Minutes later, they were outside on the street in front of the school. Melody told Owen she had to go to get up early to do some work before the day began. “See you at the bench,” she said. Before he could tell her goodnight, she was gone, vanished like a light being switched off. He turned and headed home, wondering when he’d be pulled back to himself, as morning was near. He didn’t bound exuberantly in his usual manner, covering a lot of ground, but walked slowly as if his experiences of the night, witnessing the lives of others, acted upon him like gravity, holding him down. He went a long way, lost to his thoughts, until something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye—a flicker of pale blue. Looking up across the street, he saw a sleeper, not Melody, standing atop the roof of a two-story house.

The person—man or woman, he couldn’t tell from the distance separating them—had his/her back to him and was standing right on the ridge of the peak, leaning forward and back slightly as if shifting position as the breeze blew harder and softer. Owen was excited to see another traveler in the night world. He said nothing but walked over to the house and leaped up onto the roof, hoping the person would engage with him. As he came up behind the individual and was about to speak, he peered down into the backyard and was struck silent. There, filling and overflowing the confines of the yard, was a miasma, its yellow mist blotting out the bottom of the swing set, clothesline poles, and some small dogwood trees. It was a roiling, ever-undulating sulphur dream. He could hear it crackling and hissing.

The individual he’d approached took a step down the other side of the pitched roof. Owen watched, and as well as he could make out the details, the person was a middle-aged man. He heard the fellow praying and crying, and watched as he took two more steps on the downward slope.

“Wait!” cried Owen as it slowly dawned on him what was happening.