Daniel?

A piggish snort. Crusted eyes crack open like the wings of a beetle. Ragged nails scrape against the red-worn desert of an adolescent jawbone. A fishlipped yawn.

Ugh. What?

What did you call that plant thing again?

Jesus, James. Waxwood. It's a reddish bark. Oozes this cloudy stuff if you crush it.

Oh. Yeah, of course. Sorry.

Ambient silence. Raindrops fill with rotting organic sediment and fall into the leaves around the
clapboard tollbooth. A zealous fist of ivy tightens its tattered fingers across rheumatic windowpanes.

Dan?

Mm?

Why don't you like to talk about Clifftown?

Ambient silence. Raindrops. Ivy.

I’ll tell you why I don’t like to talk about Clifftown.

Go on.

Sigh.

I was born there. Before all this happened, it was this small village where onions grew. Not many people lived there. There was... Christ. A church, a chemist, a library and a few houses. The biggest house was this tall yellow clapboard place, which was on the cliff by the sea. This kid who lived there. He wasn’t -

A thud as a gesticulating knuckle rasps against splintered pine.

-Ow, **** - didn’t look human. His head was big and soft like a berry, and his eyes were wide and wet and creepy, and he never spoke. It was like he was empty.

What’d you say his name was again?

Never did.

A dusty rubbing noise as the fluid is forced out of a cheekbone.

Leviticus Croker. He died when he fell from a low salt cliff into the sea or something. Can’t remember.

****. I’m sorry.

Don’t be. I hated him.

A lump of pressed asphalt sends a clouded multitude of motes spinning and passes screaming through the glass pane of the sunwards window. A chuckle.

That was a year ago. They had to blame somebody.

Oh. Right.

An eyelid raised in revelation traps a mote against the skin stretched taut across a young skull.

Right. ****.

Ugh. **** this, man. I’m going outside.

The ragged scrape of rusted nails on gypsum. Footsteps like a mad zombie.

Oh Christ. C’mon, James. It’s dark. There are things out there now.

The footsteps stop. The rustle of an emaciated shoulder inside nylon.

I told you to stop doing that.

Hh-what? What?

The ****** blasphemy. You’re  laughing at me.

No. No I’m not. Listen, you think I care anymore about your ******* religion? You think I give any kind of **** about what you believe in? I’m too… (okay fine you’ve made your point) I care too much about what’s going on inside my own head. I don’t dream good dreams, ma- (okay i’m sorry jesus) I dream about losing my hands. I dream about you losing your hands. You know (****, man, you’re freaking out, calm the) you know what? I don’t think I even saw the bloodstain. I don’t even think the manhole was crusted up with anybody's ******* brains. I don’t think I saw the imbecile trying to eat smoke. I think it’s all in my **** head. I’m juh-hust –

His voice cracks. Guttural gasping sobs.

I’m sorry. I’m sorry.

A sigh. Rustle of clothes and the heavy thud of muscle against gypsum.

‘S alright.

Sobs that sound like laughter.

It’s alright. Look, see? I won’t go outside. Are there even things out there?

No. I d-don’t think there’s anything.

Okay. Okay.

Choking sigh.

James?

Hm?

We’re not going to Clifftown, are we?

No. No, we’re not.