fifty-four

THE DAY TRUDGED ON and the rain kept falling. Michael had wandered back to the barn after breakfast and sat on the old mattress. Staying in the house with Nick was unnerving, and the conversation had dried up after the breakfast sermon.

The man was crazy. There could be no doubt about that. Years of seclusion had driven him into a delirium that now passed the border of eccentricity to straight-out lunacy. His scars were just physical representations of a lacerated mind.

But what fueled the uncomfortableness of the whole situation for Michael was that he felt as if he was looking at himself several years from now. Nick was what he would become after time had slowly eroded the hope that he managed to cling to, the desire for normalcy. How long could he possibly hold on to such a notion?

Nick’s words had stung because they were true. They were outcasts now and forever. Society would never let them forget what they had done. The system might have spit them out and sent them on their way, but mankind had cast them out forever.

What was the point then? Isolation only brought madness. A slow decline into self-destruction. It was inevitable.

The rain kept falling, and Michael watched several times as Nick would walk out onto the porch, look over to the barn, and then step back into the house.

It was an odd arrangement.

Several times Michael thought of gathering his things and getting on his way, but there was an attraction to this place that he could not deny. He was tired of being on his own. Deep down inside, he was sick of it. Here, beyond the ramblings of a twisted mind, was a person who knew how he felt. Who knew of the sad existence and could, at the least, understand. This was not so much an oasis but an asylum for the likes of him.

By midday the rain began to ease and Nick came out on the porch and sat down in his chair and began rocking. The noise floated across the yard and into the barn.

The sound settled on Michael’s ears like the slow ripping of paper. A steady timekeeping of the winnowing away of hours.

Michael stepped out onto the wet grass.

“It’s almost lunchtime, if you’re hungry.”

“Sure,” Michael said.

Nick got up and went inside, the screen door slamming on the doorframe.

Michael walked up onto the porch and put his hand to the door.

He would not become this. He would not become Nick. But his anxiety rose as he entered the house, each step forward making that future reality all the more certain.