El has lived with almost unbearable loneliness--visiting almost no one for twenty years in a house so far from town. Mercy is the only one who visits because she sells her canned vegetables for her in town.
Anyone, who longs for something, will identify with this woman.
In this story, El has a stack of unused diapers in her closet and jars of tomatoes and other vegetables. Never having had the children she expected to have, she ends up with a cache of diapers.
She buries sparrows and bluebirds in unused diapers when they accidentally hit themselves against her glass window. They seem to do that frequently even after her strange house guest, a boy covered in dust, arrives.
The descriptions in this story are wonderful. The sparrow weighs less than "a breath of dust."
The boy, too, is made of dust:
"The cat was on the doorstep. Behind her was a child, brown, a layer of dirt covering every inch of his skin, making it velvet. His eyes were like his skin; soft, dark. A quick tilt of his head brought to mind hiccups or a sneeze. Four or five, she figured him, and without a stitch on but the dirt."
She buries sparrows and bluebirds in unused diapers when they accidentally hit themselves against her glass window. They seem to do that frequently even after her strange house guest, a boy covered in dust, arrives.
The descriptions in this story are wonderful. The sparrow weighs less than "a breath of dust."
The boy, too, is made of dust:
"The cat was on the doorstep. Behind her was a child, brown, a layer of dirt covering every inch of his skin, making it velvet. His eyes were like his skin; soft, dark. A quick tilt of his head brought to mind hiccups or a sneeze. Four or five, she figured him, and without a stitch on but the dirt."
He appears to have wings that will not wash off:
Where skinny shoulder blades should have ended, they began, two shadows sprouting from the child’s back. Clouds, wings made of dust.
The wings are uncanny yet Mercy, El's only friend, tells her not to mind his strangeness. Children do not feel different until someone tells them they are different.
The boy brings more and more children to the house--two little girls and a boy. El and her husband, Davis, a mason, contact the Sheriff but no one has reported missing children.
The mysterious boy clings to El's legs. He is mostly non-verbal but seems wiser beyond his years. He says "not yet," when she asks him his name.
El finds homes for the other children; these children bring brightness to the people who have led dull lives like Mercy and Jeanne.
The story tells readers that grief , like the uncanny wings, fade over time.
Even though El loses Davis, she finds this unnamed boy who takes his rightful place beside her.
https://catapult.co/stories/fiction-with-time-their-wings-fade
Where skinny shoulder blades should have ended, they began, two shadows sprouting from the child’s back. Clouds, wings made of dust.
The wings are uncanny yet Mercy, El's only friend, tells her not to mind his strangeness. Children do not feel different until someone tells them they are different.
The boy brings more and more children to the house--two little girls and a boy. El and her husband, Davis, a mason, contact the Sheriff but no one has reported missing children.
The mysterious boy clings to El's legs. He is mostly non-verbal but seems wiser beyond his years. He says "not yet," when she asks him his name.
El finds homes for the other children; these children bring brightness to the people who have led dull lives like Mercy and Jeanne.
The story tells readers that grief , like the uncanny wings, fade over time.
Even though El loses Davis, she finds this unnamed boy who takes his rightful place beside her.
