THE BARN DOOR OPENED and the morning light rushed in, exposing the interior like an otoscope. Michael opened his eyes and saw Nick standing at the door.
“I have some breakfast on if you want some.”
“Alright.”
Nick led the way back to the house and through the screen door on the porch. Michael followed him, but stopped at the doorstep. Inside he could see a small kitchen that looked as if it had been designed in the ’50s, its built-in cabinets with chipping white paint and uneven doors. The table was set for two.
“You can come in,” Nick said. “It’s just eggs.”
Michael opened the screen, walked slowly to the closest chair, and sat down. Nick put a bowl on the table and sat down across from him.
“How’d you sleep?”
“Fine, I suppose.”
“Better than outside.”
Michael nodded, looking at the bowl of eggs with reservation. He was starving and his stomach was begging him to grab the eggs and devour them all. But if life had taught him anything, it was to not trust the appearance of kindness.
“It’s okay. It’s just eggs. Ain’t put nothing in them. Here, see?” Nick said as he scooped himself a helping and started eating them. “Ain’t poisoned.”
Michael allowed himself to relax and felt a grin force its way to the corners of his mouth. He grabbed the spoon and served himself. Before long the two had polished off the meal.
His stomach now somewhat full, Michael leaned back in his chair and looked around. He wasn’t sure what the next course of action was. Part of him wanted to get moving, to keep heading home. But there was another part that wanted to linger. He wasn’t sure of Nick, but at the same time felt like he was in the company of a kindred soul. That feeling, however, also unnerved him.
Michael was fully aware of himself, of his sins, of his crimes, but since they were his sins, he thought of them like they were external baggage. Not entwined with the fabric of his character. When those same sins were in someone else, he didn’t trust that person.
We gloss over our own sins, softening their edges, while assuming the sins of others are forever razor sharp and at the ready to slash our throats.
Michael had met several people in prison with lesser crimes to their name, but they were always worse in his eyes than when he reflected on himself.
“So what are your plans?”
Michael came out of his daze and looked across the table. “Keep on moving, I guess.”
“Suppose to rain today. You’re welcome to hold up till it passes.”
Michael nodded.
Nick reached across the table and grabbed the plates. As he did so, Michael caught a glimpse of his host’s wrists. They were scarred up like those of a suicidal teenager who repeatedly tried to slice their veins but could never find them.
Nick put the dishes in the sink and returned to his seat. He looked Michael dead in the eyes and rolled up his sleeves.
“I had a hard time of things once,” Nick said, exposing his scars.
They were on both arms. He then unbuttoned his shirt at the collar and exposed his neck. The flesh was scorched, a rope burn that went all the way around to his spine.
“I’m going to assume that you have some marks of your own,” Nick continued. “If not, well, you will someday.”
“I’ve never tried . . . tried to . . .”
“Kill yourself? Someday maybe you will. If you’re human, that is. I met a lot of guys in the pen who didn’t mind the solitary life. They were animals. It’s how you know when you’ve crossed the line. You don’t miss being part of the world.”
Michael studied Nick, listening intently to each word.
“My first years out, I thought I could manage this here lifestyle. Do my thing, mind my business. But the world cutting you off—and I mean, absolutely cutting you off—doesn’t do much for your well-being.
“I tried reintegrating myself back into society, but they won’t have it. I often thought how great it would be to be anonymous, to have nobody know me, know my past. The gloriousness of being invisible.
“But I’ll never be invisible. I’ll never blend in to the background and melt into the fabric of society. No matter where I go . . . where we go . . . we will be marked. Outcasts. We will never be trusted. Never let into the community of civilized men.” Nick took a sip of coffee and pressed his lips. “These scars, well, these scars are from times I got tired of the life altogether. I thought I could put an end to it. But that’s just one added-on bonus to this judgment that sits upon us. No man can end us, and we can’t end ourselves until our time has come.”
“You hung yourself?” Michael asked, pointing to the scar on Nick’s neck.
“Out there in the barn. Tied up to the beam, put my head in the noose, and kicked over the chair.”
Michael looked at him in awe.
“But . . . it didn’t work. So I tried, again. And again. And again. Either the rope would break, or the noose would unravel. One time, I just hung there for what seemed like an hour until I got bored and cut myself down.”
Outside the rain eased in gently across the yard, and once it had lightly dampened the ground, the clouds unleashed sheets upon sheets of water.
“We ain’t immortal. God knows I wish we were. But we are destined to live out the full penalty of our crime unhindered by our fellow men or ourselves.”
“Who’d you kill?” Michael asked.
“My brother,” Nick said. “Much like what I suspect you have done.”
Michael remained silent and cast his gaze at the rain beating against the screen door.
“Nature has a way of preserving its work. I am the fruit of my father, obligated to pass down my nature and so on. My brother carried that same fire. We were born of the same coals, passed on and on through generations. When I killed him, I took away all the future fire he would create. His fire was the same as mine. I killed myself in the doing. I’m all that is left of what my line has produced through eons of struggle and survival. And nature will preserve it until its last possible moment. Perhaps there is a chance to rekindle that flame. To pass it on. But nature doesn’t know the world anymore. It ain’t the same as when it started.”
Nick drifted off into a half-mad philosophical dream and then snapped back to the present moment. He took another sip from his mug.
“Or maybe we’re just cursed. Straightforward like.”
“Or crazy,” Michael said.
“Or that. But who knows. Maybe it will be different for you. Maybe you won’t get to this point of desperation. Maybe you’ll keep trying to get yourself out of this lot that we’ve cast for ourselves.”
Michael hesitated, then cracked open the door to his soul. “I have hope. Sometimes. I don’t know why. But I plan to go on living.”
Nick smiled a malevolent grin. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
“So what are we doing here?” Michael asked.
“We’re just having coffee, waiting for the rain to stop.”