He sometimes feels that he's on the verge of witnessing large, seizmic things, yet every passing day grows stiller and quieter than the last. The more alienated he imagines himself from the ways of others, the more confidence he finds in his own ideas. He's not clear about his values and often thinks he has none, but he knows that deep down, something will change in him, something that will allow him the benefit of hindsight, which he has yet to accrue.

*******



Under the lantern, he could see the dark water drip slowly into the bucket. It had been seven weeks since he'd run away, and three days now without proper food or water. His lips had cracked hours ago and his stomach had more or less shrank to the size of a small pouch.

But there it was, this beautiful bucket under the light, in a back alley in Segesvár, or Sighisoara as the Rumanians called it, where Vlad the Impaler, Dracula, had been born and raised. It's difficult to say whether or not he noticed the discordant colours of the water in the bucket, or the material floating in it, but in his unyielding thirst, he might have simply ignored the hazards. He drank of the bucket, sticking his face straight into the cesspool as if searching for apples at a county fair contest.

He slumped to the ground and lay for what might have been hours before he heard a sound, which turned out to be a carriage stopping in the near distance.