A Thin Dark Line

EPILOGUE

Victor sat at the small table in his room, cutting paper with a blunt-nosed scissors. The house was not his family house. Riverview was a group home for autistic adults. It was a strange place full of people he did not know. Some were kind to him. Some were not.

There was a large lawn with a tall brick wall around it and many trees around the perimeter, and a very nice garden. A good place for watching birds, though not nearly as many species as there had been at Victor's own house. And here he couldn't take a boat out on the bayou to search for more. Nor was he allowed to go outside in the night to listen for the night birds or observe the other creatures that preferred darkness to light. There were many that did. Some were predators. Some were not.

For the most part, Victor's life in this new place was quiet and calm. Somewhere between red and white. Gray, he had decided. Most days he felt very gray. Like sleeping, but awake. He often thought of Marcus and wished that he had not ceased to exist. He often thought of Mother.

Setting the scissors aside, he took up the small bottle of glue and set about putting the finishing touches on his creation. Mother had ceased to exist, Richard Kudrow had told him, though Victor had not seen her and did not know for a fact that this was true. Sometimes he dreamed that she came to him in the night, as she often had, and sat beside him on his bed and stroked his hair while she talked in the Night Voice.

A low hum of tension vibrated through him as he remembered the Night Voice. The Night Voice spoke of red things. The Night Voice spoke of feelings. Better not to have them. Love.

Passion.

Greed.

Anger.

Hatred.

Their power was very red. The people they touched ceased to exist. Like Father. Like Mother. Like Marcus. Like Pam.

Sometimes Victor dreamed of the Dark Night and the things he had seen. Very red. Mother, but not Mother, doing things the Night Voice talked about. Even just remembering brought on a red intensity that paralyzed him, as it had that night. He had stood frozen outside the house for hours afterward, hidden in the darkness, unable to move or speak. Finally he had gone inside to see.

Pam, but not Pam. She had ceased to exist. Her cries remained locked inside Victor's mind, echoing and echoing. He didn't like the way her face had changed. Slowly, he took off his mask and laid it across her eyes. Love.

Passion.

Greed.

Anger.

Hatred.

Emotions. Better not to have them. Better to wear a mask, he thought as he put his new one on and went to his small window to stare out at a world cast in the intense colors and soft shadows of twilight. Hatred.

Anger.

Greed.

Passion.

Love. The line between them is thin and dark.