THIS IS A HAPPY STORY.

     the sight of the sheep comes as natural as the crawl of algae. clumsier, much less slow, but no less familiar. long-coming. he does not ask why they are here. he should not have to bother. taller than he should be, he steps into sight from between the trees. the dappled bark melts away, hands swiping away vines as easily as cobwebs. pluto and their thirty-three sheep will always have a passage through the marshlands. the three-legged dog, too. but the faun – they both know the answer. unspoken, jagged as the thorn beneath a shrike. 

     the marshlands are treacherous enough when they are welcoming. 

     he blinks, and then, flatly, he echoes, ‘ remember … when you loved me? ’ 

Pluto used to count the stones large enough to breach the waters in this bogland, his bogland. Thirty-three. Thirty three stones after they carried in twenty-one more--one by one, day by day--to make it holy, make it right. One of those stones (stone four) is still here. Pluto steps up onto it.

If this bogland was the pasture and not the passage, what would he say?

The muddy water slips out of the bog as smoothly and politely as a satin handkerchief from a chest pocket. Pluto’s thirty-three sheep trudge through the deepest pit of the bog, their woolen bodies looking swollen with algae-blanketed water. Pluto notices none of this. Their gaze is stuck on the bog king like cotton on burrs, or burrs on cotton. Their brow crumbles in, and they take a moment before speaking so that their voice does not crumble, too.