Chapter 1. First dancing partner: the wind
Straws were impelled by the
wind across the path. They had been uprooted from the
farmyards through the narrow chinks of the doors, and then became old and soaring ones from forgotten
haystacks.
The wind got up early in the morning. It scraped the sea surface to scramble the white sugar from the
spray; climbed over the cliff top; and managed for the whispering
heathers to be ringing. It stopped for a brief instant, and immediately revolved around the house; carved a whistle when facing every smallest corner; wagled some loose
tiles (
here and there); dragged the leaves from the past
autumn (
these grizzly watermarks having scampered from the humus suction); and drew courtains of grey dust from the ground
furrows, which excoriated the dry scab of the old puddles (
like a grater).
Chapter 2. Second dancing partner: the empty cat
A
whirlwind was forming at the village boundaries. Both the little branches and mad grass started spinning (
like the apex of a fuzzy cone). There was a black, espongy and plastic thing near the high grey wall. In an unexpected zizag, the tip approached what was the slight and
empty wrapping of a black cat. A cat with no substance. An untouchable and dry one. The shell of a cat which had been
psychoanalyzed, therefore its inside having been removed.
The whirlwind, throwing the empty cat onto the path, caused it to begin rolling like a newspaper (
roughly) does across the beach. Once the wind had laid sharp noisy threads through the high grass spikes, the cat
ghost stumbled against and (
grotesquely) fell to the ground.
With a brisk shift, the wind crushed the boned
rompers against a
hedge, and made it to lose two notes or so, and took it then for the next
waltz. Suddenly, the cat jumped over the slope (
because the path curved); ran between the green points of the rising ears, electrifying itself at their touch; and fluttered everywhere like a drunk
crow.
Finally, the wind forsook its dancing
partner. And the cat remained empty; so empty as the perfect void of dry vegetables; as the old straw from the haystacks abandoned to sun.