SHADOW OF A RECLUSE 

By Tessa Harvey


    Hunter looked around at his bleak surroundings. Minimalist, he realised. Nothing that could be construed as pleasant where something "pleasant" could be used to harm self or others. A cell was functional, barely.
    It brought to mind the end of his years at college when he had allowed himself to tag along with the others for once - a bad decision. He got drunk, unused to hard liquor, knocked off a policeman's helmet, apparently, and insulted other officers, both male and female. But this was now.
    This very morning, he had stood in the doorway of his rented cabin, his shadow slanting before him as the sun rose higher above the mountains and bathed the plateau in swift light.
    It always amazed him how a monochrome setting could be transformed by colour, even the sere grasses and faded plants now autumn was coming.
    A few butterflies still flickered, the hawk ever hopeful drifted and the police came for him. The concussion had persisted, the young woman was unable to speak truth. Hunter was taken into temporary custody.

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