The Strange Bird. Jeff VanderMeer

who would spend so much time in senseless talking to the animals.

      “I am not the man I was. This place was different once. There are more people out there. All sorts of things out there. But I would not last without shelter. It takes someone younger, stronger. Someone who isn’t worn-out—and I know people will come here soon enough and wrest even this from me. And in the other direction there’s just desert and wasteland and nothing good. You should know—you came from there. And this was the town I grew up in, although none of it is left. They’re all dead now. Now it’s just me and the lizards and the weasels and a toad or two. And sometimes an intruder. And now you.”

      The Old Man could mumble like this for hours, sometimes rant and rave and become other than what Isadora thought he was. But even this the Strange Bird welcomed, for she understood him better and better through this repetition and she began to know not just his speech but his moods, to recognize the self-inflicted wound at the heart of him.

      A favorite subject was of the city that lurked so near beyond the dune. Whenever the Old Man spoke of the city, his tone would grow hushed and his aspect fearful and the Strange Bird would remember the shadow of the monsters she had sensed.