“Well, then. It looks like it did the trick,” he says. “Good as new.”
The trick. Everything is a game to him, isn’t it?
“Guess so,” I mutter.
The sun has rolled higher, illuminating the landscape, golden and pure. One solitary avian stays conspicuously silent, soaring through the air. It lands and cowers amongst a tree in the distance, raking through the twigs and seeds of pine with its beak.
A gentle breeze pushes through the leaves, bringing a dusting of spores into the air. The bird's gentle motion as it sits is only interrupted as the quills on its head rise. Its beak opens, and the fowl begins to chirp.
The shrill noises break the silence of the morning. A rippling hill of dry grass accompanies the tree-line as more avian shapes begin to form in the underbrush. Like the bark on the tree, their wings sound so smooth that it almost cannot be perceived.
But I can hear them, and so can Ava. We’re both staring at the loveliness of this world, wishing we could start over.
Does it matter if they are real? Alive? To them, they are here, looking toward the future. Time is their enemy, just as it is for the humans who made this place. So why are we all so vilified?
Finally, I ask the question that’s been eating at me for hours. “What do you want with us?”
He folds the knife back into its holder, standing to stretch his legs. He clicks his lips and rolls his tongue back against his molars to remove the bits of food stuck between his gums.
“That’s a complicated question,” he says.
I stand with him. “Doesn’t seem too complicated.”
“You know, I’m beginning to like you, Kalxor. You’re more intuitive than I thought,” he says.
It’s a compliment, but it doesn’t feel too good coming from him. I don’t give him the satisfaction of smiling. He’s evading me, and I want to know why.
“You going to answer my question?” I ask.
He nods and sniffs through one nostril. “In time,” he says. “But it’s like I said, this place is an organism. It can’t be managed from the outside. The only way to understand it is by living it.”
“I’ve lived it a thousand times over,” I reply.
He leans forward and grabs his water pack in his hands. After taking a long swig, he says, “You’ve both seen a lot of this place, but you ain’t never lived it.”
He pours the contents onto the fire, and the fire disappears. The cold embers burn red, floating into the sky, never to be seen again. There is nothing but the smell of smoke and ash, which signals to us that it’s time to go.
Finally, Ava stands. “Dammit, I’m sick of you holding back details. If you expect us to keep following you, you better tell us what the hell you mean.”
The smoke clears, and the sight of her father rolling up a set of blankets is enough to remind me how stone-cold and lifeless this place can be. He watches her from the corner of his eye, weighing on the decision to stay silent or tell her everything.
“Well, Gerard? Say something,” she shouts.
When the dust settles, he starts to walk, expecting us to trail behind. Of course, we follow. There’s nothing else we can do.
After a few minutes, he cocks his head back at us. “Have you ever wanted to become something entirely encompassing?” he asks.
Ava groans. “No. I’ve yearned for the opposite. I want someone to embrace my heart as much as I embrace theirs. That’s it.”
“Love,” he says. “Your mother would’ve said the same thing.”
“I’m not my mother,” she says. “I never got to meet my mother.”
Knowing too much, I bite my tongue. It’s not enough that he continues to lie to her. He has to rub her loneliness in like salt to an infected wound.
He starts to slow, boots digging into the grassy pathway. A herd of deer run by, mulling over the list of commands given to them. One looks over at us, st
ares me in the eye, as if it is cheering me on.