20
I followed Buddy’s guy as we walked back to the administration building, and it occurred to me that I should probably stop referring to him as “Buddy’s guy.” That he had been one of the guys sitting at Buddy’s table the day of my first shift was all I knew about him.
“There are probably a dozen better ways to phrase this, so please forgive me. May I know your name?”
He smiled. “Don Sykes, and you did okay.”
“Thank you, Don,” I replied.
A flock of birds flying over the town drew my attention, and I wondered how many were members of the community, if any. That fundamental shift in perspective still worked its way through my mind. Both that I now lived in a world where people could take the shape of either animal or human and that I now governed a community of those people. I still fe
