Esther Pivner

They came by oxcart, by foot and on their knees, people so grisly and depraved they left a terrible taste in your thoughts. His father had warned him of the coming of ‘the many’, the hordes escaping across the five-mile and into the cities. ‘The five-mile will not hold forever’ his father warned. ‘sooner or later we’ll be overrun with them, the same people we forced out wanting backing in’. His father squinted, his upper lip curling like a beheaded worm, splitting in segments. He never thought he’d see the day when being sane would be a shortcoming, as commonplace as silk gloves and woolen trousers. Coro Falcon wears knee-britches with candy-coloured stockings, the tiny hairs on her shins swimming in nylon. Father but why? My son, that you’ll learn when you grown old; like a puny stalk of celery. His father wore gray trousers, the inseams grayed with Hawken’s plug. Father but you’ll surely choke on it! Never you mind, (mijn zoon), I’m hardier than an oak; spinier too. Esther Pivner, big-boned and prone to fits of hysteria, lives above Plunker’s Market with a blue goldfish. His da used to lay-in with her Sunday mornings when his ma was busy cleaning the dust in between the pews. She used a duster with a silver handle; the kind used by street-sweepers and old-fashion charwomen. The kind his own grandmamma used to clean the ceiling and the bottom of the cupboards. She was prone to rum-fits and horse-coughing.