4338.206 · July 25, 2018 AD
Cold Comfort
Movement is the only thing Jamie has left to control. So he moves—away from Luke's horror, away from Paul's concern, away from dogs who love him without understanding what's breaking. The river leads upstream. The horizon promises nothing. His body has promises of its own.
Some men run toward something. Jamie runs from everything.
He can't stay in that camp. Can't watch Luke's face cycle through guilt and fear. Can't feel Paul's pity pressing against him like humidity before a storm. Can't hold Henri without remembering that the dog is now as trapped as he is. Standing still means thinking. Thinking means drowning.
So he walks. Northwest, following the river upstream, letting the monotony of footsteps replace the chaos in his skull. The wound weeps. His shirt sticks. The dust coats everything—skin, lungs, the raw edges of thoughts he won't let himself finish.
He tells himself he's looking for answers. For edges. For anything that might make sense of this place.
What he doesn't tell himself is that his body stopped listening to his demands somewhere around the time his chest started oozing blood and pus. It's been keeping score. And now it's calling the debt.
