Handling of Time
References to the passage of the days-
·
Waking in the cold dawn it all turned
to ash instantly. (Page 20)
·
He woke toward the morning with the
fire down to coals and walked out onto the road. Everything was alight (Page
31)
·
He woke whimpering in the night and
the man held him. (Page 34)
·
At evening a dull sulphur light from
the fires. (Page 52)
·
With the final onset of dark the iron
cold locked down and the boy by now was shuddering violently. No moon rose
beyond the murk and there was nowhere to go. (Page 70)
·
In the morning the cold rain was
falling (Page 87)
·
They slept through the night in their
exhaustion and in the morning the fire was dead and black on the ground (Page
93)
·
They were on the road all day, such
day as there was. Such few hours. They might have covered three miles. (Page
107)
·
All through the long dusk and into the
dark. Cold and starless. Blessed. He began to believe they had a chance. We
just have to wait, he whispered. So cold. (Page 121)
·
It was a long night as he could
remember out a great such plenty of nights .(Page 132)
·
Crawled into the other bunk under the
clean blankets and gazed one more time at this tiny paradise trembling in the
orange light from the heater and then he fell asleep. (Page 158)
·
Impossible to tell what time of the
day he was looking at…The day was brief, hardly a day at all. (Page 164)
·
In the morning sometimes he’d return
with binoculars and glass the countryside for any sign of smoke but he never
saw any. (Page 200)
·
He waded ashore in the last of the
light…they hurried down the beach against the light. (Page 246-247)
·
The dark did catch them. By the time
they reached the headland path it was too dark to see anything. (Page 249)
·
He held him all night, dozing off and
waking in terror feeling for the boy’s heart. In the morning he was no better.
(Page 265)
·
He woke in the darkness coughing
softly. He lay listening. (Page 299)
·
He slept close to his father that
night and held him but when he woke in the morning his father was cold and
stiff. He sat there along time weeping. (Page 300)
Markers in the year-
·
He thought that the month was October
but he wasn’t sure. (Page 2)
·
Late in the year. He hardly knew the
month. (Page 29)
·
The day seemed almost warm. (Page 62)
·
The unseen sun cast no shadow. (Page
71)
·
The snow fell nor did it cease to
fall. (Page 103)
·
There were days when ashen overcast
thinned and now the standing trees along the road made the faintest shadows
over the snow. (Page 106)
·
The snow was largely melted on the
macadam and in the south facing field and woods. They stood there. The plastic
bags over their feet had long since worn through and their feet were wet and
cold. (Page 111)
·
It had rained recently and the earth
was soft underfoot. (Page 217)
·
Winter was already upon them. (Page
294)
Passages in which narrative time is telescoped-
·
They bore on South in days and weeks
to follow. (Page 12)
·
Perhaps tomorrow. Tomorrow came and
went. (Page 33)
·
It took four more days to come down
out of the snow. (Page 35)
·
The dog that he remembers followed us for
two days…That is the dog he remembers. He doesn’t remember any little boys. (Page
91)
·
Two more days. Then three. They were starving right enough (Page
136)
·
Three days. Four. He slept poorly. The racking cough woke him. I’m
sorry. (Page 200)
·
They slept more and more. More than once they woke sprawled in the
road like traffic victims. The sleep of death. (Page 216)
·
They stayed at the house for four days eating and sleeping. (Page
226)
·
Long days. Open country with ash
blowing over the road…he had the names of the towns and he measured their
progress daily. (Page 229)
·
They ate more sparingly. They’d almost
nothing left. (Page 229)
·
In three days they came to a small pot
town and they hid the cart in the garage. (Page 280)
·
The days sloughed past uncounted and
uncalendered (Page 292)
·
In two days when they came out up to a
road when they came out upon a road and he sat bent over with his arms crossed
at his chest and coughed till he could cough no more. (Page 296)
·
He stayed three days and then he
walked out to the road and he looked down the road and he looked back the way
they had come. (Page 301)
Points at which the narrative time expands-
·
He withdrew his hand slowly and sat
looking at the Coca Cola (Page 22)
·
We’re survivors he told her across the
lamp…wrapped his son in a towel. (Page 57-61)
·
Just keep coming…mute as a stone.
(Page 65-69)
·
The boy was sitting on the steps when
he saw something move at the rear of the house across the road. A face was
looking at him…What about the little boy? (Page 88-90)
·
He took the pistol…I’m so scared. Shh.
(Page 112-120)
·
They went out and crossed the
yard…kissed the child on the forehead. (Page 114-146)
·
He untied the tarp and folded it
back…Nothing. Let’s go. (Page 173- 178)
·
The cabin was low with a vaulted roof…
and dropped into the gray and freezing sea. (Page 239-246)
References to “before” and flashbacks-
·
He could remember everything of her,
save her scent. (Page 18)
·
In those first years the road was
people with refuges shrouded up in their clothing. (Page 28)
·
People sitting on the sidewalk in the
dawn half immolate and smoking in their clothes. Like failed sectarian
suicides. Others would come to help them. Within a year there were fires on the
ridges and deranged chanting. The screams of the murdered. By day the dead
impaled on spikes along the road. What had they done? (Page 33)
·
The clocks stopped at 1.17. (Page 54)
·
It had burned long ago (Page 94)
·
Memory of her crossing the lawn toward
the house in the early morning in a thin rose gown that clung to her breasts.
(Page 139)
·
He thought of his life. So long ago. A
gray day in a foreign city where he stood in a window and watched the street
below. (Page 199)
·
Things abandoned long ago by pilgrims
enroute to their several and collective deaths. (Page 213)
·
Even a year ago the boy might
sometimes pick up something and carry it with him for a while but he didn’t do
that anymore. (Page 213)
Points at which time seems to be suspended-
·
Like the great pendulum in its rotunda scribing through the lond day movements of
the universe of which you say it knows nothing and et know it must (Page 14)
·
Everything about them so still (Page
82)
·
He stopped and looked across the
fields. Win in the east. The soft ash moving in the furrows. Stopping. Moving
again. He’d seen it all before. (Page 94)
·
What is this place Papa? Shh. Let’s just
stand here and listen. There was nothing. The wind rustline the dead roadside
bracken. A distant creaking. Door or shutter. (Page 112)
·
Lying in wait and ringing the bell in
their house for their companions to come. He dozed and woke. (Page 121)
·
When he looked back the old man had
set out with his cane, tapping his way. Dwindling slowly to the road behind
them like some story-book peddler from an antique time, dark and bent and
spider thin and soon to vanish forever. (Page 185)
·
Then he stopped. Where’s the pistol? He
said. The boy froze. He looked terrified. (Page 247)
More abstract references to time
·
The days were more gray each one than
what had gone before. (Page 1)
·
It was the first time that he’d seen
the boy smile in a long time. (Page 18)
·
In that long ago somewhere very near
this place he’d watched a falcon fall...still autumn air. (Page 19)
·
Ever’s a long time. Okay, the boy
said. (Page 23)
·
Look around you...Ever’s a long time.
But the boy knew what he knew. That ever is no time at all. (Page 28)
·
A formless music for the age to come.
(Page 71)
·
Drawing down like something trying to
preserve head. In time wink out forever. (Page 93)
·
He’d dropped the lighter. No time to
look. He pushed the boy up the stairs. Help us, they called. (Page 117)
·
They lay listening. Can you do it?
When the time comes? When the time comes there will be no time... Hold him in
your arms...Just so. The soul is quick. Pull him toward you. Kiss him. Quickly.
(Page 118)
·
He walked out in gray light and stood
and he saw for a brief moment the absolute truth of the world. The cold
relentless circling of teh interstate earth. Darkness implacable. (page 138)
·
Borrowed time and borrowed world and
borrowed eyes with which to sorrow it. (Page 138)
·
The boy stood watching him. How many
days to death? Ten? Not so many more than that. (Page 141)
·
If you’re on the lookout all the time
does that mean that you’re scared all the time? Well. I suppose you have to be
scared enough to be on lookout in the first place. To be cautious. Watchful.
But the rest of the time you’re not scared? The rest of the time. Yeah. (Page
160)
·
People were always getting ready for
tomorrow. I didn’t believe in that. Tomorrow wasn’t getting ready for them. It
didn’t even know they were there. (Page 179)
·
I’ve not seen a fire in a long time,
that’s all. I like an animal . (Page 183)
·
Has it been here a long time? Yes. I
think so. A pretty long time. (Page 191)
·
Every day is a lie, he said. But you
are dying. That is not a lie. (Page 254)
·
So you can be with him. Hold him
close. Last day of earth. (Page 294)
·
There is no prophet in the earth’s
long chronicle who’s not honoured here today. (Page 297)
·
This has been a long time coming.
(Page 267)
·
She said that the breath of God was
his breath yet through it passes form man to man through all time. (Page 306)
·
In the deep glens where there lived
all things were older than man and the hummed of mystery. (Page 307)
