This language of this Dickensian tale has a rhythm you can almost hear spoken out loud in the Southern drawl that I imagine it would have. But Yip is mute and cannot speak, so you would never be able to hear that voice for real. This seemingly simple story shows alternately a naïve way of writing and a depth of thought, acquired by Yip over the years. He will survive and that makes this voice-driven story not as harsh as it sometimes seems.
They is certain moments in a soul’s existence what do not arrive under any bugle or banner but sidle up as Innocent & Meek-mouthed as a short-horned cow. Only they is not so ordinary as they hope to seem but loaded up to the gills with all manner of Meanings & Implications what will play out in their wake.
It was in this the early summer of my sixth yr my life did take a turn I could not have foreseed.
So it was on this most unremarkable of days I was sit out in the blue shade of evening beneath my tree. The road was busy still with foot & hoof, the dust turned & spun by the wheels of a cart, 2 mules & the music of its traces chimed clean through the still & sundrunk air. Perched atop my trusted stool I watched on lazy as a lord, chewing on a sweet stalk, its green tip dry now of its juices but still rich with all them nourishments of the earth.
