She was awakened some time later by a voice.
—Good God, you’re about to burst into flames.
Cora opened her eyes, and the pain began there.
—Ow.
—No shit, ow, are you going to be able to walk?
Cora forced her eyelids the rest of the way up and saw her future husband, Albert Larsson, for the very first time. He was clothed only in sandals and a concerned expression. Cora turned a little and reached for something to cover herself up, but the excruciating pain from the burn quickly overtook any notions of modesty. She croaked out a question.
—Is it as bad as it feels?
She felt her lips crack as she finished the sentence. She tasted blood.
—I think you’re going to live, but we’ve got to get you inside somewhere.
And so Albert referred to himself and Cora as ‘we’ in the third sentence he ever spoke to her. Whenever she told this story in the years to come, both less and more often than you might think, Cora left out how suddenly comforted Albert’s simple ‘we’ had made her feel. If, as she believed, every story needed a secret, Cora’s was that she had loved Albert from sentence number three.
—Let me help you up. Slowly, now.
With much care and the lightest of touches, Albert got her to her feet. He gathered her few wayward things and delicately placed a hand on an unburnt spot to help her walk.
—You’re going to have this two-tone problem for a while. Your backside is as white as virgin pearl.
—A moan will have to suffice for a witty rejoinder.
—I’ll pretend to be dazzled.
She still could only barely see him, but her painful squints revealed first his nudity, second that he seemed Cora’s age or a bit younger (she was right but only just; when they met, they were twenty-two and twenty-one), and third that the reddish-blond hair on his head matched exactly the reddish-blond hair that led down from his belly button. What made a bigger impression was the kindness she felt in his hands. They were so gentle on her skin that they seemed to be the only thing keeping her from spontaneous immolation as they trudged back up the beach.
—How did you get here?
—I drove my hasty.
—Well, you’re not driving it home.
—Clearly.
—Do you have anyone who could come get you?
—My flatmates, I guess.
—I recognize that tone. Don’t worry. I’ll drive you, and let’s talk no more of it.
—Ow.
—We’re getting there.
Step by painstaking step, Albert supported Cora, and they walked, naked as a bridal bad dream the night before the wedding, past staring groups of volleyball players and disc throwers. Cora’s burn was so awesome there weren’t even any catcalls. The onlookers knew they were in the presence of something tremendous.
—Pavement.
Cora’s step jarred on the stone, sending a canvas of pain up her front.
—Ow.
—My car’s just right here.
—So close? You got here early.
—I’m not very proud to say.
Something occurred to Cora.
—Did you come to the beach naked?
—No. I was having sex with a man in the bushes behind you. We dozed, and when I woke up, he was gone and so were my clothes, towel and all various and sundry, save for the sandals I had somehow managed to not take off.
Cora let out a surprised laugh in the form of a grunt.
—I’m laughing less at the story than at your candor.
Through another squint, she could see him grin.
—I’m Albert.
—Cora.
—How about I take you to my lonely apartment, cover you with aloe, and put you in a cold bath, Cora?
—I’m in no position to decline.
Albert slipped off his left sandal, lifted up a flap, and pulled out his car key. Cora watched him with burnt eyebrows raised.
—You know, that’s a really good idea.
Some time later, after Albert more than made good on his promises, he wrapped her in a sheet, laid her on the couch, and fed her with bits of melon and cool water.
—I want to take you out to dinner to repay your kindness.
—Are you asking me on a date?
—You had sex with a man on the beach today. Are you askable on a date?
—It’s a big world. I like lots of things. I’m askable.
—All right then, I’m asking.
They married four months later. Though they occasionally indulged in sharing a boy, theirs was a rock-solid, faithful, and devoted union. Such was their bond, in fact, that by the time Cora was elected Mayor a surprisingly short seventeen years later, local Hennington argot referred to an especially strong contract as an ‘Albert and Cora’ to demonstrate its solidity.
She was concerned about the dust.
The air smelled heavily of it, but it should have been too early in the year for there to be dust, although the last rains were well gone. There was ash in the dust as well and a distant smell of burning. She paused before she led the herd up to the top of the hill that marked the northern entrance to the descending fields, a place completely lacking in the malodorous homes of the thin creatures. This was just a grassy area, and she shouldn’t have been able to smell dust at all.
(An Arboretum groundskeeper leaned against his rake, watching The Crash from behind a stand of trees. He could see them grazing in the field, Maggerty mooning along after as usual, and he also had a pretty good guess where they were going to head next.
He frowned.)
She looked at the rest of the herd behind her. A lightness of mood permeated the group but left her unaffected. She was the only one who bothered at the dust in the air. The rest of the herdmembers shuffled aimlessly about, pulling at the grass with agile lips, some of the younger calves even playing, gamboling on the lea, if anything so bulky could ever truly be said to gambol. Lush green surrounded them. Families of birds sang to each other in the trees and to those symbiotic brethren who made a meal of the ticks and other annoyances in the herdmembers’ hides. A breeze teased its way through the glade where the herd was gathered, and to every herdmember there, save one, all was well.
She sniffed again, reaching with her nose, even squinting her eyes, their weakness more than compensated for by sensitive nostrils and nimble ears that now also turned and grabbed at any evidence that might linger in the air. Nothing. There was the usual amount of thin creatures scattered in the fields, easy to sense with their eerie strangled cries and halved footfalls, oddities not excepted by the thin creature who constantly followed the herd, also present in her catalogue of senses. Nothing out of the ordinary but the dust.
She snorted and waved her great horn to get the others’ attention. The message communicated itself through the group, and the herd began to file behind her. Yet even as they crossed into the ever more verdant