Hunter

Young and ugly, with a shade of purple hiding behind the blue eyes. Tired. Maybe he's been drinking. Hard to say. A half smile on his face. The other half of it is a snarl. Have you ever seen someone pretending to be kidding but not kidding? Telling a joke but it's no joke?

"I hate you -- ha ha! Just teasing."

But not teasing. Evil, and pretending to take it back. But still evil.

When I was young, I saw a dead rabbit. It had jumped off a low ledge and landed on an icicle. The snow had melted, and the icicle was sticking up out of the ground like a knife buried in the dirt. The rabbit had jumped, landed on the point, and died instantly. It's a sight that has never left me. A meaningless, random death.

One second, a rabbit, running. The next, dead.

He's like this -- the man. The young, ugly man. Hard to tell if he's the rabbit or the icicle. He's one or the other.

I'm not entirely sure he's human. Some people, when you look at them, emit a vibration meant to comfort you. Just another human being. Just like you.

Only they're not. Maybe a zombie -- human shell with no inside, no thought, no soul. Or worse. A human shell with alien insides. Not alien, as in from outer space. Alien, as in not human. Beyond foreign. His own sort of rules and purpose. Playing a game no one else can comprehend.

For example, maybe every time he sees a red headed woman holding a yellow umbrella, he scores a point. His purpose is to get a high score. But it could be anything that gets him a point. A sound. A smell. An action. Every time he makes a child cry. Every time he smiles at a dying animal. Every time he sticks a fork into the back of an old woman's hand.

It could be any or all of these things. And he's half smiling, half snarling. He walks among us. His eyes, his vibration. Purple. Somehow the colour purple fits into it. He's all bruise. His blood, pooling under every inch of his skin. You can't see the bruise, but you can feel it. Looking at him, my empathy is activated. I can feel his all over bruise, even if he can't.

Icicle or rabbit? Either way, he's dangerous. About to die or about to kill. His footsteps are very soft. The concrete sidewalk seems to turn to rubber under his shoes. His lips, curling and uncurling -- snarl and smile and snarl and smile.

I'm afraid of him. I follow him. Into a diner. He sits and orders french fries. He doesn't eat them. Did this earn him a point?

He goes into the bathroom and writes something on the bathroom wall with a magic marker. Then he leaves the diner. I go into the bathroom and see the letters. They're still wet.

"Stop following me."

That's all. He never looked at me. He never said anything. There's absolutely no reason he should know I've been watching.

I worry he's the icicle. I worry I'm the rabbit. I decide to give this game up. I'm not entirely sure how I score points either. Maybe following him. Finding things out. Now I need to change the rules. Find a new game. Again.

I rub my hand over the wet letters on the bathroom wall and smear them into a black, blurry cloud.