The music lifted like a cosmic prayer. Then the collective scream: the squawk, the beef and bleat of the slaughter, a rumbling dusk arcing across the auditorium.
But there are two kinds of shame: the kind that you cannot speak the words to, even in your head, and the kind you can’t stop talking about. I told the story for years.
The crack widened at last and cleaved the porch in two. The tree had effected a crack that, the men saw, was surprisingly neat. The work of the devil, said Fred.