#doan

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Finally, Jefferson hoists the shotgun over his shoulder instead.

For a very long time, he keeps looking at him. Then behind him, to the sides, all around. It’s another eternity before he finally looks back down at him.

His eyes grow increasingly cold and hostile, going dark like storm clouds rolling in over the horizon.

It feels all wrong. He isn’t sure if this really can be Jefferson, because everything looks right but feels wrong.

Jefferson’s hair is pulled back, there’s the ear, the one that’s missing a chunk from a bullet fired a lifetime ago. His beard is longer and thicker than it ever was in his memory, unshaped and scraggly. It obscures the entire lower half of his face, conceals his mouth. He’s dressed blue collar, heavy black work jeans and a denim jacket. He’s thinner, harder, wiry, stooped over like his shoulders bear an invisible weight. Not the larger-than-life figure he has always known. Not built for show. Built for whatever life it is that they survive in now.

A cool certainty floods him that he would not be the first person to have a hole blown through them on this front porch.

Jefferson shifts the heft of his shotgun in his hands. Testing. Weighing.

Just as he’s almost sure that this can’t be Jefferson, he speaks. This is familiar—the same lilting, holier-than-thou drawl as ever. Just cold. But that much he has heard before.

中 ل 女 木 ف 再 س 文 一 ك

メ ح 刀 ر 水 か 冊 س ٣

ن 气 れ ط 心 木 ط 世

フ ر 之 و ظ 東 力

PΛPΛŦЯIЖ

Wake up, Taylor