arwink
Clockwork Golem
Friends Found in Lethargy
It was one of those down times, when I was back in Southport and doing nothing. This time around, it was due to design rather than coincidence. I’d finished big job down south a few weeks earlier, earned enough to keep myself in a humble manner for a month or three, so I headed decided to take a brief respite rather than capitalize on my success. It’s a common enough practice for me; Southport was a place where boredom settled in with the tides and I could drink beer and watch daytime TV until the need for work and money uprooted me again.
I drove into town and rented myself a room at the Jadran, this run-down hotel a block back from park that separates the city from the water. It was a seedy enough place, the sign out the front depicting the silhouette of a bikini-clad woman leaning against a palm tree and the whole complex lit up with green lights. At night I would leave my unit shadowed, lit up only by the television and the green seeping in from outside. I’d open myself a fresh beer and sit on the balcony, staring at the brick wall view and enjoying the ambient buzz of crickets, cars and the various eccentrics that surrounded me. The Jadran was that kind of place. Even among the general exhaustion of Southport’s buildings, it was a beacon to the mildly deranged or outcast. A place where you could sit, do nothing, and not be bothered by anyone. It’s one of the reasons I was there. It was the reason Nick was there as well, biding his time in the flat next to mine.
I’d seen Nick around before we became neighbors. He was one of those Southport people, those residents that always seemed to be on the edge of your vision. He was a local landmark, if you will. Like the guy whose mullet had turned into dreadlocks at the back, always hanging around the local shopping center, or the old guy with tourette’s syndrome that was always on the back of your bus at nine PM. Nick was a local in the indescribable sense; an entity that everyone seemed to know by reputation rather than name. The first few times I’d lived here, I’d see him at the local McDonalds buying burgers for that weird Skeleton-child he was always carting around. Or he’d be sitting in the park, muttering under his breath as he watched the Broadwater slowly drifting out to sea. It was the kind of stuff Nick did, indecipherable and strange.
The first clue I had about our proximity was the music, and everything else seemed to follow from there. I was sitting on my balcony, drinking beer and wearing nothing but boxers. It was in the heart of summer, and the muggy heat and the mosquitoes were starting to drain all the energy out of the air. I was listening for crickets, trying to guess the make and model of the cars that were cruising the main road by the noise of their engine. Then the music starts, winding its way from Nick’s balcony. It almost sounds like someone playing guitar, except the sequence of notes is more complex than any I’d heard before and the sound is somehow softer, more gentle and lilting. I listened to the song for a few minutes, closing my eyes and drifting along with the rhythm. It reminded me of this girl I once new, the singer for a Celtic folk band that broke my heart. It made me think of red hair and a smile I knew I would never see again, and it was the first time I could remember her without feeling angry or pained. It took some time to realize that I strangely happy about the way things had turned out, like I suddenly understood more about events and it made everything easier to accept. It was that kind of music, the kind that made heartache feel distant and worthwhile.
Nick played for the better part of an hour before I decided to introduce myself, leaning over the corner of the balcony with a spare beer to offer him. I knew him, as I said, but that didn’t seem such a big deal at the time. It was the kind of coincidence you expected at the Jadran, to look over to your neighbor’s balcony and see a gray-bearded Southport local identity playing an instrument you barely recognize. He was still playing, eyes closed and fingers dancing along his instrument. It was strange to watch– his hands shifting along the two dragon-like necks while his strange skeleton-child perched on his shoulder and plucked at a third set of strings, strung like a harp from the dragons tail that curved from the instruments body. The instrument was a two man job, but the skeleton child seemed adequate to the task, small fingers moving nimbly to pluck string after string and large ears cocked to catch the rhythm.
When they finished I applauded, the two beer bottles clinking together softly. The Skeleton-child ran at the noise, disappearing through the open doorway to cower under a couch. Nick just opened his eyes and grinned through his graying beard.
“Beer,” he said. “Excellent.”
“I owed you,” I told him. “For the show.”
“You liked it?” Nick asked.
I nodded.
“You got anymore beer?”
I nodded again. I’d stocked up when I arrived, enough to last several months.
“Why don’t you come over then,” Nick told me. “I think we can put a dent in your supplies.”
The skeleton-child bore its teeth at me, a mouthful of sharp needles.
“I don’t think your friend likes me,” I said. I pointed at its position under the couch, the faint glow of its eyes and the soft hiss.
“He’ll survive,” Nick said. “Lou is easily startled, but surprisingly hardy.”
I nodded, trusting his word, but I made a point of putting on heavy boots before I went over. The boots I wear when I’m out bush, and afraid of stepping on snakes. The boots I wear when I fear for the safety of my ankles.
The unit Nick was renting was a mirror to my own, but showed signs of a fastidiousness I could never imagine. The kitchen was neatly kept, the lounge sparse and well decorated. The only potential for mess were the candles Nick kept burning, and even then the candelabra were kept surprisingly free from wax drippings. Even the faded carpet, with its design that imitated gray mouse-droppings on beige wool, seemed cleaner and fresher than my own.
“Lou takes care of the cleaning,” Nick explained. “I don’t have the attention span.”
The Skeleton-child was perched on his shoulder once more; it’s hollow eyes glaring at me. At his comment, it took to preening itself, scraping a skeletal finger along the edge of a rib, before leaping to the floor.
I proffered the six-pack I’d brought along, and Nick was quick to twist a lid free and begin drinking. We settled into plush couches, amiably silent for a time, while Lou batted the twist-top lids around the room like a cat. After a time, the small creature grew bored of the game, but did stop to lay a tiny hand on my knee before taking its place on Nick’s shoulder once more.
“I think he’s adapted,” Nick said, stroking the creatures elongated, bone ears. “He’s always pleased when someone brings something for him to play with.”
“Good to hear,” I said. “I’m Jack, by the way.”
Nick just nodded, extending his hand and introducing himself. For a moment I got the impression that Nick wasn’t his real name, something about the way he paused before he used it, but I didn’t press the issue. Jack is far from my real name as well, but I’ve grown more comfortable with its use.
We said little that night, just sat and drank and felt the humidity get worse. Summer was in force over Southport, and neither of us had much to say.
It was a few days before we spoke again. Nick was quiet, probably up to something only he could understand, and I went back to my routine of drinking and television. Eventually I decided I needed to get out, to see something of the old neighborhood while I was here. When I got home, there were letters stuffed into Nick’s mailbox and a package addressed to him lying on top. I paused for a moment, considering it all. The package was small and rectangular, about the size of a human head, and it had the air of something important. The letters numbered in the dozen, and checking the dates on the postmark I knew that some had been there for weeks. I’m not known for being a good neighbor, I’m rarely in one place long enough for the effort to be worthwhile, but I gathered Nick’s long-neglected mail and took it to his door.
He smiled when he opened the door, smiled wider when he saw the post in my hands.
“Thanks,” he said. “Normally Lou gets it, but the past few times I’ve sent him out he’s come back empty handed.”
He paused for a moment, glanced over his shoulder to ensure the Skeleton-child was occupied with its playstation game before leaning in to whisper.
“I think he’s afraid to go the entire way. He’s been getting into fights with the brute of a cat from Unit 4, and he doesn’t like to admit it.”
I nodded, not much caring. Nick shrugged and rifled through the mail, checking addresses.
“Come in,” he said. “I’ve made coffee. If you don’t mind, I think we’ll say the post was delivered to your address by mistake. To preserve Lou’s feelings, you understand. He’s sensitive about such things.”
I shrugged again. No skin of my nose, and my ankles felt very bare in my sneakers.
Sitting on the couch, drinking rich coffee, I watched Nick unwrap the parcel. Paper fell away layer by layer to reveal a picture frame, crafted from red rock. Nick beamed when he saw it, his face lighting up as he gazed into the frames center. After taking a deep breath, he held it up for me to examine. A landscape was set into the frame, although it was so realistic it was enough to take your breath away. The green, majestic mountains were a stark contrast to the red-baked desert stone of the frame. When I reached forward to touch the picture, the snow-capped peaks left a cold smudge of frost on my fingertip.
“An old home,” Nick explained. “I lived there years ago, and a friend thought I might be pinning for it.”
He pauses to sigh theatrically. Lou stopped hammer the controls of his computer game to establish Nick wanted for nothing, then went back to pressing buttons.
“I do miss it, a little,” Nick said. “There was a rawness there I haven’t experienced since. Every day rushed past like a rumbling river. They held power, eagerness, but there was no time for reflection. No real meaning. Not like here. Here the days flow past like honey, rich but slow moving.”
“It looks like a nice place,” I offered. “Very wild.
“I suppose,” Nick said. “Wild is not always the redeeming feature we expect it to be.
He stood up and placed the picture on a shelf, next to several small painting and portraits of strangers, Lou and occasionally Nick himself. He stared at it for a few minutes, then turned towards me. The lines of his face were pronounced, and I noticed the tip of a scar poking out of his beard for the first time.
“Why do you stay here, Jack?” he asked. “What is it that keeps you here?”
I hadn’t ever thought about this before. It took some consideration and half a mug of coffee before I found an answer.
“Inertia,” I said. “This is the place I come when I can longer be bothered moving.”
“And what do you do when you’re not here?”
I thought about this too, thought long and hard about the tools of the trade still hidden beneath my bed. It’s rare I feel like talking about work with anyone, but there was a temptation to answer Nick’s question. Only prudence and practice kept me from answering honestly.
“Odd jobs,” I said. “I try to fill in the gaps here and there. Entertaining, sometimes, drudge work other times.”
Nick just nodded, once. Lou finished his game, crawled quietly into Nick’s lap. We said nothing for a long time, and eventually I excused myself and went home.
The time to leave came sooner than I would have liked, and I gave my weeks notice the day I got the details of the next job. There wasn’t much I had to do before I left, but the idea of saying goodbye to Nick loomed in my mind until I finally did it the afternoon before I left. I knocked on his door with the six-pack of beer I hadn’t yet drunk under my arm, intending to give it to him as a gift for his hospitality.
He was half-dressed when he answered, bare-chested and wearing ragged jeans. The promise of a scar I’d detected along the edge of his beard was delivered upon on his chest, a mass of ugly tissue and purple lumps. I tried not to stare as I offered the beer and explained I was leaving. Nick didn’t seem embarrassed, pointed at one or two of the larger scars with a grin.
“Souvenirs from another life,” he said. He smiled at me, ushered me in. Lou was quietly snuffling in the remains of a cheeseburger rapper, peeling off the last of the cheese. Gobbets of half-chewed burger where spread along the newspaper spread out beneath his bowl.
“He loves the taste,” Nick explained, “But he can’t digest. I normally don’t let people in when he’s feeding, but you brought beer.”
He shrugged as though that explained everything, sat me on the couch and opened two beers.
“So why are you going?” he asked.
“Work,” I said. It was a simple answer, and I felt the need to expand on it. “The rest period is over. A few months off, then back to the grind.”
“Entertainment, or laboring?”
“A bit of both, for a while. I’m heading north, to Cairns, then east towards Darwin.”
“Good traveling,” Nick said. He held a beer high in salute, grinning through his white beard. I watched the way his scars twitched as his arms moved. One of them, longer than the rest, snaked from his belly to his forearm. I was staring, and once again he didn’t seem to mind.
‘Touch it,” Nick said. “You may learn something.”
I felt awkward touching another man, but curiosity got the better of me. My fingers brushed along the tip of the bruise, over the wiry bicep. I was struck by a sudden image, almost like a memory, of wearing heavy armor and bleeding while friends carried me out of an arena. It was a subtle thought at first, but then it hit my like some kind of drug – a sudden rush of feeling, memory and pain. I jerked my hand back, as though bitten by a snake, and looked into Nick’s eyes. They twinkled a little, like he was laughing at me, but it could have been the beer talking.
“You were a gladiator?” I asked. It seemed silly, I could remember the experience well even though I’d never experienced it.
“It wasn’t my mistake,” Nick said, “but someone has to pay for it. Sometimes, you bear someone else’s burdens whether you want to or not.”
“But you were a warrior, a swordsman?”
Nick shrugged.
“Does it really matter. A mistake was made. A life was almost lost. Someone bears the brunt of that, will always bear the brunt of it until they die.”
“Why take it if the experience wasn’t yours, then?”
“Who knows? Because fate asks many things. Because sometimes there’s a lesson in someone else’s pain.”
Nick shrugged again, started on his second beer. We watched the sun shift along the fence, the rabid dog pace the yard. Lou paused in his snuffling to peer at me, crawled forward to rest a skeletal head on my shoes.
“If you’re ever back this way, come see me again,” Nick said. “Lou seems to like you, and that’s rare.”
I promised. I still don’t know if I was being honest, but I thought so at the time.
I packed the next morning. Practice has made it a quick process, a simple matter of collecting and compiling my life into two small suitcases. When it came to the box under my bed, I stared at it for a few seconds. It seemed less appealing, less necessary than it had the day before. It made me think of Nick’s scar, the reasons he carried it. In the end, I lugged it down and put it into the boot instead of under the passenger side seat. A small change, a different choice, but enough to make a difference. A strange feeling settled in as I kicked the car into gear, getting worse as I drifted towards the Highway. I thought about the work to the north, the money it could make and the time I could spend drifting aimlessly after it was done. I found myself thinking of the red haired girl with her Celtic songs, the one that broke my heart. I thought about Nick, his neat flat and faithful Lou on his shoulder. I didn’t know if it meant anything, didn’t really consider it long enough to come to a decision. I just changed gears, gunned the engine and rushed forward. The road could take me where I needed to go.
Ingredients
Picture One: The image summoned by Nick’s Scar
Picture Two: The instrument being played by Nick and Lou in the first meeting.
Picture Three: The picture Nick’s friend sends him
Picture Four: Lou.
It was one of those down times, when I was back in Southport and doing nothing. This time around, it was due to design rather than coincidence. I’d finished big job down south a few weeks earlier, earned enough to keep myself in a humble manner for a month or three, so I headed decided to take a brief respite rather than capitalize on my success. It’s a common enough practice for me; Southport was a place where boredom settled in with the tides and I could drink beer and watch daytime TV until the need for work and money uprooted me again.
I drove into town and rented myself a room at the Jadran, this run-down hotel a block back from park that separates the city from the water. It was a seedy enough place, the sign out the front depicting the silhouette of a bikini-clad woman leaning against a palm tree and the whole complex lit up with green lights. At night I would leave my unit shadowed, lit up only by the television and the green seeping in from outside. I’d open myself a fresh beer and sit on the balcony, staring at the brick wall view and enjoying the ambient buzz of crickets, cars and the various eccentrics that surrounded me. The Jadran was that kind of place. Even among the general exhaustion of Southport’s buildings, it was a beacon to the mildly deranged or outcast. A place where you could sit, do nothing, and not be bothered by anyone. It’s one of the reasons I was there. It was the reason Nick was there as well, biding his time in the flat next to mine.
I’d seen Nick around before we became neighbors. He was one of those Southport people, those residents that always seemed to be on the edge of your vision. He was a local landmark, if you will. Like the guy whose mullet had turned into dreadlocks at the back, always hanging around the local shopping center, or the old guy with tourette’s syndrome that was always on the back of your bus at nine PM. Nick was a local in the indescribable sense; an entity that everyone seemed to know by reputation rather than name. The first few times I’d lived here, I’d see him at the local McDonalds buying burgers for that weird Skeleton-child he was always carting around. Or he’d be sitting in the park, muttering under his breath as he watched the Broadwater slowly drifting out to sea. It was the kind of stuff Nick did, indecipherable and strange.
The first clue I had about our proximity was the music, and everything else seemed to follow from there. I was sitting on my balcony, drinking beer and wearing nothing but boxers. It was in the heart of summer, and the muggy heat and the mosquitoes were starting to drain all the energy out of the air. I was listening for crickets, trying to guess the make and model of the cars that were cruising the main road by the noise of their engine. Then the music starts, winding its way from Nick’s balcony. It almost sounds like someone playing guitar, except the sequence of notes is more complex than any I’d heard before and the sound is somehow softer, more gentle and lilting. I listened to the song for a few minutes, closing my eyes and drifting along with the rhythm. It reminded me of this girl I once new, the singer for a Celtic folk band that broke my heart. It made me think of red hair and a smile I knew I would never see again, and it was the first time I could remember her without feeling angry or pained. It took some time to realize that I strangely happy about the way things had turned out, like I suddenly understood more about events and it made everything easier to accept. It was that kind of music, the kind that made heartache feel distant and worthwhile.
Nick played for the better part of an hour before I decided to introduce myself, leaning over the corner of the balcony with a spare beer to offer him. I knew him, as I said, but that didn’t seem such a big deal at the time. It was the kind of coincidence you expected at the Jadran, to look over to your neighbor’s balcony and see a gray-bearded Southport local identity playing an instrument you barely recognize. He was still playing, eyes closed and fingers dancing along his instrument. It was strange to watch– his hands shifting along the two dragon-like necks while his strange skeleton-child perched on his shoulder and plucked at a third set of strings, strung like a harp from the dragons tail that curved from the instruments body. The instrument was a two man job, but the skeleton child seemed adequate to the task, small fingers moving nimbly to pluck string after string and large ears cocked to catch the rhythm.
When they finished I applauded, the two beer bottles clinking together softly. The Skeleton-child ran at the noise, disappearing through the open doorway to cower under a couch. Nick just opened his eyes and grinned through his graying beard.
“Beer,” he said. “Excellent.”
“I owed you,” I told him. “For the show.”
“You liked it?” Nick asked.
I nodded.
“You got anymore beer?”
I nodded again. I’d stocked up when I arrived, enough to last several months.
“Why don’t you come over then,” Nick told me. “I think we can put a dent in your supplies.”
The skeleton-child bore its teeth at me, a mouthful of sharp needles.
“I don’t think your friend likes me,” I said. I pointed at its position under the couch, the faint glow of its eyes and the soft hiss.
“He’ll survive,” Nick said. “Lou is easily startled, but surprisingly hardy.”
I nodded, trusting his word, but I made a point of putting on heavy boots before I went over. The boots I wear when I’m out bush, and afraid of stepping on snakes. The boots I wear when I fear for the safety of my ankles.
The unit Nick was renting was a mirror to my own, but showed signs of a fastidiousness I could never imagine. The kitchen was neatly kept, the lounge sparse and well decorated. The only potential for mess were the candles Nick kept burning, and even then the candelabra were kept surprisingly free from wax drippings. Even the faded carpet, with its design that imitated gray mouse-droppings on beige wool, seemed cleaner and fresher than my own.
“Lou takes care of the cleaning,” Nick explained. “I don’t have the attention span.”
The Skeleton-child was perched on his shoulder once more; it’s hollow eyes glaring at me. At his comment, it took to preening itself, scraping a skeletal finger along the edge of a rib, before leaping to the floor.
I proffered the six-pack I’d brought along, and Nick was quick to twist a lid free and begin drinking. We settled into plush couches, amiably silent for a time, while Lou batted the twist-top lids around the room like a cat. After a time, the small creature grew bored of the game, but did stop to lay a tiny hand on my knee before taking its place on Nick’s shoulder once more.
“I think he’s adapted,” Nick said, stroking the creatures elongated, bone ears. “He’s always pleased when someone brings something for him to play with.”
“Good to hear,” I said. “I’m Jack, by the way.”
Nick just nodded, extending his hand and introducing himself. For a moment I got the impression that Nick wasn’t his real name, something about the way he paused before he used it, but I didn’t press the issue. Jack is far from my real name as well, but I’ve grown more comfortable with its use.
We said little that night, just sat and drank and felt the humidity get worse. Summer was in force over Southport, and neither of us had much to say.
It was a few days before we spoke again. Nick was quiet, probably up to something only he could understand, and I went back to my routine of drinking and television. Eventually I decided I needed to get out, to see something of the old neighborhood while I was here. When I got home, there were letters stuffed into Nick’s mailbox and a package addressed to him lying on top. I paused for a moment, considering it all. The package was small and rectangular, about the size of a human head, and it had the air of something important. The letters numbered in the dozen, and checking the dates on the postmark I knew that some had been there for weeks. I’m not known for being a good neighbor, I’m rarely in one place long enough for the effort to be worthwhile, but I gathered Nick’s long-neglected mail and took it to his door.
He smiled when he opened the door, smiled wider when he saw the post in my hands.
“Thanks,” he said. “Normally Lou gets it, but the past few times I’ve sent him out he’s come back empty handed.”
He paused for a moment, glanced over his shoulder to ensure the Skeleton-child was occupied with its playstation game before leaning in to whisper.
“I think he’s afraid to go the entire way. He’s been getting into fights with the brute of a cat from Unit 4, and he doesn’t like to admit it.”
I nodded, not much caring. Nick shrugged and rifled through the mail, checking addresses.
“Come in,” he said. “I’ve made coffee. If you don’t mind, I think we’ll say the post was delivered to your address by mistake. To preserve Lou’s feelings, you understand. He’s sensitive about such things.”
I shrugged again. No skin of my nose, and my ankles felt very bare in my sneakers.
Sitting on the couch, drinking rich coffee, I watched Nick unwrap the parcel. Paper fell away layer by layer to reveal a picture frame, crafted from red rock. Nick beamed when he saw it, his face lighting up as he gazed into the frames center. After taking a deep breath, he held it up for me to examine. A landscape was set into the frame, although it was so realistic it was enough to take your breath away. The green, majestic mountains were a stark contrast to the red-baked desert stone of the frame. When I reached forward to touch the picture, the snow-capped peaks left a cold smudge of frost on my fingertip.
“An old home,” Nick explained. “I lived there years ago, and a friend thought I might be pinning for it.”
He pauses to sigh theatrically. Lou stopped hammer the controls of his computer game to establish Nick wanted for nothing, then went back to pressing buttons.
“I do miss it, a little,” Nick said. “There was a rawness there I haven’t experienced since. Every day rushed past like a rumbling river. They held power, eagerness, but there was no time for reflection. No real meaning. Not like here. Here the days flow past like honey, rich but slow moving.”
“It looks like a nice place,” I offered. “Very wild.
“I suppose,” Nick said. “Wild is not always the redeeming feature we expect it to be.
He stood up and placed the picture on a shelf, next to several small painting and portraits of strangers, Lou and occasionally Nick himself. He stared at it for a few minutes, then turned towards me. The lines of his face were pronounced, and I noticed the tip of a scar poking out of his beard for the first time.
“Why do you stay here, Jack?” he asked. “What is it that keeps you here?”
I hadn’t ever thought about this before. It took some consideration and half a mug of coffee before I found an answer.
“Inertia,” I said. “This is the place I come when I can longer be bothered moving.”
“And what do you do when you’re not here?”
I thought about this too, thought long and hard about the tools of the trade still hidden beneath my bed. It’s rare I feel like talking about work with anyone, but there was a temptation to answer Nick’s question. Only prudence and practice kept me from answering honestly.
“Odd jobs,” I said. “I try to fill in the gaps here and there. Entertaining, sometimes, drudge work other times.”
Nick just nodded, once. Lou finished his game, crawled quietly into Nick’s lap. We said nothing for a long time, and eventually I excused myself and went home.
The time to leave came sooner than I would have liked, and I gave my weeks notice the day I got the details of the next job. There wasn’t much I had to do before I left, but the idea of saying goodbye to Nick loomed in my mind until I finally did it the afternoon before I left. I knocked on his door with the six-pack of beer I hadn’t yet drunk under my arm, intending to give it to him as a gift for his hospitality.
He was half-dressed when he answered, bare-chested and wearing ragged jeans. The promise of a scar I’d detected along the edge of his beard was delivered upon on his chest, a mass of ugly tissue and purple lumps. I tried not to stare as I offered the beer and explained I was leaving. Nick didn’t seem embarrassed, pointed at one or two of the larger scars with a grin.
“Souvenirs from another life,” he said. He smiled at me, ushered me in. Lou was quietly snuffling in the remains of a cheeseburger rapper, peeling off the last of the cheese. Gobbets of half-chewed burger where spread along the newspaper spread out beneath his bowl.
“He loves the taste,” Nick explained, “But he can’t digest. I normally don’t let people in when he’s feeding, but you brought beer.”
He shrugged as though that explained everything, sat me on the couch and opened two beers.
“So why are you going?” he asked.
“Work,” I said. It was a simple answer, and I felt the need to expand on it. “The rest period is over. A few months off, then back to the grind.”
“Entertainment, or laboring?”
“A bit of both, for a while. I’m heading north, to Cairns, then east towards Darwin.”
“Good traveling,” Nick said. He held a beer high in salute, grinning through his white beard. I watched the way his scars twitched as his arms moved. One of them, longer than the rest, snaked from his belly to his forearm. I was staring, and once again he didn’t seem to mind.
‘Touch it,” Nick said. “You may learn something.”
I felt awkward touching another man, but curiosity got the better of me. My fingers brushed along the tip of the bruise, over the wiry bicep. I was struck by a sudden image, almost like a memory, of wearing heavy armor and bleeding while friends carried me out of an arena. It was a subtle thought at first, but then it hit my like some kind of drug – a sudden rush of feeling, memory and pain. I jerked my hand back, as though bitten by a snake, and looked into Nick’s eyes. They twinkled a little, like he was laughing at me, but it could have been the beer talking.
“You were a gladiator?” I asked. It seemed silly, I could remember the experience well even though I’d never experienced it.
“It wasn’t my mistake,” Nick said, “but someone has to pay for it. Sometimes, you bear someone else’s burdens whether you want to or not.”
“But you were a warrior, a swordsman?”
Nick shrugged.
“Does it really matter. A mistake was made. A life was almost lost. Someone bears the brunt of that, will always bear the brunt of it until they die.”
“Why take it if the experience wasn’t yours, then?”
“Who knows? Because fate asks many things. Because sometimes there’s a lesson in someone else’s pain.”
Nick shrugged again, started on his second beer. We watched the sun shift along the fence, the rabid dog pace the yard. Lou paused in his snuffling to peer at me, crawled forward to rest a skeletal head on my shoes.
“If you’re ever back this way, come see me again,” Nick said. “Lou seems to like you, and that’s rare.”
I promised. I still don’t know if I was being honest, but I thought so at the time.
I packed the next morning. Practice has made it a quick process, a simple matter of collecting and compiling my life into two small suitcases. When it came to the box under my bed, I stared at it for a few seconds. It seemed less appealing, less necessary than it had the day before. It made me think of Nick’s scar, the reasons he carried it. In the end, I lugged it down and put it into the boot instead of under the passenger side seat. A small change, a different choice, but enough to make a difference. A strange feeling settled in as I kicked the car into gear, getting worse as I drifted towards the Highway. I thought about the work to the north, the money it could make and the time I could spend drifting aimlessly after it was done. I found myself thinking of the red haired girl with her Celtic songs, the one that broke my heart. I thought about Nick, his neat flat and faithful Lou on his shoulder. I didn’t know if it meant anything, didn’t really consider it long enough to come to a decision. I just changed gears, gunned the engine and rushed forward. The road could take me where I needed to go.
Ingredients
Picture One: The image summoned by Nick’s Scar
Picture Two: The instrument being played by Nick and Lou in the first meeting.
Picture Three: The picture Nick’s friend sends him
Picture Four: Lou.
I like the Southern misspelling too. Was that intentional, Mark? 
