Free Only the Dead by Vidar Sundstøl

snack later on, right?”
    “Sure. How about when we get back to the cars?”
    “It all depends,” said Andy.
    Lance unwrapped one of his chicken salad sandwiches and took a bite. Andy picked up the milk bottle and took a big swig before setting it down again. Then he got out a Snickers bar.
    Lance looked at the milk bottle with the beautiful Indian maiden on the label. She was kneeling in front of an artificially blue lake, holding out a package of butter, as if presenting a precious gift or making an offering. When he was a kid, he’d dreamed about being able to step inside the picture on Land O’Lakes products. Step right in, as if crossing a threshold, to join the beautiful Land O’Lakes maiden holding out the package of butter. And from there he would enter the picture on the butter package, to join the same maiden who was holding out the same butter in front of the same lake, which was more beautiful than any real lake he’d ever seen. Once inside, he’d enter the next picture. And so on. Each time he would join the same Indian maiden who was kneeling and holding out the same package that had exactly the same picture on the label. As if there always existed yet another world beyond that one.
    But he’d also had other dreams linked to her; he remembered that now. Romantic dreams about canoe trips and wilderness adventures. A beautiful, dark-haired girlfriend. He supposed it must have been a form of love. A child’s infatuation. Countless times he’d sat at the breakfast table, thinking secret thoughts about the Land O’Lakes maiden, with Andy sitting across from him and their father seated at the head of the table, hidden behind the Duluth News-Tribune.
    What about their mother? Lance couldn’t recall ever seeing her sitting at the table and eating. She was always busy with something somewhere else in the room.
    “Do you remember Dad feeding the birds?” Lance asked.
    “Sure,” replied Andy, without looking at him.
    “But do you remember seeing the birds eat out of his hand?”
    “No . . . Who told you that?”
    “Mom did. She said that’s what he used to . . .” He broke off a piece of his sandwich and held it out, in the palm of his hand. “Like this,” he added.
    Andy looked at him in disbelief. “Do you really think Dad had the patience for something like that?”
    “Maybe not.”
    “I’ll be damned if he had the patience for—”
    “No,” said Lance. “No, you’re right. That’s what I thought too.”
    “I can just picture it,” said Andy. He held out his hand as Lance had done. “Come on and eat, and be quick about it, you fucking ungrateful little birds!”
    In his mind Lance saw the two figures, one small and one big, holding each other’s hands. The moon over the lake. Everything around them dark. Only the immense surface of the water gleaming like metal beneath the moon, as if it were the only thing in existence.
    “You should show some respect for the dead,” he said.
    “Isn’t it more important to respect the living?”
    “Andy, I’m talking about our father.”
    “No, you mean your father. I’m talking about mine. ”
    They sat in silence for a while, sitting next to each other, leaning against the toppled tree trunk. The minutes passed and neither of them said a word. The river continued to flow past them, on its way to the lake. Occasionally there was a rustling sound from their rain gear if one of them moved. A little bird flew over the river and into the woods on the other side. Lance was feeling uncomfortable. They usually never sat like this. Or rather, they did, but only when they were out hunting. Even more time might go by before either of them spoke. But there had never before been such a sense of something enormous and unpredictable between them, like now. It was almost tangible. Normally they didn’t talk much when they were together simply because they had nothing to say. But now it was because neither of them dared speak. Who knew what might happen