By SARAH WU
The man has a limp. He walks with one leg that follows behind him. He is awkward in his gait; he hops forward with his good foot. A small, brown pot rests in his arms.
Around him, a brilliant veranda blooms. Bright trees that have no name, no species. When the wind blows through their leaves, they shiver in sync. They make a green carpet that shimmers against the blue sky. Sometimes, the man stops to stare at the trees. Mostly, though, he continues to limp to his destination. He does not have a quick pace and moves slowly and steadily. By the end of each day, he travels five or six miles.
The trees never change. Walking is synonymous with standing in place.
***
He dreams of a little girl screaming. This is a constant dream. He is holding a needle. Please, he says, as the background billows in gray smoke and ash. The trees are on fire. He hates to hear the girl scream. He places the needle into her arm, and presses down, down, down. The liquid disappears into her veins, and she
screams.
When he wakes up, he comforts himself. It is only a dream, he says, over and over again.
***
At night, he sleeps out in the open. The skies twinkle with little stars. Hello star, he says to his favorite star. It is a little red and blinks cheerfully back at him. Hello stars, he tells the other star, to make it more fair. They are friendly things, timid in their distance.
The night air is warm. It is warm enough to sleep outside. He gathers branches covered in pine needles and places them on the ground. The pine needles prod at his back, but the bed is sturdy enough, good enough. He is proud of the thing he has created.
He sets the pot against a rock and curls up in his temporary bed. The trees stand over him. They are judging beings. When the man closes his eyes, he knows the trees will not do their duty of guarding his dreams. But he must sleep; he is weary after the five miles of walking that he does during the day—
tumbling through one nightmare after another. Terrible, awful worlds come back to him on these nights, and when he jolts awake, he finds himself in another dream, then another dream, then another dream. He is always dreaming.
***
In one nightmare, he is holding a little girl. It is snowing outside when the world used to be able to snow. He is standing on two, perfectly fine legs. The girl beams down at him, with glowing red cheeks. It is a beautiful day, and the snow is so bright and alive, that he has to squint to see.
The little girl giggles. His leg throbs.
***
He gasps awake. He is sweating in the warm, humid air. He presses a hand to his forehead. He stands up, and limps to find wood as the sun peeks over the horizon.
He eats breakfast over a fire. It is a simple breakfast. He heats the dried pieces of oat with a little bit of water in a small bowl over the fire. When the porridge begins to form a glutenous consistency, he takes the bowl off of the fire and places it next to the clay pot. The porridge steams in the humid air.
Next to the fire, a skinny squirrel appears. It is the first animal to appear. The squirrel stares at the man sitting at the fire, and for a moment, all three temporary beings stand in stillness: the squirrel, the man, the clay pot. A branch crackles and snaps in the fire. The spell breaks. The squirrel leaves, and it is never to be seen again.
The trees are silent around him. They have no smell. When the wind brushes through their leaves, they move in the same direction.
***
The girl is older. She is on the cusp of teenagehood and she is too large to be held. She is too sick to be held. She is lying on the ground, where there is no more inside and no more outside. Every blade of grass around them is dead.
The girl’s arms are too thin. He looks at her.
Don’t look at me, she says.
He keeps looking. The girl sighs and closes her eyes.
Don’t close your eyes. The man shakes the girl’s shoulders. The sky tastes like burning, and his leg is bleeding. Wait for another day. For me. Please.
I’m tired, the girl says quietly. Just let me sleep.
***
When he wakes up, the pain in his leg has grown stronger. He is tired. He does not wish to move. The sky has grown cloudy, and the air is filled with the potential of rain. Humidity creeps up his nose, his mouth. It makes it hard to breathe. His leg always hurts more on rainy days.
He glances at the pot next to him. I’m sorry, he tells it, and the pot says back nothing. He feels nauseous. He throws up the porridge he consumed yesterday and crawls to his bed.
Thunder. A second later, rain pours down. The rain tastes like ash.
His body aches. He heaves again and lays back on the soggy ground. He clutches the pot close to his chest. His eyes close—
***
Another nightmare. Today’s nightmare is just him and the pot. He is feverish in this nightmare, and he heaves on the soggy ground and tastes ash from the pouring rain. The trees are bright green. They are terrible guards. He keeps dreaming with these trees.
I wish you were here with me, he tells the pot. Why do the trees have infinity, and we don’t?
Why?
Why? Why? Why? Why?
When the man finally looks up, the trees are no longer standing guard. They have vanished. The pot next to him is filled with ashes, so it cannot answer his question.
Writer | Sarah Wu ’25 | sdwu25@amherst.edu
Editor | Mel Arthur’25 | hhunt27@amherst.edu
Artist | Amy Zheng ’26 | ahzheng26@amherst.edu