Albert lay on the hammock, and listened.
The hammock was strung diagonally between the supporting posts of a covered deck. When Albert had built the cottage, this was one of his driving motivations, a large deck, screened in summer, shuttered in winter. He swung gently, cradled by the thick cotton webbing, and heard the sounds of a hot summer evening in this, his forest retreat.
From the roof, a ping as a falling twig bounced off the satellite dish. Behind and above his head, a tiny, rhythmic creaking from where the big iron hook held the hammock's tie-rope. Beyond his feet, a similar sound from the hook at the other end.
From inside the cottage, through the open window, alarmed beeping and warning sirens mixed with the inhuman screams of doomed robots, as Albert's son Freon played Search and Destroy with the home entertainment complex.
Suddenly, but not jarringly, from outside under the trees, Albert heard the soft padding footsteps of his daughter Fawn as, light-footed, she ran across the carpet of brown needles that covered the black soil under the reaching, spreading pine trees.
Albert thought of technology. How it surrounds one in the city, like a danger, like a stranger following in an alley at night, so that the journey out here to the Townships felt like throwing off a suffocating blanket of haze. But, he silently argued, technology is nurturing; providing warmth in winter, air-conditioning in summer, shielding one from the harsh realities of the butcher's knife and the axe.
He smiled, and thought of nature. How it'll take you if you let it, on the side of the snowy mountain, or in the choking saltiness of the heaving seas. Piercing teeth and sharpened claws. But nature could keep you alive, like a mother's breast, or that first bite into the sharp, yeilding flesh of a pimento.
He heard footsteps inside the cottage. Freon appeared at the open window. Dressed in an orange day-glow Dacron jacket, he rested his elbows on the sill. Each wrist had a miniature television on a plastic watchband, tuned to different channels. His night-vision goggles pushed to the back of his head, he held his global positioning system in his left hand and fiddled with its knobs with his right, tracking his progress in the walk from the other room. He seemed to have grown like a tumor from an electric outlet.
"Wanna play RoboBlaster, Pops?" he asked, his voice excited, hurried; the twang of an elastic band breaking.
Albert held up his hands, palms outward. A silent no, the gesture grew into a blissful stretch. The deck was the place, tonight. Inside the cottage was for cold weather nights. Freon moved back from the window; his rubber footsteps bounced into the living room.
Albert tried to roll over, but got caught in the webbing. He gave up, relaxed, and rolled back into his original position. He inhaled, then exhaled deeply through his nose.
Fawn padded softly up the wooden plank steps and smiled gently at him through the wobbly curves of the loose grey screening.
Clad in buckskin, her amber hair tumbled heavy onto her shoulders, she held clusters of flowers in each hand. Their roots intact, she would plant them again, later; her playmates for the hours of darkness.
"Daddy, the air is clean, tonight. Come, run with me under the trees." Her voice caressed and refreshed like a cool breeze.
Albert smiled, and shook his head. He was happy on the hammock. The next time he looked, she was gone.
He must have dozed, then, as it felt later when he woke, as if the heavens had shifted, just a touch.
A branch was swaying in the wind, scraping against the roof of the deck. It seemed to speak to him.
"G-g-g-immm Dee Aaah," it said, "D-d-dillllll Jee Haww."
Albert imagined a friendly Rastafarian, smiling. The branch spoke again, with the Rastafarian's voice.
But that wasn't it. Not really. There was something wrong with the rhythm of the words. The accent was on the second syllable, rather than the first. The sound again took on a different meaning. All at once, there was no mistake about it. He heard it, as clear as the starry night.
It was an order. It was a request. It was a plea.
Albert stood up. He saw a branch on the floor of the deck, that looked like it had been there all along. Big at one end; small at the other, about three feet long. It was heavy and hard, and at the larger end were many tiny sharp stumps, where branches had been broken off. He hefted it, and it felt good in his hand, as if it were another limb, grown suddenly.
Albert walked through the creaky, swinging door.
The electricity inside the cottage washed over him, pricking at his skin. It was ugliness; these electrons were offensive. The feeling made the request seem more logical. He could still hear the branch, outside.
He found the boy lying on his stomach, on the floor in the living room, staring intently at the television screen as his fingers worked furiously at the game pad.
Freon slumped, unconscious, as the branch cracked open his skull. The next few blows were tentative, positional, like the easy taps you use to steady a nail as you start to hammer it into place; then, once it's partway in, you can drive it the rest of the way with a couple of good, even swings.
He gripped the branch with both hands, reached far back behind him, then swung it over his shoulder in a great arc, and finished the job.
Like a nail. Driven home, straight and true.
He paused, breathing heavily, looking down at the floor. Looking down at what he had done. It didn't seem wrong, somehow; it seemed right. He felt good.
He went back out to the deck and stretched his body once more across the hammock.
Again he dozed, and again the night seemed to have twisted in its seat when he woke up. Every shadow pointed in a different direction, but nothing had changed.
He heard a metallic voice from inside the cottage. What did it say?
A grinding sound, as badly-aligned metal casters rolled across the floor. A shadow at the door. The door swinging open, gently, as something pushed through.
It was the television, or one of them. The little one, on a stand, that Freon always rolled up to the kitchen table at dinner time. Its cord trailed along behind it, plugged into nothing. The picture was there; bright snow and jagged, dancing lines. The antenna whipped wildly about, but the picture did not resolve itself.
"Kill Fawn," said the TV, loud and clear. No mistaking it. "Kill Fawn."
It sounded like a thing to do. It sounded obvious, really.
He ran down the stairs and under the trees. Behind him he heard the TV thumping down the wooden steps, shouting encouragement to him. He paused under the pine trees and looked around. He sniffed.
A trace of henna shampoo, its concentration gradient focusing somewhere off to his right, where the shadows under the trees were darkest. He ran that way.
There she was, her back to him, stroking a green pine cone, raising it to her nose and breathing in its scent. He ran quietly up behind her and searched for a weapon.
He saw his own shadow deepen and shorten as a dim light source crept up behind him. The television, of course. Offering itself. The squiggly lines all dark now, so as not to alert her. He picked it up, held it over his head, feeling the trusty weight of it.
He swung it forward and down, straight down on Fawn's lovely head. There was a scraping of metal against bone, and she slumped silently onto the brown needles and leaves. He lifted the TV, slammed it down once more. And a third time, needlessly.
He went back to the deck, again. Back to his hammock, again.
When he awoke, he was alone, and everything was gone. No cottage, no trees, no telephone wires. Nothing but rock, and a heavy, damp emptiness in the air, to rival the feeling in the pit of his stomach.