Bell sat in his creaky chair in his creaky corner. Beside him, the windowsill was awash in mildew and the wood sagged. But the view through the wavy float-glass was otherworldly. The upper atmosphere burned with meteoric lumps of earth and matter that screamed by like bodies. High above, beyond the squall, the sky glared back: a vacuum of raging white noise that caused Bell's eyes to water and his ears to blare with static. He turned away.

The interior of his wuthering cabin was quiet, save for the crackle of the fire and small, craven voice which emanated from the corner radio. Here, the quiet lingered, as was always the case. And as was always the case, the dying fire flickered in the shadow of the grotesque thing sitting there beside: the bulbous Baal, a collapsed slug of a creature with Uncle Sam eyes that had long ago budded from climbing stalks. Its flesh matched the color of the floor: brown and damp, like trodden leaves. The radio was sputtering its own black words of the day: “... There was— always a garden. Yes. There was always— a storm. There was, too, always a creature ... watching ...” It reminded Bell of something—some distant nostalgia long scrambled over the airwaves of memory. A blue house; a makeshift swing in a grove. He smiled to hear it.

The bulbous Baal, however, never smiled. It had no mouth.

“I don't like you,” Bell said.

Nasally. He fidgeted. Already, he could feel the hair-standing frisson of his nostalgia being sucked away—eaten by the Baal. His small, dark eyes darted around the small, dark room, fixing on coverless books, pages strewn about the floor; or a cracked rake against the mantel; a rusted bucket, too, its bottom long eaten away —all things that didn't stare back at him. He puffed out his chest and dropped an octave.

“I don't have anything more to give you. I wish you'd go away,” Bell said.

His chair creaked (like the joints of a desiccated cat) loud enough to wake The Dog who stretched lazily and hopped with a thud from the dining room table.

The eyes of the Baal bled a black tar, now congealed on strange, taught lids.

“... Arrived. A stranger— a meal… it lingers …”

Bell twisted his watch band round and round his wrist. He stood up.

“I— I'll get more wood for your fire.” He hurried out.