Читать книгу The Book of Duels - Michael Garriga - Страница 11

Abel, 17, Shepherd

How easy it must be to sit beside a fig tree and let the wind turn your soil and the rain bury your seed and the sun pull your wheat and bean from the field, while here I hold a lonely vigil, watch over the hillside speckled by sheep, wary as ever of hound and hawk, because even though the lion may once have lain with the lamb, as Mother always says, it now devours them as prey—yesterday, I witnessed three lionesses bring down a gazelle and tear its flesh from the bone—it is little wonder to me why Holy Father loved my offering more than his, but not Mother, never Mother—she who loves Cain more than me, loves Cain more than Father, loves Cain indeed more than Holy Father—she strokes his hair and hums as she eats his lavash and lentils and ignores the cheese and yogurt I bring to our table—sometimes in the heat of early morn I smell her in the lambs’ wool as I milk them—last night I dreamt I took a wee one by his hind feet—him jerking and bleating ’gainst the sweat of my arms and chest and I held him up to the heavens and sank my teeth into his throat, the first man ever to taste blood, instead of the flesh of berry and herb and grain—I tore his muscle loose from bone and my jaw ached from the chewing, and when I woke, I ached still and so slaughtered a firstling and rendered his fat and brought it unto the Lord, Who smiled and said it was good, and if it was good enough for Him, then why not for me as well?

I herd my sheep toward his field and my strange brother, tall and gangly and talking to himself, cries unto me, Your sheep are eating the crops and they are drinking the needed water, and I say, Shut up, shut up, shut up, you goddamn bleating baby, and I shove him hard and he falls to all fours and I jump on his back and oh it feels good to spit the khat from my mouth and drive my teeth into his neck.