Aviator v. Background Artist

The Aviator looks around. He drags the bodies of the Autopsy Surgeon, the Author, the Audiologist, the Athlete, the Attorney, the Astrophysicist, the Astronomer, the Assessor and the Astrologer to the growing row of dead by the north fence. The murder of crows, fat and happy, seems to have multiplied - a few times over. About twenty sit on the fence, or between corpses. The Aviator frowns.

Shoo! he says. The crows don't budge. He looks at them, they look at him. He throws a rock. One crow gently hops out of the rock's path. Caw! say the crows.

In the north field, far away, the Aviator spots two figures shuffling furtively in the bramble around an old wind-powered well. (Exceptional eyesight.) They seem fixated on the biplane. Then they see him and freeze.

Hey! he shouts.

The dark figures retreat back into the bramble.

The Aviator throws another rock at the crows for good measure, then returns to the oak.

The Background Artist tramps in from the road. She's dressed in black from head to foot. Short black hair, black nail polish. Thick and boyish, unpainted, so pale she's nearly luminescent. (The sort of girl who'd make a yipping pack of jackals seem like decent company.)

What's all this crap doing around the base of the tree? she asks, pointing to the Astronaut's space food tubes.

Don't know, says the Aviator. It was here when I got here.

And what's with that smell? she asks. It smells like shit and death.

That's probably the bodies over the fence, he says.

Why are you wearing that jacket and those goggles? she asks.

I fly planes, he says curtly, eyeing the pistols.

She looks over at the crashed Sopwith Camel. Then back at the Aviator. She narrows her eyes. The Aviator sighs.

They don't speak for several hours. During that time the Aviator reads the Assessor's trade paperback, a self-help title book titled Consider Phlebas: Lowering Your Expectations with T.S. Eliot's 'The Waste Land'. The Background Artist spends her time kicking around the tubes of space food - eventually into a pile of trash and slush - including the Archivist's smudged and ripped and wet but still intact List of the Dead - by the table.

She picks up the List of the Dead and reads it through. What's this? she asks.

Hello? he says from behind the book.

She drops it on the Aviator's lap. He frowns, dog-ears the book and picks up the list with as much enthusiasm as one would a moistened sock.

I don't know, he says. Unless you're read to shoot, I'd like to finish the chapter I'm on.

I'm ready, she says.

The Aviator gets up, places the book and the list on the table, picks a gun and walks to the field. She takes a gun and walks up to him. They stand ten paces apart.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.