TWENTY-FOUR - Breakfast

Even though the shower energized her, she began to sink into a deep sleep. Foggy images of her father, Priscilla, Miguel, Edlawit, the house and all the others began to float through her mind in grays borrowed from a silent movie.  As she walked through the house, all around her seemed ignorant of her presence.  When she asked Edlawit if she wanted to race to the pond, Edlawit turned and walked away from her.  Everyone around her talked and made a fuss.  Their voices sounded far away and strained as if she were listening to a Victrola.  “What?  What!” she called out in her stupor, almost waking herself up.  Her eyes tried to open and she caught the shadowy image of a man in a long coat and a wide brimmed hat standing erect at the foot of her bed and looking down at her.  All about him was dark and still.  He tilted his head down.  He had no face, no features, just grey shadows.  Somewhere in her vague memory he was familiar.

“He beat you to it,” I said to Edlawit pulling her out.

“How did he do that? How’s that possible? He blocked me!”

Arous body shot up.  She stared into the gray room.  She listened.  The door knob rattled.

She jumped out of the bed and rushed for the bathroom.  She’d noticed a one-inch pipe about the length of a baseball bat leaning in the corner.  She grabbed it running to face the intruder coming through the door.

“Hold it,” said the old man with his hands outstretched.  “My wife thought she heard you crying out over here and made me come check on you. I knocked but you didn’t answer, so I came on in.”

She dropped the pipe.

“I’m sorry if I startled you.  Is everything O.K.?”

“Yes, I was just having a bad dream,” she said.

“The wife’s fixing breakfast.  She’d love for you to come eat with us.  We don’t get many visitors around this time of year. Sun’s too strong. Too hot. Most folks are just ready to drop off the plateau and into the dessert.”

“Thank you.”

“It’ll be on the table in about a half hour.  She’s quick with a good breakfast.”

As the old man closed the door, Arous collapsed on the bed, exhausted.  Aware of her own labored breathing, she noticed that sweat drenched her clothes and hair; the entire bed was soaked.  She rolled over to the window, lifted the curtain and looked out.  The sunrise spun all the grays to pinks and oranges.

That same urge to be wet was nagging at her again.

Shower.  Then breakfast.  The road. Good.

Breakfast was filled with random chatter of the old couple.  They chirped sporadic about this or that.  Arous attempted conversational contributions through nods and smiles. She said many a warm thank you to the mature couple as she got up to leave.

“Wait,” said the old woman.  She turned to the kitchen sink with a bandana in her hand.  She wet it and handed it to Arous.

“It’ll keep you moist in this dry heat,” she said, handing it to Arous.

“How did you know?” asked Arous.

“How did I know what, dear?” asked the old woman.

“Nothing.”

She passed through the screen door to her hoveh.  They waved, watching her glide out of the parking lot.

“Strange girl.  Seemed nice,” said the woman.

“Not sure how nice. I swear, as I was leaving out the back of the house this morning, I saw him when I was coming around the corner, a man walking from her room. A big, tall one like those, well, tall like a Sasquatch but all man. Maybe one those warriors that are always traveling through at night to the Bowl at Alippiana . . .”

“A Nephilim, dear?” his wife asked. “Oh, they’re reputation is worse than they are. You know that.  I don’t think they’d been in these parts.  Mostly stay in the hill country, though stranger things -”

“Do happen. Anyway, I never seen a Desperado that tall.  Could’ve been though.  They’re always running in and out of that diner.  Poor woman next door. Feel sorry for her. Always shooting up the place - ”

“Like they got no sense. If it’d been one of those boys, I’d agree with you. Not nice at all,” she continued his sentence.

“ In any case, I didn’t recognize him.”

“Well, what did he look like?” his wife asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Didn’t you see his face?”

“Yeah,” he sighed. “But I couldn’t tell you what he looked like.  Tall as he was, I’m sure he was a Desperado. I think that was him I saw and his girlfriend dragging that wild bunch out of the diner yesterday.”

“How do you know it was the same one if you don’t know what he looked like?”

“It just seems like, you know?”

They continued waving until Arous was out of sight.