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In 2011, Hector inherited nine acres of land in rural New York State. About two thirds of the land sat low in a valley between two hills. To the south, a steep hill rose. Atop that hill was a thick forest. To the north east, across the valley, rose a smaller hill with sparse woods. The grass was evergreen. Most of the trees were the same color, but some of them were darker. The soil underneath the grass was very deep black, a sign of fertility. The sky, that day, was cloudless. Its blueness could be everywhere seen; nothing could escape it, not even the green earth...
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Jupiter
Walp
Paylag
Copyright 2011 Dylan Taylor
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Also by Jupiter Walp
Night Sky
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*****
The land came from Hector’s grandfather, Michael McCoy. Michael was a very rich man. Just how he became rich seems to be a mystery to the McCoy family. His wife, Helen McCoy, was a model. According to Hector’s father, the two were unfaithful to each other. They did, in spite of that, stay together for their whole lives. Hector’s father was, among other things, an amateur boxer.
Hector sat in his apartment in New York City. His apartment was on the fourth floor; there were two windows on the south wall. Hector sat in a beige leather lazy-boy, and looked at the stars in the night sky. It was a starry night, but he couldn’t see the moon.
For a while, he examined a very mathematical painting on his wall. It was a spiral, theoretically identical to that that appears on the head of a sunflower. He recalled reading about it when he purchased it. It showed thirty four lines spiraling clockwise, and fifty five lines spiraling counterclockwise. Each line uncoiled, like a seashell, according to the golden ratio. Each point where the lines intersected would be the location, on a sunflower, of a seed. Some sunflowers have fifty five and eighty nine lines instead of thirty four and fifty five. All of those numbers, however, are relevant to each other as members of the Fibonacci sequence.
Hector was thin, muscular, and medium height. That night, he left his apartment to see an underground boxing match in Brooklyn. He took a cab, planning to meet his wife, Donna, at some point. When he arrived, he looked at the boxers. One, named Vincent, was taller and stronger than the other, name Joe. Hector could see that Vincent had a better chance at winning. When the time came, he placed a small bet on Vincent. The betting odds, in fact were against Joe. A man walking by tripped on his own shoe in front of Hector, and spilled his drink.