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Show 7k it occurred to him he walked faster. Darcy became another weight, like the bags, another resistance, like the mud. At times he could not have identified the sloshing sound behind him. When she fell he couldn't understand at first what had happened, what had slipped from his hand. "Goddamn," he said, confused, as though he was the one who had fallen. She had pitched straight forward, face down into the road. When David crouched to help her up the bags, too, settled in the mud. Lifting her to her knees he wiped her face with the tail of his shirt and pushed back her hair. Her eyes opened wide and green and afraid. "Why are you doing this to me?" she asked. "Doing to you? I'm not doing anything to you. You fell, that's all. You've got to be more careful. You've got to walk faster." "I can't." "You have to. You will." He looked at her hard, pulled her to her feet. "My sandals, they're full of mud and make me trip." "So take them off." He should have thought of it before. He would take his own off too. He undid his belt and strung the four dirty sandals around his waist. Now as they walked the mud rose coldly between their toes. Ahead the lights of Phira became brighter. Single lights grew, divided, multiplied. Angular silhouettes of low buildings appeared and sharpened. A thin trail of ashen smoke, rising from the stack |
