I glanced back as I ran down the hill, and before I had enough sense to slow to a quick walk, a less suspicious walk, I caught a glimpse of his hand protruding from the shadow that engulfed the bench, palm up, like someone begging for money. The hand was disembodied, amputated by the hard edge of the shadow that concealed the rest of him. My own hands ached; he’d pummeled and battered me, but my grip had only tightened and tightened. Tightened until his body had finally gone slack, more and more slack. Questions raced through my mind, repeating—who sent him, what sent him, why now? Where is she?

I can’t say how long it’s been since I’ve slept; it must be at least two days. All the same, I seem to be sleeping all the time. Leaves drip water on to me. How did the water get on the leaves? Why does it fall only on me? Out of every shadow of a certain darkness his hand is extended toward me, palm up, like someone begging, but even without such shadows, even without... there’s the sound I felt in my palms and fingers, the humming tube his neck was in my hands, filled with pent up breath I wouldn’t let out. A choked gurgling is embedded in my hands like my own pulse, perhaps forever. I dunk both my hands in a sink of cold water and hold them there for as long as I can stand it, until my bones light up with cold, but that little tickle his Adam’s apple left against my palms is still there.

I don’t want to forget; I can’t afford to, because I have to avoid being caught. The body still hasn’t been found—or if it has, they’re keeping the news to themselves. And why wouldn’t they? I can’t imagine a body lying there on park bench, unnoticed, for at least two days. Since there’s no word about the body anywhere, I have to assume the police found it first, and got it out of there early in the morning, even before the sunrise, the early morning police, so there was nothing for anyone to see except, maybe, a sheeted figure on a stretcher. Where was the worried family? The announcement that someone had gone missing, the urgent request for information? If he were all alone in the world, why wouldn’t he have done his drinking at home? Why come to the park, if not to sober up for someone else’s sake? Why unburden yourself to a stranger, if not to conceal something from your family?