Lapvona

by Ottessa Moshfegh

He liked the snow on the boughs and the look of clouds, like a curtain that could be peeled back. A clear blue sky was hard to take. Marek saw it as emptiness, a place with no heaven in it. He preferred the clouds because he could imagine paradise behind them.

The oil lamp burned with precision. Its flame was female, thoughtful, like a spirit exacting its will against time. The fire in the hearth was masculine, powerful, instinctual, tireless.

At her age, in her loneliness, her mind was like a memory of a mind, echoes of birdsong. She’d done everything so many times in her life, she drifted between now and then, often getting lost in between.

Villiam emanated something of more insidious intensity, which was like absurdity and irreverence. His judgments and ideas veered toward immorality, delivered through the personage of a calm, well-oiled, funny mask.

Marek liked birds because he felt they were liminal creatures between heaven and Earth, and by liking them he was aligning himself with ascension. Jacob liked them for the way they looked.

Jude had seen a lamb get struck by lightning once, he had told Marek. ‘The smell of its cooked flesh carried through the prickling air, a horror worse than death,’ Jude had said. ‘Don’t get hit by the light, son. It will cook you.’