Still Life by Edward Drobinski - HTML preview

Still Life

Page 260

the airport in Hawthorne. The police, along with some radio and television reporters, were waiting for him, and patrol cars chased the aircraft down the runway. Instead of stopping, Mark tried to turn the taxiing aircraft around across the grass and was shot dead by one of the policemen.

Daria learned about Mark's death on her car radio. She drove to Clu's lavish desert home, "a desert Berchtesgaden," set high on a rock outcropping near Phoenix, Arizona, where she saw three affluent looking women sunning themselves and chatting by the swimming pool. She grieved for Mark by drenching herself in the house's architectural waterfall. Clu was deeply immersed in a business meeting having to do with the complex and financially risky Sunny Dunes development. Taking a break, he spotted Daria in the house and happily greeted her. She went downstairs alone and found the guest room that has been set aside for her, but after briefly opening the door, she shut it again.

Seeing a young Native American housekeeper in the hallway, Daria left silently. She drove off, but stopped to get out of the car and look back at the house, her own imagination seeing it repeatedly blown apart in billows of orange flame and household items.

Boom.