In Dark Places

"Tell me, what can and must I do?"

Those words were uttered by a man dressed in a yellowish polo T-shirt that looked like they had once been white, maybe whiter than one would imagine white to be. Also, because he was not a flasher, his legs and his groin were covered by a dirty pair of brown slacks, creased and crumpled, faded from years of wash. He was barefoot. Not unlike a hobbit, as you would imagine. This man was seated at a table, a cheap plastic table that looked like it had been fished out of a junk yard.

Across this table, this man (who we shall call Wall) knew, was a man possessed of great power. As we would imagine, this man of power donned robes of an uncertain dark colour, so dark it might as well have been black, but they were certainly not black. It was night and almost impossible to tell the true hue of the strange clothes this strange figure was wearing. Wall had searched for this man for many days now, and believing that his only salvation laid with this man, had almost shed tears of joy and relief on meeting him.

The robed man kept very silent.

The winds howled, and for a moment Wall could not tell whether it was the sound of the wind or the wild wolves or whether it was simply his half-sane mind playng tricks on him. Then he realised he was in the city and there were no wild wolves in the vicinity, and very suddenly, everything became calm, so calm that it was very disquieting. A terrible gloom came over the man called Wall, and he felt, for a reason not known to him, an awful, total sense of desolation, desperation and resignation. He sighed heavily.

"And you, with your power, you will not aid me?"

The winds howled once more, and one could hear the gentle sweeping of leaves. Aside from that, all was silent.