I had seen him before. He burbled and throbbed. His skin vibrated and pulsed like something out of a children’s footrace. There were occupants. I wasn’t sure when or by what circumstances I had ended up on the ground.

The threads were real. I was displeased by their encumbrance. He took a step closer, his face an amalgamation of shapes. The buzzing in my brain was vociferous, like the trumpeting of little baby sailboats. I don’t…

…you have to believe me.

He stooped before me. His eyes were jagged. He looked at me as if I were a curiosity. He opened his mouth to speak, but the words vomited forth and tumbled to the ground, arrayed about me in the form of dead or dying insects, brought forth into this world by a merciless god only to suffer and then cease. I was cloyed.

He had five arms. Or six? And his hair was still textured like wild flowers – but the colors! Bright and vibrant, such that I had never seen! I did not have words for them. They made my eyes ache.

I was the smallest spoon.

And then Mrs. Hurchur was there, standing at my head as he stood at my feet. She was old and bent and smelled of sour milk, but she stared the man down. His black, jagged, bat-shaped eyes focused on her features. “Doncha go meddlin’,” she whispered at him menacingly.

He shambled away.