Totoka River A better Opportunity

It was the first time he hadn't dreamt of her. The realisation hits him not when he woke up, but hours later as he walked through a forest at night. Shaken, he stops, and leans his head against a sequoia. He thumbs the complicated pattern on the bark, broken up into whorls and spirals. 

A nearby river mumbles. He spies into the eddies. He can't see a bottom to it-- endless dark, all the way through. It appears shallow, but it might as well have been the deepest manhole in the world. He walks to the riverbed and hunches over. Nietsche had said something about this. He hasn't eaten at all today, and maybe even yesterday, but he isn't hungry. 

The presence of a stranger catches his attention. He is about as tall as him, but much more filled out. Much more substantial. Colin's coat hangs off him like there was nothing beneath it except for a wireframe but even in the dark, he could see the stranger's bull-like silhouette. The rim light from the moon outlining him like in a movie. 

"Hello." He says, smiling. "Can't sleep?"