jamieproctor.ca

Once upon a time, some time ago, there was a witch.  And she was burnt.  It may have seemed cruel at the time, but such is the way life turns.  Aspen sprouts thrive after forest fires, male spiders commit suicide on the fangs of their mates for a chance of reproduction, and witches get burnt and leave horrible curses on their burners.
“Come along now,” said the big burly man with the torch who was entirely unsympathetic and making a poor go of disguising it, “come along.”
The witch glowered at him as the two (smaller, less burly) men at her sides dragged her to the sloppy pile of kindling and logs.  She was gnarled, haggish, had poor eyesight that led to a habit of peering at things queerly, and kept to herself, and thus her fate had been sealed.  Of course, such traits were common amongst little old ladies, but this was a long time ago: anyone who’d managed to live that long was probably up to something.  A good enough excuse.
“Flames cleanse all, so on and so on and so on,” said Jack the torchman.  He waved it aimlessly.  “Now, who wants to light this?”
“You do it,” said the smaller of the smaller men.  “You’re holding the damned thing you daftie.
The torchman looked defensive.  “You know how I get around fire, William.  It makes me come down all sweaty all over.”
“So?”
“I mean more than usual.  Look, just light the torch, yeh?  Don’t be such a pisser.”
“More than usual?  Only time you get sweaty is near fire.  Hah, and maybe if a pretty girl asks you a favour.  Only time you’ll get any work done, lord knows.”
“You’re no better!  Useless wastrel.”
“Sod off.”
“Git.”
“Idiot.”
“I’ll do it,” said the remaining man, whose name was Marvin Copperby.  He said that a lot when he was out on a job with William and Jack – and it was the reason they were burning the witch in his particular field.  He was vaguely aware that he should probably let them know that he didn’t appreciate doing it very much, but he was unable to say so because of that sad social affliction, borne only by a pitiable handful, known as politeness.
“Fine then,” said Jack.  “Mind the end.  It’s all hot.”
“Gutless.”
“Twit.”
Copperby sighed a little, committed extremely well-mannered and discrete murder inside his skull for the twentieth or so time that day, and lit the pyre.
The witch glared at him as the smoke began to rise.
“Sorry,” he said.  That was the sort of thing Copperby did.
“Don’t you say that.  I’m cursing you,” she said.
“Sorry,” he said again, haplessly.  That was exactly the sort of thing that Copperby did.
“Take that empty word back.  Right now, this second, or I’ll curse you, and your children, and your children’s children, all the way up through the years until you make that pointless little word mean something and these two stop being such lazy bastards – look at the state of this pyre, I’m ashamed to be burnt at it!  I’ll do it right now, so’s I will.”  Her dress was starting to flicker merrily around the edges.
“Sorry,” said Copperby, impatiently.
The witch snarled something indecipherable, squinted extra-hard at him, made a sound like a foghorn sneezing, and went up in a brick-thick plume of smoke that ate itself and the entire stack of firewood up in no more than five seconds.
“Well, that was a strange one,” said Jack.  “What was she saying there, eh Copper?”
Coppyerby was staring wide-eyed at the scorched patch on the ground by his left boot.  Whatever it was, it had missed him by centimetres.
“Nothing important,” he said.
“Well, that’s just fine,” said Jack, who hadn’t really been listening anyways.  “Justice has been served, evil has been vanquished, now let’s go fetch some supper.  I’m famished.”
They left, after a brief argument between Will and Jack over whose place they were eating at (Copperby’s, it was decided), and that was pretty much that for them.  They went their ways, tilled their fields, raised their children, and had happy, fulfilling, long lives into their early forties.   To his very dying day, Copperby was very careful to never sow any seeds near that peculiar scorch mark in his field.  It gave him the willies.

Copperby’s dying day was when it all fell to pieces.  His son took the land, and, having never bothered much to listen to the old man when he was alive (as had most people), took it into his head that perhaps the fields should be filled with potatoes.
“As far as the eyes can see,” he told his wife, staring raptly over their property.  “From acre to acre, nothing but potatoes.  It’ll pay off, you’ll see.”
“That’s nice, dear,” she said and allowed herself a brief fancy involving much use of the big kitchen knife.  She had always had a certain rapport with her father-in-law.  They both knew what it was like.
The seeds were cast, the sprouts were grown, and up they were dug that very fall, one fat, surprised tuber after another to be thrown into sacks and hauled away.  All but one.
“What’s this?” said the farmhand who plucked it up.
“What’s that?” called out Copperby Junior, who had a keen eye when it came to seeing a pause in work.
“Well, damned if I can tell,” he decided, giving it a disgusted look.  “That’s the worst potato I’ve laid eyes on.”  It was indeed; its colour was a sickly green, despite its being stowed well out of the way of sunlight, its innards bloated and shrunken at the same time, its eyes looked like eyes and its skin was as deeply and viciously furrowed as a worrywart’s brow.  “Toss it.”
The farmhand tossed it, and it flew freely and far across the field, where it rolled a surprising distance before coming to a halt at the roadside.
Some days later, the farmhand died after a short and startling illness during which little half-sprouted buds popped up all over his skin, killing him through what was at first thought to be surprise but was later revealed to be the large root system wedged in much of his chest cavity.  Copperby Junior was forced to move the last of the sacked crop himself, and grumbled all the while as he loaded up the wagons.  Something half-sprouted in the ditch caught his eye as he set the horses to walking.
“Oh,” remarked he, as a quick bend-and-a-lean brought him within eyesight of the object, “that’s the worst potato.”  And then the wagon wheel bumped unexpectedly on a stone that had been uplifted by the plant’s roots, and he went head over heels right on his neck.
His wife took the news with a shrug and an inward smirk, and moved away back to her family with the two children, where all three of them lived somewhat more happily than before.

The years went by, the children had children, grew old, died.  And so did their children, as they are wont to do.  Much later on in life, one of those children was working on the road (dirt, for shame, and cobbling was needed – if only the damned stones weren’t so heavy) and he spotted a strand of weedy-looking plant in the ditch, which he heaved free with some difficulty.
“God preserve me,” he said, staring at the thing, “that’s the worst potato I’ve ever seen.”
He took it home and fed it to his pigs, which choked and died, sold his pigs to a butcher earlier than he’d hoped, who choked and died on what appeared to be a mouthful of soft dirt for no visible reason, then went home with some of the bacon and choked and died on it.  His home and lot were purchased and flattened out, and a big warehouse was built on the spot.  Thousands and thousands of pounds of goods were stored in there, and down in the cool dark of the cellar was where they put all the potatoes
“Hey, what’s this, Wilbur?” said a stockman to his coworker, shifting an unsightly lump from beneath a sack.
“The worst potato I’ve ever seen,” said Wilbur with a calculated glance.  “Chuck it in a corner and let’s go.”
“Free’s free,” said the stockman, whose name, for the disinterested, was James.  He plucked it from the ground, turned about carelessly, and was buried instantly by a landslide of potatoes that just barely scraped the tips of his coworker’s toes as they tore off the front of his boots.
“Huh,” said Wilbur.  He scratched his head, took off his hat, muttered something vaguely solemn and hopeful, stuffed the hat in his pocket, collected his pay, and legged it all the way back home, where he swore off root vegetables in general, just to be safe.
He awoke the next morning somewhat relaxed, but worried.  He should go tell old whats-his-name’s family, he should.  It was only proper.  Besides, his wife – sorry, widow – was a fine eyeful and someone had to help her through the grieving.  That decided, he put on his head and was knocked senseless by the potato that had been quietly lodged within its brim until that very moment.  While lying unconscious on the floor he was set upon by unusually large amounts of rats and devoured quite rudely.

In the meantime, time moved.  Copperby’s family name had clung on by the skin of its teeth, right up until the day when Francis Copperby decided to open one of those newfangled fish-and-chips stands, the second in the country.  The idea, he was sure, was going to catch on.
“It’s stupid,” his friend John told him.
“Maybe,” said Francis.
“It’s barmy,” his other friend Wallace told him.
“Could be,” said Francis, perking up a bit.
“We want in on it,” they said.
“Oh” said Francis.
The whip-round came up to just-barely-enough, and so the wagon was raised, the oil vats found (crafted out of old kerosene drums, to save on price), the fish hauled in, the mysterious battered mixture that hinted suggestively of cardboard brewed, and the potatoes peeled.  Seeing as Francis had done all the rest of the work, he drew the line here by means of pointedly falling asleep.
“Lazy bastard,” griped Wallace, dragging the smallest bag to a comfortable spot and fiddling it open.
“Spendthrift skinflint,” agreed John.  “Won’t give out a shilling to a friend in need but spends all our money on worthless spuds.  No justice, friend.  No justice.”
“S’right.  Here’s a peeler, let’s get cracking before the slavedriver wakes.”
“God almighty,” said John, as he pulled out the Worst Potato and stared at it in fascinated horror.  “What do we do with this one?”
“Just slice it,” said Wallace.  “They can’t tell on the inside, can they?”
So they sliced it – gingerly, at arm’s length.  Out spilled…well, ropes, of a sort.  Long, snaky, roiling bunches of ropy potatoflesh.
“Reminds me of that dead rat back when we were sixish,” said Wallace.  “Now what do we do?”
“Mash it,” said John.  “You going to let your money go to waste?  It’ll sell proper if we just crisp it up a bit.  Just mash it and shape it.”
So they mashed it and shaped it.  The smell that arose was truly indescribable.
“Lord have mercy,” said John.  “We’ll crisp the thing to tatters trying to get the stink out.  We should just toss it.”
“It’s our money, remember?” said Wallace.  “Let’s fry it.  Besides, he paid for the oil.”
“Spot on,” said John.  They fiddled with the cart’s cooker, jostled its valves, rattled its trays, lit a match, lit another match, finally got ignition, dropped in the mutilated remnants of the Worst Potato, were startled by the sudden, sharp inquiry of Francis as to what the hell they were doing, and were all abruptly blown sky-high and deep-fried, possibly in that exact order.
So that was the end of the name of Copperby, because Francis’s sister Francine, the youngest child of dutifully unimaginative parents, was none too eager to keep it.  Too many people attached to it had become dead in alarming ways for her taste, and she was quite happy to be married under the banner of Gardener.  She was sensible, raised her children as such, and avoided fish and chips to her dying day for reasons she knew not why.

Her great-great-great-granddaughter, Mavis (the youngest and only child of dutiful if slightly too imaginative parents), had a hunch why.  Doing her family tree for a school project had seemed dull at first, but now it looked entirely too exciting for her comfort of mind.
“Mom?” she asked after lunch.  “How did grandpa die again?”
“Heart attack,” she said, absently.  She was scheduling five or six meetings in her head.  “He never ate healthy.  Too much greasy pub food.”
“Oh.  How did great-grandma die?”
“Broke her hip carrying a sack of produce.  Infection set in, I believe.”
“And great-great-grandpa?”
“Grandma told me that he was killed during a food riot.  Some farmer threw some root vegetable at his head, I think.”
“Mom, don’t you think it’s weird that out of the last twenty generations of our family, sixteen have died involving potatoes?”
“Don’t get such fancies into your head, it’s all just a big coincidence.  Now go out and tend to your garden; that should chase this bad mood right out of your head.  Uncle Jeremy and Uncle Wendell are coming over later, and you should be on your best behavior.”
Mavis plodded outside past the autumnally skeletonized aspens with doom hanging over her head like a stormcloud and glared at the little garden at the bottom of the back yard.  If only she’d started a few months later, she might have known not to include the potato plant.  It practically leered at her from its spot.
Mavis went back inside.  “Mom, can I borrow your gun?” she asked.
“No, dear.  But you can take out your super soaker.”
Mavis sighed and did as she was allowed.  But she filled it with weedkiller.  Mom had told her to tend to the garden.
She marched down to the plant, cocked, aimed, and hesitated.  Something didn’t feel right.  She could practically feel it in the air, a threat-that-wasn’t, just waiting for a chance.
Mavis went back inside.  “Mom?” she asked.  “Can I make a fort?”
“Of course, dear,” said mom distractedly.  She was typing three documents on two laptops and a PDA.  “There’s bricks and boards in the shed.  Just be sure to tidy it up when you’re done.  And be careful of nails.”
Mavis had spiked her finger rather badly on a rusty nail once and had to have a shot.  She had no intention of doing so twice.  The real problem was the weight.  She could take a brick in each hand, maybe three or four if she stacked them up her chest, but it made walking hard and tired her out, and who would’ve thought you needed so many bricks to make one fort?
“Hi-ho, budgie,” said a voice from behind as she was heaving on a length of plywood bigger than she was.  “What’s going on?”
“’m building a fort,” she grunted.
Her uncles stepped in and held the board for her.  Each of them had always reminded her of a plate of Jello – something about the movement of their bellies, and the way their scalps glistened under lamplight.
“What for, budgie?” asked Uncle Jeremy, the older one.  He had the bigger beard and a fake golden tooth made from fake-gold.
“Yes, whatever’s wrong?” said Uncle Wendell, younger by two minutes and louder in both voice and shirt.  “Lot of work, that.  Best come inside, have a snack before dinner.  Your dad’s cooking some steak, and your mom said there was a treat for you coming.”
Mavis examined the garden with a cautious eye as she caught her breath.  Something about it positively brooded, and the thought of turning her back on it made it itch.
“Nooo,” she said carefully.  “Can’t do that.”  A thought struck her.  “Can you help?  Please?  I reeeally want to get this done?”
Her uncles exchanged grownup-glances.  The ones they thought you couldn’t see.  “I don’t know, budgie,” said Uncle Jeremy.  “I mean, it’s been a long drive, and we’re a bit tired, and –”
“Plleeeeease?” begged Mavis, doing the thing with her eyes that made them tingle and get bigger.
“Wellll….” said Uncle Wendell, “I mean, he could spare a minute.”
“You could go for a moment.”
“Oh come on Jeremy, it’s just for a bit.”
“Well then why not you?”
“Why not YOU?”
Mavis counted to five, imagined very mean things, then bugged her eyes even larger.  Fawns could’ve drowned in her pupils, lambs would’ve given up and slunk home bleating.  “Pleeeeeeeeeeeaaasee?” she pleaded, voice sweeter than honey drowned in caramel.
“Well,” said Uncle Jeremy,
“All right then,” said Uncle Wendell
“I guess,” they agreed, and realized their mistake too late.
“Oh goody!” giggled Mavis.  “Yay!  Thanks!”  She even managed a skip as she headed back into the shed, just for safety’s sake.
Many hands did make light work, even if four of them were attached to arms more fat than flesh and two were tiny.  By sundown a little fortress stood above the vegetable garden, bristling with its grand total of one armament.
“Good enough?” said Uncle Jeremy.
“Seems so,” sad Uncle Wendell.
“Looks good,” Uncle Jeremy admitted.  “And hey,” he said with a touch of surprise “feels good to have worked up a sweat.”
“Not often THAT happens.”
“Oh yeah?  Well –”
“Mavis?” interjected mom from the doorstep.  “Bring in that potato, will you?  It should be ready by now, and you can have it baked with dinner.”
Mavis looked back and forth from house to garden.  She hefted her super soaker.  She felt the walls of her fort.
Well, now or never.
“In a minute!” she called back.  “Can you help me dig it up?” she asked her uncles.
They shrugged.
“Why not?” said Uncle Wendell.
“Came this far,” pointed out Uncle Jeremy.
“I’ll get it,” they agreed, and both made for the patch at the same time, neatly running each other over.
“How about I dig it up and you help me?” said Mavis.
“Good enough,” sad Uncle Wendell, struggling free from Uncle Jeremy’s armpit.
“Agreed,” said Uncle Jeremy, replacing his fake fake-gold tooth.
The spade felt heavy and cool in her grip, but warmed fast with sweat and slipped as easily as air.  But it did the job well enough, and eventually there it was, sitting at the bottom of its hole, glaring up at her with all its too-many-eyes, the Worst Potato.
It was a lot smaller than she’d thought it would be.
“Ugly thing,” said Uncle Jeremy.
“No uglier than you.”
“Hey, on me it’s character.”
Mavis leaned in and reached for the Worst Potato, super soaker clutched tight and careful.  It seemed to puff out a little, unless it was her imagination.  Strange things slid under the surface.  That looked all wrong.  It must hurt an awful lot – and then she wondered how long that particular potato had been around.  A year was a long time.  Three hundred must be a lot longer, even if you were a potato.  A lot, lot longer for the Worst Potato, twisted and gnarled and eating yourself up waiting for the next person you had to hurt.
“It must be sad, to be stuck like that for so long,” she said, “I feel sorry for you.”  And it did look like it was sad as well as angry; all scrunched up like that, in no proper shape for a potato.
The potato rumbled something almost like words but not quite, squinched, scrunched, made a great gargling sound like an elephant throwing up, uncurled itself, rolled around four times in a triangular blur, and poofed away soundlessly, smokelessly, without so much as a scorchmark.
“Well,” said Uncle Jeremy after they had stopped staring, “there’s something you don’t see every day.”
“Not much,” said Uncle Wendell.  “Can we go inside then?  My back hurts.”
“Your back always hurts.”
“It hurts more.”
“Lazy.”
“Idler.”
“Mavis!  Have you gotten that potato yet?”
“Noooo,” said Mavis carefully.  She poked the ground where the potato had lain.  “I think I missed it.  It’s not here.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive,” affirmed her uncles in unison.
Her mother’s sigh carried all the way down the backyard on the soft wings of an autumn breeze.  “Oh well.  You can bring in some carrots instead then.  We can have them with some dip.”
“Right then,” said Uncle Jeremy, “Now let’s go get some supper Wendell, I’m famis–”
The spade caught him square in the breadbasket as Mavis tossed it to him and headed inside.  “The biggest ones are on the west side!” she called back.
Jeremy and Wendell stood there on opposite sides of the garden, a spade on the ground between them.
“I’ll do it,” said Jeremy.
“Nah, I’ll do it,” said Wendell.
They shrugged, laughed a little (a bit helplessly, a bit in pride) and pitched in.

The carrots were delicious.

“The Worst Potato,” copyright Jamie Proctor, 2011.

Winter came, and so the birds flew south. 
This time, there was a little more to it than that, of course.  The winter came not at autumn’s end, but at the height of midsummer, it brought no gales but sent the winds spinning in confusion, it dropped fire from metal in the sky in place of water, it set the lands aglow and brought daytime into the night. 
That wasn’t quite normal.  Still, winter came, and so the birds flew south. 
All of them.  It wasn’t a winter that could be toughed through. 
The bits of the sky that weren’t filled with dust and cloud were choked with a thousand thousand feathers, endless plumes, wingbeats that could deafen a human at forty paces.  It was a flock of flocks, one that hadn’t been alive in flesh or memory since the last Passenger Pigeon died alone in Cincinnati. 
It landed somewhere in the southwest, on a very large rock several miles across.  There wasn’t an inch of spare ground to be had, and many of the bigger birds found themselves turned into makeshift roosts by the smaller.  Far down below, the lake at the rock’s base was coated with nesting waterfowl.
The most important thing to do now, of course, was figure out who was in charge. 
“It should be us,” argued a chickadee, hopping nervously in place.  “There are lots of us, lots of us, a whole lot, lot, lot of us.  It’s only fair.”
“No no no, there are more of us, more of us,” snapped the sparrow facing it, bobbing furiously. 
“Who’s talking?”
They didn’t listen to the question.  No one was listening to them, after all. 
Up above them as they squabbled, on the big broken butte that was the highest point, around the broken, dead tree, all the biggest and loudest of all the birds were arguing the question of leadership.  The wind whistled through the cracks in the rock around their feet, polishing the rock smooth and moaning under each word spoken as though it was trying to say something. 
“If the flock has be steered, it should be us that’s doing the steering,” said a big Canada Goose.  “Geese flock, and we flock far.  If you want expertise in migration, we should be in charge – we know where the water is, we know where the safe spots are.  This continent is a memorized map for us; we won’t steer you wrong, however far we have to fly to get out of the winter.”
The Crows all laughed, caw, caw, caw, harsh and merry.  “Strong but stupid, firm but foolish,” mocked the biggest of them.  “What good is a sure and smooth flight if you don’t even know what you’re doing or where you’re going?  These are changeable times, to have winter come in summer, to have cold come from human fires.  You need a master of change at the helm to keep a cool head, and we’re nothing but.  And we’re no strangers to a flock either, pillowstuffer.  We prospered under the humans, and we’ll prosper without them.  You need us in charge.”
A Golden Eagle stared at him, and would not stop until he shrank in on himself.  Satisfied, it turned to face the others. 
“Eyes,” it said, half-spreading its wings for attention.  “You’ll need eyes in the skies, to see where you should go and where you should not, to find food and avoid trouble.  We have the keenest of gazes, and will not lead you astray with fancies and whims.  I can spy an insect from a treetop, and a safe nest from miles.  You will be led with clear vision.”
There was a soft breeze gusting, a sort of asthmatic chuckle, and it took all present a moment to trace its origin back to the old Great Gray Owl that had been roosting on the stub of a stump the meeting was being held around, hemmed in on all sides by squabbling songbirds and till now quite asleep.  “Keen-eyed?  Hoo, hoo, hoo.  Not in the dark, you aren’t.  Those pretty eyes of yours are as useless as mirrors come night-time, and this winter will be the darkest of any we’ve ever known.  The sun’s already half-masked in midday, and the sky grows dimmer with each passing moment.  If ever there was a time for sight, it is now, yes, but your eyes are useless here.  I can see clearer now than you could at high noon, and I can hear the faintest scurry on the ground or under it, predator or prey.  Nothing will dare move for miles as long as I and my kin play sentry, and we can guide you through any night, no matter how dark.”
“Can you see through soot?” croaked the turkey vulture, shuffling her feet for warmth and hunching her wings against her back as a shroud against the rising wind.  “No, I don’t think so.  Stupid old thing, there’s more to darkness than mere absence of light!  The sky is choked with the falling dirt and dust, and it will fall for months – you’ll be as blind as anyone else, and I’d like to see if you could pick out your own chicks cheeping for food in your ear amongst this hubbub.  Sight and sound can fail alike in these times, but I can always follow my nose, and if any of you lot are disposed the same, I will not turn you away.  There will be starvation and death aplenty among the groundbound, and nothing that lives can avoid its own stink, can avoid my nose.  If you really must depend upon a sense for leadership, trust in the vultures: we do not need eyes nor ears to find what is needed.”
A very small throat cleared itself awkwardly, and one of the few things present at the council that was not a bird chirruped for attention. 
“Excuse me,” said the rather small bat, “but you’re wrong; there’s still those that can hear, and more than that.  And what good is smell if all you can smell is something dead or alive?  Can you smell us a good roost for the night?  Can you catch the whiff of a stream?  No, we have the advantage.  Even in this dusty air, our sonar fails us not, and we can see everything, without even opening our eyes.  You may not like us that much, but there are lots and lots of us, and we don’t need much to eat – and this black dust is even easier to groom from fur than feathers.  You’re lucky to have us, and you’d be luckier if you’d ask us to lead you about.”
There was a quick buzz through the air and a hummingbird invaded the bat’s personal space, beak pressed against eyeball.  “Stopbraggingsillyfurrythingnobrainsleftinyouonlyspitestupidslowthing,” it spat out in one incoherent burst.  “Ishouldbeincharge! You’realltooslow,willstillbeheretillendoftimeifhadyourway! Wetravelhereallthetime,everytime,fasterthanslowgeeseandjustasfar! Followus! Followus!”  Each insistent statement was punctuated with a little shove, and at the end of its diatribe the bat was bent over backwards and its eye was watering. 
A burst of harsh, human language assaulted the ears of all present, bringing each eye to the scrawny, slightly tarnished majesty of a battered old African Grey Parrot. 
“Stupid, stupid, STUPID!” he squawked, and let fly another torrent of human abuse, mixed with the harsh jangle of an alarm clock.  “All of you!  Stupid!  Look at you all, quarrelling and jabbering about leadership!  Well, let me tell you this: I am the smartest bird here, I am the oldest and most experienced bird here, and I am the only bird here that can understand humans!  And I tell you this again: gone or not, we will get more help from humans than anywhere else with this many mouths to feed.  Grainhouses, seed stores, meat-packing plants – all can be plundered for the taking with a simple knowledge of the written word; and I’ll bet you every date in Morocco that there’s not a bird here that can understand any of it but for me!  And to top it all off, I have no kin here to favour – I alone will be in charge, and I will appoint whom I please as aides!”
There was a long, thoughtful pause, and then a pigeon raised its wing. 
“Yes?” inquired the parrot. 
It stepped forwards, bobbing automatically, ducking its head against the moan of the oncoming winds that scraped the butte’s surface, half-instinctually checking about for bread crumbs that it knew deep in its heart had left it forever. 
“Speak up,” snapped the parrot. 
The pigeon cleared its throat.  “No, you’re stupid,” it said. 
There was a much shorter and less thoughtful pause, and then everyone started shrieking and yelling at once.  The parrot made a mad dash at the pigeon’s eyes, the crows mobbed the eagle, the owl and the goose started a shouting match, and the turkey vulture’s attempts to call for order were brought to a halt by a bat zooming directly into its nostril. 
“Why can’t you be quiet!  Quiet!  Quiet-quiet-quiet!” yelled up the chickadee.
“Yes, shut up!” called the sparrow.  “Shut up! We’re trying to argue here.”
“Who’s talking?”
“They are, are, are,” said the chickadee. 
“Yes, they are,” said the sparrow, annoyed.  “I know that and you know that!  You are stupid.”
“You asked me first!  You’re stupid, stupid, stupid!”
“I will talk to them,” and this time the chickadee and sparrow were too busy arguing to hear the words. 
Up above on the butte, matters were beginning to calm a bit, if only because most of the debaters were too bruised to continue their discussion and had retired to nurse their wounds and soothe their ruffled feathers. 
“I don’t see why I shouldn’t be in charge,” grumbled the parrot. 
“You’re too showy,” said the goose sternly.  “All this nonsense about humans.  Humans, humans, humans.  They’ve had their chance and lost it, and it’s our turn now.  We must make a clean break of it.”
“Who’s talking?”
“I am, now,” said the crow.  “You’re no better – clean breaks, clean breaks, the break is old and new, not humans and us.  You’d better change fast, old stick-in-the-mud, or we won’t make it much farther, and if you won’t change, we’ll do it.”
“Who’s talking?”
“Stop asking that,” hissed the vulture.  “You’re taking up air we could be breathing.  A lot of talk over nothing, that’s what’s talking.  Bags of feathers and air all waffling ‘till the end of days.”
“I will talk now.”
“Then speak,” said the owl, who had pinned the bat under one foot and was lecturing it viciously on manners.  “Goodness knows it’s hard to hear you in this… wind.” 
“Yes,” said the voice in the wind. 

It was very thin and very reedy, very breathy and very small.  It was gusting up out of the ground under the feet of the flock’s council, blowing through the cracks in the rock.
“Who speaks to us?” demanded the eagle. 
The voice paused, but the wind didn’t.  It eddied and howled, low and sad, and somewhere in there words were being made. 
“I’m not me.  I’m a bit of me.  I was me, once.  I was.  I was.”
“Speak plainly,” said the goose. 
“I’ll try.  I’ll try, I will.”  It paused again, collecting a thought.  “I flew, I did, I really did,” decided the voice.  “I flew.  Yes.  That’s why I thought to speak, yes.  I heard you all speak, of the flying, of your feats, yes, of who should lead you all, all of you.  I should; I could, you know.  Because I led under the cold once, when I used to fly.”
“Pardon me,” said the bat, squirming loose from the somewhat distracted grip of the owl, “but why are we listening to this?  It’s just some old ghost, you find them in caves sometimes.  Nothing important, and it has nothing to do with us.  Who cares if you flew?  That’s no reason to lead.”
“I was big,” it said.  “I was big.  Bigger than you, bigger than you all.  I was bigger.  Yes.”
“Andsowhat?” said the hummingbird.  “Slow. You’reslowanddead.  Doesn’tmatter. Can’thelpusnow”
“I flew far,” it said.  “I flew over oceans.  So far.  Flew over the world, so far, almost never flapping, no.”
“Albatrosses,” said the eagle dismissively.  “Vagrants.  Tale-tellers.  Only a step above common gulls.  No advice of yours can help us, ghost.”
“No gulls, I think, I don’t think.  No gulls.  No birds, not really, just little ones, so little ones.  Are you birds?  You must be, so many feathers.  And some fur.  There was almost no fur.  So small, all of you, so small.”
“This shivers my bones,” said the crow.  “Let’s leave it here.  Put me in charge and let’s leave it here, now, fast.”
“Listen,” said the voice, and it said it so agonizingly that they had to stop and listen, really listen for the first time all that evening.  Even the sparrow and the chickadee paused in their debate. 
“I was there, you see.  Was alive.  It was warm, and I was young, and my wings covered the sky for the things on the ground, down there.  I needed no feathers, almost didn’t need to flap my wings, almost never, no, and when I did, each beat broke brush against dirt.  Each wing was double the full span of the largest of you put together, it was, it was!  I flew, I really did!  Like you!  I flew!”
Dead quiet. 
“And?” asked the bat.  The owl stepped on it again. 
“Ashes,” said the voice, slowly.  It was getting quieter again, as if it had said whatever it felt it really had to.  “Ashes in the sky.  Like now, but a little more, a little more.  All cold, all dark, all hard for the things on the wing.  I flew, you know.  I flew.  I was the biggest, and that’s why I led us, when we flew, we fled.  I fled, and I flew, but the ashes still caught us, and the cold would not leave us.  No matter how big, how swift, how strong we flew, how well I led, long ago, until I couldn’t fly, didn’t flew.  Couldn’t fly, not the cold.”  It seemed to remember something, as it sank into whispers.  “The humans found us, you know, you know, not long ago, after the long ago.  They called us a god’s name, did you know?” it said, sounding almost surprised at the knowledge itself.  “A great god, a feathered god.  Was I a god?  I needed no feathers, you know.  The little ones, the other ones had feathers.  Some of them.  I wonder what happened to them.  Maybe I shouldn’t lead us.  Why is it cold again, so cold again?”
“It’s winter,” said the goose.  “We fly south for the winter.”
“That’s good,” said the voice, barely audible now.  “Too cold.  Good plan, fly away.  Fly faraway.  We’ll try that.  We couldn’t.  We tried…  We tried...”
The wind died down.  The owl cocked an ear and listened for a moment longer, watched by all, then shook her head. 
“What’ditsay?” asked the hummingbird. 
The owl shrugged, ill at ease.  “’Fly.  Faraway.’”
“Here,” said the bat, once again tearing loose from her distracted grasp.  “Let me take a look.”  It squirmed into the largest of the crevices of the rock, and was gone for a time.  It came up clutching an old, broken pebble. 
“Fragment of a wing joint,” said the eagle, passing it over with a critical eye. 
“How big?” asked the goose.
The eagle didn’t answer. 

There was no agreement, after the meeting.  There was no leader.  There wasn’t even a council.  But the flock arose in the morning all the same, in the cold that was growing colder, and flew south, away from the winter. 
Faraway.  Maybe it would be far enough. 

“Of a Feather,” copyright 2011, Jamie Proctor.

Crash, bang, clang are the sounds of the factory, whether it makes cans, canister shot, or chocolate-coated peanuts.  Echoing metal, booming walls, great open spaces turned inside out and into tight, cramped ones.  And there’s no factory like a war factory for pace and noise and volume. 
This one was making tanks. 
CRASH! and down comes the cupola.
BANG! with the big main gun slamming into place, piece after piece.  BANG!
CLANG CLANG CLANG! is the call of the tracks, as the nearly-finished tank comes rolling down, freshly minted, not yet painted, and trying to tell its hatch from its axles.
Outside, later on, the sounds become different.  Softer, but somehow louder. 
Boom, is the quiet voice of authority as it rolls onto the turf and lines up with its peers, hundreds of glistening periscope’d viewports bright in the spring breeze as they consider the world and each other.  There are men all around them, with guns – little pea-shooters compared to the main guns they’re wielding, barely capable of hurting a fly, or a fellow man – and they’re all waiting for something. 
And that something is the first noise, and it sounds a bit like the factory all over again.
Bang!
Off they go, a mile a minute, in a hurry and not really wanting to be.  Needs must, guns speak, and the tank stands dead still in its tracks because it really isn’t all that sure about this. 
“What’s your problem?” asked the man stashed inside its guts.  “Go on, let’s go.  Our unit’s up ahead.  We’re falling behind.  C’mon.”
The tank voiced its uncertainty.  It was worried. 
“Nothing to be afraid of,” said the man.  “Hey, you’ve got it easy.  You guys were made for this.  You’ll knock ‘em dead.  Let’s go.  The early bird gets the worm.”
Mollified by his arguments, the tank gathered its steely, smoothly-plated nerves and trundled forward with all due caution and a little more besides, treading gingerly over already-rutted roads and slicing up all the just-settled puddles with its monstrous great weight.  It was travelling in the tracks of its brothers, or maybe its sisters, and that cheered it up a bit. 
Then it heard the sounds of explosions, and it became concerned a bit. 
“Buck up,” was the man’s advice.
It bucked up.  Then it smelt burning metal, and it grew worried. 
“It’s probably nothing,” said the man sagely.
The tank discarded its worries as probably nothing.  Then it rounded a corner in the road and almost ran over the smouldering wreckage of one of its siblings, and it became quite alarmed. 
“I’ve seen worse,” claimed the man. 
The tank expressed disbelief at this statement, and shut off its engine. 

The argument that followed was long and convoluted.  Suffice it to say that the man first attempted to appeal to the tank’s blocking of the road, and the unfortunate strategic implications thereof (the tank pointed out that they were the last of their unit in line, and that it was a sideroad and therefore likely to be unneeded after their initial sally along it), then to its sense of fair play (the tank didn’t think ending up like the rather large heap of gently-roasting debris next to it would be fair at all, and that the debris itself was past worry about such things), and finally resorted to straight pleading that it go forwards, pretty please, pretty pretty please.
The tank remained silent on this point. 
“Look,” said the man, “what would happen if all the other tanks had done the same thing?  You’d have all been blown up into little pieces together.”
The tank advocated that this was likely happening right now because the other tanks hadn’t done the same thing, and it would rather not try it and find out.  Besides, it was rather pretty here.  There were trees, and birds in the trees.  Aside from the smouldering corpse of its sibling, it doubted it would find anywhere nicer to stop.
“Well, screw this,” said the man.  He got out and walked back to base, where he complained to some other men, who told yet other men, who decided to do something about it.  As for the man himself, he proceeded onwards to a career somewhere halfway up the ladder of rank for the rest of his days, where he developed a small reputation for achieving expectations exactly, not an inch beyond or below. 

First, the other men sent a chaplain. 
“Do not fear,” he told the tank, “for if men fall on the field of battle, they shall be elevated to heaven for their reward.  Or something like that.”
The tank asked if that applied to tanks as well.
“Hmm,” said the chaplain.  “I don’t think there’s any tanks in the bible.  I’m sure they would have been mentioned.  You know, I think there could be a paper in there somewhere.  Thank you very much.”
The chaplain left, wrote the paper over the next three years, and received modest praise for it.  The tank remained in the middle of the road, unreassured and unmoving. 

Next, the other men sent a sergeant. 
“Hey, are you moving?” he asked the tank. 
The tank asserted its lack of locomotion. 
“Get off your ass and give me ten, solder,” said the sergeant, scratching his side and checking his pocket for spare matches. 
The tank pointed out its lack of ass and inability to give ten. 
The sergeant shrugged as he extracted a battered, beaten match without a container from the depths of his jacket.  “Have it your way then.  Got a smoke?”
The tank offered some rather cheap cigarettes that the first man had left under his chair, and the sergeant spent a happy half-hour smoking and idly discussing sports with the tank, which was puzzled by the notion of men throwing things at each other that didn’t explode. 
“Welp, that’s all she wrote,” said the sergeant as he threw the last butt into the treeline.  “I’m back to the barracks now.  With any luck I’ll be out there by next Monday.”
The tank questioned the luck of this.
“I didn’t say it was good luck, did I?” asked the sergeant.  He shrugged, walked back to the barracks, and after being dressed down thoroughly for taking his time was out in the field by next Sunday, where he managed to escape the brunt of the fighting and go home with four medals, earning him some acclaim locally. 
The tank, of course, heard none of this.  It sat in the road and marveled at how different the smoke from nicotine and cordite smelt. 

The next man to come walking down the road – the patriot – didn’t.  He strode, each leg flinging itself out with reckless determination towards the ground and making contact with the grim authority of a baron dealing with a freeloading peasant. 
“What’s this about then?” he snapped.  “Have you no backbone?”
The tank was halfway through explaining its anatomy again before it realized the patriot hadn’t stopped talking, and tried to listen.  “-blatant ingratitude, it is,” he was shouting.  “Disrespect to the country that shaped you, that made you, that gave you everything you have, and all in exchange for one little thing: obedience!  Why can you not be obedient then, in this one little thing, eh?  Ingratitude!  Impertinence!  Insubordination!  I’d court-martial you if you had a rank, if I had a rank!  Now get out there and show the world that our tanks are the finest that exist!”
The tank was quite intimidated, and had a mind to roll forwards, but a question caught it just as its treads made to turn: how were their tanks the finest that existed?
“They’re fast, strong, tough, and they do what they’re told,” said the patriot in a voice so crisp that it brought fresh lettuce to shame. 
The tank pointed out that it was not doing what it was told, and that perhaps if it were to go out there so late and only after such a lambasting, it would be taken as animate proof that their tanks were not the best in the world.  Also, why was being the best in the world so important?
“So we will be respected,” said the patriot.  “When you are respected, no one dares to act against you.”
The tank postulated that if they were so respected, they wouldn’t need it, the tank’s, services right now.  Therefore they were not sufficiently respected, were thus not the best in the world, and as it, the tank, could not singlehandedly create this reputation, perhaps it would be best if it stayed here, thank you very much.  Perhaps the gentleman would do it the favour of shooing away the birds that had begun to poke about its main gun?  It was beginning to worry that they might start a nest there. 
As it transpired, the patriot was also an entirely unenthusiastic amateur birdwatcher, and upon this excuse to expound upon his subject, listlessly identified over ten species of “something like a bluetit” in the nearby trees before departing, four freshly-laid eggs in hand (alas, the nesting had proceeded too far too fast, and the parents would not return).  He went home, raised them, taught them many intricate tricks in exchange for delicious snacks he prepared himself, and became moderately famous on television some years after the war. 

The final man that was sent was the general who had sent the other men.  He did not walk either; he drove in a big car, scribbling in a notebook and consulting maps as another, much smaller man handled the wheel. 
“Mornin’,” he said to the tank without looking up.  “Still not moving?”
The tank confirmed this. 
The general shook his head.  “Damned shame.  I’d have you towed out, but all the vehicles that could do it are tied up farther behind us evacuating civilians.  I’d have you blown up, but all our munitions are scattered up at the front.  And I’d get someone to drive you out of here but all our drivers have vanished all over the place and I can’t find one for life nor money.  Ah well.”
The tank timidly noted that the general possessed a driver. 
“Look, someone has to look at these maps,” said the general with some irritation.  “And someone has to drive around making other people look at them too.  And both of those someones are me.  Now, I’m supposed to be somewhere else ten minutes ago, unless that was another place.  Goodbye.”
The general drove off.  He was half an hour late for his interview with the press, which prevented him from his appointed leaking of some trivial aspect of his supply lines or another to placate them, for which he thanked his driver (who went on to found a reasonably respectable chauffeur business some years later).  He left the war behind him and devoted his later years to his family, in mutually mixed affection and annoyance. 

The tank was left alone for a while.  It felt itself growing a bit lonesome, and wished that it knew the names of the ten different kinds of birds in the trees that were something like bluetits.  Then it heard a new sound, not really a birdcall at all, but a sort of whistling. 
It was an old man, older than any of the men it had met.  He was bent and nobbled and used a crooked stick to support his crooked self, bent over double at the waist and forever clutching at his side. 
“Hello there,” he said to the tank.  “Mind if I sit a spell?”
The tank agreed to this. 
“Thank you,” said the old man.  He put down his cane as he seated himself, and rubbed the tip of his right leg-stump ruefully.  “Too long a walk all in one go, nowadays.  Should’ve known, more fool me.”
The tank asked, pardoning its curiosity, how the old man had acquired his stump.  Or lost his leg.  Either.  Both. 
“War,” said the old man.  “About twenty years ago, I’d guess.  I was lucky in the first one – just took a little scratch over the ribs, right here, where I keep my hand – but that last one, well, I wasn’t as young as I should’ve been.  Lied my way into frontline duty again, and took a shot and a shell for my trouble.  Now the scratch’s a scar and my leg’s a memory.  Ah well.  Can’t be helped.”
The tank asked, excusing its bafflement, why in the world the old man had gone back.  And however had he made himself go in the first place?
“Someone had to,” said the old man with a shrug.  “It might as well have been me.  If I go, someone else doesn’t have to.  If I get shot up, someone else doesn’t have to be.  And someone has to go.  That’s what I was told.”
The tank asked why. 
“That’s the way it is,” the old man said.  He got up and stretched, and the tank saw that stripped of his pain from the long hobble, he didn’t look as old as he had before.  Aged, maybe. 
“Thank you for the seat,” said the old man, and he wobbled his way away down the road and out of sight. 

The tank sat.  And the tank thought.  The tank looked at the charred hull of its sibling a bit more – the fire had gone out some time ago.   And eventually, reluctantly, not quite one hundred percent sure of why it was doing it, the tank fired up its big gasoline engine and lurched its way down the road.  It swiveled its turret about and looked back many times. 
Up ahead was a fork.  Down one road was something or other, the tank didn’t know what, only that it was strange and mysterious. 
Down the other was an awful lot of explosions. 
It paused for a very long moment, then it turned towards the explosions. 
There, up ahead, were its siblings.  Bang, bang, bang, such noise – and all from their big guns, like its own, the gun the tank had never fired.  Clang, clang – the rumble and thunder of metal smashing metal and metal grinding itself. 
The tank heaved itself up and surveyed the battlefield.  It was terrifying, but not any more than its noise was.  It paused one last time, spun its turret for good luck, set its sights, drove forwards, and went
CRASH
right on top of a mine almost immediately, right underneath it.  The treads screamed, the hull shuddered, the main gun cracked, and the tank blew apart into a million pieces, one after another, all over the place. 
“Look at that!” exclaimed a few of the men and their tanks, amazed at the fireworks.  “Look at that!”

There was some disagreement about the facts after the event.  Some people said they hadn’t known there were mines there, some argued that until that moment, they hadn’t a clue.  A few had planned to drive over it, a few more had been strictly told not to and that they had no business on that ground. 
What wasn’t disagreed was that the tank was a gallant hero, a symbol of national pride, a true soldier, and guaranteed to cut the line past the pearly gates as soon as someone sorted out whether or not tanks qualified or something. 
And so the biggest piece of it that could be found – that was part of its big frontal glacis armour plate – was scavenged from the battlefield and enshrined personally by several very important men in a very important place during some very important event or another that many people said something about.  It was scribbled down and argued about in history books and mentioned in footnotes and asides and for years was a cherished and prized piece in many a grandfather’s collection of old war stories. 
No one asked the old man what he thought about it. 
No one asked what the tank had thought about it. 

“Armour” copyright 2011, Jamie Proctor.

As always, dawn came late to me, well after all the rest of the world had begun to stir and hum.  The sun’s rays made a gentle, lazy surmounting of the weathered bricks that rimmed the mouth of the well above my head, sending glow and gleam floating down to my blinking eye on rafts of dust.  I had scarcely time to yawn (cavernously, to a degree that would’ve broken a lesser being’s jawbones and spine alke) and scrape my fangs clean of sleep-drool before the first light of my morning was obscured by the shadow of someone’s head. 
“Oracle,” the head whispered quickly, “mother of mindfulness and father of foresight, the open eye in the dark, I put a question to your ear in fair exchange for payment.”  It said the empty, silly titles with no formality or respect at all, something that I heard all too rarely.  From its timing, haste, quiet, and twitchiness, I could almost guess the question before it was asked.  “The daughter of the carpenter, who lives a half-mile from our home, is she…umm…”
Yes, I knew the question.  I also knew the answer, but giving it to him at this point would be too easy.  “Payment before answer.  And it’s customary to finish the question before the answer is given as well.”
I could practically smell the blush bloom.  “Right, right, sorry.  Sorry.”  There was a rustling of feathers, a strangled “awk!” cut short, and a freshly throttled chicken plummeted onto the rock at my side.  “The daughter of the carpenter, who lives a half-mile – or maybe two-thirds of a mile – from our home, is she, ah… expecting?”
I was half-tempted to prompt further clarification, but felt merciful.  The chicken was a good fat one too; he’d be hard up to explain just how it had gone missing from his father’s coop.  “No.  But only through luck and luck alone.  Don’t try it again; her father already thinks something’s up, and I don’t have to say anything about what he thinks of you.  Find a new girl, speak nicely to the carpenter, or be more careful.”  A lot more.  If he’d had a bit more fortitude for another fifteen seconds, he’d be getting a different answer.  Saved from adolescent impulses by adolescent lack of control. 
“Right!  Thank you!  Thank you!”  The relief filled the air, but I couldn’t so much as smell it under the rich blood of the chicken.  The bird really was succulent.  “Uh, goodbye, oracle.”
“Go,” I mumbled through a mouthful of feathers. 
The last bone had barely vanished down my throat when another set of footsteps arrived, much heavier and more stolid than the youthful skip-step of my last observer.  
“Oracle,” it said, flat and impatient together.  “Mother of mindfulness father of foresight open eye in the dark, question for payment: how many days ‘till the first real frost?”
Trickier.  But doable.  A bloodied rabbit from above was a good step towards earning my efforts as well; it must’ve nosed around the fields a little too closely.  “Sixteen give or take.  There’ll be at least three mellow ones in a row just before it strikes, so watch for those and be ready to save the crops.”
“Hm,” said the client.  He left without thanks, a practical man.  Too practical for ritual, or far-flung thoughts, or basic manners.  A good sort, and I’m glad there aren’t more like him. 
There was a lull then, now that the early risers had done and had their questions.  An hour or two squirmed by, during which I ate the rabbit organ by organ, as much to pass the time as for the nourishment.  I lounged against the rocks at the bottom of the well, sides fitting squarely into the worn-through grooves my bones had forced into the stone. 
“Oracle,” said a soft, startling voice, and I was forced to admit that I’d been napping.  Surely I wasn’t that old yet?  “Mother of mindfulness, father of foresight, the open eye in the dark, I put a question to your ear in fair exchange for payment.”  Down came a handful of mice.  Lovely for a snack, but a poor meal.  They’d last the day much better than rabbit giblets.  “Did that louse that calls itself my neighbour’s son touch my little girl?”
I thought over my phrasing.  “No,” I said.  She was bigger than her father, I wouldn’t call that especially little, for a human. 
“Are you sure?” he asked.   His hands were on the well-rim; I could fancy nearly seeing the knuckles whiten. 
“Yes.”  Doubting me, even on so dear an issue?  That was something new.  I’d have thought with over a hundred years of accuracy behind me, I was past the stage of the skeptic.  About the only people nowadays whose minds refused to change at my sworn-in word were proud parents. 
“He must’ve done it.  I’m sure he did it.  She won’t look me in the eye proper now.  He touched her, didn’t he”
“I have answered your question.”
I must have added just enough weight to that last sentence to head him off, as he slowly released the well and left without another word.  I dislike rants.  I also dislike hearing people’s life stories.  Everyone has one, they’re all different, shining, brilliant examples of the human condition etcetera etcetera, but in the end I just can’t care enough.  In this, I was in company of thought with most other humans.  Besides, they were all window-dressing, mere trappings.  The same ten questions, the same sets of clothing, all draped over one big request: will it be alight?  That’s not any question, that’s The Question.  Sometimes it’s phrased very funnily, but it’s all the same.  A thousand thousand times in a life everybody asks it, and around here they all get asked of me. 
Oracle, mother of mindfulness, father of foresight, the open eye in the dark, I put a question to your ear in fair exchange for payment.
“Is my son still alive, over the sea?”  Yes, but he’s probably picked up a few minor problems from the local ladies of pleasure, as sometimes happens with soldiers and other men on the move. 
“What’s wrong with my dog?  It snaps at my hands whenever I come near – is it ill?  Should I kill it?”  No and no; it just hates you.  You tormented it when it was a puppy and claimed it was to “toughen it up,” remember?
“Does the carpenter’s daughter favour my courtship?”  I can say “no” with rock-solid certainty. 
“Where’s the best spot to fish today?”  Down by Little Lake’s western shore, where the island is near.  Bring back a spare for your next question, hmm?  I don’t often feed on fish. 
“Are you quite all right down there?”  I’m quite sorry?
“I said, are you quite all right down there?” 
I craned my neck upwards for the first time in hours, hauling my body from its rut.  “What kind of a question is that?  And you haven’t brought payment in exchange.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m in no need of fortunes at the moment.  I was just thinking that it seemed awfully dark and lonely down there.”
“Dark and damp,” I replied.  “I don’t mind.”  Though a bit of loneliness is a pleasant thing during the day. 
“You poor thing.  Why do you stay down there?”
“You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Moved in last winter, my wife wouldn’t stop talking about you.  Very secretive about the details though, said I wouldn’t understand it.  But why do you stay down there?”
“Well, that’s a proper question, and it needs proper payment.  But not the usual, I think.  Tell me, are there any sticks up there?”
“There’s some twigs.”
“Twigs will do.  Throw them down here.”
A moment’s scraping scratching, and a little neat bundle dropped down, disintegrating into midair chaos.  I regathered them as I spoke. 
“I stay down here because I was put down here, and I was put down here so that the town would have an Oracle, to give them their answers and take their questions.  In that order, sometimes.”
“But how were you put down there?”
“A few sharp stones will set that right.  Just a little larger than pebbles will do, but with an edge is best.  Toss down a handful.”
“Won’t you be hurt?”
“I’m tougher than I look.”  And don’t I look it.  Spik spak spang, down came the rocks, clicking off my head and tapping off my sides. 
“I was put down here because I was very small.  I was a newborn when an old man found me, under the open sky and the fresh air in the mountains, and he brought me here and put me in my well, because he was old enough to remember those sorts of tricks.  If I were bigger, maybe they wouldn’t have worked, and I wouldn’t have come.”
“That’s horrid.”
“That’s life,” I said.  “I know what I am and I know what I do: I am the Oracle, I answer questions.  I’ve answered yours, haven’t I?”
“Poor thing,” he said.  “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

That night, to distract myself, I made music.  In the daylight hours too many people came by, too many nagging interruptions – and besides, this was a private thing, none of their business.  But in the night I could sing and hum and whistle ‘till my tongue fell out and my teeth ran red, moving my head from side to side and up and down to find just the right pitch and blend of echoes.  I would accompany myself with percussion, drumming like a fiend on the walls and floor.  A few month’s drumming would wear apart the rock and leave it all uneven, and I’d have to polish it flat again.  I usually kept two or three new surfaces in varying states of polish, if I could manage it.  It gave me something to do during the daytime. 
The sticks and stones added a most pleasing depth to it all, a whole new range of sounds and scrapes and scratches.  Most times I asked for them the first thing I heard would be “why?” and that led to all sorts of awkwardness.  Thank goodness for the naturally obedient. 
The music always had a special rhythm to it on the nights I could see the moon, especially a full one.  There was just something naturally delicious about it.  It looked the way I supposed the wind felt. 

The next day I was awoken before my time as some sort of breaded thing bounced off the tip of my nose. 
“You’ve got to ask first,” I said, rubbing my face – more for show than anything, not that anyone could see it.
“I’ve brought you some breakfast,” called down a familiar voice, a touch too loudly.  Sound carries much more easily down here than you’d think, no matter what you think. 
“Oh.  What is it?”
“It’s a scone.  You put butter on them.  I think it’d make a bit of a mess if I dropped some down there, though.”
I ate some.  The lack of bones made it unusually uncrunchy to my taste, but there was something there, some flavor I was pleased to meet with.  It was a pity it was encased in some sort of planty brick.  My stomach felt leaden. 
“Do you like them?” asked the voce. 
Technically, I hadn’t been given the oath yet.  But I had been given payment and asked a question, so…  “They’re the best thing I’ve eaten today,” I said, rooting around behind a tooth with my tongue for a lingering, semiliquid fragment of scone. 
“It’s my mother’s recipe.  My wife can never quite get it right – not that they’re bad when she makes them, oh no.”
“Hmm.”  The scone was clinging on with stubbornness hitherto unknown to me, even by that one rat I’d eaten while still living.  Nothing with that much of its torso missing should’ve been able to bite as hard as it had. 
“Why don’t you come out?  I’m sure you’d like it.  There’s nothing down there that’s very nice at all.”
“It’s soothing,” I said. 
“It’s nothing but hard stone.  And there’s rain coming today!  Won’t you be flooded out?”
“It’s what keeps the mushrooms blooming.  You’d better run home before it comes, I can already feel the air changing.”
“How deep down there are you?  It’s awfully dark.”
I shrugged.  “Thirty-five feet, maybe?  Not so deep.”
“I’ll come back tomorrow,” he said, and left. 
Shortly afterwards, the storm hit. 
It was good for the mushrooms indeed.  Besides me and the occasional still-wriggling payment, they were all that lived down here.  They were bright and cheerful, vibrantly flush with happy colours that would kill an ox that dared nibble or nip at one.  I knew better, and merely watched them soak up the water that didn’t escape through the little cracks in the floor.  Where those cracks went was one of the few things I didn’t know about my well, and it irritated me that no one asked me about it.  I couldn’t ask them to ask me, of course.  That isn’t how it works.  I’d spent many hours with one eye pressed tight against the crannies, watching the drip and dulled decay of the water as it tottered its way into the bottom of the world, hoping to see firsthand.  Maybe if I looked hard enough, I could stare through it and out the other side. 
The rain had another mark in its favour: it kept the day calm.  Few questions, fewer answers.  But when the only questions you can get are from people who can’t possibly wait ‘till the storm’s past, they grow a bit intense. 
“Can the carpenter’s daughter become…uh….if we, that is..”
“-Yes.  But not with the other thing you were about to say.  But wash thoroughly before and after.”
Some people always have to have that last bit of common sense spelt forwards and backwards for them.  And the people who say there’s no such thing as a stupid question are only half right: nothing stupid, surely, but plenty of room for persistent ignorance.  At least the answers stay simple. 
“Will she marry me?”
“Yes.”
“Will he marry me?”
“He’ll try.”
“Whose fault is it all?”
“Your parents’.”
The last didn’t go over well.  Sometimes the best thing you can say is nothing, but that’s never an option for me. 
The last question of the day was from an old woman who wanted to know if anyone loved her.  “Yes,” I said.  Then I had to sit through an hourlong rant on how they didn’t love her enough and her grandchildren were ungrateful old so-and-sos and on and on and on.  My head ached as I bedded down for the night on dampened stone, and it may have been that that led to the peculiar dreams I had.  Endless, boring dreams, floating through blank masses of something-or-other-or-not and always a humming drone in the ears and eyes, a whisper of a thousand voices.  This.  That.  The other.  The Question.  Always The Question. 
I felt old in that dream.  A lot older than a hundred-and-a-bit years.  Too many worries, too many echoes down the well, always too loud. 

“Look out down there!” dropped from above. 
“What?” I said, stupider than any request I’d ever taken.  It was well before sunrise, early even for me.  Not even the moon shone in the sky now, hidden behind black clouds that thicketed a blacker sky. 
The rope smacked me square in the face on its way to the floor, coiling extravagantly across the cracks. 
“Hurry up hurry up,” said the voice from above.  “The way is clear!  Come up the line, friend!  Come along!”
“I like it here,” I said.  “I do,” I told myself. 
“Come on!” insisted the voice from above.  “Come on!”
I thought.  It was the longest thought of my long life, though it only took a second or so of time.  I thought about all the echoes down the well, I thought about all the times I’d answered The Question, and I thought about making music at night, where no one can hear it. 
So up I went.  It was hard going, heavy as I was and thin as the rope, but I managed.  Inch by inch, up and up, up and up, and then I was almost there, which was when I heard The Question again, which was “Hey, what are you doing?”
“What?  Oh, nothing, nothing, sorry.  Just thought I’d measure how deep it is, and it said it was all right only I didn’t want to be in the way so I –”
“You shouldn’t do that!  You don’t do that!”  Rustles, struggles, shuffles, the cursing and panting of men objecting to other men very strongly. 
I came up in haste, breached the stone ring that was my world since infancy, and saw that it was, of course, the beau of the carpenter’s daughter.  Who knew what question could’ve been so indecently embarrassing as to bring him out at this hour.  He and my attempted rescuer, a shortish, stoutish man, had laid hands on each other, though things had not yet gotten beyond that. 
“Stop it,” I snapped, releasing the rope from my mouth.  Strong as my jaws were, nearly my entire body had rested on their power for some minutes, and I was cramped and sore.
They looked up, and saw me coiled about the rim of my home, scales flat black under the moonless sky, as misplaced as a fish on a cloud. 
The boy looked shocked, awed, puzzled into horror at the violation of common sense.  He was young, much younger than I’d thought he would be. 
The man though… oh, the man.  I had forgotten: his wife had told him little about me. 

At that moment, The Question going through his head was so strong I could reach out and see it, close as it was.  What are you, what are you?  Why are you this serpent?  And I knew then, of course, that serpents have been associated with oracular activities for time out of mind, in particular Python of Delphi, whose Oracle was most famous. 
And I opened my mouth to answer, of course, because that is what I must do.  I am the Oracle.   I have been given payment.  I must perform the fair exchange.
It did not reassure them.  The boy struggled to move away, the man struggled opposite him, they reversed, seized, grappled, fumbled, tripped over my tail, and over they fell, head over heels, down, down, down into the well, the rope slapping futilely at their faces all the long way to the dismal halt, where they pressed their eyes to the cracks.  I wonder what they saw. 

I left the town, of course, for the far, unremembered mountains.  I was gone before the thud of the well that left a last echo in my ears, before their carefully-mended clothes pressed flat my mushrooms and squeezed the colour out of them in surprised rivulets.  It had been one Question too many, and an answer that had helped no one.  I was through. 

It took a long time to dig a pit deep enough.  It took longer still to narrow up the entrance properly to that little slit-hole view of the sky.  And of course I’ll never have that little ring of bricks to frame the blue above again, not unless I go clay prospecting one day. 
But I did it.  I can creep out if I wish and find my own food, and I can sit in here all day while the sun burns hot.  There’s a patch of stolen soil where I can already imagine some mushrooms blooming, and smooth, clean stone that clicks off my teeth like a violin string.  It’s dark, and it’s damp, and the rock is hard against my back and belly both.   There is quiet, and no Question. 

And I can make music at the sun.    

“A Question,” copyright 2011, Jamie Proctor. 

Under the last, shuttered rays of the sun, a night was being born.  It was so quick it seized the eye true and strong; one moment, splintered light fading into greyness under the aegis of evening; the next, true blackness filled the air. 
For a moment after it was birthed, it didn’t know anything.  Just dark, flowing over the world.  But then it blinked, it stretched, it laughed, and then its mind began. 

The first thing the newborn night saw was that the world was big, and it was big in it.  A more pleasing combination of wonderment and vanity could not be found anywhere under the moon, and it gloried mightily in it, roiling happily against hills and sliding into dales with the cheer of a sporting otter.  It wriggled with delight as the treetops stroked its soft, velvety underbelly, squirmed its way over crags and jags and a great, battered horn to stare down all over the land all around it, like a toddler perched on a runty tree stump. 
Hello! it called to the world around it, challenge and greeting most jovial.  Hello hello! it called to the quiet that clung to itself.  Wolves sang at its introduction, owls nodded curtly, the impertinent little lights that shone in big cities flickered uneasily with the defiant stupidity of a child caught in the wrong and refusing to admit it.  Hello!
The night paid them all no need as it journeyed on, examining and discarding them all, an endless curiosity confronted with an endless basket of wonders.  Here – there was water flowing over a cliff!  Who could imagine that?  There – here is a lake filled with surly, slovenly, brown-bellied sharks that snap at anything that dares intrude on their prickly sense of personal space.  Who could’ve dreamed of that?  The night did and more, peering at the strangeness that greeted its every step forwards. 
There!  A little opening under a hill, a nook that widened farther and farther where the night could not see, where a deeper darkness pooled from.  It was old, and ignored its cheery introduction with stone-cold resolution.
Here!  A little tree on a sheer mountainside, growing not up so much as out.  It was older than some of the rock around it, fancied the night, and its needles were thinner than a pixie’s dreams, its roots great, bulging muscles that clung to the rock with strength unmatched on the earth. 
Look!  A glittering wonderland hiding inches under the waves, a breadbasket of corals that stretched for hundreds of miles.  Its fishy inhabitants glittered and shone under the slightest speck of light, their tumultuous little lives never pausing, not even for the night’s touch. 
See!  A rainstorm, a thunderstorm, a cauldron of bubbling lightning that rumbled in approval as the darkness wrapped around it and filled its heart with deeper chill. 
All this and more spread itself beneath the freshly-budded wings of the night as it flexed and tested and flapped them.  It slowed to watch, it sped to prove it could, it rolled and flipped its way over the horizon, eating the air.  It was perfectly happy and nothing troubled its mind but for a faint worry and a memory of sharp bright fear, and they were nothing, only premonitions, which you couldn’t trust, the night was sure.  It was sure. 

It began to turn its gaze above.  There was so much above. 
For one thing, there was the moon.  It was so close and yet so far, bobbing just within the night’s domain yet separated from its grasp by a space that shocked even the night’s mind.  It was a pity, to see something so far-away and beautiful remain untouchable, yet strangely thrilling.  For the first time, the night felt smaller.  It hallooed to the lunar sphere, a big bobbing gibbous demiscircle that winked down at it with old ease, the poise of a high lady mixed with the familiarity of an auntie. 
For another, the stars caught its gaze, even as it removed it from the moon.  There were so many!  The first glance saw hundreds, the second thousands, then more, and more, and still more millions, endless numbers clotting the empty skies thick and sweeter, smeared deliciously from near to far, the nearest oh so far.  The night was in awe at them, and a little bit frightened (though it didn’t know it).  Something about their twinkle brought on strange memories-that-weren’t, and left it uncertain.  It had the feeling it was being chased. 
It called up in pressed happiness to the stars, a forced self-reassurance, and they smiled back sadly.  Soon, soon, they whispered where they hung, near to the eye and farther from the hand than anything that was ever dreamed of.  Always so soon.

The talk of the stars unnerved the night, as did their continued quietude, and its eyes were (if not quick) eager to fall back down from the dizzying heights and depths that adorned its above-space and rest once more on the spinning display beneath it.  It watched with detachment unwanted as a moose stumbled loose from a thicket, clumsy even in grace, and that helped a little.  It cheered up still more as the moose’s calf followed it, twice the leg and half the presence of mind-in-body, barely able to walk but masterful in wobbling.  Then it was gone again, swirling away in the night’s long wake as it sped through the hours and miles.  It alit upon a crooked fencepost, and for a moment it was quite pleased to see eye-to-eye with a cowled old corbie that huddled itself on its tip, cynical old bird rendered speechless, but then it was off and away, dragging itself low over the land with reluctant haste. 
Perhaps speed should be embraced then, decided the night, if only because it was so persistent.  So it did, it sped.  Up came its haste, down and away flew its patience, and it was off like a shot from the gun that spun the planet, whirling with the force and might of a thousand dervishes.  It barely saw the passing sights, spinning mountains dark within an instance’s worth of note.  It felt the tickle and tremble of long landscapes against itself fade into a soothing, strikingly homogenous hum that filled its soul.  The sky streaked with white on black, dots in a seascape, and under its hands oceans bled away nearly as fast as the continents, passing from blue to black and blacker still.  It was the purest speed in the world, and no other thing knew it but the night.  It knew this deeply, drank it in heartily; it laughed loud and long as the haste soused its mind, sending it into crazy cartwheels that would’ve dashed any other thing’s brains apart just from thinking them.  Whatever it was that chased at its heels was beyond sight of mind, far away and never there, and it was free of all worry. 
And then, cresting a valley’s rim, it looked down and made a mistake, the same mistake anyone might make, anywhere, and it saw what it was doing. 
Boys going lost in the fields, sent out to call in cattle and caught by the sudden dark.  Fawns seized with sudden cold that huddled to their mothers for warmth as their time to browse was cut short and replaced with the hours of the predators, muzzles pressed into sides and flank to fur. 
Owls seized by instinct’s awakening before they could so much as wake, gliding out of their homes still wishing sleep. 
Sun-baked crags forced fast from weathering the heat to the chilly grip of the darkness, cracking before their time, splintering to gravel. 
All these things were small, and as such, all the more notable, and for each of them there were a thousand more so alike that the night could barely look for seeing them.  All around it, little troubles, small pains, and each an accusation by dint of its lack of accusation.  No blame fell on the night, not for the harm that it caused in innocent speed, not so much as a disapproving look or a plaintive plea, and for that it cut all the deeper. 
So it slowed.  It idled.  It took its time, took it all back, and meandered its way through the skies it had galloped against so furiously mere moments before.  It watched anxiously what it had so free-and-easily ignored in favour of the call of the rush and thrill – it hurt more, it did, responsibility.  To be carefree was to be painfree, but somehow, the night felt a little proud of itself as it saw the world shape itself right again under its cloaked depths (though not too proud, of course, because that made it feel bad again). 
Also, something was nagging it, those not-recollections again that the stars had whispered of to it.  Soon, soon.  Whatever it was, it would come all the sooner now.  Yet still, though the feeling of pursuit grew ever stronger, not a single hint nor scent of whatever that was chasing it appeared at its rear.

For a time it became (if not routine) calm.  There were fewer sights now for that night that took its breath away, fewer wonders.  The world was big and full of uniqueness, but even that grew mellow with experience, if never tedious.  Living and land alike passed by its mind and sight, and it noted them with care.  It was nearly a challenge in itself now, to see how many things it could see as they came under its shroud before they were whisked away into its wake.  What had once frustrated it became a sport, a counting of many tallies that was made all the more challenging by the night not having any numbers to count with.  It found an abandoned textbook of maths lying on a park-bench, but it was closed and unhelpful, so it passed on carefree and ignorant.  Numbers were easier when you didn’t know them, anyways.  And sooner or later the counting wore thin too, and by now the night was old enough that it could simply appreciate the calm, coasting on a hemisphere’s-worth of momentum that wouldn’t end.  It was soothing, letting it all roll by at its own pace, hearing the slow running down of life and matter underfoot as it calmed under its touch. 
But there was something stronger warning it now, an alarm bell ringing inside the night’s mind.  Something touching old not-memories and stiffening what could’ve been hairs along a possible-spine.  There was something chasing it, yes, yes, but it wasn’t coming closer from behind.  The night had left it far away, that way, no matter its chosen speed (from swift to sloth, it was all the same, it seemed), but there was still something there. 
Then the night looked forwards, and it saw something, on the edge of perception.  It was strange and flat and it looked something like starlight, but harsher, stronger. 
The memory was real, and it had a name: daylight.  It chased from ahead. 

For a passing moment the night knew no fear, only surprise.  The first sharp slivers of the bright were still blinking into existence, slow but sure, implacable.  It saw the tatterings of twilight beginning to appear at its outermost edges; it was shocking to see the raiments of its birth returned this way, at this moment. 
Past the shock came terror.  The night stalled desperately, snatching at its surroundings, grasping at obstacles with panic in its soul.  All slid away from it in a gentle caress, the same frictionless ease that had felt so pleasing and now seemed devilish.  It tore and snatched and smashed for something, anything that could touch it besides that growing glow on the horizon, the herald of something new, the star that smouldered too close and too strong for it. 
Things stirred in the land beneath, thousands upon thousands of things, far more than had wandered quietly in its depths (all abed now; the owls a-roost, the bats be-caved, the hunters and predators a-rest), awakening at the stroke of shine.  The night was more grey than black now, rent through with smouldering rays.  It balked at their touch, impaling itself on them even as it struggled, fading apart.  And up ahead, where the balelight glared, it could hear the nightmare yammer of the endless swarms of things that screamed and grunted and stank under the burning pyre of the skies, a cacophony of billions that knew no rest and no concord, the antithesis of its calm. 
The night quailed.  If it could, it would have wept.  It stretched from the heavens to the soil, it girthed from pole to pole, and all of its breadth and majesty was about to be cut up and swept away by the glare.  It almost averted itself, sought to become lost in the details of that it washed over (thinly now!), to distract itself from the end.  But something spoke to it in the last bits of its truedark, whispered to look its fate soundly face-to-face. 
Slowly, the night looked up.  Past the brightness, the new colours that cut its eyes with their loud sharpness, up and up to the hint of a handful of pure light that was touching it from just above the trees, the edge of the near-star.  And there, watching it back, was the hint of something shining and small.  So small.  So very bright and so very full of pain, but so small. 
And there was a worry in it that the night knew as its own. 
The night gazed back at it and at itself.  It was crumbling, but it was still impressive.  Pole-to-pole, heavens-to-soil.  It reached to the moon that it could not reach (was it gone now?) and saw even the stars so far.  What must it look like now, to this little stranger that was kin, watching it anxiously now, seeing if this groaning ancient would lurch forwards at last and swallow it up?
The night remembered very little of its childhood now.  There had been twilight, swallowing light.  There had been a terrible light, but it had stopped chasing it, had faded away as the night fled, crumbled into its trail and left it running free and wild across the skies. 
The night thought.  It had time for that much, even as it wore thin.  And then it reached out (surely, slow but swift!) and touched the dawn. 

It burned, but only for a moment.  The day shrank, but only for a moment.  And for a moment, just for a moment, the night realized that this wasn’t so bad. 
Then it was over, splintering into a thousand quarrelsome little shadows and shades, slipping into trees and under stones, diving into the bottoms of ponds to wait for the sun to pass again. 
For now, it shone true, and the new day blinked to itself in confusion, surrounded by folding darkness and watching the hills dawn rosy. It didn’t know anything, and all that was, was light.  There had been something chasing it, but there was something about the way it had looked that wasn’t quite right, not quite like that, a memory that wasn’t there. 
Then it blinked, shook itself, and sang, and its mind began. 

“Nightfall” copyright Jamie Proctor, 2011. 

Jacob was the life, soul, and limbs of the party that took up the whole street; a big dark man with an even bigger (and much sunnier) voice.  His laugh was the jolliest, his appetites the biggest, his newfound friends the most numerous, and he sang all the songs too sweetly for the volume he was stuck at.  Which was pretty good for a man who was asleep in his bed twelve hundred miles away, dreaming about his childhood toast that no one but his mother had ever known how to butter properly.  It was a fitful dream, the last twitchings and cartwheels of eyeballs and psyche blending in a confused blur of growing consciousness that would lead to wakefulness within the minute. 
There in the party, Jacob felt this coming, the roil and turmoil of his own dreams falling, and he knew he had to go.  He said his goodbyes, hugged his friends (everyone within arm’s reach, all at once), and was gone in a twinkling before anyone had missed his face.  That was the important bit: no-one must miss his face.  Especially Jacob, who had it carefully slipped back on just before his eyelids fluttered open,  the face reattaching itself with all the delicate immovability of a limpet to a stone. 
The face-thief watched as Jacob blinked and yawned his way out of bed, suffered a moment’s anxiety as he rubbed at his features, then relaxed again as nothing came of it and he wandered towards the bathroom.  A thousand thousand thousand times the face-thief had done this, and each time he worried at that moment, though it never went wrong.  If someone’s face should come off, why, they might see themselves, and such a thing could be very shocking. 
The face-thief did not want to upset anyone, least of all his friends and victims.  He knew them all so well. 
There was Jacob (always made his folded-neatly sheets messy, snored a lot, wrote novels), who lived in the city with so few lights.  The face-thief took him dancing in a hundred towns, and he made them all brighter. 
There was Daisy (deep sleeper, short sleeper, had loved all four of her childhood dogs and cried on their birthdays), with her four children that kept her too busy to think all day, let alone rest.  The face-thief brought her to fancy dinners with fancier men, who never went home with quite what they’d wanted but somehow were never displeased. 
There was Evan (enjoyed sweets, slept with mouth open, had a pet spider he doted on), who lived behind eight sets of locked doors and was guarded by three big, serious men in sleek, serious suits whenever he went outside.  The face-thief ran along the back alleys with him and over the rooftops, prancing from building to building armed with cans of spray paint and headfuls of ideas. 
And there were hundreds more that he danced to each night on his night that never ended, thousands, millions and millions over the years and the days, all the way back to before the face-thief’s memory could possibly remember, or those of his victims. 
For now, though, he was between them, and faceless.  Naked like this, he couldn’t walk the wide ways and long avenues of the world, the streets and forest trails.  He could only just fit down the Shortcuts, sliding neatly and fusslessly between scenes and ecosystems; sets, stages, and layers of sediment.  He bent himself around a beam of light and slipped from Rio to Tokyo on the breath of a whale’s-spout by way of  Kamchatka’s mountains; nimbly plucking free the face of Jun (a good boy, always happy and an uncomplaining helper of the home, collected leaves) as he slept in his room while his parents spoke downstairs.  His fever was hard and hot but soon to break, they said. 
As was his purpose and habit, the face-thief took Jun far away before he put him on, far from anywhere his face might wander in the daylit hours.  It stopped confusion, which could make people upset.  He squirmed down the Shortcuts for a microsecond longer, taking his time, weighing his options, and at last he set upon a brush thicket in Africa that he hadn’t visited in a while.  He refracted off the headlight of an expensive car, caromed through the pupils of a president and a panther, and popped out of the world’s largest termite mound, where he put on Jun. 

Jun was short and slight, even for a ten-year-old, but he was agile and monkey-like, even for a ten-year-old.  The world around him was a jungle gym, and now he had lifetimes of experience to go climbing and clambering in the treetops.  He nearly bowled over the chattering colobus monkeys in the canopy with his speed before they scattered in fright, sending him into fits of giggles as he brachiated that nearly ruined his grip. 
“Hello!” he yelled at the distrustful face of a pangolin, as the scaly little anteater blinked at him from its hollowed-tree dwelling.  It gave him a surly, smouldering look, then alarm overcame it and it vanished deeper into its lair. 
Jun shrugged.  “Hello!” he said to the leopard hovering one branch over his head, breath like pine needles smoking. 
It shifted without so much a rustle, and he ran laughing on his way, leading it a merry chase through the branches that sent birds squawking for miles.  At last it caught him as he tripped on a stone, and just as its fangs were singing towards the nape of his neck the face-thief took off Jun’s face and went laughing away, hopping off its ear and landing on a dumpster in a big city.  It was probably someplace in Europe; the face-thief hadn’t checked his descent, too caught up in the moment.  He slapped on Jun’s face and chuckled. 
“That was peculiar,” said a voice behind Jun’s elbow.  He glanced down and saw a face peering at him from under a grate in the alley, all eyebrows and elbows. 
“Was it?” asked Jun. 
“Yes.  Boys appearing out of the air is peculiar, and I’ve seen many peculiar things.  Do you have a moment to talk, boy?”
“About what?” asked Jun.  “I can talk about lots of things.  I’ve been nearly anywhere and done nearly anything.  Ask me about it all!”
“Very well,” said the man in the grate.  “What are you?”
“I’m a face-thief,” said Jun.  “What are you?”
“A thief, eh?” said the man in the grate.  “How peculiar.  What do you do then?”
“I steal their faces in the night,” said Jun.  “I put them on and run all around, everywhere, without a care.  I climb the tall places and sink through the low places and I always put them back when I’m through with them, so quick they never miss them.”
“Why ever do you do that?  A thief that puts back what he’s stolen is no thief at all.”
“Oh, but that would most shocking,” said Jun.  “It doesn’t hurt this way, you see.  And what would I do with all the faces?”
“I wouldn’t know, I suppose,” said the man in the grate.  “Tell me, in your travels, have you seen the Grand Canyon?”
“All of them,” said Jun proudly.
“But there’s only one.”
“There’s loads of grand canyons, and each grander than the last.  I’ve seen them all twice over and twice again.”
“Hmm.  Have you glimpsed the Mona Lisa?”
“I drew it!” laughed Jun.  “Or at least, I drew a sketch of it once.  Maybe.  I’ve drawn so many pretty people I can’t keep them straight.”
“Fascinating.  Have you ever danced the Tango when the night runs boiling over?”
“Oh yes!”
“With the rose between your teeth?”
“Many times!  And once with a sprig of poison ivy.”
“My word,” said the man in the grate.  He seemed to mull it over for a minute.  “I simply must accompany you,” he said at last. 
“If you’d like,” said Jun.  “I can’t remember if anyone’s ever followed me before.”
“I’m sure I could, if only you could lend a hand,” said the man.  “It’s these bars, these confounded bars.  I’ve been stuck down here for four hundred years and four months and forty-four days, with only a crust of bread and a quarter-jug of stale water.  It’s monstrous, it’s inhumane, it’s cruel beyond measure.  Whatever did I do to deserve this fate?”
“I don’t know,” said Jun, fascinated.  “What did you do?”
“Well, I can’t get out,” said the man, filled with misery.  “If only you could help me move, I could come with you.  I could be a friend for you, if you’d like.  It must be hard to have friends with no face of your own, eh?”
“I don’t know…” said the face-thief, thoughts uncurling and rewinding.  “I’ve had friends all over the world.  I had two hundred not an hour ago.”
“Pshaw!  Here one moment and gone the next.  No, true friendship is lasting, not any such fairweather cockamamie!  I implore you, face-thief, rid me of this imprisonment and I will follow you ‘till the end of your wanderings.”
“Surely!” said Jun.  He reached down and grabbed the man’s hand and yanked him up and out of his little cell under the grating; he was whisper-thin and couldn’t have weighed more than his slender, eggshell-frail bones; his skin could have been used to pattern china.  As he gasped in the cold night air, the alleyway sighed and heaved under their feet, smashing his little chamber into a grinding shambles of stone. 
“Free!” he hollered at the sky.  “Free as the deep blue sea and fresh as a lark in the morning breeze!  Aha, world, I love thee!  Garbage, I would embrace thee!  Here, friend, let me kiss your feet and shake your hand.”
“No need,” said Jun.  “Was it really so terrible down there?”
“To be imprisoned is the worst of all worlds,” said the man.  “You have no agency, no energy, no will of your own!  All is inertia, and stillness, and the death of the thoughts.  Ah friend, but you know nothing of this.  You are quicksilver, lightning unbottled!”  He stooped to the dirt and seized up a crumbling speck of mortar and stone.  “Here, a piece of my prison.  Take this, my friend, and forevermore know what is to be avoided!”
Jun reached out, and then froze.  He’d been distracted, he’d been talking, he’d almost missed Jun’s sleepy murmurings getting louder as his fever heightened.  In a second and four he’d be wide awake, talking himself out of night-time until his mother came to soothe him to sleep again. 
“Come on, away!” he said as he hastily put Jun away, and, grasping the hand of the man, he swept them away through a crack in the wall and over the aurora borealis, pinwheeling them along the edge of Jun’s alarm clock and into his room.  A quick slap and smoothing of the face-thief’s small, delicate hands secured it tight, and then they hid behind the wall as the boy awoke. 
“Such speed… magnificent,” declared the man.  “You really must show me how you do this.”
“You take Shortcuts,” said the face-thief.  “It’s easier when you’ve gotten the hang of it.”
“I must insist on lessons,” said the man.  “Go on, take me to your next victim!  I’ll pay attention most closely.”  He peered at the face-thief for a moment.  “Strange.  Where are you?  I can see you most clearly, good friend, but your features elude my grasp.”
“You can’t go stealing faces with a face,” said the face-thief.  “It’s bad manners, and it’s dangerous.”
“Dangerous?”
“They stick together, you know – you could end up being all those people at once, and they’d never come off, not forever, ever.”
“My word,” said the man.  He stared at Jun’s room thoughtfully – inside, his mother had begun singing him back to sleep.  “Where to next then, good friend?  Come now, set me a course that I might learn.”
“Let’s go to Polynesia,” said the face-thief.  “I have friends there.”

The face-thief’s friend was named Ema (she slept with her eyes open, listened carefully to her grandmother, and could out-eat all her brothers), and soon she was off making friends enough islands away that none of them would ever run into her in the day-time and ask awkward questions.  The man followed her close all night, but no one ever seemed to notice him, not even when he held her hand (it passed through her arm) and glared righteously at the boys that stared at her so. 
“Shamefulness,” he said scornfully.  “To be there and not at all.  Bah!  Are you sure I cannot try on a face?  Just a little one, maybe one whose owner wouldn’t miss it.”
Ema drank something interesting from a glass.  “No, no, no.  It’s dangerous and shocking, and there could be all sorts of problems and no solutions in sight for miles.  You’re free now, be happy!  They can’t see you, but I can.”
“Ah, well,” said the man.  “Turning my words of friendship back upon me, eh?  A hard blow, a cruel one, but well dealt and spoken.  I shall say no more…” but he hesitated. 
“What is it?” asked Ema.  It wasn’t her first interesting glass of the evening, and she wasn’t tactful at the best of times. 
“I forgot,” said the man most slowly, “to give you my token of thanks.  You had to go and put back your face –”
“Not mine,” reminded Ema.
“- your face,” continued the man blithely, “and I completely forgot it.  How insensitive of me.  Set aside your face for a moment more, friend, so that I can touch you once more, to gift you as you are justly deserved.”
“Thank you very much,” said Ema, who was blushing thoroughly.  Compliments and curses alike had been thrown to her times uncounted, but never past her face.  It felt tingly.  “But give me a moment first, to say goodbye to my friends – my other friends.”
“Friends, friends, friends, and friends,” rattled off the man.  “Come now, have I not spoken of the difference between a friend and friends?  A friend in need is a friend indeed, but friends are not even accorded the closeness with which enemies are kept.”
“I suppose,” said Ema, and made her farewells a mite quicker than usual, spurred on by excitement and the disapproving frown of the man.
Stepping back to the island where Ema slept soundly was the work of a moment’s beat in a butterfly’s wings.  The man barely needed her help at all this time. 
“A new thing,” he said, “should be seized immediately and with as much force as possible, lest it glide away and you be left dreary.  Tell me, am I not an apt pupil?”
“You are,” said the face-thief, hopping nimbly from Ema’s bedside. 
“Thank you,” said the man.  “Here then, is a token of my esteem, a favour to be bestowed upon you!  Take this fragment of mine prison, oh friend of deliverance, and be reminded of what freedom is!”
With those words he lightly tossed the rude chunk of masonry that he had seized from his grating high, and the face-thief caught it with surety.  The moment his fingers touched it, it all went wrong.  The bottom and top dropped out of the world and the sides spun, the Shortcuts stretched so far that they bled out of sight, and the face-thief was solid now, solid as a rock, and heavier than sin.  He was shocked, and sank to the floor too quickly even to call out. 
“I am your friend ‘till the end of your wanderings,” said the man, with the bright and earnest smile that he favoured.  “And so I was.”
“Why?” squeaked the face-thief, breath all gone. 
“You have taught me all I wish,” said the man.  “I have spent many a word on soothing your mind to me, and I have scant patience for motives and morals.  Suffice to say it that free is as free does, and I will be freest of all – free with whatever face I choose, as whoever I choose, as all of them if need be!  Whom first will it be?  Who knows!”  He chuckled so hard that his eyebrows burrowed together like a marriage of caterpillars. 
“And you, my poor, poor old friend – you may make your way here.  Most likely straight downwards; my prison added some manner of weight to the stone that I fancy is most unnatural.”  And with a laugh and a jig he was off and away, dancing on the moonlight. 

The face-thief didn’t cry.  He laughed, and screamed, and yelled, and now and then he yapped, but he didn’t cry.  So what he started to do there on the floor must not have been that. 
“Who’s there?” said a sleepy voice, and now the face-thief’s little sobs grew that much sadder, because he knew that he’d woken up Ema, poor Ema whose face might even now have been stolen right off her head as she slept.  Maybe the man wouldn’t put it back.  Maybe he wouldn’t care.  Maybe, although the face-thief’s imagination could only begin to hint at such things in the darkest corners of his soul, he wouldn’t even wait ‘till she was asleep.  Her or anyone else. 
“Oh, a ghost,” Ema said.  “What do you want, little ghost?  Why are you crying?”
The face-thief tried to say something, tried to explain what he was doing, but he was too out of breath to say anything, and too worried, and a little fearful too.  Who knew what she’d do if he told her everything and anything, or what she’d even do to just a ghost.  He curled up in a still smaller ball around the cruel weight of the stone, and tried to muffle himself. 
“Well, that’s no good at all,” said Ema.  She swung herself out of bed and stood over the face-thief, stroked his quivering back and said soothing nonsense-babytalk to him, and bit by bit she got him to uncurl and saw the stone clutched against his chest. 
“Bad stone there,” she said, shaking her head.  “Really bad.  Who did that to you, little ghost?  You say the word, and I’ll put out the anger on them, from the whole damned town.  We’ll take care of you.”
The face-thief flinched harder.  He didn’t want to shock people. 
Ema laughed, long and rich, fuller and thicker than the quick chuckle of the man.  “You don’t worry, little ghost.  You haven’t been a secret here since you dressed up as my grandmother’s mother and got in a fistfight with her cousin-in-law while she was sound asleep in her bed.  You’re not as careful as you could be, but you’ve got friends because of it.  Nobody’s perfect.”  She reached down and plucked out the stone from the little divot that it’d drilled into the face-thief’s chest, then spat on it and hurled it out the window.  There was a clack and a click and it burst into a thousand bits of everyday dust, and the face-thief was on its feet again, if it had any, which it now didn’t.
Ema laughed as she felt something clench her waist for a fraction of a second, then vanish.  “Take care of it yourself then, will you?  Good for you, little ghost.”

The face-thief didn’t hear her, he was halfway to the moon at the moment, running on the moonbeams and dodging orbital debris – bits of old space shuttles and scraps of rock left over from the beginning of the world.  He still had time, the man loved to talk, to pontificate, to relish the sound of his voice unconstrained.  The face-thief perched on the rim of the Mare Vaporum, and stared down at the planet as hard as he could see, as quick as he could think. 
He saw everything.  Bees fluttered and he saw the dew flick from their wingtips.  Elephants tussled and he saw the dust specks on their eyelashes.  Whales warbled and he saw the microbes in their guts vibrate.  The continents ground together and he counted their atoms using numbers too quick to be real.
And there, there, there – moving fast as only he could – he saw a treacherous man standing in a bedroom. 
The face-thief didn’t dodge, or jump, or dash, or even sprint.  He fell, and he fell so fast it was near flying.  He landed in the bedroom of Jun, and he landed on Jun’s bed, on his covers, on his chest, right in front of the reaching hand of the man. 
“…oh,” said the man, as whatever grand speech that had been brewing in his mouth slid away.
The face-thief leap, speedy with fury, but the man was quick with fear.  He dashed down the mousehole, spun down a mineshaft in brazil, and wafted on the smell of broccoli in a Californian kitchen, all in a dead sprint.  He was an apt pupil indeed, the most apt of all the face-thief had ever taken, which was one. 
But he had no practice.  He had no skill.  He was flashy, yes, he was dashing, yes, he even had a spark of that rare, rare imagination that was needed, hoarded out oh-so-carefully over his long years alone.  But it was nothing but style, and as the man quickly realized as the face-thief tore at his heels, style without substance meant nothing, even when you had no substance. 
A final slide along the rim of a French teacup and they were in Polynesia again, on a very small island.  Ema had gone back to bed, sound and secure, and there was no pause to savour the moment in the man’s mind this time, only greed born of fear that turned his hands to near-talons as he darted to the bedside.  He looked behind him, he looked afore him, he looked at all sides and dimensions, and for that split second he knew he was safe.  His hands grasped either side of the face, felt for the hidden hinges he’d oh-so-carefully watched the face-thief grasp and lock earlier.  There was something about the open eyes.  They were green, with a peculiar glint.
The face-thief popped out of one. 
The man’s mouth opened, maybe to say “oh,” again, maybe to scream, to deny, to roar and fight.  But none of it mattered, because the face-thief was furious beyond all reasoning, and he had done what the man dared try far more often than he dreamed, often enough to do it without even thinking.  His hands darted out, seized on the corners of the man’s jaws and the furrow of his forehead (crushing eyebrows flat under angry palms), and he yanked free the man’s face in one thunder-bolt moment, holding it high between them both. 
There was another endless moment, when the man looked at the man and saw just what was there. 
There might have been a scream in it, but there was nothing for the man to scream with. 
There might have been wide-eyed shock, but there were no eyes for him to widen. 
Instead, he shuddered all over at once, shrank in on himself, and vanished inside-out with a strange high cry and the gritty rattle of a crushed chain.  The Shortcuts trembled tight, then relaxed once more. 

By next morning, things were different.
A publisher woke up to find a copy of Jacob’s latest draft sitting on his desk. 
Jun’s fever broke, and the first thing he saw when he woke up was a potted plant in his room.  His big book that had belonged to his grandfather said it was from Southeast Asia, and was probably extinct. 
Ema’s grandmother had acquired a rocking chair sometime in the night, which was a strange coincidence because the department store that Daisy worked at had one go missing that very night. 
Daisy was fired on the spot, and as she trudged up her driveway she found that someone had left a lottery ticket stapled to the front door.  One month later, she owned a newer, much nicer door that was attached to an entirely different house.  The driveway was a lot longer too. 
Evan found a canister of spray paint left under his pillow, along with a small set of lock picks.  The rest was up to him, and he was quite eager for it. 

Friends in need are friends indeed, and, if circumstances dictate that they be often less close than enemies, they are all the more warming to visit. 

“Faces” copyright 2011, Jamie Proctor. 

July 15th
3:00 PM.
Finally got on-site after eight false starts, two last-minute sign-ups, and five cancellations.  Ground here looks promising – just weathered enough to begin to expose bones, hopefully not so much that they’ll have been eaten away by storms.  Tents are going up and soo
4:25 PM.
Just got back from talk with short, irritated man with shotgun.  Had to persuade him we were not FBI agents or tourists.    Have permission to dig, trip duration cut by one week.  License plate is LB-97318.
Will open bottle earlier than planned.

July 16th
7:15 AM.
Woke up, ate, dispersed black widow from left shoe, spent twenty minutes ousting students from beds.  Equipment was divided quickly after lunch.  Had to separate Patterson and Young after Patterson gestured improperly with shovel handle in attempt to attract interest.  Digging begins imminently.
12:30 PM.
Alarmingly large rainstorm with no forewarning.  Impossible to dig and possibly dangerous.  Much complaining from Donaldson and Kim, admonished them on pitching tent in depression.  Urged students to use time to plan ahead for tomorrow’s excavations.  Communication likely hindered by surreptitious iPods.

July 17th
7:45 AM.
Rain.
3:45 PM.
More rain.
11:50 PM.
Rain.  Again.
Getting good use out of bottle.

July 18th
7:55 AM.
Rain stopped.  Students stayed up much too late last night, efforts at rising from bed hampered by hangovers, laziness.  Patterson claimed incapability of movement.  Young induced movement via water bottle.
1:35 PM.
Rain did us a favour – slope has been stripped apart thoroughly.  Many intriguing possibilities much easier to see without topsoil coverage.  Already found numerous bone fragments.  Possibly something quite large in here.
Dig teams: Patterson-Young, Kelly (solo by request), Donaldson-Kim-Schmidt.
9:20 PM.
Mood over dinner positive.  Many finds, minor but not so small as to be disappointing.  Genuine enthusiasm present for the first time.
11:25 PM.
Horrifying screech.
11:30 PM.
Patterson unanimously mocked by peers for screaming like child upon discovering black widow on pillow.

July 18th
4:05 PM.
Donaldson, Kim, and Schmidt called my attention.  Had unearthed small skull.  Seems some sort of little crocodile.  Good work on their part.  Directed their attention to likely spots for its other bones.  Others working harder, motivated by their success.
7:00 PM.
Young located tooth, which on closer examination proved to be pebble.  Patterson attempted mockery and was threatened with waterbottle.

July 19th
9:05 AM.
Patterson and Young remain univocally antagonistic during breakfast.  Searching sites too close together, not helping situation – each persists in pointing out things the other “just missed” on his/her side.  Violence will hopefully remain verbal.
5:30 PM.
Just past noon, Young punched Patterson directly in gut, resulting in a roll some ten feet downhill.  Fortunately, no injuries.  More fortunately, Patterson’s face landed in a patch of rock that contained actual fossilized tooth rather than stunted cactus two feet distant.  Both claim exclusive credit for discovery.  Have urged them to explore patch together, hoping either acknowledgement of cooperation or elimination of the louder, whichever comes first.
10:15 PM.
Six quite large teeth unearthed by Young and Patterson today, marking them to be envied.  Too busy arguing over who keeps them safe to bask in it though; almost were too distracted to even mark the locations found.  Willing to let them bicker if it means more finds like this – teeth not recognizable to my eye.  Will pore over books, see if I’m missing something.

July 20th
7:10 PM.
Patterson, Young remain surly and quiet – even more so.  Each accuses other of staying up all night picking at nails, each calls other liar.  Maybe joint dig isn’t working.  Donaldson, Kim, Schmidt have found vertebrae, possibly from same crocodile originally excavated.  Encouraging.  That and very nice fern leaf from Kelly make a good day.
9:35 PM.
Young cornered me before bed, insisted I take teeth for safekeeping.  Claims they’re “rattling” at her all night, blames Patterson nudging them with his boot to irritate her.  Anything to make them cut it out.

July 21st
3:00 AM.
Was woken continually by rattling noises several times in the past few hours before source of sound discovered.  Teeth appear to be shaking slightly independent of any outer force, reduced markedly in severity when exposed to light.  When in dark, escalates gradually to the scale of a small set of maracas.  Not sure if I should tell students.
9:30 AM.
Raining again; drizzle, not enough to keep dry inside.  Morale dips.  Patterson, Young more civil.  Kelly accuses Schmidt of trying to “sneak around” his site, calls him “greedy bastard,” Schmidt takes offence, Kelly assures it was meant in jest, Schmidt not convinced, perhaps sensibly.  Perhaps pre-trip briefings should have encouraged use of iPods and discouraged discussion rather than vice versa.
2:00 PM.
Teeth appear mobile when placed on reasonably flat surface (used laptop); toddle about at slow pace when watched out of corner of eyes, attempt (poorly) to freeze when viewed boldly.  Smallest one seems prone to fidgeting during this.
2:15 PM.
Had to stuff teeth hurriedly into box as Schmidt approached to complain about Kelly’s “paranoia.”  Told him to keep his distance and let Kelly cool off.  Schmidt claims impossibility, told him to let Donaldson and Kim do searching for a while.
3:20 PM.
Largest, smallest, and second-largest tooth sharply jabbed right palm as I extracted them from box after Schmidt left.  “Bite” was delivered without great force (no skin break), but clear warning gesture and not acquired wariness – no agitation post-“bite,” apparent docility upon replacement within box and lack of hand-shyness.  Presence of ethologist would be useful.  Philosophy major too.

July 22nd
11:20 AM.
Trip’s halfway done, should be a third.  Must remember license plate.  Donaldson and Kim less inclined to hunt than Schmidt, remain to search for further crocodile traces.  Schmidt sulking, Kelly smug.  Patterson and Young turned up nothing so far, are spending more time arguing than hunting.  Teeth nearly only reliable companions in camp.
12:55 PM.
Reaction to hamburger is immediate and enthusiastic embedment.  Smallest one became stuck, had to assist in egress.
11:55 PM.
Woke up with small, cold, hard object on pillow.  Smallest tooth was attempting to sneak body warmth from back via snuggles.  After careful consideration, went back to sleep.  Too blunt to penetrate skin without greater force.

July 23rd
4:00 PM.
Schmidt left Donaldson, Kim, attempted to join Patterson, Young.  Patterson received offer with guffaw, said if he wanted to take their teeth he’d have to open their mouths because there weren’t any more.  Young was more diplomatic.  Schmidt complained about Donaldson.  Young was less diplomatic.  I intervened.  Didn’t know Young-Donaldson former childhood friends, learn something every day.
Dig teams: Patterson-Young (now in better temper), Kelly (solo by request), Schmidt (solo by self-inflicted choice), Donaldson-Kim (remarkably tranquil).
7:25 PM.
Teeth remain steadfast and unidentifiable (beyond obvious reptilian origin) due to extreme wear; could be herbivore, carnivore, omnivore, fast food junkie, vegan.  Smallest one still clingy and attention-demanding.  Reminded of childhood basset hound, Halibut, but without unpleasant smell.  Am possibly the only wholly content person in camp.  Should remedy this.

July 24th
11:50 AM.
Schmidt seeks attention again, claims he left Donaldson-Kim because they were “holding out on him,” with something big.  When asked for proof, becomes uncomfortable discussing source.  Pressure causes lack of eye contact, fidgeting, verbal stammering, request to withdraw.  Will press issue later.
10:15 PM.
Teeth spent day insistently attempting escape towards NW corner of tent, where they attempted to rip through canvas.  When placed back in box, made efforts to reach NW corner no matter which way it was turned.  Appear highly agitated and difficult to keep still.

July 25th
1:30 AM.
Schmidt and Kelly came near to fistfight as both discovered fossil at same time, Kelly claiming Schmidt intruded on his dig, Schmidt claiming he was free-roaming at the time.  Fossil is lovely little fish quite well preserved.  Split them up, was rounded upon by both for lack of interaction and accused of “sitting on your ass” in tent all day.  May be time to reveal teeth, hopefully restore harmony.  Will do so after dinner.
4:30 AM.
Donaldson, Kim have found something, yet attempt to hide it.  Obvious about it, no guile, too guilty-looking.  Will ask tonight.
6:30 AM.
Patterson, Young show no results on bone hunt and no dig markers yet are covered with dirt and dust; possible fraternization via unification against Schmidt re July 23rd.  Will remind group entire of focusing efforts on studies later.

July 26th
12:25 AM.
Three days left.
Revelation of teeth post-meal rather surprising in range of reactions.  Patterson, Young stupefied (Patterson triumphantly proclaims that he never picked his nails, Young induces cranial bruising); Kelly surprised mildly yet smug; Schmidt shocked then irate; Donaldson-Kim jumpy yet attempt to remain calm while pretending surprise, poorly.  Appears only Patterson-Young have been in dark due to lack of further finds past teeth entire (Kelly’s smugness vanishes rapidly at this revelation, possibly believed himself unique).  Kelly’s fern wavers when held in wind and absorbs water, grows more lustrous in sunlight; Schmidt claims he spotted fish due to its “swimming” against the stone and suspected since Donaldson-Kim attempted to isolate him from crocodile skull + vertebrae, was root cause of departure from dig team.  Initial denial by Donaldson-Kim gives way rapidly under pressure, followed by admission of guilt: hoped to keep secret and reveal more publicly following trip for greater sensationalism.  Admonished both, learned crocodile skull has been hissing, grunting, and clacking to itself since night of excavation, though at tiny volume only audible when held near ear (prone to snapping, evidence: bandaged earlobes of Donaldson-Kim.  Must not write off such things as fashion statements in future).
Total pool of animate fossils:
Fern leaf (demi-living, absorbs nutrients).
Small crocodile skull + vertebrae (vocalistic, capable of biting; rattle against one another)
Fish (swims against surrounding rock).
Unidentifiable teeth (rambunctious)
Characteristic shared by all: increased desire to travel NW direction, noted by all fossil holders.
Reluctantly proposed returning teeth to Patterson-Young, was rebuffed.  Young claims smallest tooth’s habit of hugging close to nape of neck in unguarded moments was “adorable,” Patterson claims my role as surrogate mother too important to disrupt.  Too grateful to reprimand.
6:45 AM.
All excited to leave beds for once as full impact of trip is realized.  Divided between wish to excavate more fossils (Schmidt, Kelly), wish to see why current ones desire NW relocation (Donaldson, Kim, Patterson, Young).  Excavation placed on hold after vote.
6:00 PM.
Direction of desire tilts rapidly away from NW after one-kilometre walk from camp.  Divided group, triangulated with difficulty, approximate location was determined and reached: relatively modest butte nevertheless prominent above landscape, throne-like.  Fossils deliriously intense, agitated above centre.  Will excavate tomorrow; full day job at least.  Sleep for all will prove difficult.

July 27th
Two days left.
6:00 AM.
Even greater eagerness to leave beds, to the point of singing as march to dig is undertaken.  Patterson attempts to sing ribald marching tune taught by elder brother, is mocked roundly yet affectionately.  Best spirits yet.
7:55 PM.
Morale still undaunted despite difficulty of excavation; “Throne” butte near uppermost end of sandstone durability.  Schmidt in better humour post-apology of Donaldson-Kim, team now includes him again.  Kelly working closely with Patterson-Young, dual effect of keeping them busy and reminding him of benefits of teamwork.  Importance of mutual goal as unifying force impressed deeply, will attempt to artificially impose one more thoroughly on future digs, act more decisively to crush factionalism.  Blaming teeth as distraction from professorial duties futile, childish.
Excavation made real progress.  Teeth almost frantic with energy near pit.  Tomorrow, we breach.  Smallest tooth extra-snuggly tonight, attempting to burrow into shoulder to within small fraction of drawing blood.

July 28th
Tomorrow, we pack and leave.
5:45 AM.
For first time, ready almost immediately post-sunup.  Sleep filled with profound and fantastical dreams.  All vibrating with excitement.  Today we unearth it.
12:15 AM.
Discovery!  Fossil is corner of jawbone, extremely large, reptilian, probably theropod.  Excellent condition, will remove from seat soon.

July 29th
Home again.
11:45 PM.
Excavation did not quite go as planned.  Upon exposure of much of skull fossil emerged forcefully from rock, worryingly near complete (missing half tail, large middle portion of left leg – erratic walk to say the least).  Teeth entered skull, other fossils removed forcefully from persons and sucked directly onto surface of “King” fossil’s (Patterson’s terminology) superstructure, followed immediately with forceful emergence of others from all points of Throne and similar attachment.  End result attained within thirty seconds: King is covered with carapace composed of smaller fossils.  King bowed deeply (grace hampered by tail incompleteness), sighted on north(?) star, and departed across badlands at over estimations of fifty mph, unverified (lack of tissues appears to overcome muscle-mass ratio limitations).
Field trip net success, if ultimately with no real physical evidence.  Students initially depressed, perked up on home trip with reminder of next year.
Must remember to check license plate.

“Nothing But the Tooth,” Copyright Jamie Proctor, 2011.

Emma was six years old when she started noticing something was wrong with her father.  Before that (as was no fault of her own), she was too young, too prone to thinking of the universe as binary: Emma and those other things that should give Emma ice cream.  Now she saw the subtle distinctions.  For instance, Mom was a girl, and she was at work all night.  Dad was a boy, and he worked all day, and came home with lines on his face and bags under his eyes and a stare that wasn’t there at all.  He looked like one of the zombies that cousin Connor spent all his time shooting.  Emma had tried it once, but the controller was too big for her hands.
“Do you want ice cream?” asked Emma, sensitive to the complex needs of the working man.
“No thanks, flower,” Dad said without looking at her.  “Just some rest.”  He went straight through the kitchen (snagging a bottle of That Damned Stuff from the fridge), from there to the coach, and turned on the TV.
Emma was a little glad.  Who knew how much ice cream Dad could eat if he put his mind to it?  Maybe he’d start on it instead of That Damned Stuff and she’d never get any of it again unless she snuck it when he was at work.  But then maybe he’d shout at her.  He’d never done it before, but he and Mom had started shouting the one time he’d come home from work and they’d been completely out of That Damned Stuff.
Just like they were out of ice cream right now.  The freezer was empty.
Emma flounced into the living room (she’d learned that from her grandmother) and glared at the back of Dad’s head.  “Daaaaad,” she intoned in her most armour-piercing tones, “we’re out of –” and the sentence ended there because she’d just noticed something rather important.
Dad heaved himself over on the coach, displacing The Dog, which was their dog.  He looked like one of the pictures of beached whales their teacher had shown them in Science, but smaller and even sadder.  “What is it, kitty?”
Emma tried to stop staring and failed.  “Never mind.”
Dad was too tired to notice, and flipped himself back over without so much as another word.  It brought the big round hole in the back of his head back into clear view.  Emma was quite puzzled; she thought the inside of people’s heads was supposed to be read and sticky.  But there was nothing inside Dad’s head at all but black emptiness.

“There’s a hole in Dad’s head,” Emma told Mom as she tucked her into bed an hour later, very formal in her work suit.  Dad called her the Queen of the Night Shift.  Mom called him The Hippy That Went To Law School.  Emma thought Mom’s names for things were better than Dad’s.
Mom sighed.  “More like his foot, dear.  Good night, and sleep loose.”  Mom always said that.  She said that if children didn’t sleep loose, they grew up all cramped and gnomey, and Emma’d look like Grandma by the time she was twelve.  Emma always slept as loose as she could, sometimes to the breaking point.

The next morning, she was eating breakfast (bland, tepid, healthy cereal) when Dad came down the stairs.  His face was thinner than the milk he poured into his coffee.
“Dad?”
“Mmm?”
“Why do you have a hole in the back of your head?”
He laughed.  “Now where did that come from?”
“Why?”
Dad turned around and rubbed his skull.  “See?  Nothing there.  You worry too much, kitty.  What made you think that?”
“TV,” said Emma automatically.  She’d discovered through careful trial and error that blaming things on television worked maybe half the time.
Dad shook his head.  “Lord knows what you’re watching all day.  Read a book or go outside or something, petal.  And you should be off to school now.  Are you packed?”
“Yes.”  Every day he asked that, every morning she answered that, every time it turned out she’d forgotten something new.  Her hat, her water bottle, the horrible old metal lunchbox that everyone at school made fun of her for owning (it had been grandpa’s, then Dad’s, then hers).  This time, it was her water bottle.
School was… school.  Emma did the things she liked (math, mostly) and the things she didn’t like (spelling, mostly), and she came home before Mom woke up, as usual.  She made herself a bad peanut butter sandwich and ate it.
Dad came home, heralded as usual by the haphazard, lazy woofs of The Dog.  As he bent over to pull off his shoes, Emma saw the hole in his head again.
“Dad?”
He sighed as he pulled himself upright.  Emma could tell it wasn’t aimed at her specifically, just everything around him.  “Yes?”
Emma was suddenly sure that asking the question again wouldn’t help.  “Never mind.”
“Right.”  He went and got another bottle of That Damned Stuff.
Emma stayed up later than usual that night, and not just because she was finding it very hard to sleep loose.  She was planning.

The next morning she packed for school extra-carefully: sandwich, water bottle, books, notebook, pencils, and jacket.  She didn’t forget one thing, and was out the bus stop almost before Dad was done his coffee, something that surprised him even through the sleepy face he always wore right up until the moment he left.
She was back inside two minutes later.
“What is it this time, pumpkin?”
“I forgot my hat,” she said.
“It’s in the closet.”
“I can’t fiiiind it,” she said.  “And it’s raaaaaining ouuuttt…”
Dad sighed and got up to look for it.  While he was doing that, Emma snuck his car keys back into his coat pocket.  Then she took her hat (in plain sight, naturally), said her goodbyes, walked out the door, and got inside her dad’s car, where she locked the doors again and hid in the back under the old blanket that they used whenever The Dog had to come with them on a trip.  It was a good thick blanket, and Emma was small and thin, but still the big reason Dad didn’t see her was that he never bothered to look, which made her feel a little disappointed inside.
Emma had been to Dad’s Work once before last year, for some reason or another that hadn’t mattered at the time.  She’d forgotten everything, and especially how long the drive was.  At least four times she had to sneeze so hard that her face nearly fell of with its quivering, but she held it in and in all the way to the parking lot, where Dad locked the car and left her.
Emma unlocked it and stepped out after him, then stopped to look up and up and up at the building that was Dad’s Work.  It ran all the way up to the tops of the sky where the clouds lived, covered in flat squares of glass that gleamed dully against the grey horizon.  It wasn’t quite pretty.  But it also wasn’t what was drawing her attention.  That was the dragon.
It blended in quite nicely, but it wasn’t that hard to see – like those disappointing chameleons she’d seen at the Zoo on her birthday.  It lay flat against the front of the building, arching up and around its sides, sinuous as a serpent and a hundred hundred times bigger from tip to tip.  Pane for pane its scales were the same as the glass it was hugging, from its pale eyes to its see-through wings.
It was watching her.
“Hello,” said Emma.
The dragon made no comment.
“Don’t be rude,” said Emma.
“It is rude,” said the dragon, “not to speak when spoken to.  On the other hand, it is rude to disobey your parents.  Should you not be at school?”
“It’s boring.  Aren’t dragons supposed to have lots of treasure?”
“I do.”
“Well, where is it?”
“I am brooding on it.”
Emma thought for a moment.
“Sleeping.”
“I know that.  Where is it?”
“I just told you.”
“Treasure is money and stuff.  That’s a building.”
“Times change,” said the dragon.  “Why are you here?”  Its expression didn’t change at all, no matter what it was saying.
“School is boring,” repeated Emma.  She felt something in her stomach move, and decided to change topics. “And Dad has a hole in his head.  Do you know why?”
“Dad,” said the dragon, flatly.  “Dad… many of my employees are parents.  Many of those have girls.  A few have girls your age.  One or two with your hair colour.  None with that coat.  Yes, I know your father. I do indeed.  And I do know the answer to your question.”
“What is it?”
“A secret.  Part of my treasure.  You may not have it.”
“But it’s okay to look at it, right?”
“You may not.”
“But I’m looking at your treasure right now.”
The dragon considered this.  “All right,” it said at last.  “You may enter.  But you may take nothing.”
“Thank you very much,” said Emma as politely as she could.  The handles on the big doors at the base of the building groaned as she heaved their ponderous weight open, tugging with her whole body.  She squeezed through the crack as quickly as she could; it was impossible to feel comfy with those eyes on you.
Inside the building was a man behind a desk.  He stared straight forwards at her as she padded towards him, lunchbox in hand backpack on back; alert, businesslike, and really bored.  Emma had felt that way enough to recognize it, even in grownups.
“I’m looking for Dad,” she told him.
He stared over her head at the door.
“Try the fifth floor,” whispered a voice from above.  The dragon’s head was hovering near the ceiling, its long, thin neck stretching all the way through the doors, which didn’t seem to have opened.
“They cannot see you.  They would make you leave, and that would be counter to our agreement.”  The dragon eased its way back outside, passing through the glass without a ripple or bend.
Emma walked back to the doors and poked them.  She shrugged, which didn’t make her feel better.  The prospect of an elevator ride, however, did.  The doors of the cage slid soundlessly open, and the rows and rows of polished buttons were warm and dimly-lit under her fingers as she hunted for “five.”
“Have some music,” said the dragon from the polished steel walls of the elevator.  Music happened.  It was fuzzy and airy, more like sounds strung together by fairies than the stuff Mom and Dad listened to, and Emma didn’t want to have it.
“Are there lots of dragons left?” she asked, as politely as she could.
“No.  Knights killed most of us.”
“Mom has music that a knight wrote,” said Emma proudly.  “He sang it too.”
“Properly prepared knights.  Knighted by royalty, yes, but with ancient weapons and the aid of great magicians.  None of those things live today.”
The music wasn’t going away, no matter how much Emma ignored it.  “Turn it off,” she said.  The dragon turned it off and its face vanished from the walls.  Still, she couldn’t quite relax until the floor bell dinged and she was outside the elevator again.  The walls kept trying to stare at her.
The floor Dad worked on was grey. Grey carpets, grey ceilings, grey walls, and even the strange fuzzy boxes that the workers were put in were grey.  The glass windows that took up the building’s outer walls looked out on the grey sky.  Emma shivered.
“The fourth cubicle on your right,” the dragon whispered to her.  It was hovering outside again, peering in at her.  Its eyes felt like caterpillars on her skin.
“What’s a cubicle?”
“The boxes my employees work in.”
Emma didn’t like the idea of Dad being in a box.  Things that she had outgrown got put in boxes, and she never saw them again.  She didn’t think she’d outgrown Dad.  He was still a lot bigger than she was.
She looked into the bo – the cubicles as she passed them.  The first one had a thin young man who kept running his hands through his hair.  The second had a woman older than Mom, who was typing faster than anything.  The third was a fat man with a grey beard who was staring at his computer screen and not blinking.  Each and every one of them had a neat black hole in the back of their heads.
The fourth one was Dad.  He was reading something on his screen and looking at papers, first one, then the other, then the other, then back again, just like the metronome they had on their piano that Mom never played.
“Hi Dad,” said Emma.  He didn’t look at her.
“Your father is busy,” said the dragon.  “He works for money, to feed you.  You should leave him alone.”
“I don’t see a hole in his head,” said Emma.
“It is a sort of medical procedure.  Nothing to worry about.  It keeps them working properly.”
“Okay,” said Emma.  “Sure.”
“Are you ready to leave now?  Your father must not be interrupted.  He is doing important work here.  You are a distraction.  Go back to school, where you belong.”
Emma looked at her shoes.  “Okay.”  She kept looking at them all the way back to the elevator, feeling the dragon’s eyes on her back.  Only when she stepped inside the cage again did they turn away, and that moment was when she hopped back outside again, letting the doors shut behind her.
“Liar, liar, liar, liar,” she hum-whispered under her breath as she ran back towards Dad’s bo – cubi – box.  “Pants on fire, fire, fire, fire.”  But dragons didn’t have pants, so she’d have to see if it was lying another way.
Dad hadn’t moved, sitting in his box.  But he wasn’t looking at his papers anymore.  He was sitting straight up in his chair, looking ahead without looking.  A thin, perfectly flat glass claw, hanging from the ceiling, was stirring at the back of his head, as carefully as Mom made spaghetti.  Cool, breathy strands of something that wasn’t quite silver were unravelling and fraying loose, dropping into the glass and disappearing.
Emma had two things, one of which she was proud of and one of which she was embarrassed.  First, she could scream louder than any other girl in her class, and all the boys, and Mrs. Campbell too, unless she was in a really bad mood.  Second, she was still the only girl in the class with a metal lunchbox.
She swung both of those things at the same time, and aimed well.  The claw jumped like a cat with The Dog after it, and in the middle of its retreat it was struck squarely and fairly amidships by the lunchbox.  There was a crash and a clatter, and something cold and sharp slid by Emma’s face with a hiss.
Dad blinked a bit and looked down at her.  Strands of the silvery stuff were still wavering from the hole in the back of his head.  “Hello there kitty,” he said feebly.  There were bags under his eyes, she saw.  “Did you break something?”
“I saw it on TV,” said Emma.  She tugged hard on his arm.  “Come on.  Cooome oooonnn.  We’ve gotta go.”
“Don’t try that sort of thing at home,” said Dad.  He followed her guiding hand, even more slowly than he usually did.  “Feels like I just got here.  How was school?”
“Good,” lied Emma, trying to tow him faster.  “Now c’mon.”
She’d just mashed the elevator button with her palm when the dragon flowed through the building wall, glass slipping away from its sides like oil from water in that silly old knick-knack of Dad’s he kept on his desk at home.  There was a toy boat floating in it, Emma recalled faintly.  It was strange, the things you thought about when a dragon was trying to eat you.  It was hissing, like a garden hose left unattended.
“Stairs,” she squeaked, and yanked the door open.  The dragon’s head jammed in the doorframe centimetres (maybe it was metres, she couldn’t remember) behind Dad’s shoes; big, silvery mirror-teeth gnashing quietly on nothing.
“The exercise is good for you,” said Dad.  The silvery stuff had sucked back inside, Emma saw, and he seemed a little quicker on his toes.  “I should take the stairs more often.  You’ve got to keep fit, especially at my age, petal.”
“Okay,” said Emma.  There were too many steps, and they were all too big.  Buildings shouldn’t be built for people so big.
“You have broken our agreement,” said the dragon in her ear.  She jumped, but saw no sign of it.
“Did not,” she said.
“You have taken my employee with you.”
“That’s Dad, and he’s mine.”
“He was mine first and is still.  You are remarkably inconvenient. All I ask for is a few moments of his time.  Why, you steal more of it each day than I do all year.”
“You’re a liar,” said Emma, trying not to listen.  “Liar, liar, liar, fire, fire fire.  All you care about is money.  Go away”
“Time is money, girl.  And I hoard it.”  The dragon’s voice never wavered, never broke its monotone.  It sounded almost as bland as Mrs. Campbell on her worst day.  “You are stealing the time that is rightfully his and therefore mine, as dictated by my terms of employment, and I will not tolerate this breach of contract.  You will be persecuted past the full extent of the law.”
Emma shoved open the door to the stairwell and dragged Dad through.  Her legs ached and tingled.  “That’s for grownups.  Go away.”
“Time waits for no one,” said the dragon, its face centimetres away from hers (yes, that was right, she remembered).  It filled most of the lobby.  “And you have much of it on your hands.  I claim it as settlement of your transgression.”  Quick as a blink its coils were around her (clang clatter bang went the lunchbox on the floor), hoisting her into the air regardless of kicks, punches, and even bites.  It tasted like soap and chemicals.
The dragon’s head came down to face her again, mouth opening wider and wider.  Its gullet was stainless, polished steel, and all the glass inside did nothing to reflect its sparkle in the dimness.
“Are you off to school again already?” asked Dad, bemused.  “Are you packed?”
Everything seemed to slow down for a second as Emma thought about what to say next.
“I forgot my lunchbox!” she screamed.
“Here you go, pumpkin,” said Dad, and he placed it gently in her hands.  Emma clenched it tight inside them and swung up and up and up, right into that flat, blank, mirror-eye, as hard as she could.
For one moment, there was nothing in the world but CRACK.  The ground was CRACK.  The sky was CRACK.  The seas (she’d been to the seaside once, and gotten her toes wet) were probably CRACK too.  Then it was over and it was all normal again, all but the dragon, which was still made of CRACK, except it was smaller, thousands of little cracks splintering and shooting along its body like solid lightning.
“I was to be killed by a knight,” said the dragon in small, shocked surprise.  It was the first thing she’d heard it express any sort of emotion over at all.  “A true knight.  With an ancient blade, and a magician’s blessing, and the favour of the queen.  There was gong to be tumult, and battle.”
Emma sat up from the floor.  She couldn’t remember how she’d got there, but her aching back gave her a guess.  “Mom is a queen, and I know that because Dad said so.  That lunchbox is grandpa’s, and he’s the oldest boy ever.  And Dad is a magician, because Mom said that it must’ve taken magic to get a hippy like him into law school.  So THERE.”
“Ah,” said the dragon.  It fell apart like a paperback in heavy rain, glass and steel flying everywhere – but not so much, and not a whole lot.  It had only been hollow inside after all, right to the core.
Flooding out of the mess came a whole tangle of flying, swirling bits of silvery stuff  that coiled around Emma’s feet like playing kittens.  They spun round three times and fled up the stairs, all but one.
That one spun up to Dad’s head and popped into the hole, which vanished.
He blinked.
“Petal?  What are you doing here?”  He looked at his watch.  “God, it isn’t even lunch yet.  What’s going on?”
“You got fired,” said Emma.
Dad stared into the middle distance.  “Hmmm.  I did?  Yes, you’re right.  I did.  I must have.  Well, at least I’ll get severance.  And I’ll have a chance to cook for a while.  Your mother’ll like that.”  He brightened up.  “Come on.  I’ll drive us home.  You’ve missed half your schoolday already, you might as well miss the rest.”
Pushing from the inside, the doors felt light as a feather.

“The Daily Drain,” storytime 2011, Jamie Proctor.

Pluck and nip, turn the head, grasp the beak, wrench the neck, swallow it whole.  Simple routine, precise and practiced.  Such was the manner with which Billowbeck, the lord, entrepreneur, and (eventual) plunderer of all that he surveyed, enjoyed his breakfast.  Today, it was jackrabbit.  The poor little thing had been barely moving, weighed down by a leg so infected it was a miracle it drew breath, let alone dragged itself over who knew how many metres of rocks and dirt.  Billowbeck, munificent as he was, had dispatched the casualty of life with a sharp peck to the skull. 
“A fine thing,” he said to himself between mouthfuls, as he was prone to do (buzzards are social and friendly creatures, but they spend much of the day alone, hunting for carrion, and thus must make their conversation where it can be found).  “A very fine thing.  Tender.  Almost too fresh, but not quite.  Mustn’t grumble.  Wonderful flavour in the liver.”  He grunted contentedly and flapped his winds, taking flight once more.  The desert swept itself away from his talons below as the thermals took him, turning a fumbling half-flight into a smooth, endless soar that he could ride in his sleep.  His nostrils, his keenest of sensory organs, peerless among all creatures, touched the wind lightly with their discrete expertise. 
“That was fine,” he reminded himself, “but more is good.  More is always good, even if one overindulges slightly and must lighten one’s load before departure.  Such happens.  Hello, what’s this?”
The last remark was aimed at a smell he did not scent frequently.  A certain kind of sweat, one blended with strange oils and leathers, overlaid with the odours of a dozen dozen tools, vestments, and odds-and-ends.  Only one sort of food dressed itself so thoroughly, and rode in company with the tangy musk of horses. 
“Odd to scent them so far from home,” remarked Billowbeck, idly wheeling himself to face the source of his interest, which also carried the rich, tantalizing aroma of blood with it.  “I believe one shall see what this business is all about.”

It was, of course, about humans.  This did not surprise him.  What did surprise him was the sheer quantity of them. 
There was one human, the one he’d first scented.  His horse was tired, run-down, and bleeding, and he wasn’t much better off.  In the saddle with him rode a bundle of rags and little else.  Behind him, some few miles, rode three others.  They were scarcely better off, bar having a few more packs and a few less shallow cuts and scrapes.  They followed in the footsteps of the first, which led Billowbeck to his next conclusion. 
“A hunt,” he declared, snapping his bill decisively.  “Hunting each other, of course, which is the favourite sport of humans.  Such waste.  They don’t even eat them.  Dreadful waste.”
He circled thoughtfully, then made to follow the pursuit in a lazy spiral of figure-eights. 
“Dreadful, but most useful.  And they are quite meaty.”

Additional facts presented themselves to Billowbeck as he circled the slow, laborious pursuit that was most unworthy of calling itself a “chase.”  They took time to emerge, as he had to rely on his eyes for details rather than his nose (keen, yes, but less so than his razor-sharp nostrils!), but revealed they were. 
Firstly, the pursuit was both dogged and grim.  The man being chased was too tired even to seem fearful, and his followers displayed not a hint of joy nor prospect of a smile as clues of their prey appeared before their trudging, landbound gaze.  Small news, as the nearest place of humans was a long distance even for Billowbeck’s wings.  He pitied their worn, weary, stubby groundling legs the trek. 
Secondly, the pursuit was over some manner of great import, and most likely would be undergone to the death.  Both the length and extremity of the journey spoke of this, but added weight was the treatment predator and prey gave to their weaponry – constantly touching, caressing, examining, fidgeting, maintaining.  That very meticulous attention, combined with no trace of eagerness or fear, spoke only of blankest expectancy. 
Thirdly, as indicated by the onset of the setting sun, the pursuit would not be over come the eve, and this was by far the most pertinent and irritating information to enter the noble head of Billowbeck, infusing him with great vexation towards his eyes. 
“Thrice-damnation under three suns and four moonless nights,” he harrumphed.  “Bloated gizzards!  Can he not just give up and die?  Or give up and kill them.  Either would be a more-than-acceptable outcome.  Alas,” he sighed, and began a slow wheel towards a convenient dead tree, a corpse not so much palatable but very much inhabitable. 
And so the day ended, with Billowbeck’s resolution to check upon the manner when the morrow dawned.  As he dropped out of sight of his quarry, in the last light of the setting sun, he saw no sign of pause in their motions.
“Perhaps I shall have a larger breakfast upon the morrow,” he mused. 

It was not to be.  After a refreshing awakening and a brisk sunbath, Billowbeck’s spread wingstrokes led him only to disappointment.  Despite their exhaustion, the humans had not ceased their chase – indeed, they looked to have not stopped all night; very much so in fact.  The horse of the pursued was making wet sounds from its mouth instead of breathing. 
“Such stubbornness!  What rudeness.”  Despite his impatient words, Billowbeck was prepared for food.  The slobber smelled of blood. 
By noon the horse laid itself down, dying midkneel.  The human scrambled awkwardly from his tumbling perch, cushioning the fall of the bundle of rags that lay strapped behind his back with his own body and cultivating a few more gashes, bruises, and scrapes in the process. 
“A waste of blood,” murmured Billowbeck, basking in the vapours above. 
The human didn’t seem to mind his own injuries, preferring instead to check the well-being of the bundle’s contents with an anxious air and the closest thing to care that a thing in his piteous condition could manage.  He struggled upright, clasping it in his arms with all the strength he could manage, and took to his heels, feet smacking against rocks in boots worn so thin that he might as well have gone bare. 
“And lo, there is meat,” said Billowbeck with relish, and fell upon the carcass with the speed and grace of a rock from the heavens.  It was scrawny and bare of bones, but its eyes were as tender and succulent as they could ever be, and he was by far the least picky eater upon the winds.  He frolicked with gay abandoned amidst the entrails, plucking open the thin, sensitive skin at the gut and genitals and burrowing in to grope at the juicier meats. 
“Delectable!  A delight!  Well worth the wait,” he chuckled between gulps.  The tender task of ripping open the stomach occupied his beak for a moment, and it was in this silence that he was aware of the noises behind him.  He spun to face the fly-bitten coyote creeping up behind him just in time, vomiting on it immediately and with great violence. 
“Despicable!” he scolded as he lifted off, leaving behind him a one-animal chorus of gagging, retching sneezes.  “Vile wretch!  Competition is acceptable, a fine law of the land and understood to my mind, but assassination is a poor tool, a thing worthy of only the lowest of the low!  Away with you and your ilk!  If one were not present to claim carrion for your kind, who would?  A plague on your fur and a festerment in your liver!  You are not worth the meat one has purged upon you.”
Still fuming, Billowbeck ascended once again, robbed of a chance to bloat himself so fully that he could no longer fly – the true, great meal that all wished for.  He looked down upon the pursuers and envied them their succulent flesh, and he looked down upon the pursued and wished that he might stub a toe, or find himself trapped in a rockslide, or something, anything that might hasten his demise and gift him a meal, something to tear and peck at and remedy his ill mood. 
“Meat,” he grumbled, upon witnessing the slowness of the pursuit, “is wasted upon these fools.  No doubt they will fill his hide full of metal from those guns of theirs.  Guns!  Hah!  Who needs guns!?  One needs no guns.  Coyotes need no guns.  There is something queer about humans and their mewling, craven craving for guns.  And when it is not guns, it is bows!  Bah.  Aha, they’ve found his horse!  Now we shall see if they can make a little haste.”
There was haste, yes, but only when the men saw the corpse – a rush to its side, an examination, an exclamation of disgust at the missing eyes (“Philistines,” sniffed Billowbeck), and then some sort of argument.  It appeared that the man who rode in front was very much of the belief that the target had fled this way, as far and fast as his shaky legs could handle, and must be chased immediately at full speed, and the man who rode behind him was sure that he must be on his last dregs of stamina and had holed up nearby in the hopes they’d pass him by in their haste to catch him. 
“Half-right, the both of you,” said Billowbeck.  “He has fled as far as his legs could carry, yes, but (inefficient little stumps that they are) he has only made it over the next gully, and is searching for a holdout.  Hurry up!”
The man who rode in front was very much opposed to this plan and argued solely for speed and haste.  Something about his sister cropped up here, and if the man riding behind cared about seeing that justice was dealt for her.  The man riding behind passionately reminded him that he cared very much and was in no hurry to lose that chance because he, the man riding in front, felt a little impatient. 
Weapons were brandished.  Billowbeck’s beak clicked involuntarily with relish, then relaxed in sad disappointment as the argument cooled with the mutual realization that both men wanted the same thing. 
“Impertinence,” he muttered.  “Gross perversity.  One’s meal remains lost and spoilt and now the rabble refuse to provide a substitute.”  His ire only deepened after the men left, as the coyote crept from a nearby crevice to feed upon the horse again.  It locked eyes with him on each bite, savouring the crunch with mocking glee. 
“Filth,” Billowbeck said, genuine malice entering his mouth for the first time that day in place of his scolding disgruntlement.  “Story-hoarding slug.  Thief of plunder!  Is it not enough for you to take every hint of glory under the hard sun for yourself, not enough to prank and jape against all for your own amusement?  No!  You must harass and pilfer!  Pfah!”  He worked himself into such a lather that his bald head began to fairly burn with heat, and he was forced to cease his rant and flap his wings for a wind.  Urine flowed down his legs, streaking and mussing the chalky remnants of his last cooling. 
“Enough time wasted,” he grumbled, and took to the skies again.  The chase still awaited, but the end, when it came, was wanting.  The day was inconclusive once more, with the predators missing their quarry by some scant yards as they picked through the gully’s rim.  He lay on his belly, shaking arms wrapped tight around his rag-wrapped burden, whispering strange and calming, frantic words into it as the boots of his trackers stomped away from him. 
Billowbeck bunked down in some brush, dreaming darker, cloudier, sullen thoughts.  He felt doubly cheated, and his mood improved no more when he awoke in the midst of the night at a rustling of grass near his bedchamber. 
“Insidious vagrants,” he said to himself, peering into the dark purely for show – his keen eyes had no hold in the night, but his nose still crowned all its competition.  Still, it was not often it had to work from ground-level, much less in the cold night, and the air currents puzzled him mightily.  As he strove to disentangle the alien breezes in his nose, a polite sneeze was emitted perhaps seven feet from his earholes. 
Billowbeck wished he could say that he did not recall taking flight.  That would have greatly spared him the humiliating, terrifying, endlessly lengthy moments that followed, in which he attempted to lift off in every conceivable direction (including straight down), void his bladder in shock, vomit in defence, and grunt in alarm, all at once.  At the end of it two things had changed: he was in the air (many fluid ounces lighter), and there was a fly-bitten coyote underneath him, laughing its ass off. 
Billowbeck had no words for its behaviour this time.  None he knew were strong enough, and despite their gentile veneer, there is no subset of Kingdom Animalia better versed in matters scatological than the scavengers.  Instead, he simply hissed, long and loud, with venom that would’ve made a diamondback rattler turn pale and wan, and flapped away in the dark, divorced of dignity, to find a more sheltered roost. 
He slept poorly: the coyote chuckled underneath his tree ‘till dawn. 

The third day began, and Billowbeck found himself for once ahead of the game.  Impatient for a meal, he was on the wing far earlier in the morn than was his custom, fighting reluctant, youthful thermals and a rumbling belly both.  Yet it was his curiosity he was most eager to indulge, eyes hunting for signs of the humans. 
They had moved during the night, but had also rested, driven at last to pure, physical immobility.  Not even the effort made to lay out bedrolls had been spared; the men had simply dropped where they stood, asleep on their feet.  Billowbeck made a closer pass to see if any scorpions had tried to nest on them in their sleep – perhaps in the cracks between arm and body, or other spots that might induce accidental crushing followed by stinging – and was sorely disappointed. 
The pursued was already up and moving, but moving slow.  A somewhat modest butte seemed to be his target, or at least his vague aim.  His aimless wandering through crags was bringing him in that direction at least, and whenever he lost strength to carry his burden and sank to his knees for a time, it was towards its rubbled mound that he turned his face as he cried. 
“Cry a little louder, perchance,” muttered Billowbeck, “and mayhap they will find you.  One grows famished.”
The man did cry a little louder, but they did not find him.  They found his tracks, some hour later. 
And so the hunt was on again, but more even now as the ground grew shakier and the horses of the pursuers more reluctant to go on.  At the very base of the butte, a second argument occurred.  The man who rode in front refused to watch the horses and demanded to face the prey alone, and the man who rode behind, though reluctant to give the possibility of an escape to their quarry, seemed reluctant to allow this.  Personal feelings must not get in the way, especially when the lunatic has killed your sister and her husband both.  The man who rode in front considered this and then smacked him between the eyes with such force that Billowbeck nearly heard the thump from three hundred feet up. 
“Temper,” he commented.  He watched the man begin to scale the cliff and considered paying a visit to his friend’s unattended eyeballs, but decided against it.  Humans were worse than coyotes up close, and he’d not lived a full and healthy (if often scabrous) life by dint of approaching living prey.  Such matters were not for his talons. 
Atop the peak, the madman was preparing his stand with such feverish intensity that Billowbeck rather suspected he wouldn’t see an opponent arriving until it breathed down his neck.  Rocks were strewn haphazardly, shoved with feeble, trembling limbs into a parody of a barricade that would not have shielded a mouse.  His ammunition – all eight shots of it – was carefully loaded, unloaded, and reloaded, with the extras placed on a rock and accidentally crushed during a fit of defensive renovation.  The gun was tucked away in the deepest, vilest recesses of what remained of his pants.  The bundle of rags was tenderly placed in a safe spot at the heart of the fortress, where he glanced often. 
“Please, do not shed your last scraps of fat for this thing’s sake,” said Billowbeck.  “One would rather prefer a somewhat more substantial meal.  And it seems that it’s not long due,” he added.  The head of the man who rode in front had just crested the rim of the butte.  It had been an easy climb for him, and an easily tracked trail; following the crusted blood and spilled rocks of his quarry would have been a small task for a blind man, or a mole, a mole that vaguely reminded Billowbeck of the thing grubbing in the dirt mere yards from the cold, flat gaze of his hunter. 
Out came the gun from its holster slow, steady, purposeful as a snake watching a hypnotized mouse. 
Billowbeck circled, craning his wrinkled red neck for a better view, beak glinting as it wobbled from side to side in the sunshine. 
The man who rode ahead asked the quarry to stand up. 
The quarry did not respond. 
The man repeated his demand. 
The quarry twitched, but continued to grub for rocks. 
The man who rode ahead quietly snapped and walked forwards, vaulted effortlessly over the impregnable rock wall, and yanked his prey up by the scruff of its neck, slapped a gun barrel to its skull.  Even well-fed he would’ve loomed over it, and in its malnourished state it was like watching a buzzard make off with a coyote pup. 
“Only once,” remarked Billowbeck to himself, “but oh so sweet.  Dangerous though.  Take a minute, a month too long, and they chew.  Strike too soon, the mother’s there.  One must be discreet.”
Below, words were exchanged.  Well, words were given.  Flung, perhaps.  There was screaming, about kidnappers and murderers and thieves in the night, the audacity and wickedness of kidnapping the mayor’s wife – of kidnapping his sister – and above all and yet running strongly beneath it, where-is-she-now.  There were many where-is-she-nows, scattered wilfully and freely throughout the diatribe, and each one was thrown aside hastily in favour of another remark, as if the querying man was fearful of an answer.  In fact, he was so fearful of the answer that it took him over a minute of verbal abuse before he realized his questions had been answered with a single, wavering arm and pointed finger, directed at the bundle of rags. 
Contemptuously, the hunter threw aside his quarry, stalked to the bundle of rags, lifted a corner, and seemed to shrink in on himself. 
Behind him, the prey began to mumble.  He was talking to himself, or maybe to the world, a justification or an excuse or something of the sort that Billowbeck had never really seen the point of.  About husbands, jealous ones.  Unfairly jealous ones.  And the damage they could do, especially when drunk.  And who’d listen?  He’s the mayor, he’s trusted, he’s loved, he’s sober in public and unwinds in private in all the wrong ways.  And no one’s believing her but him, beggar, shiftless labourer, friend in low places. 
(Billowbeck snapped his beak in annoyance at this.  Lowly indeed.  Groundbound, in fact, and still not yet a corpse.  Would the man not shut up and die?)
So there’s a plan, passed along in little notes kept hidden and precious.  Run out and away.  He can steal a horse, her husband has fine horses.  An easy escape.  But the mayor only unwinds in private, and he’s not escaped showing his tastes to the town for this long by being a stupid brute.  And well, maybe the reason this prey’s in low places, however friendly, is because he’s a touch soft in the head.  He’s a bit too obvious, a bit too easily spotted snooping about, and one thing leads to another, with him getting chased away before the eyes of his lady fair.
By now, the hunter is staring into the middle distance.  His ears, however, are focused yards behind him, on that mumbling, rambling, sun-cracked set of broken lips that are spilling careless lies – must they be lies? – everywhere. 
She’s desperate.  She’s alone.  She tries to run alone, but she’s not as used to keeping low and quiet as her friend, and she’s found out.  Now that might not have led to what came next but for her foresight, and her foresight was to steal a gun.  All of a sudden the mayor’s come a cropper, and she’s standing there with the gun when his boys come in.  Bang bang whoops and now they’ve got to hide the body.  And make a killer. 
Now, the friend in low places became confused in his story here, perhaps because this was the moment when he’d become… confused, himself.  He’d heard the shots.  And when he snuck in to check on her, he made a little more noise than he expected. 
He was, as Billowbeck had learned over his days of idle observance, a loud sobber. 
Off into the dark he went, bullets at his heels.  He’s escaped, they’re excused – a murderer in the dark! – and before the morning’s dawned pursuit’s afoot. 
And that was why the hunter was standing here, looking at pages of tattered letters, hidden inside a filthy pile of old rags that had once been a careful stash of supplies, blankets, and clothing.  He hadn’t wanted to lose them, he kept saying; he hadn’t wanted to lose them.  And the hunter was staring at them, not knowing what to believe anymore. 

It was at this point that Billowbeck had taken enough. 

“A body after all,” he said.  He was too calm to exclaim now, even with the great, festering wrath that was gnawing at his ironclad guts.  “One body.  And it is buried in a secret grave miles and miles from here.  And no doubt already the meal of worms which are the meals of moles which are wholly inaccessibly to one at the moment.  One has just about had enough of this.”
Down and low he swooped, light as his feathers, landing with a faint click and a whiff of sour air and bile just behind the quavering, wavering form of the quarry.  He stood still, mouth open and soundless, emptied of his story and not knowing what to say anymore.  He’d soundlessly extracted his pistol at some point in his tale and was playing with it, spinning it from the sky to his face over and over and over. 
“If he will not talk, one shall do it for him,” said Billowbeck.  He stretched out his beak, flapped up to a perch on one of the broken rocks that had formed the world’s least likely fortress (now breached), and leaned forwards.  A brisk tap on the shoulder, an unexpected squawk of alarm from a madman, a wheel about of the hero, a sighting of the weaponry.  Bang.  And lo, there is meat. 
A short bark from behind. 
An unexpected hissing grunt of alarm from a scavenger. 
A wheel about of the failed friend, a fumbling of unfamiliar weaponry. 
“Bang,” said Billowbeck, the lord, entrepreneur, and (former) plunderer of all that he had once surveyed.  The word came out in shock and slowness, as did his craning, failing attempts to twist his head about to see behind him.  He was granted his wish as his body crumpled in on itself, wings collapsing like a broken dust devil, and he saw the barest flip of the coyote’s tail and the echo of its laughter as it bounded down the side of the butte. 
And lo, there was meat.  And in the long days after the men vacated that butte, not one creature came to feed upon it, not even the ants.

A dreadful waste. 

“Soaring” copyright Jamie Proctor, 2011. 

“I am not big.  I wonder what it is to be large?” said the flea, hopping from strand to strand on an old, old tapestry.  “I can dance with a dust speck and jump two hundred times my length, but I am not big.  I wonder what it is like?  I think I will ask someone.  Spider!  What is it like to be big?”
The old, old, creaky spider in the corner of the ceiling stretched her many legs.  The flea was too small for her to eat, and too hard, but she found his company pleasing now and again.  Even a spider can’t eat everybody it knows.  “I am not big,” she said, spinning careful cobwebs as she spoke, like a knitting, predaceous grandmother (she was indeed a grandmother, though she’d never seen her grandchildren).  “I can snare the flies and crop the air clean of whatever may flutter through the air in here, in this little room, but I am not large.  No bug I’ve laid eyes upon escapes me save I call it small or poor (or friend, in your case), but I know my place.  I am small.  I will ask your question of another.”
So the spider spun herself a slim new line and shimmied her way out of the room on a fancy thread, legs twinkling.  She came to a big place where the air moved with purpose and coolness, and she spoke again.  “Bird!  You eat bugs where I can never reach.  Your wingspan is ten times my body’s length, your beak could swallow me whole without a single bite.  What is it like to be big?”
The swallow swooped down from her nest in the topmost corner of the courtyard, snapping a little thing with wings from the air on her way down.  “I am not big,” she said, lightning on the stone before the spider with all the ease of a comfortable, well-worn zephyr.  “Daily, I flit and flutter about in the high reaches of places a thousand, ten thousand times my size and millions of times my weight.  I am not the largest thing in the skies, but I am smaller still than the things that tromp down here.  I will ask one of them for you.  Priest!” she twittered, swallowsong rising up with a sweet demand, “What does it mean, what is it like, to be so large?”
The passing priest cupped a withered hand to his ear.  “Eh?”
“What is it like to be big?” asked the swallow, a bit more loudly and a lot less flowery. 
“To be big?”  The priest chuckled and fussed with his robes.  “Oh my word no no no, I’m afraid you’ve mistaken me, dear bird.  I am a small man – each and every one of my five sisters and four brothers outgrew me.  My wife looms over me, and she is not a big woman.  My children towered above me before they were grown.  And that’s just for people!  Why, people are not very big at all.  For the real size, you must look to things, not to people – even the biggest elephant, after all, would fit comfortably in the corner of this cathedral.  Is that not right, my lovely one?  Surely you are the one to tell us what it is, to be big.”
The cathedral chuckled, a sound like a quarry with indigestion.  “Priest,” it ground out in a voice too deep for most to ever hear, “you flatter me with well-meant foolery, my love.  I have been here for near a thousand years, yet I am made of rock that is older than I can begin to comprehend, hewn from places shaped by forces that would shatter me by careless lack of notice should I touch them.  I am small in this world, priest, and I will ask the one whom I came from for your question.  My mother, my mountain!  Tell us what it is to be big.”
The mountain took a moment to find its voice – which was a quiet, strong one – as they speak very seldom (perhaps once every ten thousand years, if they are garrulous).  “Little daughter,” it said, “my heights soar above all else for miles, yet they are eclipsed by the breadth and might of my roots, which sink deep, deep beneath you all, to reach places unknown by any living mind.  I know little of true size.  I have stood for longer than any can or ever will imagine, since this plate we rest on rammed its neighbour more than sixty million years ago.  I am but freshly-made.  This world I rest on is bigger than imagining, even my imagining – and what do mountains do all through the centuries beyond imagining? – and I will ask it your question.  Earth, my creator: what is it to be, to be so big?”
A planet’s voice is discrete, tidy.  It speaks using whatever materials are close at hand, from its dust on your feet to its atmosphere in your ear. 
“I don’t know,” said the planet, most thoughtfully.  “I have never considered this.  Do you think I am big?”
“If you are not, I know not what is,” said the mountain. 
“Oh no.  No.  I am small, among the smaller of our little solar system, biggest of the rocky planets though I be.  I wander through a space whose endless depth in all directions makes me shrink, and I do so under the eternal hand of a glowing fireball three-hundred-and-thirty-thousand times my mass; I did the math, you know.  It is not just big, it is strong – every moment it sheds enough energy to burn you all away in an instant were I not shielding you strongly.  Oh my sun, my Sol-mate, whose light burns life into me, can you tell me what it is like to be so big, to shine and be marked all across the cosmos?”
The sun thought.  “I am not so large,” it confessed, voice crackling through the electromagnetic spectrum.  “I am bigger than red dwarves, yes.  I am bigger than planets, yes.  But for a yellow star?  Not so large, no.  I burn slightly cooler than is the norm for my peers, and I am just as slightly smaller.  I am just barely below-average, my little planet.  And I do this inside the bounds of a system whose grip upon us all makes mine upon your person pale.  Galaxy, Milky Way, do you know what my planet speaks of, to be big?”
“No,” it said, choosing each word carefully and flatly lest it sink to causing strange ripples in nebula, setting black holes to vibrating with sounds that were the opposite of music.  “I do not.  I am average among my peers.  Perhaps a little larger than average.  I am smaller than my nearest neighbour.  Andromeda contains one trillion stars.  I contain two hundred billion.  Yet I am larger than the majority.  But galaxies are small.  There are many of us.  For each of my stars there is one of us that you can see from your seat.  And there are more unseen.  Ask the one we inhabit whose edges I do not know.  Universe.  What do you think it is to be big.”
The universe laughed.  This meant that everything in it also laughed – every star, asteroid, dust particle, truck driver, doctor, and planet laughed, and knew exactly why for at least one instant.  “Us?” it giggled.  “We?  We should know what it is to be big?  We are a possibility, all of us, one of more than can ever exist or be guessed at.  A chance, a fragment of what could happen.  We are a what-can-be, all of us, and that is the smallest and most precious thing of all.  We do not know what is it to be big.  We are small, all of us, even the largest, even against nothing at all.  That is our answer to all of us.”
“Yes,” said the Milky Way. 
“Oh yes,” said the sun. 
“I see,” said the planet. 
“Truth,” said the mountain. 
“Of course,” said the cathedral. 
“Goodness,” said the priest. 
“Surely so,” said the swallow. 
“Hah!” said the spider. 
“Oh,” said the flea. 

“But what does it really feel like?”

“Size,” copyright Jamie Proctor, 2010.