Hinkle

He kept looking over his shoulder at her, as if to check that she had not flown, like a small bluebird, away from him. The gesture was reminiscent of a young boy who, after having secured a toad or a lame crow to one end of a string, must look back every so often in order to assure himself that it had not yet escaped. In fact, what little more was he than the young boy he cast echoes back to so carelessly? Did he not care to pause and consider how the real boychild of his past might feel about such an unprecedented intrusion? Was he afraid to truly think about him and thus invoke the nightmares -- and worse, the dreams -- that they had shared?