Chapter Text
When he wakes up this time, there is something different about the world. The sky is gray, but so bright that it hurts his eyes; he raises a hand to cover them and is startled to find that his arm is damp, that specks of dirt and splinters of dead grass cling damply to his pale skin.
He sits up. He is in the middle of a vast field, and when he stands the grass brushes at his calves. The hills are a faded yellow, dotted here and there with trees shaking off red and yellow leaves, and in all directions lies the misty suggestion of a forest. A brown creek is marked off with the standing husks of cattails and reeds. And the wind – the wind starts as a whisper, far away, growing louder and louder until it seems to howl straight through him, and he shivers.
Grass stalks and twigs dig into his feet as he walks, and walks, and walks, and eventually he leaves the field behind and the grass gives way to leaves and dirt. The forest is quiet around him but the trees seem to be sighing, settling their roots deep in the ground and preparing for the coming cold. And even these pass, as through the trees he finds a road, a mud-streaked gray ribbon of asphalt twisting into the distance, halved by a dotted yellow line. He follows it at a distance, unwilling to leave the cover of the trees. The occasional car passes below, unsuspecting.
It leads to a covered bridge, where the rush of water from the river below fills the air and rebounds off of the wooden boards – it forces him out of the woods for a brief moment. He sees telephone poles, a pair of ratty shoes tied together at the laces and dangling from the wires. The land slopes beneath his feet, and he goes down, down, down through golden woods and quiet streams, past giant boulders covered in moss and lichens, past abandoned birds’ nests and once or twice a grazing deer. When the road flattens out, his feet ache and the sky blazes orange in the sunset, diffuse light glowing through sheets of frozen cloud. For a moment his breath catches in his chest because it looks like a great fire. It is steady and silent and in some places it looks like the sunlight is catching on veins of gold and making them shine white-hot.
The forest grows thinner and thinner and he can see now that the road runs between the feet of gentle hills. A house stands on the side of the road, two stories, white siding and blue shutters. The lights are on inside, on the second floor, and the curtains are drawn, but faint silhouettes move back and forth behind them. Laundry flutters gently from clotheslines in the yard, linens and shirts, dresses and pants. The sun is low in the west at the end of the valley and is quickly sinking, broken up by the spreading trees standing here and there around the houses. Suddenly he feels exposed – he is naked, after all – and he takes care that no one sees when he slips in between the clotheslines and takes a pair of jeans and an old, worn shirt. The shirt is gray and says NEWMAN FAMILY REUNION 2019 on it, with a list of names running down the back. It looks old—the print is flaking off in some places. When he puts it on, the sleeves hang halfway down his hands. The jeans barely fit him. Neither of them do much to keep the cold out.
It’s nearly dark and he stands still for a long while, debating whether to stay or keep walking. He decides to stay – there’s a shed behind the house. It’s sealed with a padlock but the strike plate is rusted through and the wooden frame is partially rotted. He pries the plate off as quietly as he can and opens the door slowly, wary of the creaking hinges, and steps inside, then closes the door behind him. There’s a window inside and it lets in the last light of sunset. The interior is a little dusty, but clean. There’s a lawnmower, rakes, a handsaw, hammers, boxes of nails, a set of power tools, garden shears, coiled extension cords, cans of motor oil and gasoline, a folded tarp. There is a stack of boards in the corner, probably intended to replace the rotting doorframe.
When night descends and brings darkness with it, he curls up with his head on the tarp and sleeps.