No One

I sit before the fire, watching its orange tongues flicker in the darkness. The stars above are glistening in the blue night. There’s something in the wind, a smell, familiar. I stir the embers with a little stick, wondering what the night will bring.

The smell—I finally know it—it’s blood. There’s blood in the air.

I keep pocking at the fire. The wind buffets my back, cutting through my jacket. I pull my chair up closer to the flames, scooting it along the dusty earth. The night will have its dangers as well as its enticements.

All around me the forest softly rustles in the dancing breeze. It’s a sign, I think. The breeze carries new whiffs of the blood—fresh, clean. I think the danger’s coming.

I keep my eyes on the fire, keep turning the coals with my stick. Still, I’m shivering—it’s not the cold. There’s something in the wind, a sound, a of a twig snapping, a snarl, a . . .

A voice speaks to me:

“And who are you?”

“Some call me a madman,” I say, “Others think me a dreamer. I’ve discourse with both, and the madman party seem the more reasonable; then again, how is a madman to know reason? Maybe, he is a mirror.” I hear his breath, hard and deep. I don’t look up; I only stir the embers. “Neither, I think, know me, nor care. Neither know what I am. So I’ve no need a name.” I smile, staring into the flames, “So call me Nemo.”

“Nameless one, what do you do here?” his voice rasps in the night.

“I sit by the fire and await the dawn. I sing now and again, or mumble half forgotten phrases of great tales told long ago. There’s none to hear me but myself, and I no one, no one to hear.” I put the stick down. “No one can do everything, but no one does nothing.”

He had no more questions of me, and the smell of blood faded into the night. I stayed by the fire until the day returned.