People look at me strange. They're not wrong. Despite all my efforts to fit in, I've always been a little weird. But with every new objective, I can become someone new.
The first bite of the season is always the itchiest. It's late May and the insects are at their worst. I watch them land on the netted barricade, dozens of them hungrily waiting for me. They can smell me inside.
My citronella coil burns pitifully. They will have their blood. But like all things in this place, they will have to earn it.
I don't come to the woods to be alone. I come to be with the ones that speak without words, governed by a natural law as old as the dirt itself. It's more true to me than anything else I've known. I am returning home.
Nothing here.
I sit on the bench looking out to the park, not speaking or checking my commlink. I watch people walk by, their hellos and goodbyes, these little moments in their lives. After years of craving stillness, I find it in watching other people move.
I stare unflinchingly at the crackling fire. Oak, birch, and maple for the perfect burn. I chopped and cured the wood myself over six months ago while she widdled on the deck overlooking the lake, making delicate little cuts to form the feathers of a wing. What was once a block of oak would be given new life in her hands. Hands I took into my own now, swaying to an old song with a heartbreak melody. I wish I'd kept that carving but my orders were to burn everything.
Hog-trough chewing sloshes around in my eardrums. "Come here." My stomach twists as his greasy lips smack together. I leave my teddy bear behind to reach for the glistening piece of fruit the man holds out, juice drips down the length of his dirty finger and pools in the web of his knuckle. He sucks the juice out from between his fingers and carves another slice for himself. My throat tightens at the sight of his scabby nails, but I take the sweet flesh into my mouth. Slurping it whole. The piece is too big for me, but I don't spit it out. I chew with puffed cheeks and swallow too quickly, gagging on the way down. I haven't eaten all day, but the pain doesn't bother me.
A well-dressed man I've seen once or twice before says, "No." I can't imagine saying that word until now, but I still won't say it for years. He points to a girl who hasn't been here long. Girls are never here long. She has a pretty doll with a yellow dress and waxy dark hair - but it's gone, I think one of the others stole it. There's no fruit for her, just credits passing between hands. She follows the stranger and I never see her again. I used to think they were lucky, getting out of this place, getting away from the filth and the blunt end of a steel-toe boot. I'll learn there are worse people out there, and worse than that.
I find the doll later, stripped naked with her hair ripped out. I can't tell you why, but I bent the arms back.
Try again.
The final moment isn't peaceful. My fingers twist into a tangle of wet hair. Her hands break the water's rough surface, and it's the last time she touches me. Clawing desperately at my forearms, nails ripping into flesh. The water splashes as she struggles to find her power. The muddy lakewater laps against my chest, stinking of decay. I grunt and plunge deeper, tilting my head to the sky as the waterline reaches my chin.
The spasms finally cease, and the last ripple drifts further away. I count to one thousand until I'm shivering in the muck. Evening falls quickly on the lake. The landscape slips into darkness as the sun sets behind the pines. My finger joints ache as they crack and stretch open, and the limp corpse bobs gently against the palm of my hand. I shove it out towards the water's dark center.
I think about her all night. In the morning, I drag the body out onto the dock we built together. My clothes hang heavy, soggy and drenched. Her knotted mop gives me leverage to drag her forward, toes scraping across the wooden planks and stone pathway we laid last summer. I seat her by the campfire and crack her limbs into a comfortable position. I lift a hot mug of coffee to her bloated, waterlogged lips. I'm not sad, or remorseful. I'm grateful. The mission is complete, and she'll be a part of me forever. I kiss her mouth and taste her rotten tongue.
If you listen carefully, you can hear the natural world. It speaks in fluent intuition, a language that intellect cannot comprehend. It's saying you don't matter. A great resounding hum to remind you, you are small, and everything you know will turn to dust.
I find myself having more in common with objects, bits and pieces, dirt, and dogs, than I ever have with another person. Nurture didn't make me this way, nature did. You have to understand, morality is a social construct. I am neither good nor bad. I simply am.