Between the silvered trunks of a mighty, alien forest, I came upon a wounded man. He sat next to a small campfire, one he had built himself. Pensiveness filled his eyes. A heavy, lead-lined cloak dragged at his shoulders, the red and gold hem crusted with mud. He had one hand pressed to his side and a puddle of crimson surrounded him, too much for him to still live.

His was a voice that often followed mine. I could drop a snappy comment and he would snatch it up, shift the trick sideways, and lob it back at me. You had to be quick on your toes around him, because you found that you didn’t want to disappoint him by dropping the ball.

Forever in my mind, he relaxed at a table surrounded by friends, the neck of a beer bottle held loosely between long fingers, his other hand gesturing a narrative point to support his story. He had an intensity about him, the electromagnetic capacity to hold his audience spellbound in a way I never could. But no matter the gravity of a topic, he couldn’t remain serious for long, often dissolving into laughter, along with the rest of us. When he listened, he listened. When he spoke, he spoke. But, I thought, when someone could make him laugh, that person gifted us with something small, yet wonderful.

I came upon a solitary scarecrow in the middle of an empty field. At first, he wasn’t there, and then he was, just in the corner of my vision. He hunched against the elements, head bowed in the red evening sunlight. When I approached him, he seemed nearly translucent, so faded with the sun and the wind. But in his very human eyes I found a glint of mischief; humor was tucked into the corners of his smiling mouth.