Sodden, wet and putrid, the grime of ages. Dry eyes open painfully to examine a fly buzzing around a lantern.

A bent figure rises; bones jelly. He turns to the window over the garden; where butterflies fly about green fields, unaware of anything but sap and warm sunlight. Breathing in; the young man melted into the floor.

Sticky, moving sap oozes through wood, becomes one with the concrete, then the dirt. He trails through the grass to the bushes then becomes a tree. A squirrel lived in him, sorting his nuts. It was a frustrating, lonely existence, so he breathed into the sky.

The town below was picturesque; bright autumn colors sway with the wind by the flowing river. White church steeples and stately old buildings stand waiting for verbs to bring action to the lonely adjectives that describe them.  Boats swayed in the harbor, seagulls squawked in the not quiet ocean air, children clutched their jackets against the chill on the way to school.

And so the being fell into a bush behind the river to regain human form, the sticks and weeds sacrificing their essence for his change, the dirt it's matter for garments.

Shaking leaves startled a young librarian on the way to work. Her small head, piled with brown French braids, darted back and forth curiously.  She shrugged and continued on her path; looking forward to the smells of hot tea and old books.

“Shit” a voice said behind her. The librarian turned; she knew that voice.

“Language Zep” she gently scolded the young student who had fallen on his knees on the sidewalk”

“Sorry Miss Wheeler” the young man said mockingly. His winning blue eyes and soft blonde hair created the picture of an angel finally understanding the joke that was life. He turned and smiled into the sun.

Soft whispers accompany the shadows in the night. Visions move with purpose, sounds matching the passing of light, and long legs of dark walking in time with the clomping of footsteps. A dark young man wakes slowly, dreams merging into reality, to the sound of an old hinge being unlocked.

Mister Claymore, you are free to go,.. however, if you could answer a few questions briefly we would be much obliged.

“What about” Jason smiled. Local law enforcement had brought him in for drunk and disorderly conduct, He vaguely remembered peeing on something he shouldn't have. He should probably ask for a lawyer, but it was a small town, and if there was something he could help with, he might make up to Bill, his neighbor and the policeman that had brought him in.

“Your friend Zep is missing again, he has not been to school in three days”

Jason wanted to say the truth, but no one would believe him. “My friend Zep is not even a student, he constructed his identity from the memories of the townsfolk and create a home and a life for himself out of thin air. His parents are just visions he constructed, his past a lie". But it would not help anything, and he genuinely was worried about his friend
He tends to come and go like that, have you spoken to his parents?”
“No one has reported seeing them in over a week.”

Jason started at this, Zep's illusions tended to hold fast, even when he wasn't there.
“If you want a ride along I will go look for him with you, maybe I will think of something on the way”
Bill nodded, and even let Jason take the passenger seat. Technically against the rules, but no one cared that much.
“What happened last night exactly” he asked as black of the leather seat warmed his back.
Bill laughed, perhaps I should be asking you that.
“Let me rephrase that, how much apologizing do I'll have to do."

Zep stood on a cliff, just looking and smiling. The air on his skin felt like a caresses, the soft whistling of the wind like music. Then his brow furrowed as knowledge reached him; he had miscalculated. He spread his arms, a bird. Far in the distance, a shiny object moved through rows of wheat fields.

Waves rocked around Bill and Jason, they were pulling into the dock after a day fishing. Jason could have sworn they were just in a car looking for his friend Zep in Horton. Perhaps it was a dream, perhaps not.
“What have you guys been up to” a familiar voice rang out above them.

This was damage control. Zep's existence depended on the townspeople's perceptions and he had royally screwed up with his disappearing act..

Jason also possessed the implanted memories of a pleasant trip with Bill to make up for peeing are a barstool at “The Madhouse” on Horton in a drunken stupor.
But he was allowed to retain the other part of his memory as a sort of dream. Zep considered Jason his friend, and with him he had shared his secrets glimpses of his life before, of floating through galaxies and solar systems, his size enlarging as he became one with the universe, and then shrinking as he became more of an individual with more selfish wants and needs.

This process facilitated moving through eons of space and time in a millisecond, but he preferred to take his time, savoring the beauty of the universe. Of the many amazing and unimaginable manifestations of life.

Earth was the most beautiful he had seen. He planned to stay until he had learned everything, but there was always something new to learn. He could become one with the earth and learn it's exact composition one moment, but do to variety of life the next moment it would different in so many ways. When he examine the world on the small scaled there were subtleties of action, emotion, and chemical composition so strange and varied he could not see enough. He was now one with a young human that had been dying, Zep Livingston, and he would attempt the entire lifetime of humanity, although occasionally changing form and tasting the world as his old self was a bit like cheating. There were so many things to investigate that had to be done the old fashioned way; living.