In the fading pulse of twilight, a rabbit watched from far up a dusty bluff. Perhaps the rabbit was a real one, this time. The ridge's edge sat only a few inches before it and steeply bowed into the Earth. There was no harsh wind. There was only the animal standing still and observing distances. At the horizon, the people occupying the monumental valley were nothing. They were not a thought or sight or sound. They were an occasional short motion or the suggestion of it. The lifting of a revolver and the changing angles of the stars and their light. And sublimation. The night was becoming day, but not yet. There was still a moment more.

A cool breeze came in from the side and in it carried shards of sand. They tickled the nose of the rabbit, which began to twitch slightly. Its coat folded over from the wind and it shut one of its eyes. The world looked different when it did that. Still, it did not turn its head. The rabbit remained steadfast watching.

Behind it, another rabbit slowly made its way walking forward. It meandered through the summer brush, the orange wildflowers and sharp sticks hardened by the dry summer air and baked underneath the many days of sun. It pushed its way through and then came to a rest beside the other rabbit. This new one was unmistakably real. But as the two remained silent and still you could hardly tell the difference between what was assuredly real and what was questionable. They looked exactly the same and acted likewise—both gazing at the distant motes that hinted at the actions of mankind if that could be confirmed. It all blurred. The sunrise was not spectacular and instead was gray. The morning sky was starting to rouge and even animals knew what that foretold.

One of the rabbits began to turn around. It does not matter if it was the real rabbit or the other rabbit because the other followed after it. And then they returned to a larger colony, now one larger, and, sensing the tension in the air, began to return to their burrows after only a short wake.

The bluff was now empty. The creatures were so light that they barely disturbed the rock that they sat upon, if at all. The only memory of the rabbits could maybe be a lingering scent that was quickly dissolving in the wind, or the memory from the nocturnal lizards or fowl that were zig-zagging their way through the wilds and blinking sleep away from their eyes for just a little longer. But this, too, meant that they could not be trusted to recount the duet that might have happened before them. Much like how the sun cast its first throws into the air, over the soil's curve, during twilight, dreams breathed life into the apparitions of dreams. So what the animals saw was indescribable and leaked into the last few minutes that they were awake. The line was blurred. And the rabbits shimmered.

***

When the sun had finally pierced through the spine of the plateaus, the heartbeat of an eyeless horse awoke a fawn. It had slept poorly; its horns were beginning to grow in through the flesh of the skull. As it stood, trembling, the seven others sleeping around it began to wake. Their ears twitched upright and turned to face the wind where the beat was coming from. And then the beats of all the others came with it. It was a quiet morning now.

The oldest, now fully awake and standing, stretched its neck and scanned over the shrubbery. They all began to move forward, slowly. The sky was a bright red and the first set of clouds, sheer like thin linen or an early cataract, slid into place. East lit, they were dark and almost purple like a bruise against the crimson. And The crimson was now turning orange.

At their slow pace, they moved their way forward and traced the route that seemed etched into their deep memory. This was not a learned behavior, but how they always were. The fawn walked next to its mother. Not a sound was made. Soon enough, the scent of the sea wisped through their peaceful movement. And the smell of rust. They did not know what the sea was but they moved closer.

The smell was strongest in a clearing that was silent. The air seemed thick enough to muffle a scream. The sand was increasingly clumped beneath their gait here. Some of it seemed balled up by the glue of human tears, others by blood. Only a scientist could know that for certain, and the clods crumpled beneath the pressure of the live animal. Once all of the beasts were inside the clearing, the oldest stopped.

A runty stag in size, it made up for its lungs. It took a salty and ash-filled breath and began a solemn call. It was low and rumbly and almost seemed like the wail of a dying man. To the fawn behind him, all he saw was silence. The stag's head was angled upward and there was a growing gesticulation of the stag's throat. Outside of the clearing, the bellow was clear and loud but did not echo.

When the stag stopped its uncharacteristic scream there was stillness again. One of the fawns reached down and delicately liked a salt crystal. Another reached down to do the same but only tasted the matte flavor of powder. The herd continued moving. They cut across the clearing towards the crustal deformation that they would eventually have to climb, each sinew of color a different geological hand that grasped or pushed their balanced body. They left hoof marks smaller than the older ones they sliced perpendicular through, barely visible to their feral and upturned eyes. Those prints were shrew dunes, eroded by the hours of the late night. They would be gone by noon. Sooner, if the advancing rainfall broke.

There were linear prints too, regular and parallel. Their pattern was betrayed by rubber cracks. Their direction pointed in the opposite direction from humanity. How could the deers know that?

***

The clearing was empty until midday. That was when the rain began.

The clouds had become heavy with vaporous meat. A plane flying above would've seen nothing but the temperate musculature of gaseous water, one that obstructed all light from crossing it. There was no plane, though. The sky was dead.

With this behavior, the desert below it was overcast. Rabbits slept in their burrows. And in the distance, a lightly humming car was driving back to a clearing, seeming to retrace a route it had previously traveled. When it arrived, the man who stepped out took immense care to not slam the door. It lacked a license plate. He wore a red and white poncho and looked around. When he confirmed his solitude, he leaned down into his boots and pulled out a single cigarette. He reached into the cavity behind the front tire and pulled out a match. Then he began to smoke with shame from the others.

Despite the truck's silence, its vibrations would disturb a gopher who watched from its low angle. The smoke from the rolled tobacco seemed to perfectly blend into the clouds it curled in front of. It was as if they were descending onto the world itself. The man did not see the gopher. The gopher wondered if the man could see at all, or if he had traced a route he had whipped into him to know without needing to see. The gopher would not get an answer. It would die without receiving one.

Like a metronome, the first drops of rain fell. The man in the poncho could feel the light tap hit his hat. Tap. Tap, Tap. Tap. He threw his cigarette into the sand and then cringed at the mistake. It wasn't finished. He peered his head around again, perhaps instinctually, and then crouched down and covered it with the top layer of sand. It lay slightly lit beneath the layer.

The rain came down harder. The sand and chalk and salt in the clearing began to fade from the canyon's memory, color dissolving in the clear water and burying itself into the soil. The man nodded his head at this. He did not leave until the entire clearing was erased of the previous night's scrawls. That was that. That was that.

There was the faint impression of thunder. The man hoisted himself onto the step of the truck and leaned his entire body one way, scanning the scene again. The weight of the vehicle supported him. The droplets formed small craters in the sand with their impact. The marks of horses and deer and people were replaced with this random speckling. He knew that as he drove back to the compound, the rain, if it continued, would cover his tracks too. He smiled at the thought of this and drove away.

He was right.

***

During the previous and dying night, the compound stirred in rhythm with the relentless drone of cicadas. The air was heavy, saturated, and clung to the skin like a second layer. The compound's residents, a living tide of devotion, moved in choreographed precision. They were nice. Their bodies were a procession of shadows against the pallid light of an overcast sky.

Some of them had left the previous night. Many hoped they would return. Though, if they did not return they would simply return to the earth and that would not be without its pleasure. With the smaller number, the night's shallow breaths felt a little more lively. It did not need to pass through thick brushes of people that would weaken it at every turn. For some of the young children, it was the first time they had felt that tickle.

The doctor of the group sat alone in his office. He was not outside with the rest of them. This was the only quiet he could get. He did not regret the lack of solitary time. Nor did he regret the exchange of pleasures for the life he was now living. Still, there were some things he could not fully withdraw from. So he unlocked one of his desk drawers.

There was a nest of woodpeckers that had nested in the gutter of a building opposite the doctor's office. In the small, blue glow of midnight, they saw the man sitting alone, his back to the window. Another man, taking a lap around the perimeter, passed by the window. He was not called to leave the compound that night. He had not been called in years. He wondered if the wilderness had changed since his arrival. Then he smothered that thought. It did not matter. And it didn't.

The man did not see the doctor inside. The doctor did not hear the man outside. That was their harmony, a distant one.

As the man walked further away, the doctor guided his hand without needing to change the angle of his head. He faced forward at the door in case a nurse or medic were to enter. He pulled the drawer out and felt for a rectangular plastic bottle. He set it on his desk. Then he grabbed an empty plastic cup and a bottle of water. He closed his eyes and rubbed them with his index finger and thumb. The frames of his glasses were cold against his knuckles.

The liquids made a subtle sound as they mixed together in the cup. Before taking a sip, he moved the bottles back into his drawer. Then he waited several minutes. This would break his fast. He did not care. He had to keep his harmony, an imperfect one. The sterile aroma wafted in his room. He could not keep this out for too long, lest others did arrive and grew suspicious.

Using both hands, he lifted the cup to his mouth and drank. The isopropyl tasted as it usually did when diluted. He did not stop drinking until the cup was empty. Then he slid his finger along the interior and placed it in his mouth, sucking off the remainder of the drink. His body shook a little when he did this. It quickly disappeared, and after waiting another minute he placed the cup back in the drawer as well. Then he stood up and walked back to where he and everyone else slept. He would sleep well that night. It was what he needed.

He would be asleep when the others returned. That was not a problem for him.

***

The day was coming, and with it, the heat that would rise from the earth like a living thing. The compound's gate, a rusting relic framed by thorny mesquite, creaked with the burden of time. There was no road leading up to it. It was a line in the sand that separated those together and those apart. Beyond it, the world could be distant. They allowed that.

Above, a hawk circled, its sharp eyes scanning the barren landscape. It saw everything, yet understood nothing of the lives below. The hawk was a silent witness to the morning's rituals. Below, the people moved as one, their actions synchronized with the rhythms of the earth, the pulse of the valley. As the light grew stronger, it hoped it would be able to find a small rodent to take. That was what it cared about, nothing else.

The silence of the compound was interrupted by the distant rumble of engines and the faint clatter of hooves. The sounds came like a slow wave, rolling across the barren landscape, pressing against the stillness that had settled in the valley. The walls of the compound trembled under the weight of expectation.

The first to arrive were the trucks. They moved with a deliberate slowness. They were reluctant. There was a new car that trailed behind them. As they approached the compound, the gate creaked open, welcoming the return of its own. Partners leaned over to kiss their partners. The dust that followed in their wake seemed to settle almost respectfully as if it knew better than to linger too long in this place.

From the trucks, figures emerged, moving with a sense of purpose that belied the weariness in their limbs. They were marked by the night, their clothes clinging to them with the sweat of the journey. They would not be allowed to change them. Nor did they or could they speak. Instead, they moved deeper into the heart of the compound.

Not long after the trucks had arrived, the sound of hooves echoed through the valley. The horses came in a slow procession, their riders upright, silent, and detached. The woman led the pack, as she always did. As they came to the end, there was only one additional man who had been tied to the back of another, seemingly to be asleep.

They stopped in the center and the woman smiled. All had been successful, at least when measuring for their final objective. All they wanted was a continuation of their peace and to remain out of the sight of others.

She led the band of horses to a makeshift corral near the compound's edge, where they were tied and left to rest. The riders dismounted with quiet grace, their boots leaving faint imprints in the soil. They joined the others, becoming part of the living tide that moved through the compound, their presence a reminder of the world. They smelled of it. The gate closed.

And Wish Bone finally opened his eyes.

***

The previous night was not an accessible thing to him. Nor was the long trek of slow-moving horses through Arizona. What he did remember was staring down the barrel of a gun. He did not know what followed.

His back ached from the ropes that had first tied him to the man in front of him and now had tied him to an infirmary bed. The rest of the unit was empty. It was quiet. But he was not dead. And there was nothing more to do.

***

The guard dogs on the compound were quick to assimilate themselves with the man formerly known as Earl. Unlike the bound one, he had quickly picked up their practices. It seemed like barely a week had passed and the man had asked to be assimilated into their culture. As the newest woman held his hand, his head was shaved and he was donned a red and white poncho to wear. He was given strict orders to not converse with the bound one, but he had no desire to do so anyway. He had gotten his goal; he was back with his wife.

He would pick a new name eventually, he thought. He did not know if this new community gave names. That was something he wasn't sure he could go without, but everyone there had something that broke up the rest of their supposed habits. Perhaps names would be his, at least to himself, or written in the soil as he worked. He would not return to Idyll.

***

The dressings on Wish Bone's arms were changed semi-regularly. Otherwise, he was left to stare up at the ceiling of the medical wing. The staff came in and took notes. They did not speak to him. He did not speak to them. There was a small patch of clear, rigid plastic. He used that to tell the time.

Sometimes, during the night, he could hear the sound of small rodents scurrying about beneath the other empty beds. And, occasionally, there was the sound of what seemed like joy and community outside. He did not trust it. And so he didn't.

***

The woman formerly known as Martha would have passing thoughts about how her husband joined her at the compound. She did not leave him to hurt him but only thought he would not understand. She was grateful that he did, and that he found her. Early into her time there she learned to appreciate all the ways to know another person and to accept joy when he came. So it was her and him and their red and white ponchos and their silence and the silence of the rest of their compound.

They would not leave its walls.

***

A colony of rabbits continues moving throughout the bluffs. Several years in the future, there will be a rabbit that has not died, unlike the other rabbits its age. Its eye carries a glimpse of something more. It will not return.

***

Far away from the lives of everyone else, there was a home in the compound. Even the children knew that this was not a place to enter without permission. Inside was the only radio on the compound and that was used for the rare bouts of contact their community needed to make with others. Otherwise, they stayed silent. They were no of the character to advertise their location. No, that went against their entire idea of remaining unbothered and uncontacted. Of living freely.

Near this home was a rock outcrop that was deeply rooted into the ground. When the community had first decided to settle here they had attempted to clear it. Unlike the other mounds, it was nearly impossible to remove. So their land was flat, except for the buildings and the pyre of rocks and what grew on it.

Their leader enjoyed this. On nights she found it difficult to sleep, she would stare at the curving nature of one of the ancient trees that grew from it. It curved around and in on itself, seemingly forming a knot with its very form. As her eyes traced the form over and over, she would eventually find herself falling into slumber. This kind of stare seemed to animate the tree in a small way each time.

She found it difficult to sleep most nights.

***

Time was only marked by the color change through the skylight. Through blurred images, he saw blues and whites and grays. They seemed to move with a life of their own, in ways that seemed to dance of color in the woman's eyes. Of all the recovered memories of that night of the hunt, the motion in her irises seemed to stick with him. His fixations orbited around it.

Because they did so, he found himself getting caught deeper and deeper into them. And kept with that repeating image and stress, his grit began to chip. It was a slow change, one marked by losing count of the passing of the sky's transition from blue to red to dark to red to blue to dark. It was endless repeats and random visits.

Wish Bone was not a broken man at this point, not by any means. But he was a man caught in the cycle of that memory. It was his next habit, one to torture himself by and get caught within. He never let himself finish the jobs once and for all. And now they were doing the same to him.

***

As much as she watched the tree, the tree watched her.

***

The radio buzzed one day. The woman ordered everyone to return to their assigned rooms. The couple formerly known as Earl and Martha were scared. They felt small beneath their ponchos. Still, they followed the directions.

The leader sat alone in her office. Next to the larger communication device was a short-range handheld she used to communicate with the other men. And beside that, a small screen showing the many angles of surveillance outside in the desert and throughout the city that she collected information on.

In truth, the government cared little about what happened beyond the limits. They did, however, want to know of the existence of things. That was what posed the harm to this community, the group of people wishing to remain unknown. So they needed to be proactive. They cut leads off immediately like truckers getting lost and asking for help on the radio or a hunter of beasts. All needed to be dealt with. No one could disturb their peace. If they did, their silence would be stretched too thin. And then it would break.

The signal came to pass. The compound slowly resumed its activities. Later in the night the woman would return to her room and write down the next steps to keep her people safe. The list was long and ever-growing. Over and over she read it. There was much to do. Then she looked up at the tree again, which seemed to shift as if it were alive.

***

Sometimes, Wish Bone allowed himself to cry and he did so without making a sound. His eyes would blur the already blurred images and tears would fall, tears that carried so much energy in them. It was a valve to empty all the developed tension in his chest. Perhaps with each drop, he was letting out a cycle and letting it close. Or perhaps the man was unlike lizards—unable to transfer memories from their mind to their tail, unable to store them away until the tail gets caught and ripped off, unable to duplicate the flesh. There was nothing a person could do with a memory except forget. And so he sought to forget with every drop.

It was unsuccessful. It was impossible to forget all of it.

***

There was a day when things were different. Unlike the regular ward staff, it was the woman who had led the charge many times before. He did not know how long he had been at the compound. She walked from the faraway door and her poncho smelled of smoke. It was the first taste of something new in ages. She walked towards him and removed her hat. Her hair fell, roots beginning to gray. Then she looked down at him.

Wish Bone studied her face, the strange markings that were carved into her cheeks. At one point, they were eligible to him as if they were his own language. Her eyes still carried a sense of motion that he detested, but they seemed to also carry pity.

She sat beside him at his bed and continued to stare. Wish Bone stared back at her. From the angle, only one eye had a clear sight. The other had his angle slightly blocked by the ridge of his nose. As a result, she seemed to phase in and out of a duality. This kind of human static showing continued until she reached out her hand and held it against his face.

She did not know how he had felt about all of his hunts. She did not even know how he felt about her, even. But that answer would come quickly.

To Wish Bone, there was a surprising richness and softness to her touch. It was the first form of communication anyone had given him since he woke up after that night.

He began to cry. Neither of them said a word.

This was all she needed. Her hunt was done.

***

If the tree could gaze, and sometimes it could, it would've noticed how when the woman returned to her room she sat on the bed and remained still for nearly an hour. It was impossible to translate her thoughts, but her actions were easily clear to the tree and the tree only. She grabbed a cloth by her bed and began to wipe her face. The rise and fall of her chest portrayed the deep and echoing breaths she took. They felt like fire. And after a while, she then began to pick at her eyes. She clawed at them, almost seemingly to dig at the flesh. She did not let out a sound of pain.

Soon enough the task was complete. The cloth was muddied with the melted wax of pigment and prosthesis, and in her palm was the thin film of a contact lens that seemed to reflect the light with an almost iridescent sheen. She sighed, hating the lie. She tossed the cloth and lenses aside and adjusted herself into bed, her back turned to the window.

There was no need to watch the tree that night. Nor did she do so ever again. She knew her people were safe.

***

Wish Bone was eventually removed from the medical ward. The season for sickness was approaching. He was not, however, integrated into the rest of the compound. He was placed in a circular home without a floor and slept against the cool dry soil. It was placed far away from everyone else. People did not glance at it. They knew what it was. They did not want to think about it. They were happier that way. That was their harmony.

***

The colony moved far. It would cross state lines. Something repelled the rabbits from the region they had once occupied. They settled somewhere entirely new. The burrows were deeper. They were quieter, too.

On a day that bore no other significance, the oldest rabbit would eventually die. It was just like all the rabbits before it.

***

On the same day that the rabbit passed, Wish Bone awoke to a new presence in his holding pen. It was small but unmistakable. In the little light that filtered through the cracks, he saw a creature. He closed his eyes, and as it crawled into his left palm he lifted it closer to him. With his right index finger, he traced its body, starting from its head. He did this slowly and went down the ridges on its back and the slight webbing of its appendages. And when he reached the base of the spine, a smile touched his lips for the first time in ages.

The lizard's tail was forked in two.