lacking across the shale jutting from the mossy façade of the stream-swept hillside are hind’s hooves, a cadence intimating that barren souls ought not fashion a pursuit, nor the selfish, nor the shallow, nor the inept.* A crescendo of cloven limbs dashes through a pool ahead, accentuating the rubato and pulling the ardent nearer, but the flickering afternoon light and a grainy, gray ledge obscure the scene. The clamor of hooves diminishes.

Intermission; horsetails flick overhead and toy with merciless bands of bright, translucent gold.

Laying print to rest, I ponder the meaning of that fleeting image, which had cut a path through to my consciousness. What was I feeling at the time? I wonder, reflecting back on the nonthreatening chirping and calming trappings of nature, and then swiftly realizing that I had been feeling a bit adventurous and at peace with myself. My mouth curves into a grin, my eyelids touch, and instead of darkness, as one might expect, there is the confluence of emotion and fantasy.*

Write what you feel, I think to myself and anyone who happens to be listening. Then, furtively, as a warning, lest this take on too great a life, Figuratively, of course.

Rustling, originating in the brush and scrub higher up the hillside, disturbs the stillness of the setting that had slumbered for a handful of moments. Again, the clack of hooves, dislodging pebbles and scattering them so they tumble violently downward and into the short grass growing sparsely along a narrow plateau between two slopes. Hunter is there, listening and waiting, allowing the air to billow through his patchwork hood and his cloak. Hunter, not his name, but what those who see him call him by, much like the titles Father, Lord, and Murderer. All are familiar monikers.

As I walk out of the bathroom, my bare feet sink into cool, gritty carpet. A picture hangs on the wall opposite me. In it are Edna, David, and some older boy. It occurs to me that I am probably wearing his pajamas.

Exiting the hall, the trip is shorter than I remember it being, and I round a corner to find Edna waiting for me with a teacup and saucer. Separated by a small dinette and two barstools, she stands in her kitchen, itself an extension of the living room where the theme of aging joy begrimes the floor tiles and counter backsplash, miniature pink tulips decorating the latter. Whether they are hand-painted or stenciled, I can’t tell, but the acrylic shimmers underneath the uneven light spilling from a milky glass fixture overhead. Taking the shadows into account, the ceiling looks like the blurry projection of an Iron Cross. As for my host, she is wearing a terrycloth robe and lines of unease, doubtlessly reconsidering her offer. Despite this, the porcelain in her grasp is not trembling with the obnoxious indictment of insecurity. Poor though she may be, this symbolizes an enviable confidence.

It starts rattling as soon she releases it to me.

“Thank you,” I say, grateful my words are as bleary as my eyes. Shutting them, I lift the tea and deeply inhale its therapeutic curls of steam. Lack of familiarity with the scent becomes a refuge of inquisitiveness—a silly distraction to ponder while ignoring Edna’s inspection.

“You’re welcome,” she finally speaks, her tone difficult to read.

Pausing for a sip, I add, “For the pajamas, too,” doing my best to seem content as a stray pulled out of the rain ought, even managing to coerce a half-smile to my face along with some pretense of humanity.

She nods, matter-of-fact, and looks beyond me and into the living room, where David is. Following her, I see the sofa is now a bed, complete with plain sheets and pillows. The shadow of the frame, dominating the bulk of the room, obscures my tread marks across the carpet.

“Sorry about that.”

She ignores me, and calls out, “David, go to bed.”

“I am in bed,” he counters, and I detect a quaver of frustration in his voice. His manner isn’t rebellious, but entreating.

“Sable is sleeping there tonight. We discussed this.”

“The floor is fine,” I offer, but she gives me a glance that tells me no guest in her home, small as it may be—as is obvious by the fact that David’s sleeping quarters are apparently a fold-out in the living room—will be sleeping on the floor.

“I’m not a baby, and it is big enough,” David insists. Now he tinges it with aggression.

This kid must have very few friends, and is willing to take advantage of whatever he can get. As for me, it really doesn’t matter, so I try to make light of the situation, and joke, “Is he harmless?”

“Are you?” she looks me in the eyes and says, not snapping defensively as expected, but with a measure of delicate concern.

Holding a stare is not my forte, and I avert mine to the specs of debris floating near the bottom of my cup. No, only my intentions are harmless, otherwise I am an impotent, insipid child whose selfish negligence is as lethal as any killer. A shrug is my answer, but, reflecting on its insufficiency, I force out, “Nobody should have to suffer.”

In response, she takes cup from me, washes it, and turns out the lights. On her way to her own room, I hear her say, “Good night, boys.”

Standing there in the dark, I have no idea what to do. No, I know what to do—sleep. Sleep like the dead.

“Lay down, Creepy,” David chides, and I hear his fist thump the pillow beside him.

Thickening clouds melt the sky into a bronze basin, the molten fumes lapping tumultuously along the edges and daring light to break beyond the turgid brim. Sporadic, lucent breakthroughs ebb away within the hour, and tiny orbs of rain cast long, thin tethers from vault to vale, as through in a sort of melancholic proxy to the bright bands that did dominate the landscape beforehand.

Beneath all this sits Hunter, still bewildered and transfixed by the sheer audacity and falsity of his title; after all, he does not track beasts, nor slay nor skin them, nor anything even remotely similar. The fact he had, an hour hence, been curiously pursuing the click-clack of hind’s feet was merely a coincidence. One he had put behind him the moment of his failure in executing even that menial task. Now his cloak, already burdened with the sweat of the hunt, is further laden with precipitation. Still, the evening is warm, young, and the rain is not wearisome, nor the blinding shards of plasma exploding to leave vaporous pillars in their wake. He lies on his back in the wet grass and lets the now-heavy globules strike his face.

Disgruntled with the name Hunter, he casts it aside, and elects instead to call himself Sod, for he is sodden and, in his own hazy mind, fits the innumerable meanings that word presents.

Compensation. What a funny word, I think, gazing down at my paycheck. As if any amount of pay for my menial tasks at the company really serves as retribution for the wasted hours of my life. Hours I no doubt would waste anyway, be they on a stupid game or masquerading as a whole human.

The brilliant story I have been saving is now foggy in my memory, and I am positive that the retelling will be lacking. So, when I head out to dinner with my roommate, I will probably never bring it up. If I head out to dinner. Will the consequences of not going be worse than the actual attendance? It doesn’t matter. Whatever he wants, he will get, because I lack the will to fight and care not to vanquish his will to do what I can not.

Outside the rotating doors, a solitary leaf spirals to the ground.

He watches it idly, mind reeling in tandem. Its colors grow richer, the lame beige deepening to copper with accents of bronze and burgundy striking through and shimmering metallically in the blades of light cutting through the canopy. It lands, settling on a palatial, white throat, and Sod flinches at the stark contrast. Hands dropping to his sides, he remembers why he was shaking her, and why he is shaking. Abruptly forcing his knees to straighten and his feet to support an unsteady frame, he wonders if any of these phantom females are real. Is his mind playing with him? They’re so strikingly familiar, so obeisant, so pure.

So dead.

A gasp erupts from his throat and he rushes away. Foolishly in the morning light. Loudly through the brambles of the meadow bordering the forest. Like a criminal. Like a murderer. Like what he is. A groan carves its way out of his mouth, thrashing forth on a crest of spittle, and he dashes headlong through a stream. Then an arrow rips into his flank, and he drops into the water, gasping for breath. In a moment of shock, he watches the slow current bear his blood away, his paling fingers flexing around a cruel shaft protruding from beneath his arm. Pushing himself up, he wills himself to flee, but by the time he pulls his cheek from the flood an indomitable force is pressing down from the other side.



“So how is dinner? Knock knock? Anyone there?”

“What the hell are you playing? Turn it off. Now,” I shout, gazing angrily across the table toward the proprietor, forgetting not only myself but my friend.