Summer had come to the sort of abrupt end one couldn’t help but complain over. The time was gone, off in some corner where the authority figures had stashed it cruelly, refusing to indulge its whereabouts to those who sought its comforting presence. Time. While the children so desired it to embrace their fun, it also brought with it the false sense of security. It killed memories. It murdered intelligence. And so, it had been captured, thrown roughly back in the iron shackles that bound it every year, collecting dust on the cover of Destiny’s leather book.

The trees had yet to catch up with its disappearance. In a month or so, they would shed all traces of emerald from their glimmering boughs, but in these days of indecisiveness which lead to a terrible inevitability (that of growing older), they clung to their chlorophyll with wills as brittle as their flaking branches. Daring leaves wafted to the ground individually, their descents incomparable to the flurry that was to follow when autumn attacked.

In these rural areas where tendrils of warmth still seeped from the persistent sun to the baked ground, the man trudged. His feet seemed to urge the soil onward more than they did his own body, which hunched and lurched along with his morose gait. No physical defect was responsible; he was healthy in every sense of the word. His limping was due to his mood, which hung in the air like cloying humidity, a predestined drizzle of woe and humiliation.

So palpable was his distress that a stray dog seeking any meager scrap of food whined and went out of its way to avoid him. The man halted, seemed to consider something, and with a shake of his head, continued.

He was a mechanic, a cashier, a technician, a waiter, a plumber, a librarian, an astronomer, a nurse, and a teacher. But above all of these, he was an artist. He was financially secure in this last profession (an accomplishment rivaled by the first lunar landing to most), and yet his pale hands had never once touched a brush to a canvas. This might be understandable, given that he was a sculptor first and foremost, but the same hands were also foreign to any manner of chisel, clay, or marble.

Of course, this disreputable notion was known only by the man himself and some twenty-odd others, who were incapable of much communication anyway. The invisible weight he bore on his already bowed shoulders was that of a great secret, and the horrendous responsibility it entailed. Keeping such a secret in check was nigh impossible, and so the man was struck with these moods very often, his very existence pitting itself against his morals as a sentient being.

The lone figure was an exceptional example of the primal instinct theory. The need to survive, ingrained in one of the deepest grooves of his brain, was the only thing that sustained his esteem. He was old, and as it is with many of the elderly generations, a primordial gut overruled a sick heart.

Behind him, he dragged a large box on wheels, tall and obviously heavy.

Miles back from whence the tall stranger had come, a poster fluttered feebly on a public billboard, its tattered expanse barely contained from the wind by a few haphazard tacks. The photo on the front seemed bland compared to the blaring, black headline above it: MISSING. Even the woman’s face held no discernible emotion, and stared blankly into space, past the camera lens and beyond.

Below the small portrait were words in small, generic typing:

‘Denise Corrigan, missing since Friday afternoon. Last witnessed leaving her home at 1764 Baker’s St. in an easterly direction, presumably to gather flowers. Any information regarding this woman can be sent to the police department at 1242 N. Jeffery ( 453 – 555 – 8735 ) .’

Dust spiraled from the dirt road leading like a tongue of sandpaper out of the quaint village. The small bits of debris whipped and spattered against the board, and others followed to swoop in small gusts about the town, adding to its antiquated atmosphere. Like the strange man, the houses and their surroundings were old, the only tire tracks those of the occasional tractor and its cargo. Children with soft southern accents and unruly hair ambled after a butterfly, while their relatives sat complacently on nearby porches, comfortably situated in rocking chairs.

The town would never amount to anything except itself, and its citizens embraced the fact wholeheartedly. It was only when such a tragedy struck, such as the supposed abduction or death of Ms. Corrigan, that their seclusion resulted in an alarming ineptitude to take action.

The world around this small community was just as blind to it as it was to the world. Like many others of its kind, it was content to sit and remain in a perpetual cycle of withering and flourishing, never exceeding its boundaries for fear of offending the height of human civilization. This was why the strange, limping man had deliberately passed through, as he had with so many other insignificant towns. In such cases, his crime did pay.

A plane left Oregon at 7:14 AM with the queer man on board, his hands folded casually in his lap, his head looming far above the seatback and obstructing the view of the woman behind him from the in-flight movie—some terrible film in which any developing plot was masked by the slowly flowering romance of two angst-ridden teens.

Absentmindedly, he raised his hand to scratch the back of his neck, leaving a few red scrapes in the pallid flesh. The wide-brimmed hat he wore covered any traces of hair he might have (many found it safe to assume baldness upon their first impression), and the fedora was tipped so low, it nearly obscured the bright green eyes below the man’s unblemished forehead. These eyes never fully made contact with anyone else’s; a necessary precaution.

Old though he was, the majority of his acquaintances gauged his age at a fresh thirty-something, and commented that he was aging well. They received a polite nod and a tip of his hat, perhaps, if they were fortunate, the rare gleam of a tight-lipped smirk. The customs woman received just that as he collected his parcels, which were few and manageable without a raucous cart, save for the one item he was having shipped directly to the auction house.

Appraisals were given, and bids were cast, quicker and quicker, in a dervish of raised hands and cracking voices. Competition was fierce, and men and women perspirated profusely, though they remained rooted to their seats. The auctioneer and his assistants carried away and exposed each item with the same bright enthusiasm, which might have been maddening to a casual passerby, if they were not interested in displaying how much money they were willing to toss in the air for such exquisite things.

A lamp shaped like a beautifully wrought pheasant, each feather detailed down to the quill running down the middle. A collection of American flags, the stars shrunken and numbering too few, thus increasing the banners’ worth. A painting of a landscape dotted with cottages and smoking chimneys, the image of winter warmth. One by one they disappeared, metaphorically dipping themselves into the pockets of paying patrons, who, with a stream of digits coursing from their overexcited mouths, took on the roles of art conquistadors.

The third-to-last piece was wheeled out next to the podium, covered in a mock-velvet drape that was much too big for its slender frame. A show was made of the drape’s removal, a few ‘failed’ attempts finally resulting in the interns’ lifting of the fabric completely, revealing the sculpture underneath.

Endlessly white and infernally luminescent, whatever had been used to coat the piece shone even in the dim lighting of the auction house. The figure was posed in a kneeling position, its hands clutching a bouquet of flowers (these were real, and they wilted and drooped). The amount of impeccable detail, catching the imperfections of the woman as well as her definit e beauty, caused the audience to recoil at the sheer vivaciousness of the statue. Her hair almost seemed to blow in the air conditioning, her eyes might have darted in wonder at the posies the she clutched, and her weight may have very well shifted from one ivory knee to the other.

The bidding commenced, and Denice Colligan was taken home by a wealthy woman from Prague who decided that she was the perfect addition to her garden.

The tall, eerie man arrived at a small summer home in Michigan, bleary-eyed from his flight and still carrying himself poorly. His coat was discarded with a simple slight of hand onto the back of the front door, his shoes deposited in a similar fluid manner onto the mat. He expected a shipment of his monetary compensation for the sculpture any day now, depending on its location and the new owner’s reliability.

A spindly hand grabbed the remote control and flicked the television set on, the reflection of the news shining in his vividly emerald eyes. The man slumped onto his couch, fatigue gnawing at his innards and guilt wracking his semblance of a soul. The same hand reached up to remove the wide-brimmed hat and set it ever-cautiously onto the cushion beside him, his line of sight hurriedly scanning the barred windows and the blinds pulled down over them.

A sigh was given, along with several collective hissing noises, content and secure. Coiling and meshing, fluctuating in hues that human eyes can barely fathom, the serpents writhed and breathed in the welcome oxygen. Air turned stale quickly under the hat, and this blissful release was infrequent; the snakes gobbled it down and spiraled into each other, flicking loving forked tongues over the man’s hallowed features.

His visage melted into a picture of relaxation as sleep overtook him, slumber wrought with the comforting presence of twenty-odd bodies that knew—that were—his secret. The gorgon dreamed of ghost towns and moving statues, and his eyelids fluttered over his lethal gaze, a portrait of sin, regret, and endless life. His companions cooed and slithered, never far from their master, unable to disconnect even if they had the urge. Ruby eyes offset each other in the gloom, and Medusa’s heir slept on.