When he woke in the woods in the dark and the cold of the night he’d reach out to touch the child sleeping beside him. Nights dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before. Like the onset of some cold glaucoma dimming away the world. His hand rose and fell with each precious breath.
— The Road
Words by Cormac McCarthy, images by John Hillcoat
He lay listening to the water drip in the woods. Bedrock, this. The cold and the silence. The ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void. Carried forth and scattered and carried forth again. Everything uncoupled from its shoring. Unsupported in the ashen air. Sustained by a breath, tremblling and brief. If only my heart were stone.
— The Road
Words by Cormac McCarthy
On the far side of the river valley the road passed through a stark black burn. Charred and limbless trunks of tress stretching away on every side. Ash moving over the road and the sagging hands of blind wire strung from the blackend lightpoles whining thinly in the wind.
— The Road
Words by Cormac McCarthy, images by John Hillcoat
They were days fording that cauterized terrain. The boy had found some crayons and painted his facemask with fangs and he trudged on uncomplaining. One of the front wheels of the cart had gone wonky. What to do about it? Nothing. Where all was burnt to ash before them no fires were to be had and the nights were long and dark and cold beyond anything they’d yet encountered. Cold to crack the stones. To take your life. He held the boy shivering against him and counted each frail breath in the blackness.
— The Road
Words by Cormac McCarthy, images by John Hillcoat
In the morning they went on. Desolate country. A boarhide nailed to a barndoor. Ratty. Wisp of a tail. Inside the barn three bodies hanging from the rafters, dried and dusty among the wan slats of light. There could be something here, the boy said. There could be some corn or something. Let’s go, the man said.
— The Road
Words by Cormac McCarthy, images by John Hillcoat
In dreams his pale bride came to him out of a green and leafy canopy. Her nipples pipeclayed and rib bones painted white. She wore a dress of gauze and her dark hair was carried up in combs of ivory, combs of shell. Her smile, her downturned eyes. In the morning it was snowing again. Beads of small gray ice strung along the lightwires overhead.
— The Road
Words by Cormac McCarthy, images by John Hillcoat
And the dreams so rich in color. How else would death call you? Waking in the cold dawn it all turned to ash instantly. Like certain ancient frescoes entombed for centuries suddenly exposed to the day.
— The Road
Words by Cormac McCarthy, images by John Hillcoat
What is it, Papa?
It’s a treat. For you.
What is it?
Here. Sit down.
He slipped the boy’s knapsack straps loose and set the pack on the floor behind him and he put his thumbnail under the aluminum clip on top of the can and opened it. He leaned his nose to the slight fizz coming from the can and then handed it to the boy. Go ahead, he said.
The boy took the can. It’s bubbly, he said.
Go ahead.
He looked at his father and then tilted the can and drank. He sat there thinking about it. It’s really good, he said.
Yes. It is.
You have some, Papa.
I want you to drink it.
You have some.
He took the can and sipped it and handed it back. You drink it, he said. Let’s just sit here.
It’s because I wont ever get to drink another one, isn’t it?
Ever’s a long time.
Okay, the boy said.
— The Road
Words by Cormac McCarthy, images by John Hillcoat
The day following some few miles south of the city at a bend in the road and half lost in the dead brambles they came upon an old frame house with chimneys and gables and a stone wall. The man stopped. Then he pushed the cart up the drive.
What is this place, Papa?
It’s the house where I grew up.
— The Road
Words by Cormac McCarthy, images by John Hillcoat
