When I was a child. A strange character lived right above me in our apartment building. My family lived on the second floor and he lived on the third. All of the people in the building called him the Malaysian although he really was a Chinese. Perhaps it was because of his tanned skin and his build. Unlike the other men living in the building, he had broad shoulders and was tall. He had wavy hair and everyone agreed that he was handsome in a slightly unorthodox way. He was strange. In my memory, he was always the person people gossiped about. He was supposed to have been forty five and had for a while worked in Burma doing hard labor, but I think all that were mere stories people made up. He had that mystery about him. For the ten years we lived in the apartment, he had retained that same mystery. He was not young, but because he never had any family, he always had that bachelor charm that made him seem younger than he really was. Even for his age, he was pretty wild. He had so many girlfriends, even the building's gossips could not keep track of them. Every other week he would invite some woman to his apartment and for several days we would see his women coming and going, but then, they always mysteriously disappeared and someone else would take their place. It was a cycle that we got used to in the building.

For all his mystery, there was one thing we all knew about the Malaysian, he was a compulsive liar. Everyone knew that. He lied to get extensions on paying his rent. He told a different story every time anyone ever asked about his past. Even his women, he lied to get them to go home with him. That was what the adults used to whisper about. There was always a certain excited buzz when the adults discussed the Malaysian's lies. The women would talk about his lies admiringly, claiming often that if they had such fancy stoires to sweep them off their feet, they too will follow him home. The men grunted in disgust, such cheap tricks: women as they all knew were a bunch of softies and were, according to their logic, extremely gullible. Still, that did not explain why the land lord granted him rent extensions month after month. I asked him once, why he still gave the Malaysian credit when he knew that he was lying. The landlord merely exclaimed that I shouldn't fault the man for being a good story teller. So in all the children's eyes, the Malyaisan had a mythical quality, a secret knowledge on how to get away with things that we as children tried so hard to get away with.

For a while, the Malaysian dated the daughter of the owner of the grocery store on the street corner. We would watch him drop by every afternoon on pretext of buying cigarettes so he could chat up Lucy. Though it was obvious as day to all of us kids, the whole thing seemed to have eluded the grocery store owner who didn't seem to notice that the Malaysian was trying his tricks on his daughter. Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, for the grocery store owner, the Malaysian soon lost interest in Lucy. We caught him trying to steal kisses from her in the neighborhood movie house but we thought that was as much he got out of her. I tried to ask Lucy why she would date a liar, but she just battered her lashes at me and shrugged her shoulders.

It made it all the more infuriating when we were taught in school that lying was wrong and that one should never in any circumstance lie. I asked mother about this and all she said was that I should try to be a good boy and not worry about the Malaysian.

"Sometimes," she said, "people are just the way they are."

"But surely, he can change?"

But my mother just smiled, " Sometimes these traits are in people's characters, and you can't change that."

That got it into my head, that perhaps if I was bad for long enough, my parents would accept that it was just in my character and that I could never change. But of course, that never happened.

The summer I turned eight, I remember trying hard to unrevel the secret of the Malaysian. My neighbor and I would spy on his apartment from the roof of the adjacent apartment building. Once in a while, when we hung around in the lobby area we would run into him and he would say hi to us. But always, I held him in suspect because I thought he had a skill I could learn. Being so good at it, to the extent that he could even fool my mum made me resent him a little.

It was that same summer that a new apartment building on our street got completed and we started to see a lot of new faces walking our street. It made the owner of the grocery store happy to see new customers. But we the kids of the building was unhappy because that meant sharing out territories with new kids we were not familiar with. We also lived in constant fear of older kids who might try to push us around. To our relief, most of the new inhabitants seemed to be old folks. Sometimes we would watch them shuffle slowly down the street and imagine shooting our sling shots at them.

But I distinctly remember that it was that same summer that I witnessed the Malaysian's magic with my own eyes. I was in the grocery store with little Tam who was two years younger than me. We would reading the dollar fifty comics. The Malaysian was lounging around the cashier small talking with the grocery store owner when this old lady came in. She was in dsitressed, wringing her hands in agony. She asked if the grocery store owner could help her make an overseas call. She had heard from her son-in-law that her daughter got into a car accident and was hospitalized. They lived in the States and she did not know how to make overseas calls. The message about her daughter she had gotten from a relative. Not being able to learn about the daughter, she was overcome with worry. She told the grocery store owner that she had tried getting help from her neigbors but none of them could make international calls. She handed a slip of paper with a phone number on it and asked the grocery store owner if he could help her call the number. The store owner was reluctant, naturally because international calls were expensive. A five minutes call could easily have amounted to twenty dollars and that was a lot of money back then. The Malaysian, seeing the grocery store owner's hesitation, told him to do it and to put the bill on his account. The store owner looked at him in a way that I can only describe as a mixture of admiration and gratefulness then started to dial the number on the scrap of paper. He didn't seem to remember that the Malaysian was already buying things on credit from the store. The question of where the money would come from didn't seem to cross the store owner's mind.

The Malaysian watched the old lady wring her gnarled hands, her eyes red with anxious tears. He put his arm around her shoulder and told her
"It's going to be okay. My son was once in a car accident, he broke his leg and fractured his ribs but he survived. Now, he still plays football and outruns me. It's going to be alright, you'll see."

She was silent and watchful, waiting for a sign from the store owner that the call has gotten through. We all waited when the store owner passed her the receiver. After what seemed like a endless conversation. She finally put down the phone. She had spoken to her son-in-law and apparently her daughter was not in danger, she would have to wear a cast for the next few months but she would live. We all breathed a sigh of relief. Once she put down the phone, to our surprised, she hugged the Malaysian and burst in tears. Then as abruptly as she entered the store, she left. We watched her leave. Having witnessed the whole incident I was full of wonder. When the Malaysian walked out of the store, I followed him.

"Why did you lie about a son? We all know you don't have a son. Why did you lie?" I kept asking even as the Malaysian kept walking. He didn't answer me. I stopped walking and watching his backview moving away in the setting sun.

" Why do you lie?"I shouted.

The Malaysian turned around and gave me a smile. I couldn't read his face, it was lit a gentle orange by the sun but half his face was in the shadows. He smiled at me for a moment, then without a word, he turned around and kept walking. I watched his back view get smaller and smaller until eventually, he was out of sight.

There has been complaints for weeks about noises at night in the apartment's dumpster. He was instructed to keep a close eye on his night patrols to spot any suspicious activities in or around the dumpster. Having paid so much to live in the apartment complex, the residents did not want a bum hiding out in the place they have allocated for their trash. And he was paid to keep inconveniences such as these at bay. Carlo, the manager of the apartment told him to keep trouble and bums out of the place. He was an okay fella but the residences were a picky bunch and he understood that Carlo had a job to keep.

He had been keeping an especially close watch over the dumpster. There were no signs that anyone was inhabiting the place but the bums had their own ways of getting in and out of places with little visibility. Having been ignored so often, sometimes it almost seems as if they really have attained a physical invisibility. He spent the first hour of his shift, patrolling the complex grounds. He always started at the front gates then headed to the back garden by the pool then coming back a full circle to the front gate through the side entrances. Then he took his ten minutes break in the office, eating the leftovers from his dinner and making himself a cup of coffee form instant mixes in the office.

He went back to patrolling and as he passed by the dumpster he heard the indistinct shuffle. It could have been an animal but the shuffling had a rhythm to it. Whatever was making that noise, it wasn't being discrete. He put his hand on his baton and crept up to the door of the dumpster. He was not afraid, whatever or whoever was in the dumpster would not be a menace. Something that could be so attracted to the unwanted waste of people would not be a big threat but he still wanted to be safe just in case. Baton in hand, he strode to the door and pushed it open. It was a tiny figure inside. For a moment he thought he was looking at a mutated creature of sorts but after his eyes adjusted to the dark he could make out the shape of a bent-over woman. She had her back turned to him and seemed not to have noticed his entrance. She had her hands all the way inside the trash cans. She was digging up cans and bottles. She already had a bag filled with plastic bottles and recyclable glass containers of all sorts.

He shone her flashlight on her. It was at the intrusive beam of light that she turned around, half astonished, half irritated that he had interrupted her in the midst of her task.

"Hey Mam, you can't be here. This is private property."

She looked at him curiously, then turned her back to him and started rummaging again.

"Hey. Hey." He strode closer turning the beam on her face. She looked at him and squinted her eye, she showed no fear, only a look of incomprehension. Her looked at her grey hair , they glowed in the light.

"You understand English? You can't be here. You got to leave. Leave."

The woman muttered something to him, he guessed it must be Chinese.

"I don't know what you are saying. But you" he pointed at her "have to leave" and then pointed at the door.

She said another barrage of undicipherable words, motioning with her hands, gesturing at the trash cans, the bags and herself. He just shook his head and told her she had to go and this time to make the point clear, he picked up her bag of collected cans and moved them outside the door, then pointing at the door again, he told her "Go." At that, she reluctantly closed the trash cans and left.

He told Carlo in the morning. Carlo laughed.

"What? So all along those night sounds was just an old Chinese woman collecting cans? These people make too much of a fuss over nothing."

He tried to laugh along with Carlo.

"But whatever it is , just make sure she doesn't come back. Personally, I have nothing against the old lady, but the people here... you know."

He nodded.

When he told Rosa this, she frowned at him.

"So do it. What's the problem? Just tell her to go the next time you see her. It's not like he's asking you to beat her up." She rubbed her swollen belly, the baby was getting big fast.

"But Rosa, you don't understand, she's old and she's bent over. It's like she needs those cans or something."

Rosa just stuck her belly in front of him and said "Think of our baby. Plus, you need the job. Just do what he says. You can give her twenty bucks or something."

That night, he felt nervous, for reasons he couldn't pin down. He had two cups of coffee. He tried to delay passing by the dumpster by taking extra long on his patrol route. He walked the pool four times and went back and forth through the side gates so that he would not pass by the dumpster off the side of the main gate. When he walked past the dumpster, he heard the shuffling again. He went in and the same old woman was digging through the trash with her bare hands, picking out bottles and putting them into her big plastic bag. She didn't hear him, or perhaps she pretended not to. She kept combing through the piles of rubbish. He watched her for a little then he turned on his flashlight. He waved it to get her attention, she turned around with her empty hands outstretched, her palms facing up. They stared at each other for a moment, then without his asking, she grabbed her bag and left. He watched her shuffle slowly out and watched her disappear down the hill with the half empty bag.

The next morning, Carlo was displeased. "There was a complaint again last night. Did you tell that woman not to come back?"

He shook his head. "She don't understand English. I tried. But last night, she left by herself. I didn't need to tell her."

"You should have scared her away. You could have made your point clear."

"But Carlo, she's old. You should have seen her, she's tiny and she's hunched over. She's like a hobbit or something."

" I don't care what she looks like." Carlo scratched furiously at his hair, he did it whenever he got frustrated. "It's our jobs we're talking about here."

"But what do you want me to do? Kick her?"

"Just make it clear that she can't be there ok?"

He nodded to appease Carlo and to avoid trouble but he didn't know how he could make the point clear.

That night, he skipped patrolling the complex, he just stood by the dumpster waiting for the old lady to appear. He spotted her a long way off. He watched her shuffle up the hill on her tiny feet. Taking one step at a time carefully, as if any moment she would lose her balance and roll down the hill. She had good stamina despite being so slow. He wondered if he would be able to climb up that hill if he was as old and as hunched over as her.

She took a while to get to the top of the hill. She saw him standing in front of the dumpster and spoke a stream of words he could not understand. He shook his head at her. When she tried to open the door, he put his hand on it to stop her from getting in. She pleaded with him--he could tell by the way she was gesturing like she was making little bows to him. He told her he was sorry and that he had a family to feed. He took twenty dollars from his pocket and handed it to her. But she shook her head and reached into her bag and pulled out a plastic bottle and pointed at it. He told her he was sorry and that there was nothing he could do, he didn't have a choice. He stuck the bill out to her. He was begging her to take it, but she just shook her head again and then turned to leave. He watched her disappear into the night, slowly and with great effort down the hill and out of sight.

In the morning, Carlo pat him on the shoulder and told him that he didn't need to worry about the old lady anymore, they were going to install a lock on the door so no old lady or bum could get in.

He waited for the old lady for several nights, but she never came by again. He often wondered what happened to her. Every time he walked past the dumpster he would think of her. Some nights he would watch the stars by the swimming pool, deep in the night when the world slumbered. He would watch the stars and think: how they looked so much like burning and sinking teardrops falling from the night sky.

The cameras have stopped rolling. The audience has left, filing zombie-like out of the auditorium, their heads still filled with images that will take days for them to fully digest. Another successful show. The producer has been extremely pleased with the night's installment. A double incest, two attempted suicides and a pregnant daughter. He knew it was going to be a good show, the moment he saw that father. The man was acting tough, but he knew that the father wanted the money or else he wouldn't be on the show. He was the kind who would break on national television. He always felt a sense of success when he could make a man cry on screen. The audience loved it, they had stood up cheering in excitement when the father broke down. He liked to think he was giving the people what they wanted, they wanted Roman Carnival and they wanted to moralize. They could jeer and throw abuses at these messed up people with no sense of morality while for the two hours of the taping forget about their own smallness.

"Great job, Jack." Murray the producer gave him a pat on the shoulder. "Keep the drama coming you hear me?"

He nodded at him, gave him a thumbs up and quick smile then retired to his changing room. It was exhausting, the spotlight had melted his make-up and his was still shaking from the frenzy he worked himself and his guests into.

He loved this quiet hour of the night when the studio was empty, and he could have time to sort out his thoughts on the night's show. What was good, what drew audience reaction and what he had failed to do. There were always nerves he failed to touch, important questions that would make his guests break that he forgot to ask. He sat down, the soft backing of the chair felt good against his back. Despite all that talk about progress and civilization, people still wanted drama. Spouses cheating, illegitimate babies, incestuous relationships. From where he sat he could see the faces in the audience, they always looked base when the good stuff came on. They could pretend as hard as they want that these things were cheap but they loved them. They couldn't take their eyes off the anger exploding on stage, the uncontrollable sadness. It was all very freakish.

There was a knock on the door.

"Jack?"

It was Murray. What did he want? He reluctantly stood up and shuffled to the door.

He opened the door to see Murray with his arm around the shoulder of a tiny woman. She was about forty-ish. She was wearing a pathetic looking cardigan with ugly pink smudges attempting to resemble roses. He smiled at the pair.

"Hey Murray, what can I do for you?"

"Jack, this is Mrs Ellen Wood. She is here to meet you. She won the radio contest for a pair of tickets to the show and to meet you in person."

Oh Christ, not tonight, he thought. But he gave her a brilliant smile.
"Congratulations Mrs Wood, how very nice to meet you."

Murray gave her a cordial nudge. "You guys have a good chat. Mrs Wood, once again it's very nice to meet you. When you are done with your chat with Jack, you can exit the studio by this door right here." He motioned at the exit and left without turning around.

Damn Murray. He was always the first to leave at the sign of trouble. He made way for Mrs Wood and welcomed her into the dressing room. She strode in and stood watching him.

"Would you like a seat?" He offered her the chair, but she shook her head.

"Mr Murphy, I just wanted to see you in person." She said, her voice squeaked and made him think the metallic screech of brakes.

"Please, Mrs Wood, you can call me Jack."

"Well, Jack, as I was saying, I just wanted to meet the man behind the show. I have always wanted to ask you a question."

He smiled at her encouragingly to get her to speed up the meeting so she would leave.
"Go ahead, Mrs Wood."

She rolled her shoulders back and straightened herself a little. She looked him in the eye, and he could see a sharp glint of light.

"How do you live with yourself?"

"Excuse me?" He shook his head as if he heard it wrong.

"How do you do it? Exploiting people like that. Making money out of their private miseries. How do you do it? Do you just go home and sleep after you humiliate people the way you do? Do you think everything is wonderful after you degrade someone in public like that? It's disgusting."

He stared at her ugly sweater, his eyes focusing and unfocusing on the gross pink spots which made him think of mutated organisms on the sea bed. After an embarrassingly long moment of silence. He looked at the little woman and he opened the door for her.

"Mrs Wood. Thank you for stopping by. Have a good night now."
She scoured at his courtesy. "You disgust me." Then she storms off.
He lets the door close behind her, hearing that wonderful click of it shutting.

He looked at himself in the mirror. He could see the face make-up flaking. It was dried and he could see the deep lines forming around his eyes and his mouth. He looked haggard.

How does he live with himself? How does anyone.

He bent his face closer to the mirror. He could see the flakes of powder on his eyelashes. The light from the mirror made them glint, they seemed golden. He stepped back still looking at himself. He watched his eyes, his nose, his mouth and ears fall apart and come together again. He summoned up a smile. It has been a long night.

Those black leather shoes, sized ten, was the very first thing she saw as she stepped into the apartment. There they were, standing, pointing at the door, ready to go. Marty's shoes. His good business shoes, shoes he had worn to meetings, walked on in foreign lands on important trips his company sent him. They were not the last pair of shoes he wore. They were still standing waiting, for the next time they were to be put on, to conquer new places, help seal new deals. Seeing them was shocking to her. They way they were causally yet neatly arranged by the door, quite apart from the rest of the shoes, all anonymous, but this pair, this pair stood out. The way they made her feel as if any moment now, Marty was going walk into the hallway, coffee mug in hand, ready to slip into these black leather shoes. Marty and his nitpicky ways, he probably shined his shoes every other day. They were well-worn, one could tell by the folds and creases of the leather, along the toe line, but they were well-kept from the way the leather shone with a kind of quiet pride. She stepped over the shoes and walked into the cool, grey apartment. Everything was neat. Marty had always been very well-organized. His apartment showed this clearly, there were no general mess, only an unwashed coffee cup, a plate with toast crumbs on the sides and a tea spoon in the sink. His breakfast. He would have returned to wash them, after his morning jog. He was never one to leave a mess for visitors to stumble upon, not even his own sister. But there the dishes were sitting quite innocently and dumbly in the sink, reflecting the coolness of the apartment with a kind of detached carelessness.

Her eyes followed the neat lines of the apartment, everything felt so smooth and liquid, it was as if she stepped out of clumsy world into the tasteful contours of Marty's choosing. Marty had always been the tasteful one, even now, she felt a kind of envy for his sense of aesthetics,--clean, simple and intellectual. The apartment was not beautiful or welcoming, in fact, it was not even comfortable, but it was..stimulating, yes that's the word. It was the kind of rooms, magazines featured, the kind that real people did not live in. That was the way she felt, she had been sent into this catalogue apartment to pick out unreal things and to catagorize their importance. She bumbled into Marty's apartment with three cheap cardboard boxes and faced with the immensity of her task. She had not known Marty well, ever since he moved out on his own. Little brother Marty who used to sing lullabys with her at night. Little brother Marty.

She had gotten a call a week ago, as she was having lunch with Selena, she was complaining about her new manager, then the phone rang, She saw that it was an unknown number and ignored it. She had thought that it was an advertisement, or people asking for donations. But the phone rang again. She picked it up. There was an unfamiliar voice at the other end of the line.

" Am I speaking to Miss Anna?"
"Yes."
"This is regarding your brother. I don't know how best to break this news to you, but your brother had an accident."
"Who is this?" She had wanted to laugh. A bad joke.
"My name is Tim and I am the manager from your brother's apartment building. There was an accident."
"Look, this is not funny. Who ever you are leave me alone." She could feel herself getting angry.
"This is not a joke." She was surprise to hear anger in the other person's voice.
There was a long pause, then he continued. "Your brother, fell down some stairs. He broke his neck."
"Oh my God. Is he ok?" she could feel a chill creep up her stomach into her chest.
" He broke his neck." The voice repeated. "I'm sorry."
she didn't remember how the conversation ended. She didn't know if it was the guy who hung up or herself, but she remembered Selena repeating the same question over and over again asking her what had happened and if she was ok.

So, here she was. Standing with three cardboard cartons to clean out the apartment. She was given the mission to clean up what remained of her brother. His things, the things that used to be Marty's, that used to mean something to him. Things he treasured, things he took for granted, things he didn't know he had. Things she was to decide if they were of value or were simply trash to be gotten rid off. Things that had belonged to her estranged brother. She didn't know where to start. She touched the walls, her fingertips lingered on the suede sofa, the coffee table, the paintings on the wall, the potted plants. She decided to do the only thing which seemed right. She picked up the dirty coffee cup, grabbed a sponge and started to wash the dishes in the sink. It felt good and right. Marty wouldn't have liked her to touch his things, but it was the way she showed that she still respected him for how he made a space for himself in the world that was completely his own. Perhaps, no one else would see this spot he made for himself, with things he picked, arranged in a way he liked, but she took everything in for his sake.

At first, she had felt such anger. At the fact that Marty had died in such a ridiculous way. People didn't die form falling down stairs, they broke a leg, or had to have a cast around their limbs for months. Then she had felt anger at the fact that Marty and her had not made effort to stay close throughout the years. And finally at the apartment manager's request that she go over to Boston to clear out the apartment. She had wanted to know why they couldn't just have someone donate everything to charity, but he had told her that they did not want to be liable to accusations that Marty's property had been unrightfully given away or taken, she had to physically take care of donating his things. All they wanted was for the apartment to be cleared out by the end of the month. She had grown to hate that voice on the other line over the past week. The manager had been wise not to show his face when she arrived. For even though all the interactions they had was over the phone he must have felt her animosity for him. Firstly because he broke the bad news of Marty's death to her as a part of his job, and secondly because he made Marty's death seem like an inconvenience. He always had that professional and efficient way of talking to her.

Even now, she could feel some of that anger throbbing beneath her fingers as she rinsed the cup. She was distracted from her thoughts by what seemed like flickering lights. It was a mosquito hawk flying. It made the cool light streaming into the kitchen waver as it flew lightly around the window. It twirled in its airy ballet. It was thudding lightly on the window. Tapping the glass to try to get through to the other side. She watched it. Then she turned off the water. She opened the window, watched it disappear into the brightness outside. It was spring, the sunlight touched everything. Half of her face was lit up by the golden light. Everything shone with a kind of internal radiance. She stood watching for a long time.

Let me tell you a tale from when I was very young.


For the longest time, there had been a great fear of the demon in the old forest laying to the East of the village. Townsfolk traveling through often warned of the danger that laid in that dark mysterious woods. No one took the dirt path leading into those woods. They claimed that birds never sang nor flowers bloomed in among the tall dark trees. It smelt of evil, everyone said. Generations and generations of village people told this old tale again and again, renewing fear every generation. The woods that once shone bright and clear now was so overgrown with weeds and undergrowth that even the bravest of grown men felt a chill whenever they got close. They said that the sun never shone through those dark crowns of trees, breeding great evil. Because of this fear, the village developed a hush over the subject of the forest, and it weighed on its people like a terrible secret, an unwanted burden. Very few of the people smiled or laughed, the children were shut up at home the moment the sun set. EVeryone spoke with the anxious hush of the afraid.

Regarding the much feared demon, no one has seen him, according to the elders, for centuries. As long as no one entered into his dark territories, the village is safe. His wrath must never be awaken by thoughtless actions. All travelers must be warned of the danger. And guiless children must be constantly watched over to see that they do not in a moment of childish foolishness anger the evil in the forest.

THe elders told the story of the demon often. It was a story, a knowledge passed down through generations. There had once been a beautiful tribe of bird men living in the forest. They resembled humans but differed only in that they had wings, and a beak, but they were beautiful and strong bodied, and immortal. They kept their scared grounds while the humans ket their farmlands side by side. For centuries they had lived in peace, with little interaction. For there was never a need to interact. The bird men had their own secret ways. But there was a different reason for their isolation. The bird tribe had a fear of human females. They had no females among the tribe and there had an ancient prophesy that the tribe would remain immortal and intact until a chid is borne of any among them. The fear of a child borne of the bird people was not realized until the farmlands began to encroach on the forest. Each year, more of the forest was cleared to make way for the growing village. And often, young maidens from the village would wander into the forest in search of berries and firewoods. The elders of the bird tribe and the elders of the village then met in secret to form an agreement that henceforth, no humans must enter the sacred forest, and all alliance and interaction between the two groups were to be forbidden. This pact between the two group came to be and soon, the bird tribe was forgotten by the young generations of the village, but this understanding that the sacred forest must not be entered became a way of life. It was not questioned. It merely became yet another understanding of the small universe of the village.

Then one winter, according to the tale, it was an especially cold winter. Snow storms blew mercilessly on the village. A young girl wandered and got lost in the forest. The villagers formed search parties to hunt for the lost girl but to no avail. Everyone took her to be lost and dead. But miraculously, she returned two weeks later, dressed in a beautiful feathered cloak. The villagers tried to pry the tale out of the girl, but she was stubbornly silent. She said nothing. But when spring rolled around, she was spotted entering the forest. And when summer came, she had disappeared entirely form the village, only to appear for a day or two and then to disappear once again into the forest. Sometimes she spoke of a friend in the forest. They villagers took to understand that she had a guardian angel of sorts. As years past, she kept up her disappearance into the forest, she grew up to be beautiful. All the young men in the village wanted her for a wife, but she turned them down one after the other, until she had turned down every single one of the young men in her village. Her parents were concerned that she would never marry, but she just smiled unconcerned. Thinking that her strange behavior had something to do with her disappearance into the forest, the curious mother followed her one day.

The girl wandered among dirt paths, disappearing and reappearing among branches and brambles as if on a familiar path. The mother was barely able to keep up with her getting her apron torn and her hair caught in the trees. She was not a welcomed visitor of the forest. It blocked her way time and again. Only through sheer determination and love for her own daughter was she able to keep up with the lithe figure disappearing so lightly and quickly among the trees. She stopped at a beautiful clearing deep within the forest. It was full of scented blossoms and butterflies. To the mother, who had never seen such beauty in her life, the place was enchanted. The girl, stopped and whistled a tune and laughed lightly. A great shadow appeared and from the sky fell a creature, resembling a man but with a beak on his face where his mouth should have been and on his back, large wings with deep brown feathers the colour of old trees. The girl ran to it and put her arms around the creature. The mother almost fell down from fright, and the repulsion of her daughter being so close to such a creature. She wanted to run screaming to tear her daughter away from the monstrosity her daughter was showing such intimacy to. The monster held the young girl, her hair swung in the sunlight as he lifted her high above the trees and over the clearing. The mother watched rooted, in horror, as the young girl shower kisses onto the creature. It caressed the young girl making her laugh and gasp in pleasure. The mother could watch no more, she ran home her heart sagging with the weight of terror and disgust. As she ran, the forest around resounded with the voice of her own daughter singing the familiar song of women in labors of love.

The girl returned home happy and light-footed. When she got home, her mother slapped her and pulled her hair. Ungrateful, unnatural child! She was told never to set foot inside the forest again. And to make sure that she would never enter that forest again, she was to be locked up in her room. Bars were then placed on her windows and her door bolted and locked up with strong chains. She cried, screamed, raved at her mother for mercy, but they fell on stone hearts. What happened eventually became a well known legend. The villagers heard her pitiful cries often, for weeks she begged to be freed. She promised to disappear completely and never return to shame her kins again. Locked up in her tiny dark room, her beauty faded quickly, she took to talking to the air. There were rumors that her lover had came in the night to try to pry the bars open to free her, but the iron bars held strong. And men started patrolling the streets with guns and pitchforks after dark to keep the feathered monsters at bay. Finally, one dark night when the moon was new, there were crazy screams, then a eerie silence and the sound of a baby crying. The girl had been with child all the time she had been locked up, it was well known that she gave birth to a demon child. They took the baby away to be tossed in the forest for wild beasts to prey on. After they took her child away, the girl stopped talking altogether, she faded into shadows. After the girl had been so broken, she could barely walk, they unlocked the chains, removed the bars from the windows and opened the doors. But she neither walked nor looked at people. She looked past them as if the world was made of air. Although there were rumors that she drowned herself in the village well, the story went that she, no longer being in the world vaporized one day. Leaving only the thin white dress she had on, on the damp rotting wooden floor. Of the bird tribe, nothing was heard of them again. Although there were speculations that the pair of lovers had eloped, and escaped to a paradise on a secret mountain where they would no longer be bothered by petty humans. The version most people stuck to is that the tribe eventually broke apart from the grief of the dead girl and the lost baby. The bird tribe with their beautiful feathered wings and bird songs disappeared altogether. The forest took on the look of something evil. Paths running through it fell into disuse and the trees grew wild and angry. Thorny plants stuck out and malicious poison fruits darkened the forest with evil intent. There were nights when sad, anguish cries can be heard from the depth of the forest.

I was passing through the village, heading West to meet up with my band of brothers, each out hunting demons. It is the tradition of my people that boys left the village at thirteen to roam the world only to return when they have hunted a fair share of demons by the count through which boys became men. The village welcomed me as a demon slayer. I told them I have seen a lot in my travels but I have yet met a demon. I told them the days of dragon and gods no longer existed, watching the iron mills that were springing up along the edge of the village. But they begged for me to rid the village of their great fear, of the demon in the forest. Finally, when the village chief along and the elders went on their knees, I promised that I would kill their demon, and rid them of their great fear.

I entered the forest from the village dirt path which headed East running through the depth of the forest. It was a hard path. The path narrowed into a trail and led to a steep uphill climb. Thorns scratched at me at every turn. Every so often, a single bird would give a desolate cry. This forest was angry and vengeful, it had a heavily guarded secret and wanted no trespassers. Perhaps, this was the day I would finally meet my demon, the one the fates had decreed for me to take on that would make me a man. I walked quietly, the gun loaded and ready to kill, my small dagger sat expectant by my chest. I was alert to dangers and sensitive to movements in the trees. By midday, I had seen nothing nor found any tracks which might have belonged to the demon. The forest was starting to thin surprisingly as I headed deeper into the forest. While the exterior of the forest was heavily fortified and angry, the depth of the forest was less treacherous. Sunlight streamed in through the leaves, leaving stripes of light through the darkness. Here, the forest felt noble and just. I wandered on. By a shallow brook, I first found traces that this part of the forest was inhabited. There was a little bridge, built from branches which straddled the tinkling water. A few miles on, I found it--the demon lair. Except it was nothing like a demon lair. It was a little dwelling made from branches and leaves. It had no windows, only a single point of entry. A little door-like hole which i had to duck to get in. No one was in the little wood structure. Inside, there was a pile of feather, which must have served as a bed. And all around were beautiful twig structures, some resembling animals, but mostly they were just beautifully shaped structures resembling nothing at all. Finding nothing that told me the nature of the being which inhabited this hut. I decided it was safer to hide out by one of the rocks and watch for the inhabitant of the place. I sat silent and still, waiting for the owner of the hut to return. If it was a demon, I could get a clear shot from where I was and avoid any close fighting. If it was a human, I would ask him or her to let me stay for the night and for some supper.

I waited. Hours passed, and nothing. The afternoon sun was waning, the shadows were beginning to stretch. Then I saw it, at first it looked like a man, but as it got closer, I saw its deformity, its mouth was twisted and strange, a growth was on his face just below the nose. There were little tufts of feather on his back. He was walking in a funny sort of limp. As I picked up my gun, he looked at me and started walking towards me. I could have taken him out easy but something stayed my hand. Maybe it was the look in his eyes. A kind of gentle curiosity and a vague shadow of remembering in his look. He stood only two steps away from me. If he decide to attack, I would still be able to overpower him and kill him with my dagger. But all he did was stare. When he reached out, I shrank back in fear. I saw his hands, they were beautiful and finely shaped, not so different in form from my own which were coarse and thick from hard labor. He touched my face, running his fingers over my forehead, my eyebrows, then my eyes, lingering on the lashes. He felt my cheeks, my nose and my lips. Then he ran his own fingers over his own. We stared at each other for what seemed like a long time. Then he turned to walk away. I watched him. I sat for a long time, then I started to make my way out of the forest. There were tears on my face. I realized that I was crying. I did not know what to tell the villagers. There never was a monster other than the one that they had created for themselves. I unloaded the gun and tossed the bullets into the bushes. I looked at my gun, I would have no more use for it, and I tossed that too. Finally, I decided that I would not return to the village, but to head West through the forest to meet up with my brothers. I decided It was time to go home.