Posted on June 12, 2010 | 
She was quick, and the element of surprise was in her favor. She grabbed the knife, waved it aloft and squealed. The sharp blade glinted magically in the rheumy quarter-light. White teeth flashed in all the dark faces. Screams broke out. Brandishing the knife the woman charged at Ryu and pounced . . . on the squawking chicken that someone threw into the air between them. The blade worked swiftly. It severed the chicken’s head while the decapitated body continued to flap and fly, flinging blood on the whole congregation. Ryu, who was closest, was completely bespattered. But now the woman dropped the knife and lunged for the chicken. Soon enough she had stuffed part of it—the squirting part—into her mouth, feathers and all. Now white feathers flew out over the crowd, a snowfall of death in the sweaty room. Then quick hands, Ronan’s hands, grabbed what was left of the twitching bird and placed it upon the ample breasts of the big woman on the table. The enormous woman writhed as he pressed it into her bosom.
“This sick woman will live,” said Ronan Duras. “Arnotine Ferucand will die.”
Meanwhile, the skinny woman had thrown herself onto the floor where she squirmed and spasmed, her green skirt thrown over her head—just an ordinary evening at the old hounfour. Ryu recovered his knife and pushed his way out to the door while the rest of the société kept up the frenzied dancing. Dancing, drumming, dancing (from the place in the shadows where he waited, Ryu could hear them) long, long into the night.
The next day, advised by Ronan Duras, Ryu went out, alone, to look for the sick woman. She was seated in a shack at a kitchen table upon which was displayed the head of a pig, flies ecstatically spinning around it.
—DEAD LOVE/Chapter 6.5/Hide and Seek
