Zaar memories #6
He appeared on the third day after the rains.
Sharp cheeks, eyes like a wary jackal.
Carried a knife with him — not as a tool, but as an extension of his hand.
No one asked his name; he called himself “Ram.”
Said it quickly, as if spitting the word out.
— Just Ram. No need to write it down.
No one did.
At first, T. thought he was just another drifter. There were a few like that, but it was rare.
People came — they looked — they left.
Some stayed.
Those who could… hear the silence.
But this one… he made noise even in silence.
He took an extra apple.
Didn't ask.
Just took it.
No one said anything to him.
The next day, he took two.
When children passed by, he turned away, as if they could read his insides.
His smile was ragged.
Nervous.
And even if he'd wanted to be 'one of them' —
his body betrayed the lie before his words could.
He tried to join the conversation by the fire.
He asked the woman with the basket where her husband was.
— “Probably somewhere you shouldn't be,” she answered.
Softly. Without harshness.
But Ram never went back there.
T. watched.
He didn't know exactly why.
Simply because the outsider's shadow was contagious, like smoke in the lungs.
And he wanted to know how it would end.
Ram stayed in the village for five days.
On the fourth — he was already eating alone.
On the fifth — no one was looking for him.
He just disappeared.
And only the old woman with the white eyes whispered to T.:
— He thought people were like bones: you could break them, and then they're yours.
But here... if you break something, it's no longer part of the body.
T. looked at the food he had brought for himself for a long time.
He ate it with his hands. Without salt. Without a tribe.
And for the first time, he understood —
you can eat alone, but you cannot be alone.
In another corner of the village, a young Grey — with a name no one had heard,
watched Ram for the first two days.
Then wrote on a stone tablet:
“Immunity is functional. Adaptive social pressure — stable.
Level—0. Transformation — not initiated. Conclusion:
subject is incapable of integration. Ejection.”
And wiped the tablet clean with his hand.