Moon in their Antlers- Seifer: That's the Problem

He didn’t hate Rogtuk and that was kind of the problem.

He was green, sure but he and Ragnar had been a pretty interesting shade of it that summer with the pond weed.

It wasn’t the color of his skin.

It wasn’t even the damned wolf, no matter how many times he whittled a new copy of that lie with his sharp tongue and spat it out at the other being’s feet.  

He didn’t hate Rogtuk.

He didn’t hate the wolf. Or the fire. Or the damned green skin.

He hated that he didn’t hate him. He hated that he couldn’t find a reason to. It would have been easier to be around him if he could find something to dislike, something that didn’t almost but not quite fit the empty place in his gut that used to be shaped like a man he thought was honorable and that he thought loved him back.

“I just wish you’d stop needling him.” Ginger had scolded. He’d given her his best contrite look and muttered something about trying, but damnit he didn’t want to, or that he did. But it didn’t seem like the kind of thing to tell someone like Ginger. Oh sorry, I refuse to be nice to your friend because it might still all be a dream and I’m not ready to wake up in the dark.

If it was a dream, maybe he could make it last longer by not repeating old mistakes.

Though if it wasn’t a dream…

How did you prove something wasn’t a dream when it was already like nothing, you’d ever had happen to you?

That was kind of almost getting to be a problem, too many things that he’d never seen before, and you got to a point where it was just another impossible thing before the sun set.

So he didn’t hate Rogtuk.

And that was the entire problem.