Background Artist v. Bailiff

The Background Artist returns to where she left the body of the Aviator. She musters enough strength to drag him the rest of the way to the fence. There, pinching her nose, she looks over the clustered bodies of the dead and decomposing. She stops at the sight of the swollen, partially eaten Animator. Staggers in disbelief.

She clothes her hands in the Actor's English hunting jacket (lying discarded apart from the bodies) and hefts the Animator's body from the others. Weeping uncontrollably, she strokes the Animator's eye-less face and hunk-torn cheeks and her six-fingered hand and drags her west along the fence, half-way between the pile of bodies and the road.

There she sits for a long while, crying and occasionally punching the ground before her.

The Bailiff walks onto the field from the road. He's a short barrel of a man. Tight buzzcut, broad shoulders, sunken eyes, bulging rose-kissed nose, swollen as if stung by wasps. He walks to the oak. Seeing no one, he spits. Looks around. Starts playing with one of the revolvers on the table. Spinning the chamber, looking down the barrel, testing the firing pin.

The Background Artist falls asleep next to the Animator.

The Bailiff spends an hour practicing his quick-draw. Ba-hey! he says each time he draws. Bang!

Finally he bores. He tucks the pistol under his tight-fitting polyester pants and shambles through the snow-spotted grass. He walks to the creek and regards the creek. He walks to the cairn and regards the cairn. He walks to the bodies of the dead and regards the bodies of the dead. Then he looks out to the northern field and regards the northern field, especially the ragged figures in the distance that work, dismantling the Aviator's Sopwith Camel.

He turns away. Once more - the quick-draw: Ba-hey! he shouts. Bang!

This wakes the Background Artist. She gets to her feet and and wipes her tears and stomps over to the oak. The Bailiff spots her and walks after.

Hey, says the Bailiff. He catches up to her as she writes 'animator + background artist' on the List of Dead. She takes a pistol and walks to the field. Hey, he says.

Let's just shoot! she cries.

The Bailiff shrugs. He takes the field. They stand ten paces apart.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.