The boy lay on the veranda as pale as sheets, gashes covereing his body. The old man’s face remained dry, but inside a little part of his soul had torn and now rested with the corpse. It was all his fault. Camile had left him in his care and not only had he failed, but he had brought it about. The guilt and shame threatened to engulf the old man, to snap the precarious threads holding him to life. The life the grim reaper should have taken was spared, the life that should have remained alight had flickered out. He lay the boy down and strode the length of the veranda to retrieve the shovel from the garden shed and began furiously digging a trench near the violets.

Late that afternoon he sat in the kitchen, cold coffee infront of his bowed head. The phone lines were out, unreliable as they were, and Camile promised she would call at lunch. A twig branch snapped outside, the old amn raised his brow along with his head to the direstion of the door where the most curious creature stood, damp and blue.