A pale sun made a futile attempt to warm the earth under its dominion. With each passing day, the country moved closer to winter and the sun’s power waned. Sapped of their life-blood, leaves shriveled as their parent trees renounced them. They rattled in final protest before abandoning the limbs that once birthed them. As brightly as the sun would cry, there would be little heat behind the rays.

A few of those rays found Patience seated on her front doorstep. Unhampered by any clouds, the light played along the swirls of water in the large basin at her feet. The glow of the day also coaxed sheens of wine and teal to shine from the dark chestnut skull on her head.

Patience yawned, barely awake for a morning of drudgery at the washboard. She blinked between the sockets of the skeletal helm, the hard ridges unable to block the sun from her eyes. As she cradled the washtub with her shins, she stared up at the road beyond the fence. Earlier, Schuler had left to sail down the path on his motorbike and purchase groceries in Keaton. He left Anax with Patience to aid with the wash.

The cold well water gnawed her fingers as she drowned fistfuls of fabric. Her olive beige fingers turned bright red. Tendrils grew from Anax’s vaporous mantle to assist and expedite the job. Though he felt as if he were but a tool making light work of chores many days, he found fairness in the fact that he often used Patience to satisfy his own urges. At her instruction, he reached over to a box of detergent she had set behind them and sprinkled some of the powder into the basin. Suds formed, signalling Patience to scrub with prejudice, lest she have to repeat this process again with boiled water should any stains survive.

While the water sloshed below, Anax’s eye drifted toward the road. In his second life, thrust into the world of humans, there was little he could do but be a bystander. He relied on Patience and Schuler to take him everywhere and most days he could only watch.

He could not act. His instinct to form his body around them and instead be the ambulatory one often thrummed through the fiber of his being. None of his kind would ever resign themselves to be no more than a skull and some mist on a regular basis. That was his sacrifice to live among men.

The only relief he had was inside the cottage walls. He was allowed to form his full body then and his frustrations regularly found an outlet in the bedroom. With each release, he was sated, calmed. But the marching hours between would see a new growth of quiet discontentment. Anax did his best to behave, but with civil society caging the wild beast within, the growling in his heart could not be quelled.

The pair was just about through with a set of sheets when a motorcar puttered to the front gate. Anax quickly dissolved his tendrils. Patience stood with a start. A man had gotten out of the vehicle and rounded to its back to access the cargo. A hefty crate appeared and landed on a hand truck. Wiping her hands on her pantaloons, Patience hurried to unlatch the gate for the encumbered delivery man.

The man thanked her before leading the hand truck down the garden path to the front doorstep where he set the box. Patience’s mind flashed to the day she received Anax, though the crate this time was even larger. The man took her signature. She took the package, but only on paper. Learning from her last experience, she left the delivery on the doorstep and went to retrieve the crowbar.

“Where are you going?” whispered Anax, his eye looking back at the crate.

“To get the crowbar,” Patience replied.

“But why when you have me?”

She stopped. Of course. She had the creature’s great strength now. Patience chuckled to herself. “I suppose it’s hard to break a habit.” She strolled back to the doorstep to the sound of the delivery vehicle speeding away.