“He just let you go?” He nodded. He swallowed, his large eyes staring off lazily in front of him. He put his left thumb under his chin and hooked his index finger around over his mouth, and nodded again, just slightly. Tentatively, I asked, “What did he look like?”
“He looked like your uncle Doyle, but with darker, matted hair and with stubble all over. He was rather short, and his stature was fairly large. He could have been my brother, for his complexion, his build, his face. He was not monstrous in an outward way. But when I looked into his eyes I knew immediately that this beast had no soul. It was sucked from him, and it has been long gone. His body is a machine now, and the orders come from the crude, cold brain of a man directly to his limbs.” He paused for a second. “There was no soul left in that man, I am sure of it.” Another pause. “And so he looked at me, and he looked into my eyes, and God knows what he saw. And we traded then, what we were, and a judgment was passed between him, so he released me and we both turned away.”
At this, he looked down and scratched the back of his neck. My grandfather looked back up, both hands covering his mouth. He removed them to speak: “I sometimes wonder what ever became of that man.”
