he doesn't have a chance. There's no argument he can use to block her from killing him with a bow an arrow.

Suddenly, as if lowered by a winch from the above...

[Deus Ex Machina.]

They choose their pistols, take their places on the field.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.