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I detailed the face of the man standing upright over the circle of withered grass, flanked by twin beech trees guarding him like sentinels. With a gray crayon, I shaded the segmented plates of his armor. I perfected the goose-feather quill jutting from his silver helmet. I erased the outline of his jaw and redrew it square, rock-hewn, to match that cavernous voice.

I stretched, then reviewed the drawing. Perfect. No detail to add, no stroke to erase.

I smiled, stifling a chain of laughter. I set the drawing atop my portfolio. When I uncrossed my numb legs, blood surged back in a torrent of prickling needles. I snatched the sketch, turned it toward the ring of blackened grass, and held it aloft.

“Do you like it?”

The man coughed. The circle and the beeches rippled as though I were peering at a painting submerged in churning water. My face and hands burned, but the sting would fade before blooming into rashes.

“You wear armor granted to honorable warriors,” I said, “those who’ve proven their valor defending the king and slaying scores of monsters. You’ve come on a secret quest to purge this land of darkness.”

“Did the helmet need a feather?”

Leaning over the page, I stole a glance at my drawing, hunting for errors I might’ve missed.

“I could erase the feather, but I’d have to redraw the helmet and part of that beech.”

“It’s a fine portrait of someone else.”

“I didn’t mean to insult you.”

“It isn’t me.”

I studied the scene. What other details could offend him? The man in the drawing would helm adventures where he’d always prevail, though bloodied and scarred. He’d slaughter beasts threatening those he loved.

“Maybe I’ve imagined it better than reality, but isn’t it lovelier this way?”

I slid the drawing between the portfolio’s pages, careful not to crease the edges. I lay on my side in the grass, dewdrops glittering like scattered glass.

“But it isn’t real,” said the man, as if he’d weighed the words for fifteen seconds.

“You can tell me. Truly.”

“Tell you what?”

“Why you’re here. What you seek. Do you think I’d hinder you? I want to help.”

He snorted, air whistling through a rusted pipe.

“You’re imagining that your knight has galloped here from distant lands, plunged into this forest, and awaits the stars’ alignment to fulfill his mission. Yet I appeared among these trees—this arbitrary speck in the cosmos—as I could have materialized on another planet, in the depths of a hydrocarbon sea. I linger because no corners remain worth moving out to.”

“Hydrocarbon?”

“Why are you here?”

“When I met you? To sketch this landscape. Today? Because I’ve met you.”

“On this planet, I mean.”

“I didn’t choose that.”

“Nor did I.”

I knelt. A beetle trudged past, legs ticking like a cuckoo-clock figurine. It wove through twigs and scaled dry leaves toward the border of blackened grass, but a meter away, its antennae groped the air like a blind man tracing a wall. The beetle pivoted and marched in perpendicular, bulldozing debris with its shell.

“How do you do that?” I asked.

“Do what?”

I hunched, palms sinking into the underbrush—crunching leaves, flattening grass. I stretched an arm toward the circle and crawled. A meter from the blackened grass, needles stabbed my fingertips. I jerked back. Though my fingertips tingled, no blood welled, and the pain ebbed.

“That.”

“Girl, I couldn’t explain it if I tried. Curious, though. Other creatures flee. Had another stumbled upon me—a disembodied voice in these woods—and heard me command for them to leave, they’d have bolted. Yet you persist. You lack instinct.”

“I’ve won.”

“Were we competing?”

“We’re talking. You’ve stopped ordering me away.”

The man sighed, his breath a stale gust.

“What I touch withers. All I near rots. What do you suppose that means for you?”

---

Author’s note: I wrote this novella in Spanish about ten years ago. It’s contained in the collection titled Los dominios del emperador búho.

Today’s song is “Sawdust & Diamonds” by God herself.