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Oz takes the box and holds it in his palms. It's light, and ratty.
Picked on by bigger boxes, smudged by dirty hands.
The Tibetan air is cool and crisp, and somewhere far behind the gutted remnants of this squatter's "apartment" somebody's llama was dropping a load. A ray of light shafts through the open gap of screenless window, that square of wood permitting sun. Sun, in turn, reflecting highlights off his head's Zen-sheared auburn stubble. Newly blood, expressly darkened in contrast to the milk of Ozflesh. Maybe soon Zen-razor would meet up with Oz's fresh and thickening beard. He looks at the illegible writing, dark Rorschach scrawl and somehow he knows. The script is unfamiliar to his eyes. But it's not that kind of contact, yet. Just his comprehensive gut. Flecks of a caked something are black bits he ignores as he uses thumb to open up taped cardboard wings. He bears no surprise to find it, a crumpled ball of whitish paper. Butcher paper. Torn off manually, two feet square. Leaning in just affirms. Recognition. It is hers. Nobody could ever answer just how in the world it could have made it's way here. To him. No real and acceptable reason how UPS, or its Chinese sister work a system reaching up into thin air of altitude as high as apple-pie hopes to touch its intended destination. How someone finds another. It will be an unsolved mystery. But somehow, some way this box and its contents have made their way past hoof-worn trails, by tryke, by boat. Flying like a pig, or a magical monkey and fettering into the hollow of his sanctuary and solitude. Like a pebble. Crashing waves on a baby pond. And his face doesn't have to show it. The scent of fear had never been. And although the paper still bore a musk as strong as a thick slap, rebuke, madfrenzy, was not its measure. Instead it was a flag, big as a tall banner and *proud* at that. Brazen and unapologetic. Garnished with resolve's cologne. Dried out, but the red mark lingers. Somewhere before she died Veruca had mailed him a gift of piss. And she was satisfied. The Bitch Was Here. |