The Blind Assassin - Margaret Atwood [6]
The King knows what’s happened and it gives him nightmares, but the rest of them don’t know. They don’t know they’ve become so small. They don’t know they’re supposed to be dead. They don’t even know they’ve been saved. To them the ceiling of rock looks like a sky: light comes in through a pinhole between the stones, and they think it’s the sun.
The leaves of the apple tree rustle. She looks up at the sky, then at her watch. I’m cold, she says. I’m also late. Could you dispose of the evidence? She gathers eggshells, twists up wax paper.
No hurry, surely? It’s not cold here.
There’s a breeze coming through from the water, she says. The wind must have changed. She leans forward, moving to stand up.
Don’t go yet, he says, too quickly.
I have to. They’ll be looking for me. If I’m overdue, they’ll want to know where I’ve been.
She smoothes her skirt down, wraps her arms around herself, turns away, the small green apples watching her like eyes.
The Globe and Mail, June 4, 1947
GRIFFEN FOUND IN SAILBOAT
SPECIAL TO THE GLOBE AND MAIL
After an unexplained absence of several days, the body of industrialist Richard E. Griffen, forty-seven, said to have been favoured for the Progressive Conservative candidacy in the Toronto riding of St. David’s, was discovered near his summer residence of “Avilion” in Port Ticonderoga, where he was vacationing. Mr. Griffen was found in his sailboat, the Water Nixie, which was tied up at his private jetty on the Jogues River. He had apparently suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. Police report that no foul play is suspected.
Mr. Griffen had a distinguished career as the head of a commercial empire that embraced many areas including textiles, garments and light manufacturing, and was commended for his efforts in supplying Allied troops with uniform parts and weapons components during the war. He was a frequent guest at the influential gatherings held at the Pugwash home of industrialist Cyrus Eaton and a leading figure of both the Empire Club and the Granite Club. He was a keen golfer and a well-known figure at the Royal Canadian Yacht Club. The Prime Minister, reached by telephone at his private estate of “Kingsmere,” commented, “Mr. Griffen was one of this country’s most able men. His loss will be deeply felt.”
Mr. Griffen was the brother-in-law of the late Laura Chase, who made her posthumous début as a novelist this spring, and is survived by his sister Mrs. Winifred (Griffen) Prior, the noted socialite, and by his wife, Mrs. Iris (Chase) Griffen, as well as by his ten-year-old daughter Aimee. The funeral will be held in Toronto at the Church of St. Simon the Apostle on Wednesday.
The Blind Assassin: The park bench
Why were there people, on Zycron? I mean human beings like us. If it’s another dimension of space, shouldn’t the inhabitants have been talking lizards or something?
Only in the pulps, he says. That’s all made up. In reality it was like this: Earth was colonized by the Zycronites, who developed the ability to travel from one space dimension to another at a period several millennia after the epoch of which we speak. They arrived here eight thousand years ago. They brought a lot of plant seeds with them, which is why we have apples and oranges, not to mention bananas – one look at a banana and you can tell it came from outer space. They also brought animals – horses and dogs and goats and so on. They were the builders of Atlantis. Then they blew themselves up through being too clever. We’re descended from the stragglers.
Oh, she says. So that explains it. How very convenient for you.
It’ll do in a pinch. As for the other peculiarities of Zycron, it has seven seas, five moons, and three suns, of varying strengths and colours.
What colours? Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry?
You aren’t taking me seriously.
I’m sorry. She tilts her head towards him. Now I’m listening. See?
He says: Before its destruction, the city – let’s call it by its former name, Sakiel-Norn,