And his wife would dab at the foreheads with a steam cloth and she would murmur leave my sons and he would count his sons and come up with four. And he would keep it from her that this was the bruising work of the fifth whom he had beaten in a hidden room and left for dead. And he would leave the kitchen walking backward and his heart would try to stay.

When finally God spoke it was not with mouth but with hand if one can imagine an emperor of puppets.

The heart it jumped back into its rightful cave but was not afraid and could no longer beat.

And the man took the boy by the ear into the room and asked for a quarrel and one was provided. The boy though was protected by an upturned glass and watched his father bat himself as a puppy will its nose.

After which the insects began to land but always the blood would come back to the face of the boy.

And the father was made to spit on a cob and with it brush his teeth. And he called them his sons what were four spheres of water.