“Did you hear? About Matthew?”
He moves to pick up the rock.
“Or have you been…”
He smiles at you.
“Busy?”
After a moment, he stands back and sighs.
“Do you know,” he asks, “where Matthew is?”
The rock in one hand, the pipe in the other, he turns to face you.
He whispers, “Do you know what he’s done?”
His eyes are bright and fixed like a statue.
“Now come on. You haven’t heard? What they say he did?”
Moving closer, he raises the rock over his head.
“They’re wrong. All of them.”
His eyes find yours. They don’t seem fixed anymore.
“I was there.”
Now they seem more like a shark; a primordial monster.
“I saw what Matthew did.”
A feeding machine.
“And I did what I had to,” he says, lowering the rock.