Fenestrated
Fenestrated
A blind man, monstera extract, and it's not just a little bunny.
Hot today, even up here in the mountains. The boys came back from patrol soaked from a romp in the creek and I was tempted to head out there myself. It’s glacier fed and ice cold, of course the glacier is melting faster these days; humans are so eager to burn, can’t even wait to get to Hell. It’s an odd pathology considering what they think Hell is.
Anyway. The boys flopped down on the porch in the shade, tongues hanging out. I watched them from my Adirondack chair, sweating nearly as much as my iced tea. They had nothing to report. All the beasts out there are feeling as cooked as we are. The mountain was quiet, subdued. The world on pause until nightfall. That’s when things get wild.
But for now we waited in the yellow gloom of the scorching, thick afternoon air. Our breathing shallow, not wanting to burn our lungs. Our movements slow, precise, and frugal. We dozed off and on, listening to the annual cicadas scream from the trees.
Then something else screamed from the trees. The three of us sat up, listening. It was clearly human, possibly in distress, but I don’t intervene unless invoked, especially in this heat. Too hot out for heroics. They aren’t really my preferred creature anyway, humans. As we listened the screaming got closer and I realized it was more of an elevated and long winded complaint, than a scream. Impressive, given the conditions. I went inside to get dressed and left the dogs to keep an eye on the client making their very noisy way up the hill.
When I got back outside I could see two figures still trudging their way up. One looked to be leading the other, holding their hand and tugging them upwards so rapidly that the person being led stumbled regularly, their free arm outstretched uselessly in front of them.
“Blindness seems to be the flavor of the day. Boy are they going to be mad when they find out I can’t cure that.” We watched them get to the stairs at the bottom of the hill and that’s when I felt it. The magic, wafting up to me like a cheap perfume. The dogs groaned at the smell, yeah, it was not great magic. But that meant this blindness was not natural, which also meant I actually did have a chance of curing it. Especially considering how low grade the magic smelled.