58) The night passed in silence. No sleep. The mimicry of man holds no more charm for me. I am a defeated little mocking bird. So I remained awake. I stood motionless though the moon lit the earth well enough for running. No need to hurry, I decide. Even a gravedigger keeps hours. And that's all I am. The bull frogs that heralded night with burping roars are muffled as though stuffed with mud. A great horned owl fell dead at my feet. I hear stirring in the brush, trees cracking. What will I have done by pausing here? Morning shows. The extent of destruction, when the world lit, astounded me. Elk and coyote, massive bear, lay scattered in fields of brown grass. There were other carcasses. More and more. Sure. All came too close.
I leave. I run. I run. Down the mountains to prairie.

I am the first avenger to arrive. I know it is the right location for I recognize the place from a pictured brochure I've carried in my stupid backpack, the brochure titled 'Indians of the West'. I am alone in gentle, rolling fields. Very alone. I am pelted by a shower of dying birds. They muss and rustle their last in my surrounds of tall grass. Robins, crows, the beloved sparrow, golden eagles, carrion eaters at large, all carpet the hissing green. And rabbits, voles, gophers, snakes. In moments I've entire taxonomies of done for animals about me. So very alone.... Yet there may be goodness here. Perhaps there will be no reckoning, perhaps Dr. Creep has played another joke. He is not here. No on else is here..... Alas, hardly has the thought vaulted my brain when I see approaching in clouds of dust and parting seas of wheat, from the East, the West, South descending from the North, my counterparts. They run, too. They may have been filled in the beginning with exalted thoughts of a destination proper to their cardinal point, for peace everlasting. But like me, belonging to North, I belong to him. We are belongings. We know war is our metier. The others abruptly halt. A hundred yards separates each of us. They are all in rags, like me. They are tall, bulked heaps, blackened, with coarse bestial hair and savage features to the extremities. Spilled philtres streak their chests. They reek of rancid tallow and shit, as must I. I've had time to catch my breath. They heavily pant, on their breath I see faint mirages of creatures they've slain on their travels, a roiling bouillon of souls, camels, wolverines, giraffe, dragonflys, hyenas, polar bear very hard to discern; they exhale ostrich forms, Siberian tiger, goat and mongoose, piranha, seal, many men, women, opalesque children, the panda, Tibetan pheasant, horses of the steppe, salmon and howler monkeys, cheetah and swine. Is this a display of menace, warning, the threat of murder? Death can't put fright in what is not really alive, us. No. None of us fear anything. But maybe we can regret, feel remorse. I don't know. We bulldoze mysteries into the abyssal trench of the brain. Here, now, we share a baleful stare, deep, deep sorrow, we see it on the other's face, all of us shamed at the emanations on the breath. Such a pointless incineration of life, life turned to piles of ash on earth and swept clean from memory's floor. All for vanity.
We wait.
All of us carry satchels.
We wait and wait.