Steam

A group of us met him many years ago. Afterwards he would visit from time to time, but our meetings were rare and always brief. In our presence, he didn’t say much about himself and we didn’t ask him many questions. I found I didn’t enjoy talking about him when he wasn’t with us. Much later, years after he’d left us for good, his name was mentioned. Then the colors of our mistaken memories of him dislodged themselves and bled out of us, and the water became muddy.