owlglass set the duck in the ground and eased dirt over it. there was no need to rush. moisture clung to him like a second skin and he looked at the world through a fogged-up viewfinder, remembering that an artist had once told him that there are really no hard edges in the world as we see it, son and that he'd never quite understood it until now. he kicked water over his boots, left foot then right foot then left foot again. he missed his ocean--
miss murphy i'm so sorry for yer loss, he- yes he was a good lad he really was- no, no it was all an accident, a terrible accident, 'm so sorry miss murphy--
his eyes snapped open like a deer's. he sat up and looked around. where am i? have i been sleeping this whole time? did he whisper that, or only think that?
far to the east, deep in the fens, someone was pacing away and stepping on the coattails of his brain. another stranger, not too noticeable. he watched him, dark-haired and slender, fading in and out of sight, and wondered, where to? where are you going? the familiar surge of excitement in his chest, anticipation, something coiled tight and shivering with potential energy, ready to make the jump...
distracted, he placed a hand over his meal, still buried in the one plot of dirt that hadn't been reduced to mud.
hullo there.
the stranger said hello back and owlglass was content to sit there, his fingers tapping out an old heartbeat, ruminating like so many other people in the bowels of a train, an airplane, a subway's rattling insides, looking intensely at nothing.
cloudy trusswork is pierced by daylight, mullioned windowpanes cast a sickly glow through the fog. they were in a smoking lounge. the air was blue with it. he emptied his mind, took his sweet time. what happened to your eye?
aerasha and her bear-- that sounded like an old greek myth. the two people he'd met so far had parts of them missing, filled up with scars by blue-collar working-class cells. his stomach jolted as he entertained a shivering thought: what if, with every new person he'd met, more and more of them was missing? what if the next person he met was missing a tongue? and the next, a leg, and so on, until,
until nothing was there at all?
he bit back a smile. inside his brain there was a shambling wolf, more scar tissue than actual flesh, hairless from the eyebrows down, eyeless toothless tongueless earless. then he lets go of this fantasy.