Laura Koerber's Blog: To Live is to Fly - Posts Tagged "magical-realism"
NEW BOOK!
My new dystopia/magical realism novel is OUT TODAY! Title: Wild Hare's Daughter. Yeah, I know, another book with Somebody's Daughter as a title. But, honestly, nothing else fit.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
I built the story out of three quotes:
"I want to do right, but not right now." Gillian Welch
"Father forgive us for what we must do. You forgive us and we'll forgive you." John Prine
"To live outside the law, you must be honest" Bob Dylan
That kinda sums it up.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...
I built the story out of three quotes:
"I want to do right, but not right now." Gillian Welch
"Father forgive us for what we must do. You forgive us and we'll forgive you." John Prine
"To live outside the law, you must be honest" Bob Dylan
That kinda sums it up.
first chapter of my new book
Prologue
Most of the humans who pass through the Valley of Dry Bones have their eyes on the horizon and see very little of the desert outside the windows of their cars. Bored, they count off the miles left to get somewhere else. They calculate speed-to-distance, estimate their ETA, and grind out the hours of white line fever by fiddling with the car radio, tossing cigarettes out the window, eating junk food, or yelling at the kids in the back seat. Three hours to Reno. Ten hours to Redding. And hour to Ely to get the car charged up, buy some snacks, and hit the road again. They have no desire to be where they are. They want, often very badly, to be somewhere else.
A century and a half ago, the people passing though in wagons had their eyes on the horizon, too, and dreamed of California, but they figured distance in terms of footsteps and diminishing water, while calculating how long their cattle were going to hold out.
The first time Coyote watched a human die was when old man Hardkoop finally gave up and set himself down in the dirt in the meager shade of a sagebrush bush. He'd been a passenger on the wagon of the Keseberg family—Mr. Keseberg being the guy who later became notorious for eating Tamsin Donnor. Mr. Keseberg's oxen were the walking dead. He'd already tossed furniture overboard, and he and his wife were afoot, carrying their young daughter. He told old man Hardkoop to get out of the wagon and walk, knowing that the old man wouldn't be able to keep up.
All of the settlers in the wagon train knew that old man Hardkoop wouldn't be able to keep up. They didn't discuss it, at least not while Coyote was in earshot, tracking their progress through his territory. They just trudged onward, eyes on the distant mountains, dreaming with increasing desperation of California. To them, the desert was an obstacle, a dreadful passage, a trial that tested their moral and physical strength. They saw nothing in the desert to sustain their lives.
The sustainable was there. After all, people lived in the desert, had lived there for hundreds of years. They came on foot and they looked around, learned what they needed to learn, and found what they needed to find: a landscape of soft grays and beige, delicate pinks and vivid greens; a landscape of thorns and insects, of drought and torrential rain; a land of sage and rice grass. They found springs of fresh water and a river. They found pinon nuts on the slopes of the mountain, reeds in the marsh, and antelope and jackrabbits out in the sagebrush. In other words, they found the necessities of life: food, water, shelter. It was coyote's territory but he was willing to share.
The valley's name came from the tendency of dead animals to hang around forever as white bones, cleaned by the vultures and insects and scoured by windblown sand. Strewn on the ground were the tiny bones of mice and the slightly more robust bones of rabbits. All of Coyote's existence, he'd walked on bones of hawks and deer and heard the bones of the desert tortoise rattling in the shell like castanets. He'd seen bones of snakes, bones of people, and bones of his brother and sister coyotes. All those bones were constant reminders of how everyone's story ended, but none of the animals and nature spirits were afraid of death. Death was like the tangy taste of dried ants—it had a sting but flavored life. Death was the reminder to see beauty.
The valley was a wide, flat plain between sudden mountains that climbed up abruptly, not bothering with foothills, straight to the sky. Often hazy from the hot dry air, washed out by the glare of the sun, or obscured by thunderheads, the mountains were like a distant dream. The best time to see the mountains was on an overcast day when the sky is a dark cloudy blue. Then your eyes can see across fifty or so miles of flat land to where the pinon forests cover the mountain slopes with a soothing dark green. The bones of the mountain are easy to see on those days: steep slants cut by ravines. The forces of erosion have been in action since before Coyote came into being, and that was longer ago than any human life; another way that death spiced the lives of the living. All you had to do was look at the mountains to know that life is short.
Coyote didn't pay much mind to the People who lived in his valley. They were competent, lived by the accumulated years of experience, and weren't in need of his magic. Nor did he need much from them. They existed side by side, foraging and feeding, procreating and dying. Coyote didn't pay much attention to their deaths because he knew that, while individual humans lived and died—just as the animals and plants lived and died--the web of life in the desert remained. Besides, he never hung around to watch when People were killing each other.
Old Man Hardkoop's death was different. Coyote stopped to watch out of curiosity. He was...interested? No, that's not right. Intrigued? Startled? Disgusted? The wagon people had turned their backs on one of their own. The people of the desert never did that. They moved seasonally, but they carried those who needed to be carried, as best they could. If they were starving—which happened every now and then—and they couldn't carry someone with them, they mourned those that they couldn't save. Coyote was baffled by the ways of the new people. They seemed to be stupid, incompetent, and cruel.
Old man Hardkoop didn't die right away. He tried to keep up. His feet were swollen and bleeding, his boots worn down to rags. The wagons—wearily dragged along by thin, thirsty oxen—didn't move fast, and neither did the thin, thirsty women or the dusty, frightened children. Everyone shuffled and stumbled. Mrs Keseberg held on the side of the wagon to keep herself on her feet.
No one spoke except to yell. Mostly they yelled at the oxen, but sometimes they exploded at each other with voices raw and ragged from the dust. When not yelling, they trudged in silence. Old man Hardkoop didn't ask for help. He staggered on, first only twenty feet behind the Kesseberg wagon, then forty feet, then behind so far that he couldn't see the wagons anymore, just the dust.
He couldn't keep up, and no one wanted him to keep up, but he tried. Coyote tracked him from the brush nearby. He watched the bony shoulders and limp, dusty hat; the swollen hands dangling; the tear tracks on the dirty cheeks The old man's eyes weren't on the horizon, and any dreams of California were dead. His steps slowed. His head bobbled at the end of his skinny neck. He was wondering which step would be his last one, what bit of sand would be his final resting place, when his knees gave out.
Coyote watched the old man's sore muscles flop in a heap on the ground. There he slumped, his head dangling on his neck, his gnarly old hands laying in his lap. Maybe he thought about his home on the farm in Belgium. The tulips that bloomed in the spring. His wife, God bless her, in her grave. His son had a homestead in California, but old man Hardkoop would never see it.
Coyote thought his hands looked like dead spiders. He watched the old man cover his eyes with his spidery fingers. Then he wiped his face and looked around. Old man Hardkoop couldn't see anyway to sustain life. Slowly, gently he lowered his shoulder and his head so that he was laying on his side. Then he covered his face with one of his spider hands.
Coyote trotted away. It was all very confusing. For millennia, only the People had lived in the desert. Now these new people were passing through and they didn't know anything, didn't seem to want to learn anything, and they didn't take care of their own. He didn't like them.
Most of the humans who pass through the Valley of Dry Bones have their eyes on the horizon and see very little of the desert outside the windows of their cars. Bored, they count off the miles left to get somewhere else. They calculate speed-to-distance, estimate their ETA, and grind out the hours of white line fever by fiddling with the car radio, tossing cigarettes out the window, eating junk food, or yelling at the kids in the back seat. Three hours to Reno. Ten hours to Redding. And hour to Ely to get the car charged up, buy some snacks, and hit the road again. They have no desire to be where they are. They want, often very badly, to be somewhere else.
A century and a half ago, the people passing though in wagons had their eyes on the horizon, too, and dreamed of California, but they figured distance in terms of footsteps and diminishing water, while calculating how long their cattle were going to hold out.
The first time Coyote watched a human die was when old man Hardkoop finally gave up and set himself down in the dirt in the meager shade of a sagebrush bush. He'd been a passenger on the wagon of the Keseberg family—Mr. Keseberg being the guy who later became notorious for eating Tamsin Donnor. Mr. Keseberg's oxen were the walking dead. He'd already tossed furniture overboard, and he and his wife were afoot, carrying their young daughter. He told old man Hardkoop to get out of the wagon and walk, knowing that the old man wouldn't be able to keep up.
All of the settlers in the wagon train knew that old man Hardkoop wouldn't be able to keep up. They didn't discuss it, at least not while Coyote was in earshot, tracking their progress through his territory. They just trudged onward, eyes on the distant mountains, dreaming with increasing desperation of California. To them, the desert was an obstacle, a dreadful passage, a trial that tested their moral and physical strength. They saw nothing in the desert to sustain their lives.
The sustainable was there. After all, people lived in the desert, had lived there for hundreds of years. They came on foot and they looked around, learned what they needed to learn, and found what they needed to find: a landscape of soft grays and beige, delicate pinks and vivid greens; a landscape of thorns and insects, of drought and torrential rain; a land of sage and rice grass. They found springs of fresh water and a river. They found pinon nuts on the slopes of the mountain, reeds in the marsh, and antelope and jackrabbits out in the sagebrush. In other words, they found the necessities of life: food, water, shelter. It was coyote's territory but he was willing to share.
The valley's name came from the tendency of dead animals to hang around forever as white bones, cleaned by the vultures and insects and scoured by windblown sand. Strewn on the ground were the tiny bones of mice and the slightly more robust bones of rabbits. All of Coyote's existence, he'd walked on bones of hawks and deer and heard the bones of the desert tortoise rattling in the shell like castanets. He'd seen bones of snakes, bones of people, and bones of his brother and sister coyotes. All those bones were constant reminders of how everyone's story ended, but none of the animals and nature spirits were afraid of death. Death was like the tangy taste of dried ants—it had a sting but flavored life. Death was the reminder to see beauty.
The valley was a wide, flat plain between sudden mountains that climbed up abruptly, not bothering with foothills, straight to the sky. Often hazy from the hot dry air, washed out by the glare of the sun, or obscured by thunderheads, the mountains were like a distant dream. The best time to see the mountains was on an overcast day when the sky is a dark cloudy blue. Then your eyes can see across fifty or so miles of flat land to where the pinon forests cover the mountain slopes with a soothing dark green. The bones of the mountain are easy to see on those days: steep slants cut by ravines. The forces of erosion have been in action since before Coyote came into being, and that was longer ago than any human life; another way that death spiced the lives of the living. All you had to do was look at the mountains to know that life is short.
Coyote didn't pay much mind to the People who lived in his valley. They were competent, lived by the accumulated years of experience, and weren't in need of his magic. Nor did he need much from them. They existed side by side, foraging and feeding, procreating and dying. Coyote didn't pay much attention to their deaths because he knew that, while individual humans lived and died—just as the animals and plants lived and died--the web of life in the desert remained. Besides, he never hung around to watch when People were killing each other.
Old Man Hardkoop's death was different. Coyote stopped to watch out of curiosity. He was...interested? No, that's not right. Intrigued? Startled? Disgusted? The wagon people had turned their backs on one of their own. The people of the desert never did that. They moved seasonally, but they carried those who needed to be carried, as best they could. If they were starving—which happened every now and then—and they couldn't carry someone with them, they mourned those that they couldn't save. Coyote was baffled by the ways of the new people. They seemed to be stupid, incompetent, and cruel.
Old man Hardkoop didn't die right away. He tried to keep up. His feet were swollen and bleeding, his boots worn down to rags. The wagons—wearily dragged along by thin, thirsty oxen—didn't move fast, and neither did the thin, thirsty women or the dusty, frightened children. Everyone shuffled and stumbled. Mrs Keseberg held on the side of the wagon to keep herself on her feet.
No one spoke except to yell. Mostly they yelled at the oxen, but sometimes they exploded at each other with voices raw and ragged from the dust. When not yelling, they trudged in silence. Old man Hardkoop didn't ask for help. He staggered on, first only twenty feet behind the Kesseberg wagon, then forty feet, then behind so far that he couldn't see the wagons anymore, just the dust.
He couldn't keep up, and no one wanted him to keep up, but he tried. Coyote tracked him from the brush nearby. He watched the bony shoulders and limp, dusty hat; the swollen hands dangling; the tear tracks on the dirty cheeks The old man's eyes weren't on the horizon, and any dreams of California were dead. His steps slowed. His head bobbled at the end of his skinny neck. He was wondering which step would be his last one, what bit of sand would be his final resting place, when his knees gave out.
Coyote watched the old man's sore muscles flop in a heap on the ground. There he slumped, his head dangling on his neck, his gnarly old hands laying in his lap. Maybe he thought about his home on the farm in Belgium. The tulips that bloomed in the spring. His wife, God bless her, in her grave. His son had a homestead in California, but old man Hardkoop would never see it.
Coyote thought his hands looked like dead spiders. He watched the old man cover his eyes with his spidery fingers. Then he wiped his face and looked around. Old man Hardkoop couldn't see anyway to sustain life. Slowly, gently he lowered his shoulder and his head so that he was laying on his side. Then he covered his face with one of his spider hands.
Coyote trotted away. It was all very confusing. For millennia, only the People had lived in the desert. Now these new people were passing through and they didn't know anything, didn't seem to want to learn anything, and they didn't take care of their own. He didn't like them.
To Live is to Fly
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