Calligrapher v. Call Girl

They walk, eyes flitting from the distance to her plain frame to the ground and back, crossing the space from the heap to the corpse of the Businessmen. She stands by the table beneath the oak. The thin man smiles. One holds the left leg and one the right and they drag the corpse in this fashion. The thin man looks back as he walks.

The men take the corpse to a place not seen well from the oak, behind the pyre, and process it.

Finished - the fat man now wearing the Businessman's grey suit jacket, the thin man in the Bookseller's plaid jacket - they walk to the imagined border that marks the line before the space between the dead and the oak, and watch her. They watch, and speak softly. Glancing and speaking, softly.

The Calligrapher pretends to ignore them. She pretends to read the contract.

They advance. They advance at first tentatively, watching her. Then boldly. She takes a half-step back, trodding on a gnarled root from the base of the oak. They advance, and the thin man smiles.

Twenty paces from the oak, the Calligrapher lays the contract on the table, and takes up one of the pistols. The two men stop. They stop, watching.

Is there anything I can help you with? she asks.

The two men watch her.

She swallows. She musters all the command her voice will carry, then speaks. She tells them to finish their work.

Nothing.

After a long pause, she cracks the top break and loads the pistol. Carefully, slowly. Six bullets in six chambers.

The men wait. Then, without expression, turn and walk back to the dead. The fat man takes up the shovel. The thin man back to the corpse of Businessman.

Finished, they leave the ground.

The Calligrapher tucks the other pistol in her pocket. When the Call Girl arrives, she sees the the Calligrapher sitting back to the oak, eyes never off the shack in the distance. They speak at length. The Calligrapher hands her the second pistol.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.

Businessman v. Caligrapher

One digs and the other picks through the heap of dead, and regards things found within the heap of dead. Trading off, back and forth. So now one picks and the other digs. Or one digs and the other picks. Or - at times when neither work, but both sit at rest on the dull grass - neither pick nor dig. Which occurs in periods. At times in periods of longer frequency, at times in periods of shorter frequency; at times for hours, at times for seconds. And the five minute break between each period, whose breaks are indeterminate - dictated by caprice, or fatigue, or neither.

And their hands and clothes are made putrid. And they recoil at the smell of a flipped body. Recoil at the sight of the white squirming mound of maggots digging cavernous from inside, pushing up from the under the skin, budding from the under the skin of the arms and breast and face, that fall from the skin to the earth, that wriggle over the earth under next body, and next. But the strength of desire, the will to knowledge, the deep curiosity and wanting - here the Bishop's mitre (soiled, crushed), there the Ambassador's silver pen knife (caked with ash, dust) - overwhelms and subsumes, and so all is regarded, and in their bottomless inventory collected. And the recoiling lessens degree by infintesimal degree, so that by days end they recoil markedly less than at the start of the day. And less, going forward.

There exists space between the oak and the dead. And from that space the Businessman refrains, and from that space the hired refrain. Unless for airing of concerns on the part of the Businessman, or barking on the part of the Businessman, or threats made by the Businessman, or harassment from the Businessman, or spying on the part of the Businessman, wherein the Businessman will walk the space between the oak and dead, and walk close to the dead - but still at a distance from the dead - and air concerns, or bark, or threaten, or harass, or spy from that distance, upon the hired. The hired only enter the space when pulling a fresh body from the field of battle. And this space is known and kept, and the rules of passing over the space, and the rights to pass over the space are kept, yet kept unsaid. And both parties - both the party of the first part and the party of the second part - understand, intuitively, the necessity for this space, and in space is in this way keep. And they regard this space as good.

Especially the Businessman, who's gotten a bit freaked out with all this.

It's not my usual business, he tells the Caligrapher. She nods.

They raise their guns. Their guns go off.