he only remaining seat in the minivan is between a large black man named Franklin and a small Chinese man named Sungwon. Milo squeezes between them. Aruthy, the girl in cornrows, sits in front with Hunter, who informs them that Geon Van Der Wyst has requested that they not speak until they arrive at their destination and receive further instructions. When Hunter isn’t swearing at drivers, she talks on her cell, with her left hand draped over the wheel. Bertie, the Australian, and Etienne in the sailor hat occupy the middle seats. Milo suspects he is in the company of non-union performers, possibly illegals. Geon is known for combining cultures. His most acclaimed production, for which he won an award, involved ‘movement performers’ from every continent who spoke only their native tongues and were therefore forced to improvise bodily communication.

As they transcend industrial parkland and track housing and begin to see trees and fields, the tension that has been grappling Milo lessens slightly. Being relegated to silence as they escape civilization allows him to doze, lulled by the movement of the van, until it comes to an abrupt halt on a dirt road behind several other vehicles.

‘What’s going on?’ Milo asks before remembering he is forbidden to speak. Already he is blowing the audition.

Hunter climbs out, still on her cell, and pushes her way into a group of agitated drivers. Milo looks at his companions. ‘Did you see anything?’

Sungwon holds his finger against his lips.

‘I think we can talk now,’ Milo says. ‘This might be an emergency.’

His collaborators stare at him as though he has suggested mutiny. Hunter yanks open the door and clambers back in. ‘Roadkill.’

‘Can’t we move it?’

‘It’s not totally dead. They’re waiting for a forestry guy.’ She calls Geon to give him the news.

Milo taps her shoulder. ‘Can you ask him if it’s all right for us to talk under these exceptional circumstances?’

‘Milo wants to know if they can talk,’ Hunter says. She flips down the sun visor and checks her eyeliner in the mirror. ‘Gotcha,’ she says, pocketing the phone.

‘What did he say?’

‘He says you can’t talk.’

‘That’s absurd.’

‘He says “use it.”’

What can this possibly mean? Is Geon Van Der Wyst insane? Has Milo put his life at risk travelling north to nowhere with strangers? Is a group sacrifice pending? No one will be able to trace the illegals. And, of course, Milo revealed his plans to no one. He hid in his room while the hungover stumbled about and fried animal parts below.

Use it. Is this part of the audition? Maybe there is no roadkill. This is Geon’s way of testing to see who will challenge the status quo. No way will Milo sit unquestioningly in the overheated van. The irritated drivers, in Firestone caps and fishing hats, do not welcome a stranger.

‘Where’d you come from?’ a goat-faced man inquires.

‘Toronto. We’re trying to get through here.’

‘We’re all trying to get through here, mister, you just wait your turn.’

Milo sees the deer sprawled on the road, its rear legs twisted at awkward angles like Christopher’s.

‘We could cut us some good steaks out of that one,’ a man in a fishing 
hat comments.

‘Shit like this happens all the time in Newfoundland,’ a man in a Firestone cap says. ‘They got moose runnin’ all over the place. My brother-in-law got killed instantly hitting a moose.’

‘What happened to the moose?’ Milo asks, approaching the doe carefully, not wanting to add to her terror.

‘Who is this guy?’ the man in the Firestone cap demands.

‘From Toronto,’ the man in the fishing hat says.

Blood leaks from the doe’s nostrils as she tries to pull herself onto her front legs, but her battered hind legs betray her. Milo speaks softly to her as he pulls off his sweatshirt and lays it over her shoulders. ‘You’ll be fine,’ he murmurs, knowing that she is beyond help, that the forestry guy will inject her with lethal chemicals. No more will headlights stun her. He wants to apologize for cars, roads, the human race.

‘Is he nuts or what?’ the goat-faced man demands.

Milo strokes the doe as he has seen cowboys stroke skittish horses in movies. If he can offer some comfort in her last moments, maybe she will not feel that she is dying alone. It’s when he removes his T-shirt to blot the blood on her haunches that she swings a front leg at him. At first the impact seems tolerable – she is frightened, of course she must strike out. But the pain, rather than subsiding, increases. It’s as though his ribs have been crushed and, with every inhalation, his shattered bones puncture his lungs. The goat-faced man slams a spade into the doe’s head, not once but three times. Her blood spatters Milo’s face and torso while he wheezes, ‘Stop!’ at the goat-faced man. The doe falls back, and Milo, breathless, feels as though he is being slashed from within.

‘A fractured rib,’ the doctor says. Very tall, she looms over the examining table.

‘Just one? It feels like more.’

‘X-rays don’t lie. We’ll wrap you to stabilize it. And give you some more pain medication. Just be glad it wasn’t a horse. A kick from a horse can kill you. The doe was half-dead from the sounds of it, didn’t have much strength left. Count yourself lucky.’

‘What’s happened to her?’ Milo asks, feeling the drugs beginning to work, causing the present moment to matter intensely as he can’t rush to the next. Stalled by opioids, he fixates on the deer’s fate. ‘Is she dead?’

‘You rest now,’ the giantess says. ‘I’ll let your friends take you home once you’re good and calm.’

‘What happened to the deer?’ He pictures the men in fishing hats carving steaks out of her flanks.

‘What’s done is done,’ the giantess says. ‘No point fretting about it. Rest now.’ She exits, closing the door behind her. Milo stares at the doe’s blood speckling his arms. What’s done is done. Does that mean he’s responsible? Did he cause her death as well? Had he not interfered, would the forestry guy have found a way to save her? Has he caused the demise of yet another living being? What right has he to live with the blood of innocents on his hands? Although Billy wasn’t innocent. Or was he? What if he wasn’t a sociopath, just misunderstood and mistreated? What if he began his short life full of light and love only to be rebuffed at every turn, despised for shows of weakness, applauded for ­displays of aggression? What if he, like Gus, survived hardship only to become hardened as he trudged onward in the only manner known to him?

Hunter leans over him. ‘Ready to roll? Geon wants to talk to you.’ She hands him the phone.

‘Milo? Milo, are you there?’

‘Yes.’

‘Bad accident.’

‘Worse for the deer.’

‘Do you think you can work or do you want to go home?’

The thought of returning to Gus’s house induces a deadening sensation. ‘Of course.’

‘Of course nothing, Milo. Does it hurt?’

‘Not really.’

‘Can you run?’

‘Sure.’ He can’t possibly run but actors always lie about their capabilities.

‘Use it. Give me back to Hunter.’

Milo passes her the phone. She says ‘gotcha’ several times then pockets the phone.

‘Time to hit the road,’ she says.

‘We need to fill my prescription.’ He waves it at her.

‘We’ll get it when we stop for water.’

There’s no water where they’re going?

Franklin and Sungwon prop him up in the van. After another dose of painkillers, an intoxicating sense of well-being permeates Milo, a feeling that he wishes to share. ‘Aren’t we lucky to be here?’ he says. ‘Breathing this air and communing with nature? I can’t remember the last time I was in the wilderness. Seriously, I mean, I just never go. We have lost touch with the earth, with the pulse of living things. How can we expect to live in this world without a connection to nature? No wonder we think we can control it, we’re never in it.’

‘Is he allowed to talk?’ Franklin asks Hunter, whose cell is no longer working due to the remoteness of their location. As they turn up yet another dirt road, there is only forest.

‘We’re here,’ Hunter says.

They all look at the trees.

‘There’s a path,’ Hunter explains, climbing out of the van.

They follow her, swatting at bugs. Branches snap in their faces, long grass and weeds snag their ankles until they arrive at a small clearing.

‘Teepees,’ Milo exclaims. ‘How wonderful. Are they real? I mean, made by Indians?’

‘First Nations people,’ Hunter corrects.

‘Right. Did they make them?’

‘This is part of a reservation.’

‘Do they know we’re here?’

A gaunt First Nations person in a Chicago Fire Department T-shirt steps out of one of the teepees. ‘Want some Kool-Aid?’ he inquires.

‘Gary’s going to look after you,’ Hunter explains, turning back down the path.

‘You’re leaving us?’ Aruthy asks.

‘I’ll pick you up tomorrow. Give me your watches and cells.’

‘Are you crazy?’ Etienne says.

‘Geon wants you to forget your urban existence for twenty-four hours.’

‘Where is the little fucker?’ Bertie demands.

‘Toronto.’

‘What?’ Franklin says, looking smaller surrounded by trees.

With night closing in, Milo becomes giddy from the woodsy smells, the silence, the inky darkness. He has always wanted to sleep in a teepee. ‘It’s going to be great, guys. Just us in the wilderness with Gary as our guide.’

‘I’m no guide,’ Gary says.

‘Hand over your watches and cells,’ Hunter repeats, hardly visible in the darkness. ‘Gary’s got hotdogs. He’ll tell you what to do.’

Bertie stands firm with arms crossed. ‘How are you and Geon going to bloody know what we’re up to if you’re not here?’

‘We’ll know.’ She vanishes before they can stop her.

‘It’ll be fun, guys,’ Milo says.

Gary builds the campfire with ease.

‘Are you going to burn ceremonial grasses?’ Milo asks.

‘Marshmallows,’ Gary says.

‘Marshmallows. How marvellous.’ Milo spears a hotdog with a twig. ‘Isn’t there a marshmallow plant? Didn’t you use to make something medicinal from its root? Or maybe its bark? Medicine men were always boiling bark.’

Gary hands him a hotdog bun.

‘Please tell me there are no snakes here,’ Aruthy says.

‘They don’t bite,’ Gary responds.

‘What about bears?’ Etienne inquires.

‘Don’t carry food around. They smell food.’

‘What about wolves and wildcats?’ Bertie adds.

‘They don’t bother you. But there is water.’

‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Milo asks.

‘If you can swim.’ Gary squirts ketchup on a hotdog.

They offer Aruthy a teepee to herself but she insists she’ll be too scared on her own. ‘It’s not like we’re getting naked,’ she says. Bedding down in the teepees creates a camaraderie, or at least Milo – on pill number six – thinks so. They have been well-chosen; he sees that now in his altered state. Maybe Geon is a genius. After smearing themselves with bug repellant, they lie listening to croaking frogs, the utterances and foraging of nocturnal animals, and the wind rustling in the trees.

‘Can somebody tell me a bedtime story?’ Aruthy asks.

Bertie doesn’t volunteer so Milo begins. ‘There was once a young Polish boy who lived on a farm. He helped his father tend the animals, and seed and harvest the crops. The boy trusted and loved the animals and always, when it was time to slaughter the pig, he would run into the woods, away from its squeals.’

Bertie snaps open a plastic container and pulls out what looks like tissues, which he uses to wipe his armpits.

‘What are you doing?’ Aruthy asks.

‘Baby wipes. Brad Pitt uses them.’

‘But then a war starts,’ Milo continues, ‘and soldiers invade the village. They steal food, and rape women and girls. They march Jews out of their homes into the fields. When some of them resist, they are shot. A terrified boy runs for the woods but the Germans send the dogs after him. As the canines tear into the boy’s flesh the mother’s screams are muffled by a Nazi’s gloved hand. The boy’s father breaks away and tries to pull the dogs off his son but he is shot instantly. The other sobbing children cling to their mothers while their fathers stand powerless, staring at the soldiers. And then the order is given. Soldiers line up in front of them, take aim and fire.’

‘I think I saw this movie,’ Aruthy says.

‘It better have a bloody happy ending,’ Bertie says.

‘Fortunately, the farm boy and his family are safe in a neighbouring village. They give the Germans whatever they demand. This leaves them starving but they manage to survive on three potatoes a day. They didn’t have internet back then, so when the Russian invasion happens, nobody in the village knows about it. The farmer and his wife leave to attend to a sick relative. When they return they find their son under a table with a gash in his face and their daughter unconscious on the floor, her skirt pulled above her waist, her blouse and underwear ripped and blood leaking from her vagina.’

‘I don’t like this story,’ Aruthy says.

‘Here’s the happy part,’ Milo says. ‘The boy becomes a teenager and crosses the ocean to begin a new life.’

‘What happens to his sis?’ Bertie asks.

‘She drowns.’

‘On purpose?’ Aruthy asks.

‘Nobody knows. The boy finds her body caught in the rocks. It’s possible that she slipped. That’s what the farmer tells everyone. He says it was an accident.’

‘What does the boy think?’

‘He doesn’t say, and rarely talks about the war in his new life in the new land. He’s too busy building a business and a family. Unfortunately, his wife gives him only one son. She tries and tries but fails to produce a live birth until finally she has a heart attack, leaving the boy, who is now a man, with a small son. Now there are two lost boys.’

‘That better not be the bloody happy ending.’

‘Years pass. The son grows up and the father grows old. They rarely speak due to the weight of the tragedy between them. The father despises the son for his weakness, his easy life; “You never had to work for anything,” he tells him. “It’s all been handed to you.” Tensions grow, they hurl accusations, until one night the old man walks into a storm and does not return. The son searches for him for months without success. Then one day – you’ll never guess – the old man shows up on a reality show. He isn’t dead! The son, overcome with joy, reunites with his father, who has been hiding in shame, believing that he failed not only the sister he let drown, or the parents he deserted, or the wife he fucked to death, but his son. He believes he has failed his only son and cannot face him. But his son, now a mature man able to recognize life’s complexities, forgives his father. Tears gush down their cheeks as they embrace.’


‘Curtain,’Bertie says.

Gary wakes them in the dead of night and tells them to look for notes tagged to trees lit by candlelight. Aruthy spots the first note, which reads: Our insignificance is often the cause of our safety. Below this in big block letters it says, GALLOP.

‘He wants us to bloody gallop?’ Bertie demands but Gary has disappeared into the darkness.

‘I’m not used to this kind of dark,’ Sungwon admits. ‘This is, like, really dark.’ Unless they stand by the candle, they can’t even see each other.

‘Quelle blague,’ Etienne mutters, squinting at the note. He is not wearing his sailor cap and his stringy hair hangs over his face.

‘I don’t mind galloping,’ Milo says. ‘Maybe it’s a kind of warm-up.’ He tries to gallop but even the opioids can’t block the pain. ‘At least, if we keep moving, the bugs can’t catch us.’ He shuffles into the inky woods in search of another note.

‘We should stick together, mate,’ Bertie calls after him.

The next note reads: Man’s feet have grown so big that he forgets his littleness. The block letters say, SKIP. Milo skips, completely ignorant of what is underfoot. Heading full tilt into the unknown heightens his already drug-induced hyper-awareness. He is one with the darkness, the woodsy sounds and smells. The others stumble behind him, cursing and swatting at bugs. The next note reads: Strange how few, after all is said and done, the things that are of moment. ‘Of moment,’ Milo enthuses, ‘of course!’ RUN.

‘Milo ... ?’ they all call after him.

A man can look upon his life and accept it as good or evil. Good or evil, accept it. So what if you murder a defenceless boy. HOP. Adrenalin fuels Milo’s wounded body as he hops to the next note.

It is far, far harder for him to confess that it has been unimportant in the sum of things.

Unimportant in the sum of things, of course! CARTWHEEL. It is during the cartwheel that he jams his hands into nettles and lands on his head. The others, hopping and running and galloping, catch up with him. ‘You all right, mate?’

‘What’s that one say?’ Milo asks, pointing to the next note.

Aruthy reads: ‘Trifles make the sum of human things, and half our misery from our foibles springs.’

‘Oh, that is so true,’ Milo howls. ‘It’s all so true!’

‘It says STRIP,’ Aruthy adds. ‘That’s not going to happen.’

‘Can you get up, mate?’

Milo’s hands throb, as do his ribs, but up above the clouds have parted and the stars are singing to him.

‘I hear water,’ Etienne says. They all listen.

‘Let’s go,’ Milo commands, astonished by his new role as leader. He doesn’t even have to act it, he is the leader.

Closer to the river, another note shimmers against a tree. The dis­place­ment of a little sand can change occasionally the course of deep rivers. SWIM.

‘Someone’s blowing out the candles,’ Aruthy observes. ‘How are we supposed to find our way back?’

‘We’re not,’ Milo explains. ‘Isn’t it great?’

‘Merde,’ Etienne mutters.

Milo starts to remove his clothes, believing this to be his chance for absolution. ‘I’m going in.’

‘You can’t see the edge,’ Sungwon warns. ‘Like, how are you supposed to know where to climb in?’

‘Do we always have to see the edge before we move forward?’ Milo asks, certain that he and Geon are of like minds. The man is a genius! Milo has no doubt that working with Geon will help him reconnect with his inner actor. Finally someone understands his talent. He was pulling at invisible restraints in Godot. He sees that now. He was afraid because he didn’t really understand the play. Must we always really understand? Must we always fear what we can’t really understand?

‘Milo?’ they call after him.

Let them remain onshore, timid and afraid. Naked, exposed to nature, without thinking – of moment – he clambers over rocks and pebbles that pinch his feet. The sound of rushing water beckons and the stars sing.