4338.207 · July 26, 2018 AD
Built for a Life He'll Never Have
Before dawn, Jerome Smith drives into the Adelaide Hills to begin his volunteer shift at a wildlife sanctuary. The routine is familiar — temperature checks, feeding schedules, the quiet discipline of caring for creatures who can't advocate for themselves. But one patient won't cooperate with the plan. A tawny frogmouth raised with too much human kindness has lost the fear that would keep him alive in the wild, and Jerome is running out of reasons to believe the damage can be undone.
Jerome's pre-dawn shift at the Haven unfolds through methodical rounds — intensive care, small mammal ward, raptor complex — each animal carrying its own trajectory toward release, permanent care, or the option nobody names. The work suits him: unhurried, observational, governed by protocol rather than emotion.
The central weight is Ghost, a tawny frogmouth orphaned at three weeks and kept too long in a stranger's laundry before reaching the Haven. Six weeks of careful rehabilitation haven't undone the early imprinting. The bird watches Jerome without fear, greets him without flinching, and displays none of the defensive behaviours that would signal readiness for the wild. Jerome's private notebook confirms what the official logs haven't yet been forced to say — Ghost is surviving into something he was never meant to be.
Beneath the animal work, the previous night's bathroom encounter with Nate Baker surfaces unbidden. Jerome registers the parallel without articulating it — the way some damage happens too fast to see coming, and some too slowly to notice until it's already done. The morning continues, the sun rises, and the work absorbs him again, but the question Ghost poses isn't going anywhere.
