Guilt by Dusty Yote

Guilt

Dusty Yote, accident, conscience, donkey, guilt, horror, maned wolf, psychological, trauma

Jack Redfield tells the story of a night that has haunted his memory for years.

My first attempt at psychological horror. :3

Guilt - a novelette

22,862 words

You'll have to forgive me if I need to take a moment to collect my thoughts. You need to understand that recounting these events is strange. What time and memory are supposed to fade, I've retained much and still see them crystal clear, and can remember some of these things down almost to the finest detail.

Time has become something of an abyss wherein even what happened earlier today is but a dream and what happened back then is as real as you sitting here next to me listening. There are times where it feels like the events were yesterday and yet truly months and months have passed since then. Even now, casting myself back to that night, I feel like I could be telling you about what happened last week or even last night.

The truth of the matter is I've been very unsettled because of the event. Little can truly convey what actually happened between then and now: the sleepless nights, the crawling paranoia, the weight that these have all placed on my heart. Perhaps this may change what you think of me, about what you see as an upstanding member of society, but I am now willing to take that risk, if only to take this unbearable weight off my shoulders.

Long have I wanted to tell someone what transpired, but perhaps it is a fear of personal perception or even just a donkey's stubbornness that has prevented me from saying so. But with you, as a friend, I might be able to finally express my true feelings on it. If you promise not to disturb me, I will tell the tale in full. I... I think I can finally allow myself that.

It was a little over three years ago now. Winter, about a month before Creator's Eve. The sun still set about five o'clock those days and dusk settled early. I worked at my old office supply company then. I was promising. I was a supervisor, I had key-holder rights, I made enough to afford my own place. I frequently worked the mid-day shift. And I had good friends back there. Friends who once tried to warn me of the trouble I was about to get into. I wish I had listened to them.

It was what we call "load" day, when the truck comes in and drops off the inventory. My official title was "inventory supervisor", and my main duty was to make sure everything came off the truck and the product counts were all correct. Sure, I had part-timers help with taking everything out to the floor, but it was my job to organize the incoming product and make sure it went to the right location. It's heavy work, lifting and carrying and pushing product back and forth across the little back-room warehouse and onto the floor. But I had strength, patience, and stubbornness, and it was easy to see it through.

It was a Saturday, I remember that much. The truck came in early and when I arrived the opening shift manager had already taken in the product and the truck was gone. Perfect timing for me to start breaking down the heavy pallets and load them onto carts for the afternoon associates to start taking out.

There is something to be noted about retail load that not many people understand. Load is given to us in pallets, and each pallet has somewhere around a thousand pounds of inventory on it. So to say I broke down three pallets that day is to say I broke and distributed and moved about three thousand pounds of stuff during my seven-hour shift. You may dismiss this as extra, as an unnecessary detail about my job, but I believe this is a key detail. It's real, physical work... real, physical exhaustion between the steps and the weight, even if it is broken down into armloads of twenty to thirty pounds.

At one point in the day, I was helping one of my coworkers offload stuff from the cart onto the shelf when my manager at the time came around. Liliana, I believe her name was, a leopard with a stout frame. She came around and asked if I was taking my breaks.

Don't need to, I told her. I just had a bottle of water from the back and am good to go.

You should still be taking your breaks, she said. You look a little worn down today. Leave the cart alone for a minute and take a fifteen before you exhaust yourself.

All right, all right, I said. I'll take the break.

You should let me buy you a coffee, she joked.

I'll be good without it, I said. But I'll take the sit-down, and a bottle of water if there's any still in the back.

Us donkeys are stubborn but reliable. You give us good hefty work like this, I can take it on no problem. Still, when an order comes from the general manager like that, you don't argue it. But I should have taken her offer on the coffee, or at least taken it as advice and bought one. But that stubbornness sometimes makes you miss something that should have been taken as a warning sign. It was already there; Liliana knew it. The extra perk might have offset the exhaustion enough to avoid...

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Not that far ahead, but it's best if I go in order.

Physical exhaustion, you see, is only part of it. Mental exhaustion added to that as well. I remember one customer in particular I was dealing with who was trying to return a set of mesh desk accessories and get their money back. Thing is, we can't do that without a receipt or proof of purchase. But they had no proof. Liliana was on lunch at the time, and thus I was called over to deal with it. Little old cat, had to be sixty years old or more, definitely white around the muzzle.

I paid for these trays and I want my money back, the cat said.

Do you have the receipt for them, I asked.

No, she said, but you can look it up in your system because I know I bought it here.

I can't give you the money back without a receipt, I explained. The most I would be able to do otherwise is store credit.

You can't look it up in your system, she questioned.

Do you still have the card you purchased them with, I asked. I might be able to look it up that way.

I have multiple cards, she said.

I can check them, I said.

But when I checked all of them, not a single one had record of her buying the desk set. I told her there was nothing I could do without a receipt for proof of purchase and she stormed off. She returned not too much longer with the set and a receipt.

Here's the receipt, she said. I want my money back.

So I tried. But when I looked at the item number of the desk set she brought and the item numbers of the accessories that were on the receipt, none of them matched. I told her the set she was trying to return was not on the receipt she gave me and so she still had no proof of purchase.

You asked for the receipt and I brought it, she said.

The item number doesn't match anything here, I explained, it won't go through.

Now you look here, she said shaking (and I couldn't tell if she was on the verge of rage or just crying). I brought the receipt. I brought the letter trays that I bought here. I should be able to get my full money back.

The item numbers don't match, I said. The most I would be able to do would be store credit.

I don't want store credit, she demanded. I want my money back because you're making things impossible. I won't be buying anything from this store anymore. I just want my money so I can go somewhere else.

I scanned the receipt she gave me to show her it would take the receipt. I then scanned the desk set and showed her the warning that popped up on the screen saying it couldn't be found in the transaction given by the receipt. There was nothing I could do to give her anything other than store credit.

Can I speak to the manager, she asked impatiently.

I am the manager-on-duty at the moment, I said calmly.

Well, then I want to speak to someone higher, she demanded. Where's the store manager?

You'll have to wait five minutes, I said. She'll be coming back from lunch shortly.

At that rate, she scoffed, I may have better luck calling corporate and complaining about your stupid return policies.

There is no more I can do, I told her. You'll have to wait until she comes back.

I told her she could wait to the side and I'd inform the manager as soon as she came back in.

When the line at the front had died down, our front associate asked me how I could have been so calm during the whole thing. I certainly didn't feel calm, though; I wanted to yell and scream but that wouldn't have been good for myself or the store. I was shaking with something that was half anger and half pity, repressed because I couldn't make a scene.

I think the customer walked out shortly after this. When Liliana came around again, I went to look for her to let her know. But I did not find her up at the desk nor walking around the floor. There wasn't much Liliana would have been able to do besides what I did anyways, so I decided not to bother with it unless she came back in store.

This all seems arbitrary and you may not think that it's relevant. It's just what retail workers go through, we've all read the stories and the blog posts and the internet boards. But that's the thing. It was relevant for me on that day.

You don't always get customers like that. I'd say I maybe get one like that every two to three days. But they stick with you and get in your brain for the rest of the damned day. I was calm at the time but was shaking with repressed rage at how the woman wouldn't even listen to what I could do. I mean, I was offering concrete physical evidence how the receipt and the item didn't match and she still insisted I could do it! I kept my head about me then, and I was proud of myself, but I let it get under my skin.

So I was angry with the customer. And I was tired from the physical work with load.

I was distracted. I fully own up to that.

That's what caused the accident.

I did not work close to home. Bailova is a large city, and the best place I could get work was across town from where I lived. Following the freeway, I drove over half an hour each direction. My current employer is much closer, not but a few minutes from my apartment by bicycle. I still own a car for groceries or errands or visiting my parents and friends, but I seldom drive as much anymore.

Late morning or afternoon was never that bad, I avoided the main rush. I could leave at nine-fifteen and have time to stop for a cup of coffee at the shop next door before clocking in at ten. But driving home was another matter. At four-thirty or five the rush comes out and it was almost always a good fifty minutes or more trying to get home on the freeway. I'd taken to using side-streets, after a certain stretch where it made a large arc, because that was more direct and frequently had less traffic.

But I'm jumping ahead of myself again. I was leaving work when I was stopped by Liliana. We went into the office and she told me to sit down.

How are you feeling today, she asked.

I told her I was doing pretty good.

Has it been a busy day at all, she asked.

The usual amount, I told her. Broke down three of the pallets, dealt with a weird customer while you were at lunch. She disappeared on me just before you came back in.

Yes, Liliana said, I heard from the register. She came back while you were on lunch and complained to me about the same thing. Don't worry about it too much; you did what you could. She just... had a short temper.

Were you able to do anything about it, I asked.

You pretty much told her everything we could do, Liliana replied. There wasn't much more for me to add on to that. Sometimes people like that just have a stick up their arse and there's not much we can do about it. She just needed me to say it as the higher manager at that point, then went off cowed.

I apologize for replicating her harsh language, but Liliana is not one to mess around. And it's true. What else was there to say? I did what I could, I followed protocol, and even Liliana admitted that I had a good reaction and did what I could within my limits. She'd followed up and taken care of the rest. Done, right? Perhaps on a normal day a talk with Liliana like that would have ended it.

I was still thinking about that woman when I got off the freeway for my shortcut. And I felt myself yawn as I started heading south towards the neighborhoods. The coffee sounded good by now, but if I crossed the neighborhoods, there was a fast food place I liked stopping at that would have an iced coffee and a black bean and mushroom burger with potato rounds. It felt like the perfect meal to end what had been a tiring day at work.

Dusk was setting and there was no moon as I drove into the neighborhoods. Follow the freeway and it's a line of shopping centers, car dealerships, larger businesses. Stay off the freeways around there and you're out of city center, sticking to smaller plazas and neighborhoods that are half-walking half-driving. There are few street lights and fewer lamps and it almost necessitates driving with headlights on in winter. Thank the Creator there was no rain, or else it may have been worse.

I barely registered the cyclist alongside me. I don't even think he was next to me that long and due to the lights was barely more than a shadow on the walk next to me. Long and lanky, wearing a helmet with no visible ears, I could barely make out his shape even when I was right next to him at a stop sign. But he kept going while I had to wait and check my surroundings, and he was going at a good clip. I thought that would be the last of him, yawning again as I took off from the sign, thinking about that woman and how I would confront another customer like that.

A few houses down was a truck with the tail end parked a little out into the street. I drove forward and started picking up speed when suddenly the biker had to veer around the truck. I registered the shadow come into my view and slammed on the breaks, but it wasn't enough. The biker also tried cutting his brakes as he had to slow down from almost hitting the truck, but he too didn't have time to check his speed entirely. Before I stopped moving the biker rammed into the side of my car by the hood and dropped, falling over sideways.

My gut dropped. Thankfully there was no one else on the road at that time and the houses around us were strangely dark. There was a moment where I wondered what would happen if I just pulled away and left him there, but I couldn't do it. I put on my emergency flashers and stopped the car to get out and check on the biker.

I found him on his back on the grass, knees bent, rubbing his head but otherwise keeping very still. His bike was sideways but from my initial look-over there appeared to be no damages. But it was hard to see even in the light of the streetlamp a few houses up. I began to panic and ran over to him and he only seemed to notice me when I had dropped on my knees.

Hey, sorry about that, he said before I had a chance to say anything.

Oh my god, I said, are you okay?

I'm testing everything out right now, he said, but I don't think anything's broken.

I am so sorry, I blurted, I did not see you fling out like that!

I didn't realize that truck was in the way, the biker replied. Damn thing wasn't visible in the light.

Are you sure nothing's broken, I asked.

Nothing I can feel, the biker said. I rolled. I think that took most of the damage. That and there was the patch of grass here.

Here, let me help you up, I said. Let's get you to the light right there and we can check you over.

I reached out a hand. The paw in return gripped strongly and we were able to lift the biker up and walk over to the light. There now stood a maned wolf, long-legged and generally lanky, a head or two taller than me; his dark orange fur was still difficult to see even in the light. He was probably a few years younger than I was, thankfully in helmet that his longer ears poked slightly out the top. Gloves, arm pads, knee pads. Still in shorts and a t-shirt despite the cold weather; our breaths made a light vapor in the evening chill. Certainly he had no scratches on him, but he kept raising his hand to his head as though something was bothering him, and he swayed and limped as though he was dizzy.

Aw, man, I sputtered. I was just driving home, thank the Creator it was just after the stop sign.

Yeah, the maned wolf said, I heard you stop and I was just like 'thank god it's not one of those assholes'.

I'm kind of feeling like an asshole right now, I replied. You're not bleeding anywhere?

No, no, I'm alright, the maned wolf said. My side will probably be bruised tomorrow, but nothing a pain med can't fix. Besides, I couldn't even see the truck; it was stupid of me to swerve like that.

I could barely see the truck even with my headlights, I said. You hit the brakes at a good time, too, or else you would have been pressed even harder. Please, let me check it out.

He did let me touch the side that was closest to the car. But he didn't flinch. Again he pressed a hand to his head in a motion that I couldn't tell. I heard a scratching noise but he didn't seem too embarrassed to be in that position. He was still smiling and his eyes were still bright so I hardly took notice of it at the time. I was mostly looking at the scuff marks on his pants and shoulders, a mix of grass and mud and occasionally furless sections where the impact might have scraped something off.

Look, I told you nothing broke, the maned wolf said with a slight laugh. I was spending that time on the ground testing things out and making sure nothing felt weird when I moved.

Yeah, well I just want to make sure myself so I don't strand you out here, I said.

I'll be alright. I'm less than a mile from home and this is a route I take pretty often.

I didn't want to tell him this was a route I had taken pretty often myself. Any number of times we could have passed each other without noticing and this is what happens on the one day we do. Part of me felt bad, the other part was cursing how this whole day seemed to be one problem after another. Over-exhaustion, the irritating woman, and now this.

I was especially less inclined to mention it now that I looked around in the evening gloom. Darkness was settling. I had barely heard the noise of any other traffic except for a street over. The nearest light in a house was almost a block down from us. The silence - apart from our breaths, only the slight hum of my car's running engine - was eerie. You'd think someone would have called emergency services or one of the local community patrol officers. But there wasn't another soul in sight.

You said you were a mile away, I said. Where do you live?

Up on... uh... Hillcrest Road, the maned wolf replied. Right at the light up there then a left at the little plaza with that one sushi restaurant. I should be alright biking home then take a shower.

Look, I told him, I'd feel bad if I just kind of left you like this. Is your head okay?

Yeah, yeah, he replied, I should be okay.

You keep pressing a hand to your head, I finally commented. Are you sure?

It's a little headache, nothing much, the maned wolf said. I'm sure I'll be fine.

That could just be the adrenaline talking, I said. Maybe you can bike home, but we should exchange names and phone numbers. In case it wears off and you find yourself needing to go to the clinic or - Creator forbid - the hospital.

This appeared to be the first time during the exchange that the maned wolf had considered this. He mulled it over for a little bit before replying. His name was Theodore Banks and he was insured. I got a copy of my insurance forms out from the car and gave him my name and phone number and I got his cell number.

Only now did we inspect the car and the bike. The car thankfully enough only had a few scratches from where the bike had collided with it at the hood. I wouldn't even need to take it into the shop. Miraculously, the bike had little structural damage. A handlebar was bent, likely from the bike's being swerved out and that handle facing the car at the time. There were a few paint scratches. The chain was slightly off but between me and Theodore we were able to get it reattached and the bike moving fine again. Hardly even lopsided.

This will be good enough to get me home, Theodore said.

I could pay for the bike damages if you wanted, I offered.

I doubt the repairs will be that much, Theodore said. I can cover that. It's also not my main mode of transport, just a hobby, so I'm not that concerned.

Well, I relented, at least let me pay for the medical bills if you do end up going to the hospital.

Creator willing, I won't, Theodore said, but I'll keep that in mind.

At least message me when you get home, I said. Just in case the adrenaline starts wearing off and you start feeling worse.

You're starting to sound like my dad, Theodore said with a laugh, but I appreciate the concern. Really, I do. Hardly anyone stops for the bikes lately.

They should more often, I said. And probably get more lights around here.

Can't have another truck catch us off-guard in the dark like that, Theodore agreed. I'll message, and you get home safe, too, okay?

I watched as Theodore got on his bike and pedaled off. He swayed a little like he was drunk and I was half worried the bike was more damaged than I thought. But he soon got used to the bike's movements and was smoothly pedaling down the street and turned out of sight at the light.

I got back in my car, finally remembering I'd been parked in the middle of the street. I was now very concerned given that no one had even pulled up; the only cars were already parked and as dark as the houses. I made sure the engine was still turning over and drove up to the light, temporarily ignoring a green to make sure I could see Theodore on his way up. He was already a speck in the distance, and I hoped that everything was alright as his shadow disappeared into the night.

I got home about ten minutes later, a little apartment complex where I lived on the second floor. I set down my things and suddenly chilled and shaken by the experience as though it had just happened. I immediately took off all my clothes and jumped into a warm shower just to calm down.

You have to understand I thought I was a decent driver. I'd been driving for seven years without an accident at that point, and even longer without an incident that wasn't my fault. But I wasn't thinking of the premiums going up. I was thinking "my god, I just hit someone". It was slow and the guy was able to mostly walk away, but I still hit someone. It wasn't fun, and is something I wouldn't wish on anyone.

That includes even from my perspective. The guy in the car. There's a weight on your shoulders after that. You hear the thud and see the guy disappear below the bumper and you wonder to yourself what the hell have I done. I'm sorry for the common saying, but back then I knew I'd done something very messed up and was lucky to have it end how it did. At least, I presumed so.

I got out of the shower and dried myself off and felt better to have warmed up a bit; I couldn't tell if my sudden chill was from nervousness or from standing around in midwinter cold for almost half an hour. I got into my comfortable evening clothes and went to check my phone. I'd gotten two texts from Theodore, one making sure the number went through that marked the accident at a little after six o'clock, and one from - checking the clock - about two minutes' ago.

It read: Almost forgot to text. Made it home alright. Threw up a bit; might have been the adrenaline wearing off. Small persistent headache but nothing major, and a few bruises forming as I expected.

I replied: You sure you don't need to go to the hospital and check the bruises?

I went to my kitchen and boiled water for coffee. By the time I'd made a coffee with cream and sugar I'd gotten another text from Theodore: We'll see how bad the bruises get tomorrow. Got the girlfriend coming over, though, she'll point out if anything's terrible.

It was at this point that I finally started calming down myself. At least the guy had someone else coming over to be with him and I had made sure he'd gotten home alright and was still in-contact with him in case anything went wrong. My bases were mostly covered, I figured. I forced myself to have a glass of water to get rid of the dry sensation in my mouth then drank the coffee as I realized I'd forgotten to stop for food. I had some black bean and mushroom burgers in my fridge, and set out to make one on my stove. I wouldn't get the potato rounds, but I had some chips available and that was good enough.

Part of my brain was still in comfort mode, now desperately wanting to relieve the tension of both the customer that I was still thinking about and the accident. And, turning the television on and starting to eat, some of that tension started to go away.

Something remained. Little tiny questions that popped up every now and then about the maned wolf's actions and state after the accident. I'm no medical professional, but aside from bruises and broken bones, something struck me as off about the gestures. The constant raising a hand to his head, almost always to the same spot. The swaying as though he was having trouble standing. And now nausea according to the text message.

It just didn't feel right.

I decided to look up the symptoms. Turned on my home computer, opened up the browser, and went to a quick-diagnosis site of some reputation (sponsored by the Bailovan Medical Association, if you please) to type in the symptoms. It brought up an article and I read through it and immediately felt my stomach drop. 'Traumatic brain injury' was bantered about, and all my observed symptoms of the maned wolf fell under one type in particular.

I at first felt relief, then nervous again. I figured that death was out of the question - or at least at lowest risk - based on the symptoms. But there are worse things than death. To ruin a man's life is worse than any other fate that may befall them, especially one in the prime of life. Memory loss, seizures, lack of physical and mental coordination that could last for weeks if not months. I did not want to let random chance turn out poorly. But there was little I could do. I didn't have a full address, just a name and a phone number. I probably could have looked it up in the white pages, but I didn't want to be a stalker, either.

It seemed the most I could do was continued reminders that hey, at least part of this was me, let me help if you find yourself in trouble. No life debt, just recognizing I had something to do with it. And I'd rather he get treatment sooner rather than later if anything like that was the case.

I texted: You should go to the hospital and see if you might have a concussion. I'm willing to pay the clinic fees if anything is wrong.

I still had work the next day, so I sent off the text message and the article I found and went off to do my normal prep. I made a sandwich, bagged up some chips and made a quick fruit salad for lunch. I took another shower and made sure to do a full wash. I also double-checked my laundry to see if I'd need to take a trip to the apartment's laundromat downstairs for clean pants or shirts. I figured I was good for a day or two and made a mental note to set aside a few quarters.

By the time I'd finished, it was an hour later with no response.

I still wasn't terribly panicked as yet. Perhaps he was busy with his girlfriend, or the phone was on silent. Maybe he even got the message, assumed I had a point, and went off to the emergency clinic to get it checked out. He said he lived over on Hillcrest Road, and I knew from the general area there was a clinic just a few blocks down over on Hawthorne Avenue. I at least wanted the assurance that he'd gone and gotten it checked out.

But I'd done my portion for the time being. I'd sent him the reminder through text. I settled myself into bed and had to mentally settle myself that all I could do now was wait.

I woke up late the next morning. I didn't even check the time. I just heard my alarm clock go off and realized I'd already slept through the first three snoozes. I didn't quite connect that I'd had an adrenaline crash and slept longer to deal with it. I just focused on going through my usual route, skipping portions of it, then headed off to work.

At work I began to remember what happened the previous night. Now I began to check my phone. I did so once during the first hour when my brain finally kicked into gear. Then twice the second hour when I began to contemplate sending off another text message. Then it became four or five times an hour. I'd just be walking along through an aisle, trying to put something away, when I'd feel a buzz from my phone pocket. Every time I took it out, there were no new messages. No new notifications.

Liliana eventually noticed me stopping more often. She eventually came up to me and had to tap me on the shoulder to get my attention.

You're looking at your phone quite a bit today, she said. You doing alright? Do you need a break?

I'm fine, I told her. I'm just waiting on a text back from someone about... about plans.

Liliana gave me a side-eye. You're kind of jumpy today, you know that, she said.

What do you mean jumpy, I asked.

You ignored me calling you over the radio just now and when I tapped your shoulder you gave a little yelp, she said.

Just lost in my thoughts, I said. Trying to remember something for later this evening. I'm fine, I'll be a little more attentive.

I'm not calling you out, Liliana said. I'm just trying to make sure you're okay. This isn't like you. Do you need to take some PTO or a sick day?

I'll be alright, I insisted. But I'll take a break and see if I can't get it straightened out.

Please do, Liliana said. You're a good worker, but if you need to take some time away, I'd rather you do and come back refreshed.

So I went to the back and sat down in the break room. I opened up my message chain to Theodore and the last text was still about the concussion from my end. I didn't want to sound too worried by that point, so I just sent off something simple: Hey, how are you doing today? Headache and nausea go away yet?

I received no response by the time my lunch was over. I figured he himself might be at work and once again felt satisfied that I had done my part. But I kept feeling the phantom buzzing from my phone and kept checking on it every once in a while, just in case it actually was him.

I received nothing at my second break. Nor when I was clocking out for the day.

I believe a lot of my current state would have never happened if I had received a text from either Theodore or his girlfriend. I don't quite care what version of events happened. If he was okay and sent off a message saying he was fine, then I would have been relieved and promise myself to do better. If he was in hospital, I would have paid the fees if he asked but the tension at least would have been over. But I received nothing, and feel I paid the worse price.

It started leaving work. In the dim light the night before I had barely been able to see anything. The bike had not looked terrible and while he left with a slight wobble he seemed to have made it home in decent time and had taken off quite easily.

Now in slightly better evening light I saw a significant dent in two locations on the right-hand side where Theodore's bike had rammed into me. At the top of the hood it matched up with a slight black streak where some of his handlebar might have scraped off. Below, by the wheelhouse, a few white streaks from metal colliding with metal. Not to mention my right rear-view mirror looked slightly cocked as though he had been pushed back into it.

This was the first time I actually picked up the phone and called. I had intended to ask about his further bike damages. After two rings it said the voice mailbox was full; I wasn't even able to leave a call-back message. I texted again: Hey, dude, dents in my car look worse than I thought. How's your bike? Are you sure you don't want me to help with repairs?

I half intended to wait for a response where I was just to make sure. But I also figured I didn't know his hours nor his schedule. Nor for that matter where he was, just the general area of his home. I don't know if I made myself look strange or creepy with the constant texts, but I just wanted a response. Eventually, traffic concerns (it would only get worse if I waited) and presumed sensibility won out: once again I'd done my part and it was now my job to wait.

I took the same route home that evening. I had not intended to. Indeed, I was already afraid, though of a similar incident occurring or of meeting him again, I had no idea nor do I still. I at first had decided to take the freeway and get off at the exit by my home to see if it was as bad as I had thought.

As irony would have it, an accident between a couple of tanker trucks had closed the freeway. Instead of hanging on, I saw a sign up declaring the accident at my usual off-ramp and decided that would definitely be the quickest way home that night. I had no intention of being caught in traffic for two hours longer.

I found myself going back through the same neighborhood and noticed things I hadn't before. The way the street lights sort of... faded out as I went along. A bright and vibrant suburb that slowly turned dark, quiet, lonely. It was hard to believe that a few blocks down there was something like a block party going on, yet as I neared the former site of the accident, I was now in a ghost town.

Things had changed. People hadn't moved out of there yet and it wasn't an actual ghost town. The truck, for example, was gone. Cars were different, too. But I couldn't tell if this was an area where people went to bed early or everyone here was nocturnal and had left for their days to begin. Either way, there was an odd sense of desolation that seemed to permeate the area. I liked it rather less now that I noticed it.

At one point, by one of the stop signs I noticed a shadow coming up to me on the right. I flashed my lights a few times to make sure they saw me this time, hoping to avoid a similar accident. I crept forward and the shadow seemed to keep pace with me. As I passed a familiar driveway, the shadow suddenly bolted left... in the direction of my car. I immediately locked up, slammed on the brakes, closed my eyes, and came to a screeching halt. I waited for the bump, but nothing happened. I just sat there for what seemed like hours with my eyes closed just listening to the engine running. My heart pounded in my ears.

I opened my eyes. Through the light of my headlamps I could see I was in about the same position as when I had stopped the first time. I put the car in park and slowly stepped out. Down the long road I could see where the streets were well-lit. A few blocks away, traffic sometimes whooshed by at the light on the main avenue. I slowly came around to see if anything was nearby.

The grass-patch was barren. The streetlight a house or two down shone dimly on empty sidewalk. The shadow had disappeared without a trace.

Hello, I called out. If someone's there, can you answer me?

No one answered.

Theodore? Are you there? Are you biking this route again?

Silence.

I had been unsure about the route before. I felt very uncomfortable now that I noticed how strange and lonely this neighborhood seemed. I was shouting out in the middle of the street and not a single light turned on nor a window drape moved so that someone could see what was the matter. A shiver ran down my back and I tightened my jacket around me but it didn't stave off the sudden chill.

I got back in my car and sat down. The light faded out. Another shadow bolted past my window, this time the long and lanky figure of someone riding a bicycle. I leaped out of the car.

Hey! Wait! Come back here!

But it turned the corner and went up the avenue without noticing me at all.

I remembered what this place was. I picked up my phone to see if I had received a message from Theodore about the bike. But the message I sent at lunch looked like it hadn't even been read. I tried calling again.

The caller you are trying to reach is not available right now. Please leave a message after the tone.

Hey, Theodore, it's me, Jack, the guy who... accidentally ran into you. Look, I'm sorry if I keep leaving a bunch of messages but I just want to make sure you're okay. Just... just let me know either way and I'll stop bugging you, okay?

I got back into my car, desperate now to leave the neighborhood and swearing never to enter there again. The whole incident was beginning to leave a bad taste in my mouth, and while I didn't want it gone, I was beginning to dislike the feeling it gave me.

I remained uncomfortable for a long while. The following week I received no updates from Theodore as to his whereabouts or condition. My texts remained unread, and while our phones have no way of saying so directly, I quite often assumed my calls and messages had been unheard as well.

The ambiguity began to lend itself more to paranoia than to ignorance. I wish it could have been ignorance, for the less I tried to think about it, the more the incident began to creep up in other places without warning. Which lead to it coming back full-force, which lead to me not trying to think about it even harder.

I had needed a few items from the store one day. I had a corner store a few blocks down from the apartment complex and decided to walk instead of drive. Two bags was all I needed, and I brought them. I went and purchased my things from the corner store and began to walk home.

I was about to head down the most direct route when I suddenly spotted one of our local community patrol officers, a wolf with black fur, walking towards me. Now, it should be noted I approve of this system and the Oversight Boards and community watch town halls have done a good job in rooting out any particular nuisances that may cause an officer to act disrespectfully towards a civilian. They are, for the most part, upstanding citizens who are kept on a tight leash by our neighbors and communities. And yet at the same time the particular officer seemed to be staring at me and walking purposefully in my direction.

I had, for a while, assured myself by saying the fault of the accident was not totally mine, that the maned wolf had some part to play in his swerving around the truck. However, it dawned on me that in most legal cases the cyclist still technically counted as a pedestrian and not a fellow vehicle. Therefore, should one decide to press charges for damages or medical expenses, the vehicle driver is primarily the one at fault.

I am fully aware of why this information decided to spring itself upon me while getting closer to an officer of the law. Like our wounded feral ancestors, I began to sense danger around every corner, and so had begun to try and arm myself with whatever information I could.

My nerves were more rattled when the officer appeared to throw his hand up to hail me. I believed he meant to stop me.

There was a turn down another street a few steps ahead of me before I had the chance to cross the officer in his path. I ducked down the side street and quickened my pace and heard something of a shout after me. I continued walking down the street, then double-backed a block in the opposite direction from my home and hoped the officer did not follow me.

I stopped and noticed I was breathing hard. I took a moment to assess myself and felt my heart beating rapidly like it wanted to break out of my chest. I leaned up against the side of a brick building and took stock of what happened.

I immediately felt terrible. I had evaded an officer of the law like a man condemned, without even having heard the verdict pass! Even more, I began to recognize only afterwards what my brain had left only partially complete before acting. He had thrown up his hand in greeting and only shouted at me a passing "good afternoon"! Oh how virtuous he was while I was sitting there crumbling down from my own overthinking! I returned up one of the main streets and went to my apartment feeling very much embarrassed by the whole experience.

As one does in the early stages, I presumed it was a one-off thing. I had realized my fears were - to the extent of my knowledge - unfounded, had suffered in-private, and would be free the next time something like that occurred.

The next day, I had off from work and no real plans. Cloudy and cold outside with rain on the horizon, I decided on staying home with a book and a cup of coffee. I did a little baking - it used to be a hobby of mine - and made a fresh batch of cookies in a square tin like one of my aunts used to make. I'd set the cookies in the oven, set the timer, and was about to open up the book when a knock came at the door.

I lived on the second floor thus was unable to see anyone go by very easily. I could not tell immediately who had knocked as the door was hidden from my windows in a little alcove. The logical thing would to have first been to check the peephole. That didn't matter. I remembered the officer from the previous day and my hair stood on end.

This is what had gone through my head: I'd given my name and phone number to Theodore. If he had wanted to press charges, Jack Redfield is probably a pretty common name. But probably not among donkeys. Heck, I doubt there are that many donkeys in Bailova; I think I've only seen one or two others that aren't my family here. You also don't see very many mules among the Equines. I could be pinned to the name and discovered quite easily. A simple name and phone check might also connect me to the car and an address. And since the lots at the apartment are uncovered, the community patrols likely wouldn't need a warrant in order to check. So they could come up and ask me a few questions about it or, in worst case scenario, would be here to serve me court papers for whatever charges Theodore had decided to press. I had text evidence to back me up, but that wouldn't prevent all of it if the damages were severe enough.

It was now that I decided to check the peephole. Not to see who was there, but to check the disposition of the officer. Imagine my surprise when there's a retriever lady in a flowery dress outside my door and not the community officer! I open the door and there's the retriever with a smile on her face and a clipboard in her paw. I'm able to put on a calm face as I talk to her through the screen.

Hello, she says, I'm Melanie Locke, I'm a member of Moms for Safer Driving, and I'm trying to get petitions for a new measure to send to the city council.

Hello, I say, what exactly is the context of the measure?

Well, Melanie says, we've been looking around and notice there's a few older neighborhoods that don't have a lot of streetlights around. We're trying to get a measure on the ballot that would allocate some of our electricity funding to putting in new lights in those neighborhoods.

Without saying so, I could think of one neighborhood very close by that could have used something like this a long time ago. I no longer felt nervous nor relieved that it wasn't an officer. All that came to me was depression. A good cause, I thought. But there was no way I'd be able to join them vocally for it. I decided on a kind of generic response.

Yeah, I said opening the screen, I'll sign your petition.

Oh, good, Melanie says as she hands me the clipboard and a pen. We've been noticing a rise in accidents lately in some of those old areas. My daughter almost got into one lately and I've been hearing reports of bikers and kids almost getting run over in those areas and I figured someone should do something about it.

Well, I said, I'll support it. I've been through a few of those neighborhoods on my way home from work and they need it. I hope you get on the ballot.

Thank you for the support, Melanie said. Did you want to be part of our mailing list?

I told her no. I did not tell her that the reminder about my situation with Theodore was quite enough for me to be interested. I did not tell her that I'd vote for anything that would prevent something like that happening to anyone else. She might have been sympathetic, but I wasn't going to get into details with her.

Yet the incident had done its work. Between the community officer and the retriever activist, the maned wolf Theodore Banks would hang as a specter over everything I did.

I also wondered, as the week went by, if Theodore really was in the hospital now. It was still within the time frame of symptoms appearing and that seemed to me the best option. If he was in the hospital, it would mean limited access to his phone. But instead of consoling me that there may be a reason he never answered, I began to wait for the hammer to fall. Either for anger at my putting him there or for wanting some form of compensation. Hence my fear of the community officer.

I did try once to look up his address. I forget if it was in that first week or later on. I went to the site of our white pages and found multiple Theodore Banks, and one that did live at a duplex townhouse on Hillcrest Road, a little further up than the maned wolf had suggested but in the same relative area. But when I called the number they said that Theodore Banks had moved from there a month ago, and since it was a rental property they did not know much about where he had gone.

I began also to reflect that I didn't know much about him. I could infer from our poor chance meeting that he was slightly younger than I, he rode a decent bike, had a certain evening routine with it, and might have had a girlfriend. After that, it was pure assumption. I didn't know, for example, whether the bike was used for transport or for hobby. If it was transport, it was likely cheaper than a car and maybe he worked nearby. If a hobby, maybe he had a better job than I assumed at first if he could keep it in good condition like that.

There's also little I could remember about his reactions from adrenaline during the event. That included both my side and his. I was also quite riled up by the incident and maybe I couldn't tell what he was thinking as clearly as I should have. Maybe adrenaline and just making sure he was okay enough took over whether or not his bike was okay. Thus a delayed reaction to the symptoms, thus the hospital visit now as opposed to when I had first suggested it to him.

I also couldn't tell if he had been annoyed at the accident or relieved that I had stopped. Things he said made me think he was relieved, but maybe in the dark of the night he couldn't tell as easily. Maybe the bike was something expensive and I had actually caused a gear problem or a paint scratch on a seven hundred dollar model. Or maybe it was a cheaper model that he was just figuring out his mode of transportation was damaged. I didn't know any of this. I knew his name, that we promised to keep in contact... and then he vanished without a trace, and that was all I knew or heard of him.

My encounter with the officer shook me greater than I initially realized.

I had long gone to sleep in the dark and quiet. The only sounds that I heard at night after going to bed were the soft hum of the heaters turning on or the quiet rush of a car passing by. And for the first few nights after the accident, I tended to sleep more or less in the same way. A bit of restlessness or waking up in the middle of the night more often, but clearly defined as anxiousness over Theodore rather than any true problem as yet.

Slowly the symptoms began to creep in. I went from sleeping through the night to waking up a little before the alarm went off. Then I started waking up again about an hour or so after I'd gone to bed. Then again sometime in the early hours of the morning. And where I used to sleep still when I'd gone to bed, I now woke up often in a completely different position than I started in. It was as though nothing felt comfortable.

This would happen as many as four or five times a night. I normally get about seven hours of sleep, but I believe one night the longest amount of consecutive sleep I got was maybe fifty-five minutes. I felt dry and unwell the next morning and called out sick because I did not trust myself to drive that far in that condition, afraid I should fall asleep at the wheel or even during a fifteen-minute break at work.

I felt lethargic the whole day. Yet also my body screamed at me that I should be doing something. I walked to the local pharmacy to get an organic sleeping medicine to take that night. That eased some of the restlessness and I took a nap, relieved to get some sleep even if it was just ninety minutes. But after that the restlessness took hold again and I was forced to walk to the market to get something to eat just to calm my rattled nerves.

While a night like that has never plagued me again, I think what followed upset me more. I began to hear noises at night. Not just creaks in the foundation or the natural noises. I more frequently heard the sound of a car slamming on the breaks, tires screeching down the street. The dull thud of something ramming into metal. Emergency lights and flashers. You must understand that I lived in a quiet neighborhood and this was not normal. Even on that most restless of nights none of my wakings were caused by sound. Yet ever afterwards it was the sounds kept me awake, and while my disturbances were less frequent they were more prolonged.

I remember one evening, shortly after the turn of the new year into spring, that I had woken up once sometime after two. I had endeavored to get back to sleep and turned around. I heard the tire screeching and the thumping noise on the street below my apartment and by now could guess at their correlation. Indeed, sometimes the hallucinations (for I knew they were never in reality) were so blatantly obvious that I almost wanted to bray with laughter at how ridiculous it was. Yet so ingrained was the source in my memory that I almost always flinched at their appearance.

Though the weather had not quite warmed up yet, I decided on a new tactic. I got up, turned all the lights on to search through my hall closet, and pulled out a small window fan that I had kept in the closet. I plugged it into my room outlet, standing it up on the wall, and turned it on. I hoped that the closeness and the hum would be soothing to me and moreover be near enough as to drown out even the smaller street noises.

I turned off all the lights and lay down in bed and simply listened for a moment. I heard a car go by on the street but nothing more. The fan gently hummed on the lightest setting. It was a little cooler in the room, but I had all my good blankets out and I felt moderately comfortable. So I turned onto my side and began to prepare to sleep.

I do have some windows but the light that comes from street lights or the parking lights outside is never very much. Yet I could see a shadow at the other end of the hallway.

It took me a while to really notice it and it only became very clear that there was something there at the other end of the hall right before I was about to close my eyes. In the dark of the hall leading from my room it was near invisible. But there it was, standing in the living room by the front door, only really distinguishable by a spot that seemed a little darker. The faintest outline standing against the wall, barely illuminated by a tiny strip of light through my living room curtains.

I heard no noise in the house as I flung myself out of bed and ran to flick on the hallway light. I initially presumed an intruder. But when the light came on there was no one there and no sound of flight besides my own heavy breathing. I double-checked the entire apartment just to make sure there was nothing hiding in the little spaces. The cupboards opened in-turn, the cabinets shuffled, the closets thrown apart and re-packed. Quickly I understood there was no intruder. But what made the shadow?

I turned off all the lights, got back into my bed, and lay down once again. Naught but the fan for sound, not even a creaking of the floorboards. All was silent. I turned in my bed and there once again stood the shadow at the edge of the hall.

Long and lanky it was. It looked like a fox mixed with a serval, I'd say. It shouldn't have sat in the door never mind fit into my apartment. Yet it felt like the feet were at the edge of the hall, legs stretched back towards the back wall, the torso up and along the wall to the ceiling, then the head sat and the ears stretched up until they were above the feet. Arms hung down the sides until they reached the knees, and a bristled tail sat limply in the space between and stretched until it almost touched the ankles.

It sat there and watched me for a long time. No noise. If it moved it was imperceptible. I could see loose strands that seemed to flick and shudder in the breeze of the fan or of the heater turning on. But it just stayed where it was, content to watch me.

I tried to sleep. I closed my eyes in hopes that it would go away. I lay there and listened to the fan, my breathing, the beating of my heart. I imagined it slowing down and the gentle thumps that were normal resting heart rate. I went through that scenario in my head four or five times and wondered how long it was supposed to take to fall asleep. I've heard a decent sleep feels like one has only been out for ten minutes.

I opened my eyes and it was still dark. The figure was still at the end of the hall. Only fifteen minutes had passed since I closed my eyes.

I turned around in an attempt to ignore the thing. It was a trick of the light, that's all, I reasoned. Fear preys on the unknown and turns everything to the ill-seeming of the frightened. I was seeing things and if I did not pay attention to it, it wouldn't be there.

It did not work. I closed my eyes and tried the exact same procedure as I had before. Only this time I felt a strange prickle down my neck and had the feeling of being watched. I lay there desperately trying to calm myself down yet found no relief. When I opened my eyes again I was more awake than I had been trying to get to bed.

I turned around and looked down the hallway. The shadow remained. Then its head slowly began to tilt. It was jerky and disjointed like a stuttering video, more like a machine than a living thing. A long, quiet, whisper-like sigh came from the other end of the hall, and then it went still again.

I did not sleep very much that night. I remained awake, brooding over it, watching it, hardly daring even to blink for long hours or else it may move again. It watched me back. I waited to see if it would make another move. But it seemed content to keep its head at the perpetual half-tilt, questioning me and what I was doing without asking a word.

I remained uncomfortable and restless, but I barely moved a muscle. I felt tense. I had no intention of fighting but I wanted it to go away. There it remained like a sentinel, watching without ever tiring, unmoving. Though I was not as religious back then and indeed had not gone to church for many years prior, I still prayed a bit wondering if it was some demon that had accosted me. But it seemed untroubled by my religious exclamations.

It was only when the faint light of morning began to come through the windows that it finally creaked its head back into position. Stuttering, jittery, clanking movements until it was fully upright once again, then another sigh. And the light grew as the dawn marched on, and by five-thirty in the morning there was no sign of the large shadow on my walls.

I grabbed my phone off the nightstand and made two calls. The first was to Liliana, saying that I had gotten no sleep last night and needed to stay home. The second was to Theodore.

Hey, Theodore, it's me, Jack, the donkey who... accidentally ran into you in my car the other day. Look, I'm sorry if I'm being a bother, but I really want to make sure you're okay. I... I think I saw some signs of you maybe experiencing a concussion and I just want to know everything's alright. And if your bike is messed up at all, I wanna try and help fix that. So please, call or text me as soon as you can. Whatever it takes, I want to make it right.

I never called or messaged Theodore after that. He never responded to any of my messages, and his number never crossed my phone. I've had this phone since then, and I can show you the chain. It leaves off right where I said it did. And my call history doesn't contain his number after that call. But every once in a while I just sat and stared at the phone, waiting, wondering, hoping, that he would call. Even a call in anger would make me happy. Because at least I could do something about that.

But what are you supposed to do when you've done all that you can and nothing happens? When you know you've done wrong, you try to make up for it, and yet you receive no answer? What do you do when all that answers is an empty silence?

I did manage to sleep a few hours and right my schedule that afternoon. But when I woke up I promised myself that I would do two things.

The first was to start taking some sleeping medication. Where I'd had fits of restlessness before I was usually able to pass them by and resume normalcy. It was quite clear to me that I was not going to be feeling the same way again this time. Thus, when I felt well enough, I left my apartment and walked down to the local pharmacy and got myself a sleep aid. Nothing major, just a ten milligram dose of melatonin. Perfectly natural, but it's the strongest we have available before you need a doctor's note.

I still had a day off after my taking a sick day and ran a test that evening. I went to bed at my normal time and set my alarm for the usual hour I would give myself to get ready. I lay in bed watching TV for a bit before drowsiness set in, and I turned it off and went to sleep. I woke up the next morning without ever having seen the shadow or waking up in the middle of the night. I did feel somewhat lethargic the next day, but after my usual morning routine of making coffee and taking a shower I was up and "normal". And so I was quite satisfied.

The second thing I did was to search for a new job. Not because I felt myself afraid of being fired, but because I wanted something closer to home. I wanted either minimal driving or a shorter route, one that wouldn't constantly force me to take some weird route. I wanted to avoid chance encounters like I had with Theodore as much as possible.

In this area I had a little more trouble. I now had four years of retail experience, had done some time at a temp agency, and had a degree in business with some math and financing, and looked for either office spaces or other stores close by. Office spaces were no good; all of them required only slightly less than my main drive to get to Bailova's center, and most weren't low qualification jobs, either. Out of my temp agency timing, at minimum. Any stores close by were either specialized training areas like the pharmacy or just didn't pay as well as what I made. I didn't want to go back to school for the specialized training just yet, though I figured I might have to if I had no other recourse.

I know Bailova has adjusted universal basic income and would be prepared to meet my needs. I wouldn't be poor, but I don't think I'd technically be moving with it either. That was something else that I wanted to do, but I already knew that would take a while.

I constantly put feelers out online. I subscribed to job boards, put up my resume, and put in my credentials. Top five and top ten lists started to come back in weekly e-mails based on my interests, experience, and skills. But most of them were either the stupid call centers or door-to-door sales, or too far out for me to drive. When I reduced the mileage, top tens came back as top fives and even the top fives usually had one that was outside the mileage.

I kept searching. But while I did my job searching, a third thing eventually cropped up. I began to look at local news sites. I read and searched articles. All of them about car accidents.

I don't quite remember what I was looking for at that point. Maybe half of it was validating that no one had seen it and it hadn't been rendered a public fiasco that I'd have to deal with. Less for the legal troubles and more for the potential embarrassment. The looks of pity and disappointment when someone who thought you decent suddenly realizes you're not just fallible but actually terrible. Even when you're trying to make amends, the judgmental glances continue for much longer afterwards, the blame placed entirely on you even if the other guy eventually admits it may partially be his fault as well.

I know some of it was about if they had been searching for someone related to an accident and the fear that officers would show up at my door. As I mentioned before, I was already quite willing to turn myself in if it ever came to that phase. But even then the most I could do was see if any crashes had any similarities to mine or if there were any reports about crash investigations. But none came up. Most were between two cars, not a car and a pedestrian.

I also know some of it was me deciding that if Theodore wasn't going to respond to me himself I would find validation of his existence and such another way. If he wouldn't provide me with status updates I would try and follow obliquely, from a distance, and make sure that I would know whether or not he was okay.

Among the more morbid days, I began to look at the obituaries. I looked at maned wolves and I looked up his name among the papers' listings. Where once death had been ruled out, I could no longer. Anxiety took its first hold then, imagining things like brain bleeding or complications or having drawn out some other heart-related issue. Looking back, perhaps not a completely logical train of thought, but that was where it took me.

I had not recognized what the shadow I saw back then actually was. I thought I was being haunted. In a way, perhaps, I was. Haunted by fear, paranoia, regret. But I didn't know. Fear made it where he vanished and refused to talk to me, I increasingly found no evidence of our encounter even written on the public record, and so I presumed the worst.

Eventually I decided to quit my job. Liliana wasn't exactly happy about it but I left on good terms; I made sure we found someone else and spent a few weeks training them before I left. I did everything formal, too: final training, the two weeks' notice, cleaned my section and made sure the new guy was both qualified and in-place. I've been back there once just to see and they told me he's doing a good job, so I'm pleased.

In the exit interviews, Liliana asked me why I was leaving. I told her something like it was work-related stress and the best thing to do was to find something closer to home. She's smart, though. She could both tell I wasn't letting her know the full details but that it was stress-related and that something had upset me. Sometime around the end of summer, I left the retail supply store and applied for extended adjusted UBI. I received a monthly stipend that was about seventy five percent of what I had been making which, since I wasn't spending so much on the car, was good enough.

I kept the car. I needed to. Family lived too far away for bikes, cabs are too expensive, most work places are flexible but still need some form of transportation. This came as I increasingly hated needing to drive anywhere. If I could have, I would have stopped driving entirely.

The truth of the matter is that I was becoming slowly somewhat nocturnal and I had begun to develop something of a trauma. Weirdly, the trauma was easier to explain: I refused to drive the freeway and take the extra half-hour home but the other direct route home passed the spot where I had hit Theodore. Often when I drove by I would see something in the shadows beside me. Nothing so severe as the one time where I saw something jump out, but always something stayed beside me.

I would creep along at a snail's pace through the neighborhoods. Details that I hadn't noticed before came clearly into focus. The dead sections of streets, the frequency of houses that appeared abandoned. I noticed some life but the houses themselves were of poorer quality. Lights flickered or cut in and out. Sometimes a city streetlight would go out and wouldn't get fixed for weeks where I'd seen them replace other bulbs in days. I had experienced my accidental encounter with Theodore in a place the city had forgotten, and I was well aware it could have gone much worse.

I mean not to disparage the fine citizens of our city. I more mean that if I hadn't stopped I sincerely wonder - between lifestyles, the dead nature, and how infrequently I did see life there in the days afterwards - how long the maned wolf may have laid there. If anyone would have stepped out to check on him at all. I mean, the whole reason we collided is because there was a parked car that caused him to swerve, and yet I didn't even see the owner come out to see what happened and if their truck had been part of the damage! Melanie's campaign was well-needed in places like this, and when it popped up on the winter ballots I wholeheartedly voted yes, hoping it would spur the city to take a better look at places like that and do more renovation than purely install a few street lamps. There are likely more Theodores out there, and more Jacks who find themselves in accidents like this, and I should like to reduce their occurrences if at all possible. A chance meeting that neither side should have to endure.

The nocturnal nature is... harder to explain. Donkeys are not supposed to be night dwellers. And yet that is what I slowly became. I had no coffee or tea, no stimulant kept me awake. But slowly I found myself falling asleep later and later. My bedtime for a long period became four or five in the morning, at first light when I finally felt at ease, and then I would sleep until midday. It is only recently that I have pushed it back, bit by bit, until midnight or often one o'clock.

I had perhaps passed a month or two between my haunted night and the time I finally voiced to Liliana that I may need to leave soon. I had done so because I would find myself being more and more often visited by the shadow. And on those nights that it would show up, I would not be able to sleep until it went away. If I faced it, I would feel almost a compulsion as though forcing me to keep my eyes open or that I no longer felt tired. If I turned away, I was constantly visited by those same feelings of being watched, leading to restlessness and the prickles on the back of my neck. Sleep, such as it was, was fitful and broken, and I did not feel rested.

It was no longer content to stay in the hall. Slowly it crept forward, night by night, until one night it was standing in the doorway of my bedroom. I tried sleeping with the television on, a source of light that maybe would drown it out. But every time it faded, or there was a black screen in-between the show and the ad break, I could see it there still. And then, sometimes, it would sit there in the darker corners of my room, behind the main light of the television, watching me even as I attempted to watch something else to keep my mind off of it.

Even television, which I had sought as a potential reprieve, did little to ease my anxieties. Sitcoms felt like someone was laughing at me. Multi-camera comedies without the audience either felt too slow or left long periods of silence that left my own nagging thoughts. Late night newscasts were filled with accidents and other assorted tragedies that hit too close to home, and dramas left darker screens that let my own shadows run rampant and left the one sitting in the corner just a hair too clear.

It was public television that did the least to exacerbate my problems. I found myself watching cooking shows, arts and crafts programs, historical and natural documentaries, travelogues. Lower stakes with hosts that didn't always needlessly try to exaggerate the drama involved and let the story tell itself. It was not enough to get me to sleep, but late nights in bed with a book and the television going on about the architecture of the Ai'sharran Academy and its formation followed by a cooking show that demonstrated three kinds of soup felt like less of insult to my already wounded pride.

Sometimes at night I would head down the road to the corner store. We had one nearby that was open twenty-four hours a day, had simple meals and basic provisions. Once a week I ended up going there, buying things like an egg burrito with peppers and mushrooms and onions at two in the morning, and a few other small pantry items that I might have been low on. I stopped taking the sleeping medicine around this time but I did not worry about feeling tired. I needed something to do, something to distract me from my own thoughts.

My brain was just "on". It didn't want to turn off unless there was light and sound and the shadows receded. If left to silence, all I could think about was the accident. Strings like "it's your fault, you could have avoided this if you were paying attention, you should have bought that coffee that Liliana had mentioned, one day someone's gonna figure out it was you". When four or five in the morning came around and light came through, it was less me being tired than "if you sleep now, there's less of a chance you'll make a mistake like that". And while it was never the best and I was uncomfortable, I did at least manage it unbroken by those feelings.

I had to buy new things. A space heater for the chilly nights when I was actually awake, plugged into the room to keep me warm. A robe as an extra layer of clothing with my pajama shirt and shorts, again for warmth. Blackout curtains to block some of the light coming in as the day wore on so I could actually get seven or so hours in that odd time. Body pillows of soft cloth or polyester as it felt better to have that pressure on me, and I bought two so I could have one at my back and one at my front. Extra jackets and a flashlight for the nighttime walks to the corner store.

The shadow hardly ever moved. It just stood there and loomed. It would creak its head back and forth if I moved around, but that was it. I once risked going to the bathroom, and its head jerkily followed me over to the bathroom. I turned on the light and it was gone. I did my business and thought it wouldn't be standing there looking at me all night. As soon as the light was off, though, it was back to the corner, and stuttered to follow me my entire way back to the bed. But no arm or leg moved to touch me. It just remained a quiet sentinel, a reminder.

I could never see the eyes of it. All I knew was the shape. Yet you can almost always tell when they're staring at you. The prickle down the neck. The sense of a spotlight coming to shine on you and feeling like you're exposed. A strange form of nakedness that is always unpleasant because you are clothed and yet it knows what you're like underneath them. I've heard from some people that's supposed to be romantic, but I never understood that; it always felt like a violation of privacy. And when that violation of privacy is happening in the corner of your own home, it's never pretty.

I knew to a certain extent that this was not how I was meant to live. Days halved, nights spent wandering around the city or else spent mostly in bed. I honestly wonder if I wasn't a little sick then. Not physically but mentally. Anxious, certainly, but maybe also paranoid, or exhausted, or stressed, depressed. I stopped looking at the job boards, having no energy and not even wanting to think about trying to right myself for a job when the shadow loomed over me. But it all felt... wrong.

As strange as they were, I think the nighttime walks kept me mostly sane. I was out, away from the lingering shadow. I breathed fresh air. I walked to the corner store and was forced to make small talk with the clerks and cashiers. Eating a hot egg sandwich and some coffee right before the sun rose. Relative touches of normalcy done between the hours of two and three in the morning when everyone else I knew was asleep. I held on to them, started to do them more often.

And then it joined me.

The corner store I went to by the old apartment was a twenty-four/seven one. Mostly gas stations and some fast-food places are open that long, but I never liked the atmosphere around them. Too afraid of getting jumped after about nine o'clock, even before I was truly jumpy.

In particular, there were three employees I met frequently on the rounds: a tiger, a badger, and a wolf. The badger and the wolf traded counter duties and stocking duties, and the tiger was either stocking or cleaning depending on which he saw more necessary. The first time I came in the wolf was at the counter and managed a peppy good morning to me without breaking a sweat. The badger was stocking when I walked over to one of the drink refrigerators and moved out of the way so I could pick one. The tiger openly asked if I needed help finding anything, and all three just kind of stayed quiet but passively interested.

The next time I came in they were playing music on some portable speakers. Kind of hard rock stuff, but done quietly just to pass the time. Apparently they felt comfortable enough to not turn it off when I entered, and I didn't mind it. The tiger offered to put some fresh stuff in the heaters for hot food, and the wolf asked if they could get anything from the back so it was new. The badger was at the counter, and they made some small talk when I was checking out.

I think that's what made me go back. The three were sweet in an odd way. There's no telling who will show up late at night at a place like that, and the one guy who came back - to them - was quiet, easy-to-please, and didn't make a fuss about much. Coming from someone who worked in a situation like that a while, that's rare, and they were probably thankful for it.

It wasn't that far from the apartment, either. My wanderings at night could take me sometimes for a couple of miles, yet the easiest way home was to make a line for the corner store and straight down a few blocks from there. I would go out, hit the store at two or two-thirty, buy a few things for the house and something to eat as an odd "breakfast", and head home. So when I wandered three or four times a week, I ended up going there more than half the time out.

I became an odd sort of regular for them. They knew it wasn't every night, but I started to notice things that changed when I came more frequently. I went for a hot coffee a few times and found the next time I went the coffee was fresh-made. An egg burrito or two joined the pizzas and hot dogs on the hot food rack after I asked if they had any frozen ones. Certain pastries got restocked earlier so that the cleanest and freshest packages were on top.

I wasn't the biggest talker, but Creator bless them, they tried. The wolf and the badger tried most often since they were the ones at checkout. I learned they were college students - the wolf was in hospitality, the badger in finance, the tiger getting ready for nursing. They worked at the convenience store to help pay for tuition, and though they were almost out they were starting to look at renting an apartment together. Graveyard paid well, friendship kept things easy.

Ironically, the one I ended up talking to the most was the one who wasn't always in the prime position: the tiger. It usually started with either a recommendation on a certain item or a warning about an area being cleaned, and soon led to a question or two before I'd head up front. Less forward than the wolf and the badger were, he was quieter but arguably the warmest of the lot; I suspected often he was the one behind most of the changes.

I think the tiger also came the closest to guessing why I was there. His first conversational sentence to me was something along the lines of: you're up late for a donkey. His second, after I struggled to get half a sentence out: don't be scared, I'm not gonna hurt you. A few ten-to-fifteen-minute visits and he had me pegged cleaner and faster than anyone else had.

The store offered the first respite. I knew it was temporary, but here at least were three people who were - if the peppy attitudes of the wolf and the badger and the gentle admission of the tiger was any indication - without judgment. They didn't care; they staved off the late hours with talk as much as I staved off the anxiety and mental turmoil by heading out. I came there because it was bright, clean, as far away from sleep and the quietness that could let my mind run away with me as I could imagine. They saw that and never questioned it, figuring we both could benefit.

It was a good thing the store was towards the end of the walk. As the weeks wore on, I found myself with the vague feeling of being followed. I no longer dreaded the police presence, but there was still the idea that someone was looking at me far too intently. The store became the place where either it would stop or would provide enough shelter for it to go away.

A night walk would, perhaps, gain a few people gawking at me, particularly considering my species is typically not nocturnal. Ever since the accident, I had become a host of abnormalities even among other donkeys. I was flighty instead of steady, distant instead of sociable and companionable, sedate instead of playful or active. I have no doubt there was - and perhaps still is - some reason to look at me as "not normal".

But the hour I walked was not one that was typically teeming with people. I think I came across a panther on a jog once, and a fox on a bike ride once, and that was it in months of my nightly wanderings. Nor was the neighborhood particularly known for nocturnal residents; the lights were mostly off as I passed, the houses quiet, my usual companions crickets and my way lit with either a flashlight or streetlights.

Yet more and more often, I felt the sense that something was following me. At first it was only the last few blocks to the store. Then it started coming up earlier and earlier into the walk. Once I had the sensation of being followed for a whole mile and a half from my furthest point out back to the corner store. After a while, I started carrying pepper spray in addition to the flashlight, not sure why I was being followed nor the intent of those following me.

Logic attempted to have a say. Shine a flashlight behind me and prove there's nothing there. Sniff the air and find only grass, dew, and the lingering remnants of dozens of others who might have walked the streets that day. Swivel my long ears around and know that what I hear is, most likely, some insect or lizard wandering around and not another person.

Anxiety countered it every time. They're hiding because they saw you pull out the flashlight. You can't smell or see them because they have some magical cloaking on. You don't hear them because they stop when you do, and anyways there's some species that can move way quieter than your hooves clopping along the sidewalk.

I changed up the routes often after that. The last stretch was always the same: beeline for the store, the haven, then walk down the road when it felt like the thing watching me had gone away. But it was almost always the same during the route itself: the prickle on the back of my neck, the sudden spike in my heart, the quickening of the pace to get back to whatever might count as safety. And since there weren't many stores open at that hour, there was but one place I could go.

One night, during my walk, the signs that I was being followed came again. Logic prevailed and determined that, unlike other times when I went to check, I should turn around without turning on my flashlight first. That way, if it did want to hide, it may try and reveal itself thinking it was safe and I couldn't see it and I could catch a rustling of a bush or a tail flicking just out of view when it double-backed to hide again. I adjusted my grip on the flashlight, put a hand to the pepper spray in my jacket pocket, and prepared to turn around.

Initially I saw nothing. Just as I was about to turn on my flashlight, I noticed a familiar shape in the darkness between streetlights. Long, lanky, towering - nine or ten feet tall, its head seemed to rest within the branches of a nearby tree. Ruffed cheeks, tall ears, long legs that seemed to be half its body. Arms that drooped from shoulders down to almost the knees, and a ragged tail that occasionally swung in disjointed shivers as though broken.

A few moments of silence passed by where neither I nor the shadow moved. It sighed gently, the only noise in the late night. I have said before that though it had no eyes I could feel it staring. Without eyes or a mouth, I could not make out its expression or intention, just that it was and how it seemed to pierce through me.

The leg lifted haltingly, stuttering like an old projector film. It creaked forward as though it had trouble moving, then dropped down a little bit later down the sidewalk. The other leg soon lifted, repeated the same shambling motion, and came down in front. An arm jerked upwards as though being ratcheted into position, the hand vaguely pointing in my direction.

I took one step backwards, dropping the flashlight in recognition and shock. It matched my movement almost exactly, and then I realized that any step it was taking was almost double that of my own stride. I let go of the pepper spray in my jacket - it likely wasn't going to do jack shit against this - and tore off down the road towards the corner store. I left the flashlight behind, not bothering to stoop down and pick it up out of fear it might reach me.

I think I ran a good quarter mile down the road until I saw the lot for the corner store. I turned around to see where my pursuer was and found it still stuttering but keeping an even pace behind me; I was barely any further than when I had started out. Its hand was still outstretched, and when it sighed again I thought I could hear my name in the slow, soft breeze.

I took no chances and immediately darted across the parking lot, slowing only when I was about to reach the door. The glass doors slid open and I slipped inside, turning around to watch the pursuer again. It stayed just beyond the streetlights at the edge of the small lot, standing up against a building at the far side. The head creaked to the side, much like it would in the corner of my room, then just stood there, waiting.

I turned back around to see the wolf staring at me curiously from the counter. I asked if they had a bathroom I could use, and went in to relieve myself and splash some water on my face. I realized I was panting from the exertion and waited a minute or so more before I left. As I was leaving, I noticed the tiger now behind the counter talking to the wolf, though they dispersed shortly afterwards, and the tiger went back to stocking an aisle.

I meandered around the store without the intent to purchase anything for a while. Sometimes I checked out the front windows to see if my shadow was there under the guise of looking at the promotional displays. After a while, I realized I would start to look suspicious even to these three who were trying to be kind to me, and I started my usual route and picked up an extra bottle of soap and a half gallon of milk almost as an apology.

I was contemplating an egg burrito when I realized the tiger was close by cleaning down one of the hot food machines. I looked over and he smiled gently, no hint of irritation or anger. I smiled back but said nothing in response. I decided on the burrito and went to get myself a cup of coffee when the tiger got up and walked over.

You doing alright, he asked. You don't strike me as a runner.

I used to do cross-country back in high school, I told him.

That was true but he gave off a very light chuff that likely meant he didn't believe me.

You weren't exactly doing a brisk jog across the lot a few minutes ago, he said warmly. Do you mind if I check your vitals?

I remembered the wolf mentioning he was a nurse. Somewhat reluctantly, I said he could. The tiger very gently approached and put the back of his paw to my forehead, then put two fingers at my neck for a bit and I could feel my pulse under his finger.

Your pulse is high and you have a bit of a cold sweat, he said. Your eyes are kind of wide and you're still panting a bit, too. If this happens often, you might have some form of panic disorder. Do you want to sit down for a little bit?

I stole a glance outside the window but could no longer see my shadow there. Looking back at the tiger I could tell he was less irritated and more concerned, his blinks slow and his gaze intent but soft. I took a deep breath and told him no, I should be fine enough to get home a few blocks away. He relented but informed me I should make a note of it just in case it happened again, and gave me a slight side hug with one arm before he went off to do some more cleaning.

The wolf was still chipper as I got my coffee and items and headed up to the counter. Among the usual pleasantries they also noted they were part of a group that did meditation on Friday evenings and I could come if I was interested. I politely declined but thanked them for the invitation as I paid for my things and left. The shadow had still not returned, but I went back to the apartment a little brisker than I normally did.

I reversed my route that afternoon and found the flashlight sitting in the grass just off the sidewalk almost exactly where I dropped it earlier that night. I never questioned the good fortune, but picked it up with relief and went back home without doing anything else that day. I still felt the prickle even in daylight and was uncomfortable with how it made me feel.

The shadow did not join me on another walk for a long time. Sometimes I would see it standing outside when I was at the corner store, but I never saw it out on the route after that. The feeling of being watched did persist, but never to the extent that it had that one night. I also kept my walks smaller, sometimes doing small loops around the neighborhood and doing a circuit or two before returning instead of just meandering off like I had been.

The pursuit of that evening made it obvious it wanted something from me. I could not tell at first what it wanted, and wished it was able to speak or was able at least emote what it was looking for. Had I known a good majority of this could have been avoided. Yet even in my room it remained a silent watcher, barely reacting even when I looked fully in its direction and inspected it for some kind of sign. It clearly wanted my attention, but never even gave me a response when I did finally glance in its direction. And the unease kept me from ever staring at it for too long.

It came to a head in winter, almost a full year since the accident. I remember thinking that I would have to stop my usual walks soon because it was getting colder. Or, if I insisted on continuing, start earlier and be home before too long. I was also starting to wear two layers of shirts in addition to the jacket, and intended to make this one quick, straight to the store and back.

It was half past two when I left home. Despite my intent to make the walk brisk, I did end up having to go around a block due to sidewalk maintenance and a whole section of sidewalk being cut off. It was commercial so they were actually at work there, jacking up the old pavement and re-pouring with some new stuff. Psychic mage or two to dull the noise from the jackhammers and drills. But that meant the short route was cut off. Next closest was an alleyway about half a block down, behind a few buildings that lined the road.

Town's pretty safe, really. I did not fear going down the alley. Doubted anyone would have been there anyways with the workers that close. I think that's what made the slow sighing noise probably scarier than it should have been.

I was about a third of the way down when I heard it. It sounded very close by. I stopped to see if I could hear an extra set of footsteps nearby but the only noise nearby was the workers talking to one another on the other side of the buildings. Nothing that sounded inside the hollows of the alleyway. I walked a few steps forwards to see if I could hear a second step following behind, but it wasn't there either. I began to dismiss the sighing as a strange wind and continued on.

It happened again. This time I remembered my flashlight and pulled it out of my pocket and swung it around the darker alleyway. It was relatively clean and little used, likely for trash trucks to pick up from the dumpsters or for receiving load and delivery trucks for the businesses around here. Very few would actually use this as a public transport but it wasn't out of the question. I began to check behind and around some of the dumpsters.

And then I heard my name in the sigh, coming from a little ways behind me, back towards home.

I knew it would be there long before I decided to shut off the flashlight. In what is probably a rare thought, I half hoped it would actually be someone running around behind me. There was something less frightening about a physical presence that may or may not be dangerous than a strange figure lurking in the darkness. Maybe because you can do something about it immediately.

Nevertheless, I shut off my flashlight. There it was, the shadow, walking behind me, not contrasting even against the light of the streetlamp at the end of the alleyway. Footsteps slow, shambling, yet steadily making its way towards me.

It was then that I realized the full meaning of the shadow, and wanted some answers.

What do you want from me, I asked. Why do you keep following me around?

It simply kept walking towards me. I backed up a bit, wondering about if I should run, if it was trying to harm me.

Are you a demon or a ghost, I asked it. I've had enough of you. You keep me up at night. You ruined my last job. I can't drive or walk anywhere in peace without you hounding me. Why do you keep haunting me?

Another sigh, this time paired with two words: Hit me.

No, I said. No, it wasn't my fault. I... you were swerving out of the way. I tried breaking, but I'm not the only one at fault here. You weren't wearing that bright of clothing, you should have been wearing a blinker or a light or something, something to make yourself more visible.

The sigh on the wind: Responsible... knew... but didn't wait.

Come on, I said. I tried keeping up with it. I really tried. I'm no medical professional but I tried to convince you to go earlier. And I tried to keep in contact. I have the messages. I have the call times on here still. Please, if you just gave me an answer, maybe you wouldn't... would... I don't know, maybe none of this would have happened!

The shadow reached over. I wondered again if it was about to hurt me. Like I was about to gain some form of retribution for what happened. And there was a moment where I wondered if I didn't deserve it. If I acted like a coward or not proactive enough or not closely enough.

And then it laid its hand gently on my shoulder. I felt a tiny weight but it was warm. Less a comfort and more of a reminder, but not done out of malice. It loomed over me, but it remained still and the hidden gaze felt less piercing.

I gulped and said: You're going to be with me forever, aren't you?

Not always, it sighed. Forgive yourself... and remember.

It remained there for a while, waiting for something, and then slowly faded away.

It was cold now in the alleyway. It was closer to the corner store than it was to my home and I felt a chill breeze blow through. I ended up walking to the store just to make sure I had the coffee for something warm to drink. The chill extended from the chest to my legs even with the double-layers of shirts and my jacket, and I wondered if I didn't need something thicker.

When I finally got to the corner store, the badger was at the counter and almost immediately called over the others. Apparently I was more than half an hour later than they had been expecting me. But that was not the reason the others had come over; I had nearly knocked over a display stand stumbling my way in, I was pale with chill, and panting as though I'd ran a marathon. In other words, I did not look very good.

The tiger immediately set to nursing work with the other two making sure I was taken care of. I was given hot decaf coffee for the chill and the tiger started feeling my forehead, neck, and wrists with his paws. I remained there at the corner store for half an hour while the tiger kept an eye on my rapid heart rate, and was supplied with a water bottle and aspirin. It was only when it showed signs of slowing down that he thought I might be okay, but I should probably get it checked out by a doctor in case it flared up again.

Obviously the three were interested as to why something like that had happened. There was a moment where I wondered if I shouldn't confess to them. I was not a member of a church at the time and they were likely the closest connections I had, sadly enough. I eventually decided I would only tell them half of what happened: I was likely suffering from some form of anxiety but had not actually had an extreme enough event to get diagnosed. They were sympathetic and were understanding when I said I'd rather not elaborate, but the tiger still recommended seeing an actual doctor in addition to a counselor or therapist.

With it still being about three in the morning, the tiger was not comfortable with me walking back even the few blocks. He decided to take his fifteen-minute break and drive me back to the apartment. For some reason I felt compelled to ask him a question:

You ever have any maned wolves come into the store?

He thought about it for a while.

Yeah, he said, one comes in pretty frequently at the start of our shift. Why?

You ever see any riding a bike at all, I asked.

Does this have something to do with why you were all shaky and chilled when you came into the store, he asked.

I did not answer that question.

I'm looking for one, I told him. Name of Theodore Banks. I've got something I need to tell him.

Don't know the name, he said, but I could ask. What did you want to tell him?

I wanted to tell him I'm sorry, I said. I did something stupid a while back and I never really got the chance to make it up to him. We may have brushed it off at the time, but in hindsight I was being foolish and need to own up to it. I want him to know that.

What's your name, the tiger asked.

Jack, I told him. Jack Redfield.

The tiger smiled.

Alright, he said. I'll tell him a donkey by the name of Jack Redfield is looking for him and wants to say sorry. If he does show up, at least.

Thanks, I said, I owe you.

Take care of yourself, see that doctor, and maybe get yourself settled down with a better job that doesn't necessitate stressed-out walks at two in the morning, the tiger said warmly. That's how you can owe me. Mostly for your health.

I'll see what I can do, I said.

The way I saw it after that, I had two choices. The first choice was to dwell on the fact that I still felt remorse over what happened. Living with the accident and what happened afterwards for the rest of my life. Becoming more and more of a hermit, I would gradually stop driving, subsist lower than what I knew I could do, and remain active mostly at night when there were fewer people around to potentially judge me for my actions. The shadow would stay and be my master, for I could do nothing without it watching me.

The second choice was to accept there were things I could have done better, but I would remember it. Act differently. Go the extra step that I may have missed the previous time. I would need to get out there and sometimes be in similar situations, but I wanted to repent more than I wanted to just shake it off as though it was nothing. It would require more self-management, more awareness of things that could cause that, but it could be done. The shadow may still visit me, but as a reminder, a warning, to stay on-guard.

There was a month, perhaps, where I contemplated that position. I did make the doctor's appointment the tiger recommended a few days later, and it was during the waiting period for the appointment that I thought about things. Every once in a while my heartbeat would flare up again and I would feel the pounding, feel out-of-breath, like I had run without actually moving anywhere. I did not like the feeling one bit, and I realized that sitting around like the first option suggested, though it initially felt safer, would be rather more detrimental in the long run. Fear would guide that one more, and fear had already caused plenty of issues.

The doctor I saw ran me through a blood panel and had me come in for a reading of my heart. He told me my cortisol levels were high, that I was stressed out and showing signs of anxiety. He prescribed a very mild sleeping medication that worked slightly differently than the old over-the-counter one I had been taking, a commitment to yoga or meditation classes, and a recommendation to see a therapist every three to four months for further talk therapy or to see if I needed something stronger. If nothing else, a once or twice-weekly yoga class seemed a perfect excuse to head out and do something new, the first step of that second choice.

A second chance was presented to me, and I took it. I found a community center a few miles away from my apartment and registered to join a beginner's yoga class, once weekly on Saturday mornings. The mental effects sprung slowly, but as the class focused on our breathing and holding positions, I slowly learned to temporarily push the feelings of remorse away, too. Not completely, but to at least be at ease with it more often.

With the Saturday morning classes, I also slowly forced myself to sleep earlier. The medication was not an immediate thing, but I would feel gradually drowsy over the course of half an hour until I finally felt tired enough to close my eyes. First with the TV on, then with something quieter, and quieter, until finally I turned it off. I still didn't go to bed until midnight or one, and the earliest I've been able to push myself back is to about eleven, but that was better until waiting until four or five.

I then found another job. My degree's bits of financing plus time spent as a supervisor at the retail store allowed me to pick up a part-time job as a bank teller. I had a probationary period of three months and learned fast, and they decided they liked me and would keep me on. I quickly found my schedule increased from two days a week during the probation to four days, good five-hour shifts often in the afternoon or evenings, and slowly established myself there. I work weekdays, helping with deposits and withdrawals, occasionally giving cashier's checks, and have opened a few accounts.

The only downside was the job was in a different neighborhood across the freeway. When the best way was still almost a thirty-minute drive on city streets, I decided to see if I could find something closer. It hurt me to leave the old apartment, but after a few months the paychecks coming in were good enough I was able to remove myself from the UBI program. So it was time to move.

I did manage a final goodbye to the tiger and the others at the market. I told them I was moving to a different neighborhood soon, and they congratulated me on my new job and the move. They told me a few maned wolves had come into the shop, but none of them named Theodore Banks. I told them thank you for keeping a look-out, but their duty was done. The tiger remarked that I had paid him in-full, and we wished each other well in our new efforts.

I found a new, smaller apartment that was still a ten-minute drive away, but it was in a quiet neighborhood on the same side of the freeway as the bank. Still had full facilities, on-site laundry, good heating, reliable internet, personal parking spaces. The apartment is a one-bedroom with full bathroom, full if small kitchen, a decent-sized living room, and my usual preference for a second-floor with small balcony. I share my patio with someone else, but I don't mind. I found a new community center that also had yoga classes, twice a month in the mornings, and signed up for that one.

I talk about all these as though they happened quite quickly. In truth, it took a while for anything to actually get moving. It was mid-winter when I had the doctor's appointment, and it took a bit of searching for me to find the community center. It was the new year before I found the bank job, and I didn't move to the new apartment and remove myself from the UBI until almost autumn again. Two years had passed now since the accident, and I found myself only now re-achieving something close to normalcy again.

The shadow never left entirely. It remained a steady visitor, sometimes reappearing in the corner of my room when I turned out all the lights. It was smaller now, only standing a head or two taller than me, though the proportions in some areas remained a little too monstrous with the long legs and arms. It went back to the stillness it had before, only sometimes moving the head around but without leaving its corner. I can remember my surprise upon seeing it in the new apartment complex, and the sleepless night I had wondering if the cycle were about to begin itself anew.

Thankfully, it was only the one night and the appearances it made were softened. I could more easily make it out in the darkness but no longer felt the prickle in my neck. It did not give me the feeling that I was being stared at as heavily, either. At least it wasn't so piercing, and I was actually able to sleep at night again. I was restless at first, but the medicine did its job.

I did not feel entirely comfortable around it. Sometimes when it was around I could still hear the noises - screeching breaks, dull thuds, the sound of a body rolling on the ground - even when there was visibly nothing outside. I wondered if it made those noises. But I knew what they meant now. The moment of the accident would haunt me forever, whether I ever saw Theodore's face again or not. So, too, would his image be burned into my brain.

Its funny, the way things happen like that. The incident took maybe a quarter of a minute to play out, a quarter of an hour to resolve, and a quarter of a day before the adrenaline began to wear off. But the aftermath has sent ripples that lasted years afterwards. I would consider that I got off lightly, though how light is it when I have paid this much in self-inflicted torture?

I know I've said it already, but if Theodore had sent me even just one more response, I'm very sure things would have turned out differently. Even in the most bitter of circumstances where I would have paid doctor's fees, I don't think I would have felt so remorseful about it. It would have felt terrible, certainly, but the debt would be physically and tangibly paid. Instead, I have been left to imagine that debt growing larger and larger by the day, accruing interest, without ever receiving a sign or a hope that the amount has actually been settled on. Even though that was years ago, I sometimes still feel myself looking over my shoulder as though being judged. Paranoia, some may call it, or anxiety, or PTSD. I know what it is, more than any of those things: a guilty conscience.

There is, of course, very little one can do with regards to that. There are three things I've thought of, and none of them leave you without scars.

The first is to pretend it never happened, which can only be done with extreme suppression and is more likely than not to drive you off the deep end if you were not enough already to choose it. The second is to live with it and never tell a soul, but there is a fifty-fifty chance it will drive you crazy and to an extent is not much better than the first option though one may retain some lessons learned. The last option is to find a way to eventually release it all, in full, and absolve one's self from it and to finally pay the price.

I had initially wanted to do the second. I felt unsure about telling anyone just then. It still wore heavily on me, and I had yet to truly apologize to Theodore. After a few years I realized the phone number had a chance of no longer working, and after having moved away from the old neighborhood and from Hillcrest Road, I had little chance of running into him again. The rifts of time had separated us and I began to accept that I may not see him at all.

Aside from turning my life around so that I wasn't stuck in a rut, I began to realize I had not quite paid enough attention to community. I had cherished the three corner store attendants because they were the first I'd truly reached out to in a while, and the new coworkers at the bank and the steady groups at the community center reminded me I needed something new. The avenues that initially presented themselves were not pleasing: I dislike the loud music of clubs and I'm not much of a drinker, and have for my age and expression a profound disinterest in the dating scene. I would not mind someone to be with who I maybe could have vented this all to sooner... but that is another matter entirely, and not why we are talking right now.

It soon came to my attention that, having ignored it before, I was not more than ten minutes' walk away from a Church of the Creator. Our fine church, as it were: Her Lady of Serene Grace. The name was the thing that made me look; I felt very much in need of both a bit of peace and a bit of grace. I first sat in on a sermon or two while in the back pews. Perhaps you noticed me, then; of decent standing but not entirely wearing my "Sunday best" as I gauged the look and feel of the place. I felt myself almost immediately soothed that you were not one of those zealots who goes around using the word of the Creator to bash our fellow neighbors, and felt comfortable to start sitting in on a few hymns and passages.

Indeed, I commend you for your sermons. Truly your preaching fits the moniker of the church: no matter what we had done in the past, if we were willing to come forward in true repentance and love, then we would be forgiven. The debt of sin to be paid was transferred, and our only condition was to follow the commandments given by the Creator, who would welcome us into Her arms and give us peace in Her name. Those words meant a lot to me, then, and still do now.

On our first meeting you recognized me sitting back there all those times. A month or a month and a half of slowly coming in for longer and longer until finally you went to greet me on the first day I finally stayed a whole service. The talk about joining the church, the small class I would take on Sunday afternoons learning about what your church was and how to read the word. I must tell you I spent the whole of next week contemplating if it was the right thing to do, and it was only on Saturday evening that I rushed out before the bookstores closed and bought Common Standard Version of the bible. Plain-text, perhaps, but as one who was new, I wanted the simple and direct version at first.

A few weeks later, I signed-up for the classes and went through. I learned of the way the bible was constructed, the meaning of the sacraments, and the rites of blessing. Of the way the church was set-up and the service conducted, the importance in both ritual and clerical of all those who took part. I also must admit I had more than one reservation about all of them, but I recalled the church my mother had sometimes taken me to in my youth and was quite relieved it was not so strict nor felt so threatening. I was simply told what the church was, what it was doing, and what was required of me.

After I finished, I accepted the rite of baptism. I chose the date importantly: it was around the anniversary of me quitting my retail job. I wanted to wash away the entire time between then and my time joining the church, or at least to purify it. I accepted that repentance, and for once in the past two and a half years felt calm. Not serene, not calm in the sense that I had left it behind entirely, but that I had turned a new leaf, and could now remake myself into someone better than I was back then.

Who was I back then? Impulsive, irrational, irresponsible. Not willing to take the fault of my mistakes, that's for sure. Trying to figure out what true repentance was became like holding up a mirror to that past self and seeing it for what it really was: selfish, trying to cover up its tracks, hiding incomplete actions behind good intentions. Even if things were to turn out relatively fine for Theodore, I did not do everything I could have done, because I was afraid of what I would see about myself.

I still did not have it in mind then to confess, but sometimes when I prayed I did lay out my old failure before the Creator. After I prayed, I felt a little lighter, but having resolved to never simply toss it aside, I remained the lion with a thorn in its paw, waiting for someone to take it out. But there is a difference in explaining it to a god who does not always answer immediately and to a person who can pass judgment right then.

Even so, the lightness was better than the heaviness of keeping it inside. A leak is still some relief to high pressure. And so, for the past eight months, I've been mostly alright.

I must apologize, first of all. It all started to come back around one service when I was serving as usher. It was during the communion when I saw them, a maned wolf family with a male, a female, and two small pups still wrapped up in blankets as I was guiding them out of the pew. At first I thought nothing of it, but then I noticed they were the first maned wolves I'd seen in a while. Even then it was nothing more than curiosity.

But by the time the service was over I was bolting out the door and had almost forgotten my end-of-service duties. The resemblance to the one biker I had met years ago was too striking. He had made no sign of noticing me in the pews, but I did all I could to make him not see me after church was over. When he stayed in the nave, I went up into the choir loft to clean. It was only once he had left that I returned back to the nave and helped pick up the bulletins left in the pews.

By the end of the day, I convinced myself there was nothing to worry about. Nothing more instigated my paranoia after he left the church, and I assured myself that everything was alright. And for a day or so more I believed that. A passing choice, trying out something different for a change, perhaps it wasn't my particular maned wolf. As I mentioned, I probably don't know that many species from each other anyways.

But then another week passed and he was there, him and his family sitting in front of me by pure chance. I paid no attention to it and presumed that everything would still be fine. But when the greeting came around I realized it would be rude to simply pass them over. I shook with the paw of the wife but then the husband held his paw out and, again, it would be rude to refuse. I shook his paw and I recognized the grip as someone I had once pulled up off the ground. On his part, he once again made no comment nor even seemed to recognize me. But the shadow of doubt remained.

It was on his third week, when it was his turn to be an usher, that I became fully assured. I purposefully sat across the aisle from him so that I would not have to face him, but when he came up to read the day's passage I recognized his voice. Over three years it had been since then, but when it has haunted me for every day since then I could not shake it from my brain so easily. I had to know if this was, in fact, him.

That is why I pulled you aside after church that afternoon and asked what his name was. And why, once you said his name was Theodore Banks with his wife and two sons and he had been an usher at the church for the past two years, I wanted to speak with you in private. It was clear that my ghosts were not done haunting me yet, and it was time to face facts and come to that third option: confession, and to finally face judgment for it. You, as an ordained pastor of the Creator, seemed to me the best to administer that judgment.

So there it is. The whole story from my point of view. You may need to ask him to fill in some of those details or see what really happened that night, but there it is. I do not want to speak with him if I can help it; the details still rattle my brain and I think I would be reduced to sputtering nonsense. But you... I trust you, as a Creator's emissary, to judge my sin, tell me the price, and say what I must do. I cannot hold out any longer: it is finally time for me to become cleansed of it, and to finally pay the debt that is long overdue.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

It was a cloudless day but for some reason the sun felt muted. It was still early spring and there was enough of a chill in the air that the donkey still wore a jacket. The jackal who served as pastor had suggested they sit on the bench in the gardens on the sunny side of the church, but even then it did not quite feel warm as the afternoon trailed on.

The two were not the only ones on the chapel grounds. Inside a few ushers refilled the oil for the lamps and cleaned the pews while a janitor vacuumed the carpets. Outside a couple of gardeners tended the front lawn and the gardens on the opposite side. Bulletins were being printed for the next service in the office, and a men's bible study meeting was going on inside the little conference hall. Even with all the activity around them, the gardens left the jackal and the donkey fairly secluded from the rest, and the pastor could hardly hear any of it.

The pastor finally realized that the donkey had gone quiet, the first time in what seemed like an hour or two. The donkey had asked if he could confess something, and being the caring shepherd of his flock, the jackal had invited him to the chapel on Saturday when it was quiet. And when they were assured that they would not be disturbed, the donkey had begun to talk.

The jackal had often been asked to hear out some sort of confession, this was nothing out of the normal. But most of the time it was something more domestic than this. Confessions like saying mean things to a husband or wife, trying to deal with a rebellious kid in a holy manner, maybe petty rivalries where someone finally wanted to bury the hatchet and move on. Only once in his five-year tenure he had to deal with something more grievous, a case of potential cheating. But the donkey's story was something else entirely.

The jackal first stopped to consider: was this a crime? If so, that was something out of his depth and he would have to transfer it over to the local authorities. He stopped himself right there; the donkey had said it had been three years, far past the statute of limitations for something like that. Legally the donkey was technically in the clear.

Even if it was a crime, the jackal's heart reached out to the donkey. This was exactly the type of thing the church was supposed to be there for: someone who was truly repentant and wanted to make amends. His past actions might have been problematic, but he came with a clean heart and a clean conscience. And unlike many others whom the jackal often suspected were there to wipe their own hands clean of a situation, the donkey seemed like he really wanted an answer.

"Well, Jack," the jackal responded, gathering his thoughts. "Legally, you have held out long enough I doubt you could be prosecuted for it. But let me tell you this first: take some solace in the fact that Mister Theodore Banks has been a perfectly reputable member of our congregation. He speaks eloquently and without the slightest hint of trauma, and whatever might have happened, he has made a full recovery quite soon after your... encounter with him. That alone might put your mind at ease a bit, that no lasting damage was done as you feared."

The jackal expected the response to that statement to be quite a bit more than the donkey gave off. After finishing the story, the donkey had slumped over, elbows on his knees, staring down at the ground with an almost glassy look. Upon hearing "no lasting damage", his ears perked up a bit and his eyes brightened, but he did not even turn up to look at the jackal. The pastor could not tell if he was praying or still simply waiting for the full pronouncement before he reacted.

"As for the act itself, I would agree with your own statement that you were perhaps not acting in the most holy manner. And certainly you were not right to hide away from it as long as you did. But of all the people I've had come to confess to me, you are perhaps the first to truly feel in your heart you needed to do something to repent. As it seems you have not only learned from your mistakes and learned from them well, taking care to keep by that in the future, you are further along that road to 'true repentance' than many."

Once again the pastor was surprised by the muted reaction the donkey gave: a mere nod. Now he no longer wondered if he was praying but if he was paying attention to him at all. He also was curious whether the donkey was just looking for an outlet to vent or if he really wanted the pastor to help him. The jackal wanted to, but it would be difficult if he gave no sign of actually taking any of it in.

"I do think it's a good thing you came to our church. It is always good to see someone who really wants to turn their life around by accepting the words of the Creator in true feeling of heart. As someone who has seen your troubled soul become more quiet and calm and ready to face that true repentance, you're off to a better start than many. And so, if nothing else, I bless you in the name of the Creator and forgive you of your sins in Her name, and hope that you continue on that path. But I must be honest with you: I don't know if that will clear up your insecurities about the issue."

The donkey rose a bit, but still didn't sit upright. His ears focused a little bit more towards the direction of the jackal. The pastor was quite certain the donkey was listening to him now, and realized he was still anxious or nervous. There was something he had to do, something he had been dreading... he just didn't know where to start. That was something the pastor could help him with.

"You are also missing something else: you have almost forgiven yourself, but have you asked for forgiveness from him? Should you want to fully make up for it, then your next choice would be to go and reacquaint yourself with Mister Theodore Banks and give him your apology in person. Then you will have made yourself right with the Creator by taking it to the one you wronged. If you would like, I can help you arrange the meeting and act as mediator, providing a safe environment for you to make this confession to him. You can tell him how you have been haunted by this specter of guilt, and wish to make it up to him."

The doors to the conference hall opened; the men's bible study had finished and the group was now chatting on the sunny front lawn. They laughed and waved as they broke up to their cars. A sprightly maned wolf began heading in the direction of the gardens, passing by on his way to a bike hooked up on the rack just next to the church. He put a bible in his backpack and slung it over his back before putting on a helmet and pads. Almost as an afterthought, he realized the pastor was sitting there and turned to wave at him.

The jackal waved back in greeting, then turned his attention back to Jack. The donkey was suddenly sitting very upright, his eyes wide open as he looked at the maned wolf. The maned wolf gave out another wave and a friendly smile in his direction, then mounted the bike and began to pedal off. The donkey's gaze followed him out of the parking lot and down the street, and stayed there even as the maned wolf disappeared from sight. The pastor waited as Jack recollected himself, waiting for him to give an answer.

"...I think I always will be."