This second section of Douglas Kaine McKelvey's Wingfeather Tale begins with a quote from one of my favorite books. (I appreciate the epigraphs in this story so much. I can't decide whether this one, or the one from part four, is my favorite.) I have been reading out loud to myself, which is sometimes difficult because DKM writes very long sentences and I occasionally run out of breath, and sometimes difficult because I have to stop and cry. This section, like The Wailing Orchards, made me cry. In particular this scene stood out because it seems to me that there is some providence here, but it is so hard to receive.
He somehow achieved that dire crossing without incident.But stepping up to the high opposite bank then he had lifted his hands joyfully to the sunlight that it might receive him, and in doing so had lost his balance so that he tumbled backwards into the river and was tossed and swept helplessly along for a great distance, repeatedly dunked by currents and abused by river stones as if he were a pile of laundered rags. He felt himself endlessly rolled, his lungs half slogged with water so that he sputtered and spewed all the way. As a further indignity, the driftwood staff caught up to him and, violently spun by the waters, struck the back of his head stiffly before careening away beyond his grasping reach.And so the man found himself viciously unmoored from his recent ecstasies, all illusion of ethereal self vanishing as the river sped him eastward mile upon mile, back the way from which he had come.
What was your favorite sentence or paragraph this week? Post it in the comments! And then come talk in the
forum. There is so much here to discuss.
