Then I went back to bed, and that time I...
Then I went back to bed, and that time I slept
How to Draw a Picture (VII)
Remember that "seeing is believing" puts the cart
before the horseArt is the concrete artifact of
faith and expectation, the realization of a world
that would otherwise be little more than a veil of
pointless consciousness stretched over a gulf of
mysteryAnd besides - if you don't believe what
you see, who will believe your art?
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The trouble after the treasure all had to do with
beliefElizabeth was fiercely talented, but she
was only a child - and with children, faith is a
givenIt's part of the standard equipmentNor
are children, even the talented ones (especially
the talented ones), in full possession of their
facultiesTheir reason still sleeps, and the
sleep of reason breeds monsters
Here's a picture I never painted:
Identical twins in identical jumpers, except one
is replica chanel earrings red, with an L on the front, and the other is
blue, with a T The girls are holding hands as
they run along the path that leads to Shade Beach
They call it that because for most of the day it's
in the shadow of Hag's RockThere are tear-tracks
on their pale round faces, but they will soon be
gone because by now they are too terrorized to cry
If you can believe this, you can see the rest
A giant crow flies slowly past them, upside-down,
its wings outstretchedIt speaks to them in their
Daddy's voice
Lo-Lo falls and cuts her knees on the shells
Tessie pulls her to her feetIt
isn't the upside-down talking crow they are afraid
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of, nor the way the sky sometimes lenses from blue
to a sunset red before going back to blue; it is
the thing behind them
Even with its fangs it still looks a little like
one of the funny frogs Libbit used to draw, but
this one is chanel earings ever so much bigger, and real enough
to cast a shadowReal enough to stink and shake
the ground each time it jumpsThey have been
frightened by all sorts of things since Daddy
found the treasure, and Libbit says they dassn't
come out of their room at night, or even look out
their windows, but this is day, and the thing
behind them is too real not to be believed, and it
is gaining
The next time it's Tessie who falls and Lo-Lo who
pulls her up, casting a terrified glance behind
her at the thing chasing themIt's surrounded by
dancing bugs it sometimes licks out of the air
Lo-Lo can see Tessie in one bulging, stupid eye
She herself is in the other
They burst onto the beach gasping and out of
breath and now there's nowhere to go but the water
Except maybe there is, because the boat is back
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again, the one they have seen more and more
frequently in the coco chanel earrings last few weeksLibbit says the
boat isn't what it seems, but now it's a floating
white dream of safety, and besides - there is no
choiceThe big boy is almost at their heels
It came out of the swimming pool just after they
finished playing Adie's Wedding in Rampopo, the
baby-house on the side lawn (today Lo-Lo got to
play Adie)Sometimes Libbit can make these awful
things go away by scribbling on her pad, but now
Libbit is sleeping - she has had a great many
troubled nights lately
The big boy leaps off the path and onto the beach,
spraying sand all aroundIts bulging eyes stare
Its fragile white belly, so full of noisome guts,
bulges
The two girls, standing with their hands linked
and their feet in the running boil of what Daddy
calls the little surf, look at each otherThen
they look at the ship, swinging at anchor with its
sails furled and shiningIt looks sac hermes kelly even closer, as
if it has moved in to rescue them
Lo-Lo says We have to
Tessie says But I can't SWIM!
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You can dogpaddle!
The big boy leapsThey can hear its guts slosh
when it landsThey sound like wet garbage in a
barrel of waterThe blue fades from the sky and
then the sky bleeds redThen, slowly, it changes
back againIt's been that kind of dayAnd
haven't they known this kind of day was coming?
Haven't they seen it in Libbit's haunted eyes? Nan
Melda knows; even Daddy knows, and he's not here
all the timeToday he's in Tampa, and when they
look at the greenish-white horror that's almost
upon them, they know that Tampa might as well be
the far side of the moonThey are on their own
Tessie grips Lo-Lo's shoulder with cold fingers
What about the rip?
But Lo-Lo shakes her headThe rip is good! The
rip will take us to the boat!
There's no more time to chanel logo necklace talk