An encounter

In a daze, I wondered, Did I eat it all without noticing? Maybe there were squirrels or something.

I didn't care about that, because something else made me happy. To my surprise and delight, I discovered that ever since I came here, those whispers seemed to have quieted a little. I ought to investigate carefully. Was there some kind of magical energy entity or something? But my mind could no longer support that much thought.

On a whim, I decided to bake an apple pie and put it on the little table outside. Only then did I realize I hadn't brought my coffee cup. I went back to get it, and when I came out, I discovered that the entire apple pie was gone. That wasn't something a small animal could carry away. It would at least have to be as big as a person and able to hold a plate with both hands.

Were there children around here? But even the nearest town was at least forty minutes away by car.

This really was a good place. I discovered that sometimes those whispers actually disappeared, and I could even occasionally sleep for half an hour. In a good mood, I decided to forgive that child.

Baking an apple pie actually took quite a bit of effort, especially for someone like me, who had to think for ages about every ingredient I added. When I put the second freshly baked apple pie on the table outside, I discovered it was already dark. That meant I couldn't stay outside anymore.

I returned to bed. There they were again, burrowing back into my head as though they could get in through any opening. I lay limp on the floor, staring outside without awareness. A somewhat massive figure walked into my little yard, stood in front of the table, and then carried off my apple pie.

That kid really is big. I can't eat the apple pie anymore anyway, so you can have it. But remember to leave the plate next time.

Then my head tilted to one side, and my eyes could no longer focus.

Only when it was broad daylight did I gradually come back to my senses. My brain felt as though it had seized up. It took quite a while before I could think. Surely no child would be wandering deep in the woods in the middle of the night, and with that build, calling it a child was quite a stretch. Was it... an ape?

I walked outside. Another sip of the coffee had actually been taken, but it apparently hadn't suited the ape's tastes. It had all been spat onto my chair.

I wet a cleaning rag and slowly wiped it down.

There's an ape near my house that doesn't like coffee...

Wait. Can apes stand on two feet and carry plates?

I felt that even when I was lucid, I couldn't figure out what that thing was. Surely it wasn't a person, at any rate?

This feeding continued for many days. Whatever I made, he carried away. He didn't like bitter things and had a child's tastes.

I looked at the coffee on my table, the only thing left untouched these days. Ever since trying one sip, he seemed to have kept a respectful distance from it.

So was he a child after all?

My eyesight wasn't very good, a consequence of sleep deprivation. He made sure I had gone inside before he went to carry things away, but I couldn't make out what exactly he was.

It wasn't easy for Jason to get any human food. His food mainly came from wild fruit and game, and he wasn't very good at making fires yet, so he mostly relied on wild fruit. Occasionally, he could pick up some bread crumbs left by hunters, but after he recently killed two cyclists, the hunters stopped coming into the mountains much, either.

At first, he hadn't killed this person purely out of curiosity. That night, he thought it over and seemed to remember something. That cloud of black mist seemed connected to Mom. When Mom was sleeping, before her head fell off, there seemed to have been a cloud of black mist like that around her, though it had dispersed right away.

He had had it before, too, but he found it annoying and simply beat it apart.

Now he hadn't killed this person because he was quiet enough, and secondly because he spawned tasty treats. When the day came that he stopped putting treats out, he would kill him, too.

But as time went on, Jason seemed to begin thinking as well. He hadn't learned much human knowledge. He had to wear clothes, had to eat, and had to stay inside a house to sleep. His mother had taught him that while she was alive, but that was all.

So his thoughts now were mainly prompted by things he discovered. He discovered that when this man came outside, he brought two plates of treats. One was piled so high it threatened to topple, while the meager amount on the other looked rather pitiful on its plate. And the heaped plate was always left on the table.

He guessed it probably wasn't meant to be thrown away, nor was it probably being saved for the man himself. When he left the wild fruit he picked in one place and discovered squirrels carrying it off, he stopped leaving it there. Only after eating for at least two months did Jason realize, Oh, that must be for me.

He loved that apple pie. He still had a little memory of it. Mom often made it in the fall, though the taste was a little different. This apple pie was too sweet, but he liked sweet things.

But things didn't go as he wished. The next day, there was a cake that smelled lovely but wasn't very sweet and tasted a little bitter. Jason made rare use of his brain for something other than killing. He returned to his little cabin, found the plate from the first apple pie he'd eaten, rinsed it clean with lake water, and put it back on the table.

I didn't see that plate until the next day. How could I possibly remember what had been served on it? Apart from slight differences in their patterns, those plates all looked more or less alike. I started thinking, too. He had returned the plate. Did that mean he liked it? Did he want it again tomorrow? Sure enough, my tastes were too sweet. He probably didn't like that much. Then I'd make coffee mousse again today, with even less sugar.

On the third day, Jason stared at the dark cake before him and, once again, fell into a rare bout of contemplation. Even though he was more than a meter away from the cake, that faint, bitter aroma still seemed to pierce through his burlap sack and burrow into his nostrils.

Was he provoking me?

But after hesitating for quite a while, he took the cake anyway. He thought that if the man made this again tomorrow, he would kill him.

There wasn't much butter left, and the next supply day was still three months away. I thought slowly that this meant I had to go to town to buy some things.

I used the remaining ingredients to make some shortbread, put it on the table, and then drove into town.

Jason stared at the car in some disbelief, but anger followed immediately. Why was he leaving?

But then he realized that if the man left, he ought to be happy. This place would be quiet again, and he wouldn't have to bother cleaning it up. Jason attributed this to the possibility that he wouldn't get any more apple pie.

But looking at the cookies on the table, he still took one and stuffed it into his mouth. Tasty, but not very sweet. He still wanted apple pie.

Once I left that forest, that voice seemed to come looking for me again. It looked like this really did have something to do with that forest. I drove into town and went into its only store.

Their conversation stopped. They made no attempt to conceal their gazes, which fell squarely on me with contempt and mockery. I walked straight between the shelves. There was no butter, no flour, and no vegetables or anything like that, only sugar and an assortment of junk food.

As for the chatting crowd, the longer they looked at him, the stranger they found him. They whispered over one another, judging that he was most likely a sickly weakling, his body looking as though a gust of wind could knock him to the ground. The fat woman who owned the store said to the clerk beside her with a hint of mockery, "I hope he doesn't die in my store."

The man made several trips carrying things over. The shopkeeper couldn't imagine what a man could possibly be doing that required a full twenty kilograms of sugar, an entire box of chocolate, and various other things. "Well, let's hope he can afford it," she muttered.

The shopkeeper didn't seem to care at all whether I could hear her. Nor did she seem to have any intention of hiding it.

"Two hundred and sixty-three dollars altogether. We don't accept food stamps here." At the end, he added, "If you need help carrying it to your car, that'll be another ten dollars."

That was blatant discrimination. If someone bought enough, the shopkeeper would practically kick the clerk beside her to get her to help load a big customer's purchases into their car.

But in the next instant, everyone present was stunned, their eyes almost perfectly round. Around here, even the wealthy mayor's family wouldn't have a neatly stacked wad of hundred-dollar bills in their wallets.

The young man took out three bills and put them on the counter. Without saying a word, he simply pointed at the car.

It took the shopkeeper a long time to react before she abruptly nudged the tall, burly clerk beside her. The things that would have taken the young man many trips to carry were moved in just three trips by the clerk.

And he showed no intention of asking for his change. He merely lifted his eyelids and stared at the shopkeeper. His voice was terribly hoarse, as though he had smoked at least three packs of cigarettes without stopping the night before, or something else. Did he smoke marijuana?

"Where sells butter, milk, flour, and vegetables?"

The shopkeeper put on a rare display of enthusiasm. "For butter and milk, you'll need to go to the butcher's in town, on the street up ahead. For flour and vegetables, follow the road you came in on. There's a vegetable shop there. The sign's big. You'll see it as soon as you look up."

The young man lowered his eyelids and got into the car without replying.

"My God, did you see his wallet?"

"Could he be the one living in that little cabin...?"

"So he really is that rich man."

"But he looks sick enough to drop dead."

"I hope he takes his time dying..."

That last remark came from the shopkeeper.

After buying the rest of the things, I returned home. This time, the plate hadn't been carried away, and there were still some crumbs on the table. It looked like he had stayed here to eat.

Then I regretted it. With all those things in the car, I couldn't carry them out at all. In the end, I decided to take things out as I needed them. I only took the perishables, such as the butter, milk, and fruit, and put them in the refrigerator.

Jason hadn't left. He wandered through the nearby forest. When he saw the car return, he still wasn't in a very good mood, but he seemed to relax again, too. He couldn't quite explain it himself.

Jason thought it would be fine to let him stay at Crystal Lake, like those elk or brown bears. As long as he didn't try to ram his waist with antlers or gnaw on his head, he would allow him to exist here.