Chapter 17: The Rainy Movie
By Allen Frost
Frances stared at her reflection on the ice wall. Behind the thick frozen window, a couple salmon rocking-chaired in the current. Smaller fish hurried past, upstream or downstream, she didn’t know. This was a good place for her to end up, she thought, after everything she’d done. Some moon was getting on the ice and even though the electric effect of it may only be enough to run a train set, it was powerful enough to keep her a werewolf.
She remembered everything…tying real explosives onto the white balloons, arming and setting a timer on a torpedo, howling in the fog last night…she covered ground on all fours and made it to the top of Jupiter Hill where the Mayan looking windmills powered half the city.
The newspapers and radios were already chattering about how it happened—using cover of the fog, a skilled team of Nazi saboteurs had struck! Even far underground she could feel the rumble.
Would they ever know it was her? Far above Frances, the doomed windmills tilted against each other, broken shells of them were scattered around. She had torn down power lines and used them to rope all the sails together and bring the whole fleet of windmills crashing into each other. No wonder her arms were sore. After that and the fall, she could barely move at all.
So this is why her father kept her inside all those years of full moon nights—it wasn’t so much a dangerous world…it was a dangerous her. She relived watching her destruction sparking against the black sky swoop like fireworks, then the explosion and the ground gave way, she fell into an old mine or well. She was in a room sized cavern. It would be dark if not for the flickering moonlight coming from the ice.
She leaned a wolf’s arm against the frozen projection. The ice traveling down her arm took its time, freezing her and transforming her into a statue. Maybe it was best for her to stay tombed, she was too tired anyway. In front of her, the ice steamed with her breath. Her breathing slowed from one minute to the next. There wasn’t much to do but lean on the blue window and watch the rainy movie of the swimming fish.
Frances stared at her reflection on the ice wall. Behind the thick frozen window, a couple salmon rocking-chaired in the current. Smaller fish hurried past, upstream or downstream, she didn’t know. This was a good place for her to end up, she thought, after everything she’d done. Some moon was getting on the ice and even though the electric effect of it may only be enough to run a train set, it was powerful enough to keep her a werewolf.
She remembered everything…tying real explosives onto the white balloons, arming and setting a timer on a torpedo, howling in the fog last night…she covered ground on all fours and made it to the top of Jupiter Hill where the Mayan looking windmills powered half the city.
The newspapers and radios were already chattering about how it happened—using cover of the fog, a skilled team of Nazi saboteurs had struck! Even far underground she could feel the rumble.
Would they ever know it was her? Far above Frances, the doomed windmills tilted against each other, broken shells of them were scattered around. She had torn down power lines and used them to rope all the sails together and bring the whole fleet of windmills crashing into each other. No wonder her arms were sore. After that and the fall, she could barely move at all.
So this is why her father kept her inside all those years of full moon nights—it wasn’t so much a dangerous world…it was a dangerous her. She relived watching her destruction sparking against the black sky swoop like fireworks, then the explosion and the ground gave way, she fell into an old mine or well. She was in a room sized cavern. It would be dark if not for the flickering moonlight coming from the ice.
She leaned a wolf’s arm against the frozen projection. The ice traveling down her arm took its time, freezing her and transforming her into a statue. Maybe it was best for her to stay tombed, she was too tired anyway. In front of her, the ice steamed with her breath. Her breathing slowed from one minute to the next. There wasn’t much to do but lean on the blue window and watch the rainy movie of the swimming fish.
posted by Miguel at 2:36 PM
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