Prose                                       
The Prey

   active approach. I poked him and prodded him and tried to understand everything that made him tick. I photographed him and x-rayed him and performed any number of exploratory surgeries. The results revealed new details and I kept experimenting feverishly. After all, it was clearly the time to do so.

   As the months flew by I even managed to attract a small following at the lecture hall. As I learned more and more fascinating details about the makeup of his fingers or the origin of his slight accent, the audience seemed to grow larger and larger. I was (and am) a rather charismatic speaker and their fascination with certain details was insatiable. These lectures were an inordinate source of pride for me. My fans became Arthur experts in their own rights, but none of them could touch me. I was indisputably the expert above all experts. I had the source. I had Arthur and they did not.

   On a number of occasions Arthur managed to escape for different lengths of time. Each time I hated myself pitifully, realizing I was nothing without him. The audience only wanted to see the show. I hated them and hated him and I soon became skilled at tracking him down. I brought him back by whatever means necessary. Sometimes he would come back easily; sometimes it was hard. Sometimes I had to beat him horribly until I could get anything at all out of him.

   This continued on interminably; me with my microscopes and test tubes and podiums and standing ovations, him as silent as a ghost in his squalid little cage. I had all but forgotten ever playing a game of any kind with Arthur. There was so much more to know and see now.

   And then one fateful day I realized I was no longer even studying him. My research had moved completely outside of him; it was his food and his feces and the air he breathed. My God, I spent countless hours examining the flies that buzzed around his head while barely finding a spare instant to even look him in the eye.

   When finally I tried again, I realized my errors. He had lost the magic that he once had for me. I looked him over and found that while he had grown since I first captured him, he had not changed a bit since he was a baby beside me. I had changed; he had remained the same. He had never even become darker or more serious; I had just become obsessed with staring at the darkness that had always been there.

   Seeing him in his whole, as he truly was, even through the dirty glass, was enough for me to let him go. To open the door and step back. I climbed a tree to show him that I would do nothing to impede him. He looked up at me with a pitiable glance and wandered out into the jungle.

   And such has been our relationship for the past few years. I see him only occasionally and always try to make friends. I try to play the old games with him again and every once in a long while he even lets me. But it will never be like it once was again. I don’t press him.

   The last few years have been hard on me- not having my trusted friend around anymore, not in any capacity, not even the warped state I had kept him in for so long. My mind lacked the stimulation and direction that it once had. I seemed to wander aimlessly about as my delicate instruments grew rusty through neglect and disuse.

   I made an honest effort to meet new people and that’s how I became better friends with Linus. We had met many times through the years; he is Arthur’s brother after all. But we never really spent that much time together. It was just casual.