Starlight lit the way to his pissing spot, and his boot laces dragged behind like a wake. He’d chosen a particular tree to favor with the twice-nightly stream that insisted on flowing these days. He noticed these events growing more frequent the closer he got to his fifty-fifth birthday. He pondered the problem of aging as relief made his eyes well but not stream as he gave a secret smile to the trees in celebration of a trip well spent. He leaned against the bark and let his eyes drift into the shadowed woods. This first week of October already saw many of the leaves begin to change color and drop. The fertile waft of their decay smelled slightly sweet. The mountain breeze changed direction, forcing Roger to shift his position against the tree. That was when he noticed an unusual shape in the woods. The gray, cylindrical object stood dead center at the top of a low termite mound. At first, Roger thought it was a fallen branch, but it was too thick and too short. Besides, he’d already collected all of the dead fall around the cabin, as it made the best kindling for his small wood stove. As his eyes tuned in to the low light, he noticed the stubby form was wider at the base and had three shapes around its bottom edge like small arched doorways. The arches reflected slightly more starlight than the rest of the form. Roger finished carelessly, taking little time to arrange himself as the object drew him closer. Here was a thing that clearly did not belong in these woods. Its strangeness made the hair of the back of his neck stand sentinel, even as its full identity remained a mystery. Senses heightened by the sinister thing reported a distinct lack of sound. Normally, the woods would be furtive with nocturnal rustling, crickets and the call and response of tree frogs. There was only the sound of wind shuffling dry leaves and Roger’s own breath that came short and sharp as he approached the object. Whiffs of ozone caught in his nostrils. At first, he thought it was a model. But who would put a model like this in his woods? His nearest neighbor was two miles down the road. On his Sunday morning walk of the property line looking for turkey tracks, he found only deer prints. Roger was certain nobody had been on his property for weeks. He would have noticed, or he would remember coffee with a visitor. He stepped closer and stood over the object. The wrinkled, gray surface of the side turned abruptly to paler gray at the top. Two smaller, paler circles lay at the center, and darker circles stood at the center of those. Roger turned his head to the side to take in the profile. He picked his head back up, then turned it opposite to take in all angles. He walked around the termite mound, viewing the object from every possible perspective. He knew that soon, he would have to pick it up and take it inside for a closer look. He knew he shouldn’t, but the thing itself seemed to urge him. Roger had the sense that it wanted to be known. It was here for a reason. Roger grew up in these hills hunting and fishing. He’d killed many a deer, turkey, rabbit and even a bear or two. He knew what a butchered animal looked like. As he squatted down for his closest look yet, Roger wondered who slaughtered an elephant and placed its foot here on this termite mound near his cabin. The thing was clearly once attached to a living creature. It was no model. Its appearance was self-evident. Any other living creature could tell that. Although it clearly could not possibly be alive any longer, something inside Roger told him to exercise the greatest caution. He did not believe the object itself would harm him, but whatever caused it to arrive here was an entirely different prospect. The question begged by the elephant’s foot was stranger than the situation itself. Was it a joke? Roger had a few friends from his military days with a sense of humor like this. Some of the guys on the job were dumb enough to think up such a gag. But his Army buddies were long lost, and he didn’t know anyone at the job who cared enough about him to make a joke like this. It was clear to Roger that powerful, serious effort went into placing the foot here. Roger stood and turned in a slow circle. His mind raced with possibilities. Perhaps a passing cargo plane dropped the foot somehow. Things like this were known to happen. One flight crew member forgets to secure a door, then, before you know it, a frozen elephant’s foot falls from the sky. The foot had to be frozen. It didn’t smell, and it looked firm. Its rigidity was why Roger first thought it was a model. He looked down at the foot again. There was no condensation and no frost. It probably was not frozen, after all. Turning back to the woods again, he noticed nothing else out of place. Had a cargo plane dropped its load, surely there would be more debris. Where was the packaging? Anyone who would amputate an elephant’s foot and ship it would take the time to do it correctly. Such a person would not use a box that would come apart in the air. An exploding plane, even at cruising altitude, would have woken Roger instead of his bladder. The plane theory fell apart, bringing him closer to the inevitable. That foot would be inside the cabin soon. It promised revelations of which Roger could not yet imagine. There remained only one procedure before picking up the foot. Roger picked up a nearby stick, squatted down and poked the dismembered appendage. It yielded like rubber. Roger leaned forward a bit more and poked again from a different angle until the plateau of bone and flesh deflected slightly. He tapped the stick against the sides, producing fleshy slapping sounds. With a sigh, Roger removed his shirt and carefully wrapped the foot. Not surprisingly, the foot was heavy. Roger guessed it was more than ten inches around at the base and around nine inches near the top. He stifled some laughter as he estimated the height to be nearly twelve inches. “This foot is a foot tall,” Roger mumbled to himself as he hurried back to the cabin. He opened the door with one hand, cradling the foot in his opposite arm. Kicking the door closed behind him, he flicked on the overhead light. He set the foot down at the center of his bare kitchen table beneath the soft cone of light produced by a single incandescent bulb hanging from the ceiling inside a dented aluminum dome. Roger was not much on decoration. All the cabin lighting came from work lights retired from his job. He considered access to good and cheap lighting a perk of being an electrician. He sat at the table with an exhale, never taking his eyes from the foot. When he unwrapped it, he was surprised to see that his hands did not tremble. The deep mystery calmed him somehow. The wooden table was small—a breakfast table, really. It was one of the few objects he kept from his old life with Judy. It reminded him of the countless mornings they spent together over quiet cups of coffee before work, after dinner and on still Sunday mornings. Years before the cancer took her, their marriage transcended conversation. Simple looks were enough to communicate whatever needed saying. But sitting there with the elephant’s foot, Roger could not imagine any expression they might share about this. “What in the world is this, Judy?” Roger said aloud. Never much for words, the sound of his own voice in the small, drafty cabin embarrassed him back to silence. He pulled the entire table closer to his chair. The elephant flesh trembled slightly as the table legs scraped against the unfinished plywood. Roger leaned forward and took note of the colors that emerged now that the foot no longer resided in starlight. The flesh of the severed section was slightly pink. It glistened, giving the impression of wetness. What struck Roger most was the perfect flatness of the cut. It was as if a perfect plane bisected the foot. The cut seemed much more than surgical. It was a perfect section. He resisted the urge to touch it with his fingertip. Instead, he rose from the kitchen table and crossed the open living space to his cluttered roll top desk where he retrieved a magnifying glass. Back at the table, Roger leaned over the foot and examined the flesh with the glass. Individual muscle fibers appeared to be cut perfectly flat. When he looked at the cut edge on, he saw no variation. He stood up, letting the glass drop to his side and massaged his chin with the opposite hand. Snapping his fingers, Roger turned back to the desk where he rummaged until he found a ruler. The straight edge confirmed the regular flatness his eyes detected. He sat again before the piece of elephant that appeared in his forest at—what time was it? Roger jumped up and bounded back to his closet-sized bedroom where his watch, keys, and wallet rested on the plain pine nightstand. Four AM. He had to leave work in an hour. He had no clue of how long he spent with the elephant’s foot. He only knew that it was time to prepare for a long day of work. As he always did, Roger planned his work day before it started. That way, there were few surprises. Today, it was new construction. Two days per house to complete the wiring. His assistants and his apprentice would take care of the trivial work while Roger worked on the main service. He wired electrical boxes in his head as he cooked bacon and eggs on a two-burner propane stove supplied by a hundred-gallon tank behind the cabin. Roger ate breakfast with the foot before him like a vase devoid of flowers. He scarcely took his eyes from it as he mopped up egg yolk with toast and munched crispy, nearly burnt slices of bacon. He preferred his bacon that way. He was not sure how he preferred his severed elephant parts. He checked his watch again. It showed him fifteen minutes before the five o’clock hour. He was behind schedule. Roger usually liked to be out the door by five thirty. He dropped his plates in the sink, hit them with a token splash of water and hurried to his shower. The army taught him to groom and dress quickly, and Roger was in his work uniform within twenty minutes. He laced up his boots at the kitchen table, wondering what to do with the foot. The solution came in the form of cellophane wrap and a clean dinner plate. Roger took time to press the wrap carefully around the edge of the plate to create a perfect seal. He placed the tented foot in the miniature refrigerator, then left for work. Roger managed not to think of the foot on his forty-minute drive. The thump of his truck door closing somehow triggered a memory of the foot sitting on the center shelf of his refrigerator. “Good morning, Roger,” a voice behind him made him jump and whirl around. Roger’s electrician apprentice took a step back. His hands twitched upward slightly, as if ready to come to his defense. “Sorry, Carl,” Roger replied. “Didn’t sleep well last night. A bit jumpy this morning.” “It’s OK, Sir,” Carl replied. The young man retained much of the courtesy from his recent severance from the Marine Corps. Roger sized up the young man as he often did. Carl was much younger than Roger was when he went to the Persian Gulf. Carl saw a lot more action in Iraq than Roger ever knew. That did not seem to matter to the young man. Carl treated him like a wise old veteran. Roger often felt that in truth, it was the opposite. Carl was only twenty-five but had old man’s eyes. “We have that new house over on the mountain we can finish today. Tomorrow, we can start on that other new construction at the lake,” Roger said as they fell in together walking to the office. The owner wanted a meeting this morning before sending out his twenty-person crew. Barney did that sometimes. He was a hard man, but fair, and still took many of the jobs himself. He worked alongside his crews and drove one of the older work vans. The meeting was thankfully brief, and Roger was on the road with Carl riding shotgun in forty-five minutes flat. Carl always kept his head moving as they rode, just like he did over there, looking for threats. Roger tried to distract him from the habit as much as he could without addressing it directly. “Why don’t you see what’s on the radio,” Roger said. Carl snapped to the suggestion easily. “I know you don’t like the modern country,” Carl said, punching the power button of the stock radio. “I found this classic country station that plays stuff from the ‘60s and ‘70s.” Roger chuckled and said, “How old do you think I am? That’s a bit before my time, but you’re right. I do like the old stuff.” They listened to Merle Haggard sing about Vietnam and heard Patsy Cline singing about being crazy over someone. Roger pulled the van onto the job site just as the boss parked closest to the house. “Damn, these boys still haven’t finished putting up the plywood on the outside!” Barney exclaimed, fists to hips. He hiked up the waist of his work pants, but the maneuver proved futile as his beer gut asserted itself again over the rim of his utility belt. “Let’s get to it,” Barney said. He trudged off, boots crunching gravel like car tires. Three helpers scurried from the boss’s van while Roger took his time gathering tools from his own vehicle. He and Carl worked in silence, making sure to grab everything they needed to get the job done fast. With the boss, Carl and three helpers, they got the job done by four. Roger was coming up on this third decade as an electrician. Even with the distraction of the severed elephant foot in his refrigerator, he completed his work perfectly and ahead of schedule. New construction was always easiest but required great attention to detail. At four, he was running Carl through the final review of the wiring. They found no mistakes. By four-thirty, they were all back in the vans heading back to the warehouse. Barney was pleased and told them all so. The ride home was largely silent. Carl kept his eyes ahead or focused on his smartphone as they rode. Roger thought about the foot. He had a plan for deciphering its mystery. Roger spared fewer words than usual with his coworkers and hurried to his truck. With any luck, he could get to the public library before it closed. There, he would ask Darlene where he could find books on elephants. “Carl!” Darlene exclaimed, breaking the rule of silence librarians were known to guard. “Hello, Darlene,” Roger said, with the barest smile reserved only for people he knew well. “I haven’t seen you since Judy passed,” Darlene said in a tone approaching accusation. Judy was the head librarian before Darlene. The two were high school friends. They’d all known each other since their teenage years. Darlene loved to tell the story of Roger and Judy, the football star and the cheerleader who met, married and spent decades together. At least, that was the tale she often told while Judy was still alive. Darlene was mostly silent on the story now, even a year after Judy’s death. “Passed?” Roger asked. He still had trouble responding to people when they mentioned Judy. He had the most difficulty with the expression ‘passed,’ as if Judy satisfied the requirements of some test and was promoted out of this life. That lead to awkward moments like this. Darlene paled, and her face stretched down for a moment. Roger shook his head as if casting off a daydream. “I still have trouble with that word,” Roger replied, ever honest. “Of course,” Darlene said. “I’m sorry.” “Don’t be, Darlene,” Roger replied. The response might sound harsh to other ears, but Darlene understood the subtleties of Roger’s nearly flat affect. “What brings you in today?” Darlene asked, relieved. “What do you have on elephants?” “Elephants?” Darlene replied, shaking her head. “Yes. I want to read about elephants.” Darlene chuckled and went to work. She pulled up everything she could find. “I don’t have any books specifically on the subject, but I do have quite a few books on wildlife that should do nicely. What are you looking for, specifically?” “How to identify elephants—where they come from, how to tell their ages, that kind of thing.” Darlene cocked her head and her mouth opened to form a question before she stifled it. “Alright. Follow me.” The two climbed a flight of stairs to the second floor. The small library held a surprisingly large collection of books. Roger had been to the library many times to pick up Judy or to take her to lunch. He’d only been in the stacks once or twice, mostly to look up auto repair manuals or get information on carpentry. Darlene loaded him up with four books. Two were dense reference books on zoology; one was a safari guide, and the other was something from National Geographic. He held the books in his arms like a load of firewood and turned away from Darlene without a word. He headed from the stacks to a small reading loft above the checkout desk. Roger arranged the books carefully in a straight line in no particular order. He decided to check the reference books first. The search narrowed quickly as Darlene selected the books well. As he read, the strangest feeling spread over him. Impressions of elephants wandering through jungle flashed through his mind. Roger was not accustomed to daydreams, especially not ones so real. From the reception desk below, Roger heard Darlene announce to patrons that the library would be closing in ten minutes. He wasn’t done. Leaning over the railing and looking down at the reception desk below, Roger asked, “Darlene, can I take these home?” “Yes, Roger,” Darlene replied with a wry smile. “That is how a library works.” “I don’t have a card,” Roger replied. Darlene sighed, shook her head and looked around fervently. She smiled and raised an index finger to her lips. She mouthed the words, “Take them,” then said aloud “I know you’re good for them. Besides, it’ll make you come back.” He spared another twitch-smile for her and gathered up the books again. He drove much faster than usual to get back home and often risked going five miles over the speed limit. Roger couldn’t remember the last time he drove that fast. He was accustomed to being tailgated everywhere he went. He pulled off the highway and nearly ran into the steel triangle of a gate that marked the property entrance. He unlocked it, swung it open and did not bother to close it behind him after he drove past. The mile drive up the rutted dirt paths to his cabin felt like the longest leg of his journey. That morning, he took the time to lock the cabin door. Or did he? He found the knob unlocked when he reached it. The mercury dropped along his spinal column. Roger stepped back from the door. He listened. Only the sounds of the woods found his ears. He reached for the door knob again, then thought better of it. He went back to his truck and retrieved the .45 caliber, semiautomatic Colt from between the bench seats. Roger walked slowly back to the cabin with the pistol held at the low ready angle, prepared to lift it in greeting should he find an intruder. There was none. Roger guessed he didn’t locked the door as he thought that morning. Still, he looked around the cabin carefully for any signs of intrusion. Again, he found none. Everything was just as he left it. Even the level of water in the sink was the same. When he opened the refrigerator door, the elephant foot greeted him again like leftover birthday cake. He retrieved the foot and placed it once again on the kitchen table. He found the food wrap dry. When his knuckles brushed against the flesh, he jumped back with a start. The foot was not cold. After nearly twelve hours in the fridge, it should be cold. Roger crossed the cabin to the corner opposite his bedroom where two dresser-sized tool boxes stood. He knew exactly which drawer held his infrared thermometer. The instrument showed that the surface temperature of the elephant foot was around ninety-seven degrees Fahrenheit. The exposed flesh at the top of the amputation was an even ninety-seven point seven. The foot was either generating its own heat or did not lose heat, somehow. The next logical course of action presented itself immediately. Roger placed the plate in the freezer, closed the door and retrieved a beer from the refrigerator. He knew it took him about forty-five minutes to finish a beer, so he checked his watch, opened the beer and sipped. He also knew that anticipation would distract him. Roger bought the fifteen acres with the cabin for a reason. He loved the outdoors. Those two factors propelled him from the cabin, where he walked a leisurely circuit through the woods around his small home. The cabin needed work, but he was fine with that. It took most of a year to dismantle the life he built with Judy. That included parting with their furnishings and selling the house. Nathan, his son, was not happy about the sale of the house he grew up in, but Roger simply could not stay there anymore. The conversation between Roger and Nathan on the subject was brief. It involved Roger informing Nathan of the decision and Nathan explaining his feelings. As usual, Roger had no response. He simply listened until Nathan was finished. Then, he went through with the sale. Situations like that were why he was not close with his only child. He wished it were different, but he had no idea how to change it. Roger was not a callous man, and he loved his son. He was simply not good in dealing with or explaining his emotions. Most emotions, he simply didn’t understand. He felt that if he could just convey to Nathan why he could not stay in the house, things might be different. Roger simply could not find any words beyond the particulars of Realtors and market values and time frames for sale. Roger knew that the cabin would give him something to do besides sit in an empty house with the memory of Judy. Why he could not tell Nathan that, he had no clue. He put some of Judy’s things in storage for Nathan, and that was it. The last sip of beer announced the expiration of forty-five minutes nearly to the second. Roger placed the empty bottle in a small, bear proof box he constructed for recycling and headed back to the cabin. He retrieved the plate from the freezer and placed it back on the table among the wildlife books. The infrared thermometer told him what he expected to find. The foot remained at the same temperature. No ice crystals formed on its surface. It looked as fresh as it had the moment he found it on the termite mound. He pushed the plate away and pulled the books forward. He tore scraps of newspaper to use as bookmarks to locate every reference point he could find on elephants. After several hours, a picture emerged. He was certain that the foot belonged to an Asian Elephant, most likely from Thailand. The foot came from a mature adult, probably female. Roger became satisfied with his assessment and realized it was well past his bedtime. He thought about covering the foot and putting it back in the fridge. But why bother? The thing gave him strong evidence that it did not need preservation. It seemed to do a fine job of that all by its lonesome. He closed the books and prepared himself for bed. A quick shower, shave, and teeth brushing brought only thoughts of the foot and how it came to the forest. The mystery consumed him, but he had no trouble falling asleep. Roger dreamed of flashing lights and strange shapes hovering over him. He floated through the forest on his back. He was not in control of where he went, but he did not seem to mind. The floating was pleasant, and the woods surrounded him. His woods. The forest was why he was here, why he existed. But once again, Roger woke with a primal urging. He did not think of the foot until he reached the door and his boots. He hurried to his spot this time with wonder attached to the physical urgency at his core. At his pissing tree, he fixed his eyes to the termite mound but found nothing. The silence was there as it was the night before, like a stranger at the dinner table nobody invited. So was the twinge of ozone in the air. Roger finished and walked over to the termite mound. In the place where the foot rested the night before, a perfectly round hole of the deepest black appeared. Roger was not aware of when he saw the hole. It was just there. He knew what it was without knowing the words to describe it. It was the source of the ozone smell, and it was beyond comprehension. He edged the tip of his boot to the hole and gently pushed some gravel into it. As the rocks and pebbles slid toward the edge, they disappeared as if a perfect knife blade cut them silently. They were just gone. Without sound, without light and without report of any kind, the material left. Roger smiled. This was where the foot came from. It had to be. Questions of why followed far behind the matter of ‘is.’ The hole was there. It was real. It made things disappear. How or why did not matter. Roger was a man who worked with his hands. A lifetime as a professional tradesman told him that things are defined by what they do. It may not be the same for people, but it certainly was for things. Roger had on his hands a miraculous hole that made things appear and disappear. Holes were for filling, emptying or passing through. This hole seemed to be the ‘passing through’ kind. Roger tied his boots and hurried back to the cabin. He retrieved his fishing pole and for good measure, a flashlight. Back at the passthrough hole, he turned on the flashlight, tied the end of the fishing line around it and dropped it down. The flashlight and its light disappeared instantly. As soon as it passed across the black plane, no weight registered on the pole, but the line kept paying out. Roger let the line run nearly to the end, then braked. The pole bent, pulling him forward. He leaned back and the pole snapped, and the line broke at the reel. Roger was left with half a fishing pole in his hands. He stood there thinking for a moment and realized quickly that he had become far too excited. This situation required much more thought. He knew where the foot came from. He discovered the hole, now he wanted to understand it. This was no simple cavity in the earth. It was more like a cavity in the world itself. Roger struggled to remember the things he learned in high school physics class. He drew a blank and made a mental note to go back to the library and ask for books on physics. Roger forced himself to walk slowly and calmly to the cabin in order to collect his thoughts. He removed his boots carefully and placed them by the door as was his habit. The watch on his nightstand told him that it was past four AM again. He forced himself to go back to sleep where he dreamed once again of floating through the forest. Roger woke refreshed an hour later. The pale pine boards of the cabin ceiling began to show their yellow-white color in the predawn light. He pulled the covers back and reached for his crutch. Before he slipped out of bed, he checked the bandage on his right ankle to make sure it covered the still-tender stump. He remembered the warning of his doctor to protect the new flesh. It would take many weeks for the skin even to begin getting tough enough for a prosthesis. It had only been a week since they removed the foot. Roger was not happy to lose it, but he was proud of himself with how he bore the burden after his accident. The time away from work bothered him most of all, but the mystery of the elephant’s foot helped him cope somehow. Roger hurried as fast as he could with the cane to the door. He pulled over a chair set strategically near his single boot. He sat and slipped on the footwear, not bothering to tie it. It was a challenge to hurry to his tree. He could use the cabin’s bathroom, but he was a creature of habit. Besides, using the tree preserved his sense of normalcy. Two paces into his journey, a cold far greater than the early October morning seized him. Roger saw a set of footprints in the dirt. He knew in his bones that the prints were his. The prints showed the impressions of two boots. Not one boot, but two. Something was not right. He made himself stand still in spite of the urgency in his bladder. He thought hard. He turned back to see the broken fishing pole leaning against the side of the cabin. Last night, the fishing pole broke, and he lost his flashlight down the hole. He remembered casting the flashlight down. He remembered struggling with the pole before it broke. Did he remember doing that on one foot? On that point, he was unsure. How could he have managed that on one leg? He was new on the crutches, just a week after surgery. That fact kept springing to mind like an automated message. Why would he be out fishing in some weird anomaly of physics on one leg? That did not make sense. But that was the sideshow. Why were there two sets of prints? How could there be? Roger hobbled over to the clearest print and sat down painfully beside it, careful not to disturb the impression. He held the heel of his boot up to the print. The pattern matched exactly. Not similar, but exact. He could almost make out the shape of the boot brand logo at the arch. Last night he made two footprints. This morning, he made only one. First the elephant foot, then the hole, and now this strange shift in reality. Something was not right. Roger struggled to stand. He bypassed the tree and went directly to the termite mound. No hole appeared, but a chaotic set of footprints told a story very different from the tale his memory foisted on him now. He could handle the strange object and the even stranger anomaly, but something or someone was lying to him. That, he could not stand. If nothing else, Roger was an honest man. He would not could not tolerate untruth in his life. Roger hurried back to the cabin and finished dressing. He would go to work today. That would make him feel normal. Driving with one foot was difficult and painful, but he made it happen. He was almost grateful for the late model white van that seemed to have similar driving habits as he. The van kept a pace that was five miles below the speed limit. They had parted ways in the last mile before Roger arrived at the warehouse just in time for work. Running footsteps pounding gravel greeted him as he hobbled around to the front of his truck. “Roger!” Barney bellowed with uncharacteristic fright and concern. “What in the hell are you doing here! You can’t drive! I told you I’d send somebody around with groceries! My god!” Barney rushed forward and put his arm around Roger’s waist. Roger tried to push him away. “I got you, buddy! Don’t worry!” Barney soothed. “I’m here to work,” Roger objected. Carl got in on the act and ran up to help. “You should listen to the boss, Sir,” he said, all wide-eyed earnestness and gravity. “I worked with you just yesterday on the second day of that new construction on the mountain!” Barney and Carl looked at each other, wondering who should be first to speak. “Roger,” Barney said in a voice Roger only heard used with the very old, the very young or the incapacitated. “You haven’t been to work in a week. Not since the accident, remember?” Roger faltered. “I…I guess I don’t. Things were strange this morning.” “Let me help you inside, Sir,” Carl said. “We can have some coffee and talk, right boss?” “Yeah, we can push a couple of jobs back. I’ll put the helpers on it. Lets us three go have some coffee,” Barney replied. The three made their way to the warehouse, and Roger allowed the two men to help him. He turned back to look at his truck and noticed a white van drive by on the highway. He took a deep breath just before entering the warehouse and the sound of a helicopter overhead became muffled as the heavy steel security door closed. “Huh,” Carl said. “That was a Blackhawk. I guess they’re training around here now. Been seeing a few of them lately.” “I heard they were doing some training in the woods near your place, Roger. Army leased some land from your neighbor, Millstead, I believe.” Roger sat heavily at the break room table, and Carl set a styrofoam cup of coffee in front of him. “This is all wrong,” Roger said. Barney and Carl eyed each other nervously. “Is there someone we can call?” Carl asked. “Your doctor, maybe,” Barney added uncomfortably. “I was here yesterday. You need to believe me. There were two footprints leading to and from my pissing tree this morning.” “Pissing tree?” Carl asked with a smirk shut down by Barney’s hard, sharp look. “I wake up to piss at this tree. There was an elephant’s foot on a termite mound and a hole that broke my fishing pole,” Roger explained, staring at the wall. “OK,” Barney said, “How much of them pain meds you been takin’?” “Half a pill at a time. I don’t want to get strung out,” Roger said. The phone rang, and Barney took that as his queue to leave the room. Carl sat with Roger not drinking coffee, but watching Roger carefully. “You can talk to me now, Sir,” Carl said. His old man eyes were present in full force. “I told you everything I know,” Roger said. “Not all,” Carl replied. He sipped coffee now, never taking his eyes from Roger’s. “We can’t help you if you don’t tell me everything.” The ice returned to Roger’s spine. It worked its way down his leg and set the severed nerve endings of his ankle alight. “This was a mistake,” Roger said. He surprised himself at how well he worked with the crutches now that he was properly motivated. “Not yet, sir,” Carl said. “But we don’t have much time.” The cold professionalism was more menacing than convincing. Roger hobbled quickly from the break room, across the shop floor and to the steel door, where he hit the crash bar with his crutch arm. The morning sun blinded him for a moment so that the shape of the white van blended in with the glare. The helicopter came back, flying lower this time. Roger hurried to his truck and fumbled with the keys as he forgot about his missing foot. The stump ground into the gravel for an instant, but the pain gave him more motivation to be on the road. The bandage picked up some gravel with it, but that only helped him press on the accelerator. The pain cleared his mind. He was not insane. The situation was insane, but he was not. It seemed that events were designed to make him believe he was not in his right mind. The white van showed up again in his rear view mirror. He forced himself to think. He was safe, for the time being. Nobody was trying to hurt him unless he counted the missing foot. Some spinning gear of intuition told him that was something different. Right now, the nebulous “they” were just following him. Let them. What harm could it do? Roger checked between the seats and touched the familiar hunk of metal that was his .45. The helicopter passed overhead again. He was on the road, but he had no idea where to go. The truck seemed to point him back to his land, but the library was on the way. Roger pulled up to the library lot and came to a jerky halt in a reserved parking spot. Another intuitive sense told him the truck would not be towed. The van stopped at the parking lot entrance and idled. The two men inside both stared straight ahead through dark sunglasses. He saw their lips moving, but at no time did they face one another. The driver punched the throttle, and the van bolted down the street with a chirp of tires and a guttural engine verb. Roger took a calming breath like the ones Judy tried to teach him before she died. “I’m sorry it took me so long to learn that breathing,” Roger said to his dead wife as he left the truck. He was not a religious man, nor a believer in the spiritual realm, but if mystical holes could appear in the forest and produce severed elephant feet, he felt that talking to a dead woman might not be such a crazy thing to do. On the crutches again, he beat an uncertain path to the library entrance. People gave him a wide, uncomfortable berth, careful to show courtesy and equally careful not to make eye contact with the cripple. The distress he felt was evident in his reflection gleaned from the sliding glass doors that opened thankfully on automated rails. He’d always taken automatic doors for granted, but he was exceedingly grateful for this one. “Roger?” Darlene said, spotting him immediately from her station behind the circulation desk. “Roger, they called me.” “Who?” Roger said, hearing the edge in his voice. “Be specific, Darlene.” “OK, Roger. Calm down. It’s going to be OK,” Darlene said, reaching for the phone. “No!” Roger barked. Had he two feet again, he would have lunged for the phone. Instead, he took another calming breath and thanked Judy, probably aloud. He was not sure. Darlene paused. “Darlene,” Roger pleaded, “I think I’m in some kind of trouble. Please help me.” “Of course, Roger,” Darlene said, leaving the desk. Something in the cast of her eyes gave him pause. He recognized some knowledge there, something unsaid. It must be something that Carl also knew because it produced the same feeling in him. “Please tell me who ‘they’ are, Darlene,” Roger said. “Well, for starters, the police, your doctor, and your son,” Darlene replied. “They are all worried about you.” “My son? Why would my son call here? He’s in Germany. He left Iraq only two weeks ago.” “Yes. He heard about your accident on his way back,” Darlene replied. “That’s just the thing, Darlene. I don’t remember any accident.” Darlene cocked her head to the side, and the strange aspect left her eyes. “What was the accident?” Roger asked. “You know…” Darlene trailed off. “You got hurt. Lost your foot.” “But what was it? Something like that, people talk about. Details. Give me details.” “I don’t like how you’re acting. I’ve never seen you like this,” Darlene said. “You can’t tell me, can you?” “It was an accident!” Darlene shrieked. Patrons tapping away at their computers turned to the sound for a moment, then went back to their screens. “There was no accident, Darlene. I found something…” “Roger,” a voice spoke behind him. It sounded official. Sure enough, he turned to see two sheriff’s deputies just past the sliding doors. “Why don’t you come with us, Roger,” the taller deputy said. “Am I under arrest?” Roger asked. “Of course not, Roger. This is a simple welfare call. A lot of people are worried about you. There is an ambulance outside for you.” “I’ll bet there is. Is there a white van out there, too?” The deputies shared glances. “I don’t see any white vans out there, sir,” The second deputy said. Roger noticed his hand moved ever-so-slightly toward the area of his belt that held his taser. “Well, if it’s all the same to you, gentlemen, I’d like to leave in my truck, not an ambulance.” “I’m afraid it’s not all the same, Roger,” the first deputy said. “You really do need to come with us. It’s for your own good.” Roger turned to Darlene for help. She stood in the same position, head cocked to the side, staring at the place where Roger stood moments before. “Don’t worry,” the second deputy said. “She’ll be just fine.” “You’re part of this, aren’t you?” The deputies locked eyes again, then turned to Roger with identical smiles. “Yes. We are part of this,” they spoke in unison. “Did you have my son call here?” “Yes, we did,” they deputy unit said. “Don’t make him part of this. Leave him alone,” Roger said, pleading now. “We mean you no harm,” the deputies said. “Nor do we mean to harm your son.” “Then why the foot?” “That will become clear,” they replied. “If I come with you, will you release Darlene?” “And Barney? I’m assuming Carl is with you.” “Yes,” the deputies said. “Carl is a friend, but not one of us.” “And can you speak one at a time? You are making me very uncomfortable.” Roger was surprised when one of the deputies chuckled almost like a real human being. “Certainly,” the first deputy replied. Roger moved towards the deputies, who flanked him as all three moved through the sliding glass doors. “How will they remember me?” Roger asked. “As you were,” the second deputy replied. “As I was today?” The deputies exchanged glances as two paramedics wheeled a gurney toward them. Their human expressions suggested close communication. “Do you wish something else?” “Yes,” Roger replied as he sat on the gurney. “Will you explain this to us?” the deputies asked, once again speaking in unison. “I want them to remember me whole. I want them to remember me as someone…” the words choked him. His eyes welled and vision blurred. He leaned back into the gurney and said, “Whole.” The paramedics strapped him down with great care and without words. One of them removed a thin plastic film from the ankle bandage. A small portion of one end was clear, and faded through gray to black at the other end. “That’s an exposure badge, isn’t it?” “Yes,” the paramedic holding the badge replied. “Is it fatal?” Roger asked, nearly past caring. “Almost,” the paramedic replied casually as the doors closed. “That is why you must leave this place.” “Will it be painful there?” Roger asked. “No more so than here,” the paramedics said one after the other. They seemed to like saying the same thing. “Will I see Judy?” Roger asked hopefully. “I am sorry, no.” The paramedics said in relay. “You will enjoy it there. You will remember home. It is what you wanted since the start of your mission here.” The deputies closed the ambulance doors, and one of them tapped the ambulance skin with his palm. The ambulance pulled off slowly from the curb. Roger didn’t have to see the road to know they headed back towards the cabin.
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