Fragment V; Kissing the Nightmare

Rosemary Collins was a girl with short black hair who had moved with her family from the very heart of New York City. She smoked clove cigarettes and listened to bands like The Cure and Depeche Mode. But perhaps the most striking thing Kim remembered about their first encounter were her eyes; shimmering pools of liquid obsidian that reflected nothing.

Some of it was adolescent arousal; he was eighteen and she was from a far away and cosmopolitan place, making her strangely exotic. Some of it was the fact he was simply curious, remembering that old saying of eyes being the windows to the soul. He wanted to know kind of soul resided behind eyes that did not reflect.

How he got her to go out on there first date was something of a miracle. She really didn’t come across as the type of girl one could take for a starlight picnic in the desert. The rustic seemed to be repellant to her. There were others at the high school, marrying themselves off and naming future children long before graduation, of whom she looked at as though they were lower. She’d gotten the same look and dismissing attitude when going to the reservations, though whether it was just dismissed in and of itself or not noticed was open for debate.

“Please tell me you’re not like that,” she said to Kim that fateful night under the stars. "Wanting to get married the second you graduate.”

“Not really. I’d like to get married,” he confessed. “Just not yet. I have to get to Africa first.”

“Africa? Really?” Rosemary seemed rather intrigued, and inched herself closer to him. “Is that because of your friend from Kenya?”

“Mofuko? Partially. I’ve always wanted to go to Africa. I guess maybe there’s something for me there.” Kim gingerly reached over to put his arm around her shoulders. “I’ll get there someday.”

“I’d love to go with you,” she whispered, the cinnamon from her cloves made her breath intoxicating.

“If you do, I’ll marry you,” Kim whispered back, and they shared their first kiss.

Although he’d never believed in fate, in that moment, he caught himself not only wondering, but hoping. Years later, in the center of Mofuko’s native village, Kim kept his promise and married her. Mofuko’s grandfather officiated the ceremony, if terms like officiate and ceremony could have even applied. Even so, they were so happy. So in love. It seemed almost like a fairy story.

“That was your first mistake, Sparrow,” Kim hissed into ink shadows of the ruin, taking a pull of whiskey, and doing his best to approximate Tiben’s accent. “You married your high school sweetheart. Idiot!”

It was hard to tell when the first cracks in their fairy story love affair began to appear. Being in far-flung locals where Kim would do his fieldwork bored Rosemary. She craved the excitement of cities. More to the point, big cities north of the equator, north of the African side of the Mediterranean. To get amongst throbbing masses of humanity thrilled her in the same way great expanses of nowhere excited him. The opposites that once attracted them began to repel.

Then he found the opium. It was only in later times he would question as to whether she was completely honest when he confronted her about it. They talked and yelled and cried. In the end, Rosemary promised she would stop. Kim promised, since she had gone with him to Africa, he would stand by her.

Ansouka was cleaning the house Kim and Rosemary shared before the building of Tangled Tree Manor, when she came upon the stash of opium. She had never fully liked or trusted Rosemary, but was polite because she was Kim’s wife. Therefore, it was Kim who saw the evidence first.

“Maybe it’s old stuff,” he muttered, not fully believing his own words.

“Kim Sparrow,” Ansouka said. “We both know better than that.”

He wasn’t going to go for the metaphoric strike two. Instead, he threw the drugs away. When he saw Rosemary once more, he wasted no time confronting her on it. Their ensuing fight echoed throughout Crossroads Station.

It was at some point, in a fit of rage, she grabbed the chef’s knife, and lashed out. Although she missed, the blade did knick the left side of his chest. Never in his life had Kim been so angry. When she tried to come at him again, he reacted.

In the years since, no matter how hard he tried to forget, no matter how much whiskey he drank or didn’t, he could vividly remember the sound of impact, the sensation of the back of his fist against Rosemary’s jaw, the sight of three of her teeth flying from her mouth in a spurt of blood. As she crumpled to floor, all he could do was stand there, shaking in a combination of fear, anger, and disgust at his own actions. The reality of what he had just done seemed so…unreal.

She looked up at him. He wanted to say something, but the words wouldn’t come. Something about her changed in those moments. The expression on Rosemary’s face, the look in her non-reflective eyes, was one of a feral animal just before it attacked.

“You bastard!” She hissed. “I’m going to fucking kill you!”

Kim could never clearly remembered what happened next. Even as Rosemary started to get up, Mofuko and Snobi suddenly appeared, pulling the couple away from one another before anything else could happen. Kim would later find out that Tiben all but tranquilized Rosemary and Dilip and Louis got her away from Crossroads Station that very night, never to return.

He asked and begged for whiskey while Mofuko checked the cut on his chest. He wanted to get drunk and forget. He wanted to quell the monstrous rage that had caused him to strike his wife.

Although the circle of friends all knew better, Rosemary would try to tell anyone who’d listen that Kim hit her so hard she had to have her jaw wired. What was most hurtful about this was when she said that to his grandparents. Kim’s grandfather, a man who seemed to be hewn from the very Arizona landscape where he lived, who was perceived as every Western film hero rolled into one, was furious. He almost disowned his grandson. It was Mofuko who explained what happened and changed Kim’s grandfather’s mind.

“What would you have had him do? Should he have stood still and let her stab him to death?”

Kim thought of all these things as he drank whiskey in the dark. Guilt and fear pelted his psyche like harsh rain. Over the last seven years he had dealt with the loss and betrayal, but he still feared that anger. It was why he refused to even look at a woman in that way, fearing if Rosemary had brought him to the point he could lash out, so could someone else. Despite what his friends said or thought, he did not want to take the risk.

  

“They’ll never get it,” he muttered to the silent shadows.

There was still a little less than half a bottle left when he finally returned to camp. Mofuko was sitting by the fire, as he always did, the dancing flames making him look as though he was carved out of onyx. As always, no further words passed between them, just the bottle. They sat up for another few hours before retiring for the night. It would be an early morning for them, getting up, having breakfast and breaking camp before returning to Crossroads Station. Kim found himself somewhat excited at the thought. He found he wanted to go home.

Fragment IV; Discussion in the Dark

About three miles north and east of Kim’s grandparents’ ranch was an expanse of nameless northern Arizona canyon. The stone was the color of rust and raw meat. One could drive to it, but, upon arrival, the canyon was only accessible on foot. It seemed to yawn away into forever, even if it didn’t exist on any official maps of the state.

This was Kim’s favorite place to go camping. As a gesture of growing friendship to Mofuko, he brought the young exchange student on one of his excursions. The spot Kim particularly loved was a shallow indention in the stone near a fresh water source. What attracted him to it initially was what was inscribed along the wall; pictograms, older than oldest memory in the region. No one knew who put them there, or when, of course. But Kim always took them as a comforting sign. Something that let him know the place he selected was safe.

“There are marks like this where I come from,” Mofuko told him, starring awestruck at the pictograms as he ran his large hands across the red rock. “The ancestors left them. Seeing these, I know my grandfather would say this shows how all things are connected.”

“Funny. My Grandpa would say the same thing if you told him that,” Kim said with a smile. The both them found that moment to be a defining one in their friendship.

Years later, when they found the red rock outcropping they would come to name the ruin, both them felt drawn to it. Although it was not in a desert canyon, both men agreed that it somehow reminded them of that canyon in northern Arizona. They both agreed it would be a perfect place to set up camp when in the field.

They were not disappointed. The ruin offered several sheltered areas from the elements, as well as spectacular vantage point in which to observe the plain. There was fresh water nearby, even in the dry season. During their initial exploration, Kim came upon Mofuko standing in a beautiful natural alcove. He was staring in awe at the wall, running his hands along the red rock. Carved into the wall were pictograms.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Kim said softly.

“Marks of the ancestors,” there was reverence in Mofuko’s voice, which only surfaced on very rare occasions.

“Your grandfather would say this shows how all things are connected,” Kim said.

“Funny,” Mofuko whispered, a smile slowly forming across his broad face. “Your grandpa would say the same thing if you told him that.”  

Ever since, when going into the field, they camped in that alcove. There was a running joke between them that were going to someday leave marks of their own. Kim often suggested the remnants of a tic-tac-toe game, saying it would puzzle future anthropologists for centuries afterward. Mofuko suggested a smiley face and the well-wishes of having a nice day. Whenever these schemes were mentioned, they were laughed at, but quickly dismissed. Part of it was the reverence for the nameless artists that left the first pictograms, but the other aspect, Kim would often say, was they had no carving tools with them.

The early spring observations did not take up too much of the day and the weather was blissfully mild. Both Kim and Mofuko knew Tiben would be ribbing them about their milk run. Because of that, Kim began to compose an alternate field log with stories of wild predators, marauding militants, horrible storms, and even aliens from outer space, attacking their campsite. His reasoning being that it would at least keep Tiben entertained, if not convince him that their expedition into the field had been more than a mere camping trip.

On their final night, Mofuko brought out meat from its specially sealed containment to cook for dinner. He also pulled out two cigars for an afterward indulgence. As was tradition, Kim pulled out the bottle of whiskey for their final night under the wide open sky away from everyone and everything before returning to Crossroads Station. They ate dinner as the sun was setting and cool breeze wafted through their campsite. It was dusk as they cleaned their dishes and lit their cigars. By full dark, the bottle was opened.

“Tiben must never know you brought whiskey for this trip, my brother,” Mofuko chukled.

“He gives me a hard time and I’ll tell him to quit being so damned British.”

“I am not sure that will work.”

“Why not?” Kim inquired through a liberal gulp. “We all harass Louis about being French, and Tibs calls me a Yank more often than he uses my actual name.”

“You have a point,” Mofuko said as he took the bottle.

They sat back, passing the bottle between them slowly and silently. Above them, the moon and stars slowly moved through their nightly dance. Perhaps it was the play of firelight against the rock, maybe it was the whiskey, but the ancient pictograms seemed to almost sway within the copper-colored shadows.

“Snobi and I were talking just before I left, my brother,” Mofuko said finally.

“You’re married,” Kim said. “I hear married people do that sometimes.”

“She thinks it is time to find a woman again.”

“We’ve had this discussion before, Mofuko,” Kim snorted as he grabbed the bottle. “In fact, we have it every last night in the field, but it was old the first time we discussed it. Maybe you shouldn’t drink whiskey.”

“Maybe you should consider it.”

“I’m not ready yet.”

“Kim, my brother,” Mofuko began, already knowing where the discussion was heading, but keeping it up out of habit. “It has been seven years.”

“It can be seven more for all I care!” He snapped. “I’m through with women.”

“Not every woman is like Rosemary. You would do well to remember that.”

“Can we talk about this some other time?”

“I just want you to acknowledge I have a point,” Mofuko said.

“Is it some other time already?” Kim snarled. He then took a rather long pull of whiskey and stood up. “I’m going for a walk.”

“Are you going to leave the bottle?”

“I think you’ve had enough, Mofuko,” Kim replied with another gulp. “But I haven’t.”

With that, Kim stalked off into the shadows. This discussion, this argument, had become such a staple of being out in the field, it was all but choreographed. He would be gone for an hour or so, sitting somewhere in the dark, under the stars, drinking whiskey. Depending upon the heat of the discussion dictated how much was left in the bottle when he returned to camp. They would then finish the rest of the bottle in silence. The next morning, breakfast would be made, they would break camp, and return home. It might be a week or more before they spoke again, but once that happened, the discussion in the dark would not be mentioned.

Mofuko never asked him about what he thought about of saw out there in the shadows of the field. Although he speculated it was on such nights Kim once more fully inspected his memories of his marriage to Rosemary, perhaps trying to figure out where things went so horribly wrong. It seemed like he blamed himself for her opium addiction and the attack, which almost got him stabbed.

The elders of Mofuko’s native village would sometimes tell stories about ghosts and demons that hid in the dark. To a degree, he believed in them. At least when they came to the ruin. They were of Rosemary. Those phantasms that Kim carried with him wherever he went, but it seemed they only truly manifested when Mofuko tried to talk to his friend about the prospect of perhaps meeting someone new.

“Oh, my brother,” Mofuko muttered into the shadows after Kim. “If only I knew how to help you let go of her.”        

Fragment III; A Parting Shot of Naan

They ate in a relative, relaxed silence, enjoying the food more than the sound of one another's voice or the intellectual stimulus of which conversation could arouse. The mournful tones of the Sufi record afforded a comfortable backbeat, almost akin the songs of birds and chattering of insects when out in the field. It was only when more coffee or food was asked for that the pseudo-silence was broken by language, although, more often, they tried to simply gesture to what was requested.

Kim was not in any hurry, but he never was, despite his penchant for appearing suddenly. This allowed Mofuko to unwind a little. He was always a little high-strung before leaving, fearing he was either running late or had forgotten something.

They were only going to be gone a week. It was a simple trip out to the ruin to make a few early spring observations. Tiben had harassed both of them mercilessly about it two nights before at the cantina, stating the jaunt was more of camping trip than an actual field expedition. Of course, the term milk run came up in conversation.

"I hope you're not taking whiskey with you, Sparrow," Tiben mocked, his accent augmented by the liberal amount of gin he'd drank that night. "Whiskey's for the last night after a proper bout of fieldwork, not a bloody milk run."

"Now, Tibs," Kim shot back, "You know the only kind of milk out you can get out in the field is the powdered kind. There ain't a village for miles, and I'm not going after a nursing mother for cream in Mofuko's tea."

The exchange got Mofuko to laugh, nearly spitting up his beer in mid-gulp. Upon recollection, he found his coffee catching in his throat. Kim gave him a concerned look.

"It is okay, my brother," he said once he could speak properly. "I was thinking of Tiben."

"Milk run?" Kim inquired with a smirk.

"Milk run," and they both chuckled before resuming their meal.

They did not speak for the rest of breakfast. Kim gathered up the dirty dishes to wash. Mofuko checked his own pack and then went to check Kim's gear. The record ended and John Coltrane was put on in its place. Mofuko half thought of requesting some Ramones or Black Flag, but decided against it, knowing they would be leaving soon. He started to loose himself in the music at hand when he was pulled from his musings by a knocking on the front doorframe of Tangled Tree Manor.

"Kim Sparrow!" Her voice was that of sitars and soft flow of Mother Ganges. "Are you home?"

It was Ansouka. When she wasn't referring to Kim as the bird man, she, like Dilip, would call him by his full name. The other thing that announced her presence, aside from the knock, was the warm scent of fresh naan.

"Ansouka Chadry!" Kim called back, returning the joke of using full names. "Would my front door be open if I wasn't here?"

"There is no need to be smart, Kim Sparrow."

"Duh...I'm sorry."

Mofuko came upon them standing in the kitchen. Ansouka was looking up at Kim defiantly, despite being only half his height. Her bearing made up for diminutive stature. She was dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweater with her thick black hair pulled into a single tight pony tail. She seemed perpetually perfumed in incense and lotuses. The bindi and delicate gold nose ring stood out in contrast to her dark skin. It was joked amongst the circle of friends that she and Kim were secretly in love with one another, which was why they would sometimes antagonize one another the way they did. Dilip had more than once offered to divorce Ansouka for his friend, to which Kim would ask what he was being punished for.

"Good morning, Mofuko," Ansouka said without looking in his direction. "I trust you're well."

"Always," he said. "And you?"

"Until I walked into this house I was having a wonderful day."

"Does Dilip tape your mouth shut to get some peace from your incessant whining?" Kim asked. "Or is that why he drinks so much when we all have dinner together?"

"My husband does not drink much unless he is around you, Kim Sparrow."

"I actually believe it's more Tiben than anyone," Mofuko interjected. "At least that is what Snobi would say."

"Stay out of this," Ansouka snapped in a playful tone.

"He does have a point," Kim added. "That Tibs, he's a bad influence."

"Why am I here again?"

"That's a bit philosophical for this early in the morning."

"Kim Sparrow!"

"Hey, you asked the question..."

"I meant here," Ansouka growled, her dark eyes rolling. "In this overgrown treefort of yours."

"Because you wanted to wish two of your friends a safe journey out into the dangers that is fieldwork," Kim said, trying not to chuckle when Ansouka rolled her eyes once more. "And there is the matter of the package."

"Package?" Mofuko was curious.

He watched Ansouka slide a cloth bundle toward Kim. There were small tendrils of steam rising from the folds. Kim pulled open the bundle and held up a piece of fresh naan.

"I got you a present, my brother," he said. "You see, Ansouka Chadry is not a total bitch."

"And I hope you choke on the first piece you eat, Kim Sparrow."

"Thank you," Mofuko said, giving her a quick hug.

"There is no need to thank me. Just come back safe. I'd hate to have to comfort Snobi if something bad happen to you. As for Kim Sparrow," the amused twinkle in her eyes belied the malice in her voice. "Leave him to the scavengers."

"For you, Ansouka Chadry, I'm going to come back in one piece to grace your dinner table," he said.

"I will try to be excited," she said over her shoulder as she walked out.  

Fragment II; Kim Sparrow

Walking past the Chadry house, he caught the scent of naan being baked. Maybe if he wasn't so busy salivating, he might have found it odd that Anouska was up so early making bread. Instead, his thoughts flashed to the dinner night gatherings that were held every few weeks between himself and Snobi, the Chadry's, Tiben, Louis, and Kim. They would get together in the late afternoon to make dinner and have drinks, sometimes going late into the evening at whoever's respective house. Other times, a few of them, most often Tiben, Mofuko, and Kim, would retire to the cantina for a few rounds and socialization with any of the other residents of Crossroads Station that might be out and about.

Their last dinner night had been at Louis'. Tiben had given Kim an album of Sufi music and both of them, after a few bottles each of red wine, had mercilessly taunted Louis for being too French. The next dinner night, a few weeks away, was scheduled to be at the Chadry's. With the scent of Anouska's naan in his nose, Mofuko could also imagine Dilip's famous vindahloo and tandoori chicken. Despite himself, his stomach began to grumble ever so slightly.

The taunting scent of freshly baking naan started to fade as Mofuko reached the edge of the compound. Here was a structure he had helped build. It was made to be in concert, not conflict, with the living earth around it. Part of the structure was dug into a small hill, while the rest was built in such a way around a massive, twisted, tree upon the hill's crown, as to look like it'd always been there. It was from the tree the residence took its name; Tangled Tree Manor. This was Kim's house.

From the open door, Mofuko could hear Sufi music being played upon a turntable. There was a warm glow about the place. It seemed more to be alive. When it was designed, Kim often stated he wanted it to be more grown than built. Given the fluid curves and scents of raw earth, fresh water, and the tree itself, mingling with the scents of spices from the kitchen, old books, and incense, most everyone said with a certain amount of awe that Kim succeeded.

Another smell greeted Mofuko upon entry into Tangled Tree Manor; the scent of coffee. Coffee was something of an indulgence around Crossroads Station. For some reason, it was always easier to get tea from the commissary. Supposedly, Tiben had made inquiries into this, but was never given a satisfactory answer. Most everyone else dealt with the circumstance as best they could. After all, Crossroads Station was rather far out, and because of that, some things, like coffee, were luxury items.

"I am here, my brother," Mofuko called as he walked into the kitchen.

Kim was standing over the stove. Both Ansouska and Snobi would sometimes call him the bird man because his surname was Sparrow. Mofuko, and sometimes Tiben, would chide that the bird he most resembled was a vulture, because of the fact he kept his scalp clean shaven. Out of all of them, only Mofuko and Snobi had ever known Kim to have a full head of hair, but they had also known him the longest. It had been lovely, thick, and dark. The kind Snobi used to say would help attract him a wife. But in the Kalahari he decided he was tired of it, and upon returning asked her to shave it all off, never in the fifteen years since to grow it back. Sometimes Snobi would suggest he grow back his hair, even just a little, as to get a wife, and he would remind her of the woman he was married to who became an opium addict that tried to stab him when he discovered her habit and threw her drugs out.

He was a tall man with a wiry build. From years of being out in the sun, his skin was the color of polished copper, which stood in sharp contrast to his jade green eyes. He didn't move so much as he would just appear somewhere. Mofuko often thought of the vampire film they once watched at the cantina in which the creatures moved so quickly they seemed to teleport. Although he did not believe in vampires, the film made him think of Kim.

"Glad you made it, my brother," he said over his shoulder. "I'm sure you can smell the coffee. I'm also making bacon, sausage, and eggs."

"It's a good thing I brought an empty belly," Mofuko said with a wide smile, his perfect white teeth standing out in sharp contrast against his ebony skin.  

"Well, do me a favor" Kim said. "the record's almost over, so go flip it over, and I'll finish getting breakfast ready."

"I am curious to know if you have listened to anything else since Tiben gave you this."

"I'll have you know I listened to both my Ramones and Black Flag records last night. Twice."

"And you didn't invite me?" Mofuko looked shocked. "Kim, I am hurt."

"I was going to," he said. "But after I ran into Snobi yesterday, I changed my mind."

"What did she say?"

"Nothing. She gave me a look when I told her I was going to be listening to old punk rock records."

"'A look'?" Mofuko repeated.

"Yes, a look." Kim said, shooting his friend an impish smile. "The look that told me she was going to go to bed the same time as you, so you might help her voice reach new octaves of operatic loveliness."

"My brother," Mofuko started as he walked into the parlor to flip over the record, his laughter barely contained. "you have no shame."

They had known one another for just a little over twenty years. Mofuko had won the chance to leave his native village for a year of being an exchange student. He traveled to Arizona. The American southwest, the land of John Wayne, Lee Marvin, and Clint Eastwood, was a place of myth and magic to him. A wholly different type of mystical than the one spoken of in the stories of the village elders. When he first arrived, he was acquainted with things that took away some of the glamor of tall tales of America he had heard growing up, but the stark landscapes near the reservations and the endless sky still fascinated him.

It was amongst the rock and sand and scrub, he met Kim. For all the mythology Mofuko held of America, Kim held toward Africa. They became mutual teachers in the realities of their respective homelands, and something in the demysticifications made both places magical once more, just in a different way. After graduating high school, Kim traveled to Kenya to visit Mofuko and was introduced to his grandfather, one of the village elders. The old man smiled at this tall, dark-haired boy with sun-painted copper skin and jade green eyes.

"It is amazing you had to travel around the world to find your brother," he told Mofuko. The bond the two felt toward one another was suddenly placed into words.

Over the years, they would travel the world together. Through marriages, Kim's divorce, and the death of Mofuko's grandfather, the two of them only grew closer. Sometimes, Snobi would tease that her adopted brother in law would one day steal away her husband. Although it was only a joke, Kim would reassure her with a warm hug and a kiss upon the brow, saying he loved her too much. After all, he would often call her sister. On the day of their wedding, he told both them not to hurt the other, lest he would feel inclined to hurt them.

Breakfast was on the kitchen table when Mofuko returned from the counter. Coffee, with cream and brown sugar at the ready, sat next to his plate. The eggs were scrambled and there was two links of fat sausage and four strips of bacon. Mofuko smiled broadly as Kim sat down opposite of him.

"My favorite kind of breakfast before a trip into the field," he said. "My brother, how did you know?"

"Call it a lucky guess," Kim said with a wink.

Fragment I; Dawn at the Crossroads

*** Something I'm sort of kicking around. I'm not quiet sure if it'll develop into a full novel-length tale or a series of short stories. Maybe it won't go anywhere at all. It all depends on if the words keep coming. Roll the bones...***

As the sun crested the horizon, it painted the landscape the same shade of pastel pink as the wispy predawn clouds above. A slight breeze tickled the air and the low chirps of the first birds broke the silence of a sleeping world. Everything was a study in cool colors, waiting for the slowly rising sun to introduce warmer hues into the world once more.

Mofuko had been awake since before the sun. Before the first hints of light, when the world was still ebony and silent. When the stars still shown brilliantly and even the hushed sound of his breathing seemed to be a variable cacophony, offending the pristine quiet of the small hours between the latest of night and the earliest of mornings. There was a strange comfort he found in being up so early, watching the world change from darkness to light. A magic, which he could not put into any language he knew. Yet, he also knew many of the others had felt a similar magic in those early in-between times.

He finished his tea and placed the mug in the sink. It was still dark when he lightly kissed Snobi on the cheek to wish her farewell. She stirred only slightly, muttering something indecipherable he liked to believe was a whisper of affection. He liked to believe she was smiling when he kissed her, the way he knew she would once he returned.

In the space of moments, it seemed, the sun was much higher. Tiny details were becoming visible, both within his own house and the world outside. He could make out more of the structures, which made up the compound. The best word that came to mind when trying to describe the place was juxtaposition. Mufuko and Snobi's home was a simple, almost utilitarian unit, whereas Tiben's place was an elegant traditional Victorian style, which he meticulously worked on keeping up. The Chadry's place was apparently reminiscent of Delip's childhood home back in India, and Louis' looked like an experiment in modern art from a more arcane time. The cantina looked a saloon from an American wild west film and other buildings, ranging from residence to other functions, took on all manner of forms from all over the world. Then there was Kim's house that he would call an experiment in organics. It was this juxtaposition, of both structures and inhabitants, that gave meaning to the compound's name of Crossroads Station.

Shouldering his pack, Mofuko set off. Although it wasn't a long walk to Kim's, he'd meant to leave a little earlier. The darkness had stayed him. Consciously, he couldn't understand why. He was a grown man whom had faced dangers far more terrifying than silent darkness of night. Perhaps the answer was something more primal, or the whispers of a mostly forgotten story the elders of his own native village used to tell when he was a young boy to keep him from getting into trouble. Whatever the reason, he was later than he wanted to be, despite the fact neither Kim nor himself had set a definitive time to meet other than early.