Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead

Janina awakens to the sound of gunfire somewhere outside. She knows what this is and resolutely climbs into her car to drive to the field where hunters have set up elevated wooden blinds, called pulpits, to shoot at wild game. There are at least 20 men with guns. Janina angrily confronts them but is assured that their pheasant hunt is legal. The police commandant is one of their party. He is the same man who earlier ignored her complaints about Big Foot. She angrily takes a swing at some of the hunters and then leaves.

Janina is so upset that her mysterious ailments flare up again. She believes that glucose can soothe the symptoms, and she also receives help from a Middle Eastern doctor in town named Ali, who has the pharmacy compound special medications for her.

On Friday evening, Janina prepares dinner for herself and her former student, whom she calls Dizzy. They met years earlier when Janina was teaching English to grade school children. Dizzy is sensitive, physically delicate, and allergic to most foods, so Janina has to cook special meals for him. Now, she and Dizzy are translating William Blake’s works into Polish.