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THE CREEK
“With provisions you could live out here forever,” Marlowe told me a lifetime ago. I never imagined I would be here again, not like this.
From the bank of the creek, I call his name. The sound of it fills the night. Silence is the only answer. I am about to call again when he emerges from the trees behind the trailer.
Though he is just a shape in the darkness, I know him. He is not the man I remember. He approaches me, leaning heavily upon a cane and dragging the right side of his body. He moves slowly, as though every step causes him pain. When he draws closer, I can see that he is hideously disfigured, the left side of his face little more than an explosion of skin. I find myself recoiling, moving backward as he moves forward. Those eyes are the same black sinkholes in which I have drowned again and again.
I realize that my entire body is quavering, every muscle tense, every nerve ending electrified. I can’t believe I am looking at him, that
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