Fallen. David Maine

the bleak anger in his center. As if some other force were in control of things: destiny perhaps. For long disorienting moments Cain hovered outside his body, calmly looking down from above at two young men tussling at the edge of a cliff. Then one of them became a murderer and the other one died.

      And then Cain was back inside his body, flushed and jittery, breathing hard, and wondering what his brother had been about to say.

      •

      Did the stone kill him, or was it the impact at the bottom of the ravine that snapped his neck? Cain doesn’t know. He will never know.

      His brother made no sound as he toppled through the emptiness. There were some birds in the distance, big white ones in a line, egrets perhaps. The sky was cloudless. Far off meandered the silver-white glitter of a river. Beyond that, the hills.

      Cain watched as his brother fell and fell. It seemed to last for days. And then he stopped falling and lay lifeless in the dirt.

      •

      Now Cain sweats in the afternoon stillness. It is warm but not that warm. He is walking fast, trying perhaps to outpace God.

      God will not be outpaced. In the form of the wind He rushes alongside Cain, tousling his hair and nipping at the hem of his tunic. God whispers in Cain’s ear, Your brother’s blood cries to Me from the very earth