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oblivion
a thimble that had become
ingrown on a finger of his
left hand and in the finger of
the right, a fish hook that had
jabbed his calloused skin,
yellow as candle stearin, was
hanging as if from the lip of
an old fish; and the one who
had been whittling wore a
darkened ring.
“The dogs got themselves
lost,” said the fisherman.
The man spoke as if they
were still just three; as if
they had always lived the
three of them and a fourth
never was and never could
be, and thus I did not fit into
his field of comprehension
and he might not figure out
for several days that there
was a stranger among them.
Their solitude together was
older than they were, time
had vanished within it, and
the old men had aged not
only with the years but
because the days of their
lives resembled one another,
and the days did not bring
new impressions but merely
subtracted old ones from
their memory.
“The dogs got themselves
l os t , ” the f i she rman
repeated, and the other two
replied, “Lost.”
Their voices were like old
things being used af ter a
long hiatus; the sounds did
not f it together properly,
hanging on by hook or crook,
dangling like a loose button.
They sounded like dead men
who had acquired new flesh
but could not adjust the new
voice to the old words.
The man with the axe leaned
against his sharpener, the
fishermen stuck the needle
in his jacket, and the whittler
put the knife away inside his
boot. Wind came from the
higher reaches of the river,