‘The fence bit me,’ the kid thought as he struggled to run through the dusk and the tall grass.

That’s what he would have said to his grandfather, Bud, if he’d ever come home with a leg wound like the one he was trying to run with. Bud would’ve thought it a kick.

The kid felt the blood trickling down his leg, and the bottoms of his pant legs were getting heavy with mud and what-not. He remembered how his grandfather used to put sand in his pant cuffs where he snuffed out his cigarettes. He was glad his grandfather wouldn’t see how he’d turned out.

The wounded boy stumbled onto a shed, nearly ran into it. He smiled because the shed was real, not a prop in a fever dream. He fell to his knees then reached for the shed’s door handle and snagged it first try. Somewhere he could hear the dogs getting smarter. His wound stung with sweat. He pushed the shed door and dragged his body inside, welcoming warm air.

When he looked up, he saw an old woman in the corner sitting on a stool in front of an easel. Her hair seemed unending.

‘She doesn’t even care that I’m here’ he thought.

The woman snarled, “I got nothing for you!”

The kid lay quiet. He could see her eyes, could see she was blind.

“Go on I said!” the woman growled, “I smell blood and there’s nothing here that can help you.”

“You can’t see what you’re painting,” the boy said.

“Can’t see anything,” the woman barked.

The boy lowered his head then looked up through a dirty window at barren trees.

The pain in his leg was becoming unbearable. The boy managed to sit up.

“You don’t know who I am or what I’ve done,” he said.

She waited, then shrugged:

“Don’t much care. Ain’t what you’ve done anyway, but what you’ll do and I’m thinking not much.”

“You don’t know me.”

“True, but if I had to guess I’d guess you’re just another fool who’s let their horses get away, and now that they’ve wandered off, you’re too stupid to know how to get them back so you’ve carved out a world of trouble for yourself. Just a guess.”

“Shut up!” the kid shouted.

The old woman clenched the paint brush.

“And seeing as it would take different thinking to get your horses back, well, that pretty much closes that case.”

She dabbed her brush in a palette on her leg.

“Red smells the best.”

She asked, “Are you, what is it they say? Bleeding out?”

“Am I?” the boy shivered.

“I’m no doctor.”

The kid stared at a scythe hanging on a hook.

“How can you even know what you’re painting?”

The woman laughed. The boy tried to straighten his leg.

“What’s it like to be blind?” he asked.

“You tell me.”

She pulled the brush from off the canvas.

The kid took a breath then slowly, painfully got to his feet and limped over to the woman.

“I smell fear,” she said.

“I killed someone,” the kid whispered.

The woman sighed.

He noticed more tools hanging. Curious, he dragged himself over and put a hand on a pitch fork, testing the sharpness of the prongs.

“Could I have this?”

“Your kind don’t ask,” the woman grinned.

The boy turned.

“I’ll spare you because you’re old and blind.”

The woman wiped the tip of the brush with a rag.

“I’m an artist. You’d think I’d be good enough to kill, but have it your way.”

“Who are you?” the boy asked.

“Another one of those crazy seers,” the old woman replied.

The kid thought for a second.

“My grandfather used to talk about seers when he talked about the old country.”

The woman nodded.

The boy held up 2 fingers.

“How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Two,” the old woman replied, “Most put up 2. People aren’t that creative.”

The kid lowered his hand and turned his attention to a finished painting hanging on a wall. He studied it.

“Why waste your time painting a field?”

The woman turned, showing the kid her marble eyes again.

“It was the last thing I saw before they came for us. I paint the world that can’t be killed.”

“Everything can be killed.”

“Sez you,” the woman said with calm conviction.

The kid looked at the painting on the easel.

“That’s nice – an apple.”

“Found it this morning on the path where they say the deer like to sun themselves. Not another apple tree for miles, just this one.”

He looked out the window.

“Almost dark now.”

“I know. I smell it.”

The kid stood silent for a long time then whispered.

“I’m scared.”

The women plucked a rag from a pile of rags she kept in a basket by her side and offered it to the kid, who took it and wrapped his wound.

“Does it hurt?” she asked.

“Like crazy.”

“Good.”

The kid turned to the pitch fork, then back to the old woman, who was holding one hand in the other; the one that didn’t work. The boy stood at the window, then turned but was stopped by the woman who held her arm out. In her hand was an apple.

“Thanks,” he said, taking it. The woman said nothing.

The kid shoved the apple in his pocket.

“What will you paint next?”

The woman sighed.

“Never know. Something good. Always something good.”

The kid left the shack with a bandage and apple, but not the pitch fork.

The landscape was somewhat moonlit. Dogs were becoming smarter and closer.

He made his way slowly across more tall grass, limping and stopping only once to catch a glimpse of ordinary life through an ordinary window.

He found the road then began limping toward the gathering of lights.

Joe Ducato lives in Utica, NY.  Previous publishing credits include; Adelaide Literary Magazine, Santa Barbara Literary Journal, Modern Literature, Avalon Literary Review and Bangalore Review and among others.