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Back Hunger of the Pine Save as PDF
Chapters (42)
  1. Front Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. PART ONE MONODY
  4. CHAPTER 1
  5. CHAPTER 2
  6. CHAPTER 3
  7. CHAPTER 4
  8. CHAPTER 5
  9. CHAPTER 6
  10. CHAPTER 7
  11. CHAPTER 8
  12. CHAPTER 9
  13. PART TWO FUGUE CONCERTO
  14. CHAPTER 10
  15. CHAPTER 11
  16. CHAPTER 12
  17. CHAPTER 13
  18. CHAPTER 14
  19. CHAPTER 15
  20. CHAPTER 16
  21. CHAPTER 17
  22. CHAPTER 18
  23. PART THREE SONATA APPASSIONATA
  24. CHAPTER 19
  25. CHAPTER 20
  26. CHAPTER 21
  27. CHAPTER 22
  28. CHAPTER 23
  29. CHAPTER 24
  30. CHAPTER 25
  31. CHAPTER 26
  32. CHAPTER 27
  33. PART FOUR CODA
  34. CHAPTER 28
  35. CHAPTER 29
  36. CHAPTER 30
  37. CHAPTER 31
  38. CHAPTER 32
  39. CHAPTER 33
  40. CHAPTER 34
  41. CHAPTER 35
  42. CHAPTER 36

Aria felt wrong for having arrived in a place where such established connections already existed. She imagined herself to be an imposition there, even though they never indicated that they minded it. So she made the effort to engage with them, with an air of exaggerated friendliness. When the conversation died down between them, Darren and Robert started asking Taylor and Aria their stories. Except for the occasional interruption by Aston coming into the tent to announce and re-announce his boredom, Taylor and Aria took turns telling their tales and answering questions until there were no more questions to be asked.

Taylor and Aria learned a lesson the hard way that day, too: never drink coffee if it is the only thing you get to eat on a given day. After they left the three men, their efforts to find discarded food in a dumpster behind a grocery store produced nothing. Both feeling jittery and sick to their stomachs, they lay down against the door of the loading dock until they felt good enough to make the trip back to the car lot. Aria threw up, which made her feel better, and drank enough from one of her plastic water bottles to feel full.

Aria couldn’t get the meeting with Mike and Darren and Robert out of her head. She recycled it in her mind. They had parted ways that day feeling the nearness brought about by hardship, which, like superglue, closes up the cracks that would normally separate people from such different walks of life. She could not work out why, no matter where some people seem to turn, their lives have no door leading anywhere … Dead end after dead end after dead end of pain. The inevitable rain of loss had soaked them all. It had left them all destitute.

There was so much uncertainty in life. Aria wanted some certainty. But so far, any certainty that people seemed to establish seemed to be ornamental anyway. Despite her youth, Aria already knew that all ornament would be lost in death, just as Luke had lost his brother and girlfriend. It would disappear like shadows into light.

It was a thought that usually made her feel uneasy. But tonight, it made her feel glad that she currently had so little to lose.

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 15