Out on the edges, beyond the newest line of fencing, there were cracks in the earth from drought.

Big enough to peer into, as one would a continent. Big enough to glimpse different potentials for living, varied animals and stitch patterns.

People went there to draw up inspiration or, at the very least, useable smog. They got only thin remnants of tendon, once belonging to something thirsty and something else.

Imagine a dead hare merged with the bird that stripped it. Road kill and vulture, rolled into one. That's the sort of fun being dredged.

No one, not even the optimistic, had any use for bodies like that. They were looking for visions in the arid opendown. Holes in the ground from a biblical absence of rain.

The journey out was never enough on its own. What in God's dusty earthen name do we need to be bringing stuff back for? Who asked for a souvenir?

I lifted a rabbit husk with the talons intact, plumped it on the mantelpiece, right above our mattress of springs, there to be considered over iced tea, plug-in fans and drawn down blinds, soon as we get back safely from the road.