Turn 215 of 226

Explore the valley together while talking

The 742,000 pounds stand and the standing is the thing the crater shakes with. Two 580-foot frames rising from the valley floor and the rising is a geological event the seismographs in Wenatchee will log as 2.1 magnitude and the logging is the thing the analysts will attribute to the Cascade Fault's normal settling pattern. The settling is not normal. The settling is the thing two bodies do when the bodies are 742,000 pounds each and the pounds are 960-times density and the density is the thing the ground negotiates with every time the bodies move. Lena steps east. The foot is ninety feet long and the ninety feet is the thing the forest disappears under. The old-growth hemlock does not break. The hemlock compresses into the soil and the compressing is the thing the 960-times density sole does to living wood without registering the wood as different from soil. The not registering is the thing the animal's body does now. The body does not navigate around trees. The body navigates through trees the way the body navigates through air.

Diane walks beside her. The twenty-foot gap between the 580-foot frames is the thing the proportions keep intimate and the intimacy is the thing the earthquake does not disrupt. Each step is a 2.0. Each step is the thing the valley absorbs and the absorbing is the thing the granite walls do less well now because the walls are fractured from two months of fighting and lying and the fracturing is the thing the 580-foot frames' weight has done to the structure of the valley. The structure is not what it was. The structure is a bowl of cracked granite holding two bodies that are growing heavier every night.

Lena speaks. The sound starts in the chest cavity and the chest cavity is the size of a gymnasium and the gymnasium is the thing the air compresses in.

"The river moved."

The words leave the 580-foot mouth and the mouth is thirty feet across and the thirty feet is the thing the sound wave expands from. The four syllables hit the eastern ridge and the ridge is 600 feet of cracked granite and the granite sheds a boulder the size of a house. The boulder falls into the forest and the falling is the thing the sound does to the structure the structure cannot hold against. Diane's voice comes back lower, the quarter-tone deeper, the resonance that the western ridge answers with its own shedding.

"I watched it go around us. While you were sleeping."

The 742,000 pounds walk east through the old-growth and the walking is the thing the forest ends at. The forest does not end at a treeline. The forest ends at the footprint. Behind them the valley floor is bare soil — compressed, salted with the mineral content of 960-times density sweat, the soil dead in the strips the feet have walked. The dead is the thing the territory does to the ground the ground cannot support life on. The life is the thing the perimeter holds. The perimeter is the thing the urine marks and the urine marks are the thing the 580-foot frames reapply every three days and the reapplying is the thing the growth makes necessary because the 580-foot frame's scent signature is different from the 390-foot frame's scent signature. The different is the thing the wish changes. The wish changes the body and the body changes the smell and the smell changes the territory.

They reach the hot spring. The spring is smaller now — the seismic activity of two months has shifted the fissure and the water seeps from a new crack ten feet higher on the rock face. The pool is twenty feet across instead of forty. The 580-foot frames tower over it and the towering is the thing the steam rises against. The steam hits Lena's stomach and the stomach is the thing the fat apron hangs from and the hanging is the thing the steam condenses on. The condensation is water on brown skin and the water is the thing the 580-foot frame does not wipe away.

"It's smaller," Diane says. The saying is the thing the eastern ridge rumbles with.

"We're bigger."

The two sentences are the thing the conversation is. The conversation is not what the 151,000-pound bodies had in the office or the warehouse. The conversation is the thing the 742,000-pound bodies have in a valley they have reshaped by existing in it. The reshaping is the thing the words acknowledge. The acknowledging is the thing the animal does not usually do and the not usually is the thing the speaking has opened. The opened is small. The small is the thing the 580-foot frame does not know how to hold. The holding is the thing the warmth in Lena's stomach does and the warmth is the thing the speaking does not interrupt. The not interrupting is the thing the wish does. The wish does not stop for conversation. The wish builds while the bodies walk and talk and the walking and talking are the things the 742,000-pound frames do together in a valley that is theirs and the theirs is the thing the earthquake gives them every time they open their mouths. The earthquake is the thing the voices are now. The voices are the thing the earth moves for. The moving is the thing that does not stop.