“Are you ready?” she said, once the chopper had lifted off. “It must be a failsafe!” one of the doctors cries. The old man looked at the boy’s scars, noting the creative flourish that had been lavished on his face during previous interviews. Beyond the railroad bridge there was an island, wide and low, sandy banks rising to densely packed pines.
Trees grew in lines between the fields: windbreaks. He said he could offer me the kind of life I’d never achieve otherwise no matter how long I lived or how hard I worked. Chainsaws and rot take away the trunks, but new twists are added and established and eventually preferred. Margo Lanagan, “The Miracle Aquilina,” Wings of Fire.
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