Contemporary Fiction Audiobook
Vocal Characteristics
Language
EnglishVoice Age
Young Adult (18-35)Accents
North American (General)Transcript
Note: Transcripts are generated using speech recognition software and may contain errors.
one. The wedding, 15 miles south of Seattle and halfway across Puget Sound to the west is Murray Island, shaped like an arrow head aimed at the mainland. Green is the inter fold of a grass blade. It could be seen from the air cradled in the crook of an elbow of water. Tourists ride over on ferries to watch for Wales, and UFO's jets turnaround overhead on their final approach to the airport. Even on days when there is no rain, mist filters through the evergreens until it pulls apart, like threadbare cloth and burns off. The wedding was to be held in the afternoon at Point Robinson, the site of an old fog signal station that once housed a steam whistle fed by coal fire and water tow worn away ships in 18 97 at the dawn of massive capital expansion and speculation, the whistle sounded for 528 hours, nearly killing the man who had to shovel the 35 tons of coal. The cargo had to be kept from the rocks, but who can halt the lumbering desires of the world. In 1915 the lighthouse, with its state of the art fifth order for Nell Lens was built, powered initially by oil vapour lamps, it speaking, could be seen for 12 miles. The lens was the perfect manifestation of Victorian technology, replacing simple flat lenses with faceted crystal domes, prisms cut into tears that made it both astonishingly beautiful and a breakthrough in optics. The for Nell Ends had a theoretically infinite capacity to capture diffuse light and, by way of internal reflection, cast it like a spear through darkness. It lets stages and celluloid Polaroid shots and retinas, variety scans and on Point Robinson, it lit Puget Sound. These days, every modern ship has a GPS and a little light. House is just a decoration on a brochure, a destination for a grade school field trip. The mechanisms that rotated to the original lantern remain on the first floor, which is now a tiny museum of technology, with gauges and wheels and iron bolted into the base with lines that lead nowhere and do nothing back across the sound. In Seattle, Livy looked out the window of her basement apartment. Her father was getting married that afternoon, and though it was already late April ah, cold, wet breeze still whistled through the gaps in the caulking, turning her skin to goose flesh. A few feet away stood her sister, Cheyenne, poorly slept but already dressed. I'm freezing, said Cheyenne. I'm turning on the space heater. Turn on the oven. The charges for electricity live, he said. Shannon rolled her eyes but went over to the little white gas stove, cranking the temperature to broil. She leaned back against the oven door so she could feel the heat on her hamstrings while the oven warmed. Yesterday, they spent the whole day picking rocks out of levees. Landlords garden in trade for a patch of soil near the sunny side of the fence so that living could grow food. It wasn't political. Living didn't care about pesticides or permaculture. She was just the cheapest person Cheyenne had ever known. She lived off past eight groceries. She washed her clothes once a month with a teaspoon of dish soap in a tub. She made her own bras. Shannon was pretty sure she would have rinsed and reused dental dams if she thought it would work. Recently, Livia become convinced she could feed herself off three square yards of land. It was ridiculous, but since Cheyenne had appeared out of nowhere and moved in on her without warning or rent, she didn't have much of a say taller and unfriend. Khaled Shana chosen a rose colored capped sleeve shirt with eyelets and a pair of black pinstriped suit pants. She could pass in the crowd they'd be in today. Her second hand clothes came office vintage, while her misadventures in body art made her seem a fine vase, badly cracked and chipping but a gritty accent to any room. Cyril didn't come to my wedding, Cheyenne said. Why should I go to Hiss? Did you invite him? ****, no. He would have arrived like a Lord and expected to walk me down the aisle. Here, let me give you away. Oh, hey, Dad. I'm pretty sure you did that. You're right. You would have said Levy. So why are we even going? I have a day off work, and it's cheaper than a movie. I'm tired of Rahman and hot dogs and there will be rich people food. So I'm taking Tupperware. Please don't make it obvious. Said Cheyenne. We're already going to look so out of place because you have jail house tats. of hearts and clubs on your knuckles or because I don't shave and look like a landscaper. Cheyenne spread the fingers on her left hand. Look, just clubs and hearts. The one of my thumb is a diamond, and the pinky is a spade you just can't tell anymore. Livy crossed to where she laid out her newly washed blue painter's pants and pulled them on over her long Jones. I'm going to the wedding because it's a show of support that costs me nothing. I've never thought of him as a dad, so I don't care. At his worst, he's just a big blink, a disappointment. It gets a clean slate. That's my wedding present, a pass. It's the only decent move. A shocked, my better angels, said Cheyenne. They're angels. You can't kill them. If they were, really, you could. If he could feel Cheyenne's eyes burning holes in her ribs. She's a butterfly and flattened her pockets. I have close if you want to borrow something, said Cheyenne. Livy froze for a second. Them bent down to roll the cuffs, making sure they were perfectly even on both sides and all the way around. I have a white shirt. It has buttons. I can tuck it in, she said. What do you think his bride will be like? Asked Cheyenne, a full blown voodoo narcissist like him. He couldn't take the competition. I predict Anglo Geisha.