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There is a strange man in the mountains of Colorado.
Many have seen him, caught his gaze, a mystery in the darkness of the Lake District. He always looked the same. Brown coat. White shirt, something black on it. But nobody was sure what kind of black stuff.. Dark jeans. Not something you’d need in the woods.
His body is riddled with bullet wounds and slashes. He is missing two fingers. His left ring finger. His right pointer finger. Some have joked that he would never be able to find real love that way - with his left ring finger cut off. The left ring finger is the only finger connected to the heart. But his heart stopped beating a long time ago.
And so did theirs.
Bullet holes and dried blood are covering his chest. Did hunters mistake him for a bear? A hurt deer? But no hunters have ever reported seeing this man. The only people who ever saw him were the hurt ones. The lost people. Not the people who wanted to be out there. Just the ones who were forced. No other escape plan.
The few people who have seen him always reported the same things. They were lost. Had ran away from something or someone. Or just from themselves. And in their most desperate moment, he appeared out of nowhere. The man with the brown coat would catch up with them. And everyone reported just freezing in their movements. As if the air had suddenly become icy, the man looked at them.
“I know how it feels," he would always say. “Being lost. Lonely. Come on. There’s more in life than that.”
One time, a young girl lost her way in the forest. She had run away from her big brother after her fight where he destroyed her favourite puppet. By the time the wolves started to howl, she was cold, holding onto the two parts of her puppet for dear life. The howling came closer, so she sat down on the cold forest ground, knees up to her chest and burying her head between her legs. She was so cold. And hungry.
And there he was.
“Hey," the man in the brown coat greeted the girl and sat down next to her. Or knelt? She couldn’t tell because there was a black cloud around his legs.
“What’s your name?” he asked as the girl looked at him with tears in her eyes.
“Nina," she muttered, voice raspy with tears and sadness.
“Is that your puppet?” the man asked and Nina handed him the broken parts.
“My brother broke it," she said as the man held the parts in his hands. She sobbed a bit more, closing her eyes as the sadness rushed over her tiny body, little sobs filling the air as she needed to let it out. She hoped the man would understand.
Suddenly, the man handed her the puppet back. And it was fixed! It did not even have any signs of having been broken! Nina smiled when she saw this, but drew her hand away when he touched hers. He was so cold! As if he had showered in ice water.
“How about we go back to your parents? I’m sure they miss you!”
Nina and the man got up again, and the howling stopped. Steps were audible, but in the distance, moving more and more away from them. Nina held the strange man’s hand as he led her back to the camp her parents had built up.
When Nina saw her mother, she yelled, “Mommy!” and ran towards her, letting go of the man’s hand.
“Nina! Where have you been?” her mother cried out, holding her daughter so tight, as if she had no bones.
“I ran away after my brother broke my puppet! But the man over there fixed it and helped me back here!” Nina pointed to the place where she had left the man. But he was gone. All that was left from him was the distant smell of sulfur.
There is a strange man in the mountains of Colorado.