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   The black bear snorted, agitated to no end at another distraction from his dinner.   He kept an eye on a brick red and silver striped beast bounce and stumble across a narrow cut through the forest.   It was frightening everything throughout his valley with its sun eyes, growling breath and the awful noise it made when the needles of a tree branch touched its naked skin.   There was nothing for him now here.   He huffed and trudged back into the foothills fearing what the beast wanted, and not knowing if it was him.

   Grey wondered who was in control of the beast as well.   The ride was even worse than on the way in.   If the potholes were not throwing the steering wheel, and him, around the cabin, the van was skipping between the new formed patches of ice.   Meghan was there to of course, bumping along in the back, although not so much as him, a giggling with an open grin at the amusement park ride.   At least she was having fun in the chaos.

   "So, how do you propose we do this?" He yelled over the whumps and thuds and screeches.

   "First we need to find a store, then we buy cards."   Meghan's reply was calm, and in a rather juvenile way, her neck craned as she leaned in towards him.

   "So that's it, huh?   Are you just walking in there to pick some out?"

   "Sure, why not?   I could you know," she nodded.

   "I don't doubt that at all, but would you."

   "...I don't know, maybe...if I want to."

   "I suppose if we find a drug store, it will have fewer people there than a grocer, if one is even open.   My guess by these clouds is that it will snow again tonight.   Everyone sane will be battening down again."

   "Then what?"

   "I have no idea...it's up to you really."

   One last sharp jostle was the signal that they had hit the county road to the welcome relative quiet, except for the salt and sand getting spun up into the wheel wells and elsewhere and the ever present drone of the engine.   They were both silent as well, as to the grave.

   The night really had the feel of the violent spasms before the death of something, as to what Grey couldn't pin down, or even whose, but he felt something coming as inevitable as the reaper.   Perhaps he could put it off for a while, rob the fates, hide from them there in the forest forever somehow with Meghan.   He chuckled inside at the metaphor that his travels tonight were to his life.   Chaos and dread had been the theme every day since he walked out years ago. Now thanks to him it was hers as well.

   "A wheelchair?"

   "I'll still be huge..."

   "But they won't know how large."

   "What else do you got?"   All too soon they had backtracked to the small New England town that bridged the river, with its picturesque family colonials with wrap around lawns, and dependable brick downtown centered at the crossroads.   He still had no answer for one problem, but needed one for another.

   "That's about it, unless I buy them for you."

   "You have no idea what I want..."

   "You could give me some idea."

   "No..."

   "Well, I can't buy the whole store."

   "Why not, moneybags?"

   "Hardly...so I assume you’re not coming in.   What if I distracted the cashier so you could slip in?"

   "What about anyone coming in or out, or stockers?"

   "I could bring them up to the window...never mind..."

   "Comon', give me something.   I can't miss Christmas.   I hardly ever get to see them.   This is all I've got."

   "I'm trying.   Sometimes there just isn't a painless solution.   There's a drug store still open over there, it even says 'greeting cards.'   I'll try them.   I don't know...maybe if I explained the situation to them, they'll let me borrow some."

   Grey drew a deep breath as he opened the glass door and stood in the doorway trying to orient himself.   A middle-aged man stood unnoticed until he gave a hearty greeting. He seemed to be a fixture at first, a part of the small town scenery that the store embodied as well, possessing the essentials, carrying just enough nick knacks they hoped would keep life interesting.   A small town like he believed would be nothing but accepting and protective of its own, regardless.   A place he at one time he had wished to grow up in, but cruel happenstance prevented.

   He was the only customer inside due to the threatening weather, but the evidence of prior traffic was plain to see.   The Christmas cards for one had been ransacked, what remained the worse for the experience.   Grey pulled out one to glance at, and a second that appeared the most neglected, wondering despite himself what he would get his own parents if he had to.   This ordinary act to him was something novel, and sentiment inside them might as well been in Russian.   He sighed, and returned the cards, and wandered, and stumbled onto the answer.

   "Meghan, take this."   Grey hand appeared though the driver's door.

   "Are you kidding me?"   Meghan's jaw dropped.

   "This is the best I got."

   "This is the most hair-brained...who am I kidding?   This is right up your alley."   She picked it out his hand with thumb and forefinger, turning it over once after Grey passed a nine-volt into another hand.   As silly as it looked in Grey's, the cheap, brightly colored walkie-talkie was absurd in hers. She held it like an egg as she struggled to remove the battery door.

   "Can you hear me now?"   The store keeper had not been expecting a return of this man, and had been mulling over closing early, except for the chance that a friend might need his medication before the storm socked them in for days.   But this customer was back, all the stranger, and much more amusing.   So much so the man dropped his fiddling, and could not hide a smirk as he sat on a tall wooden stool.   He would a little story to tell at dinner.

   *...good...I....*

   "Make sure the button is held down while you talk."

   *I'm going to....stupid....did they cost?*

   "Twelve bucks.   I'll just describe them for you.   What are you looking for?"

   *...Sentimental.*

   "You're going for the sappy, huh?"

   *F...u.*

   "Be respectful, we're in public."   Grey let the bar go, for a moment, until the devil got the best of him.   "Love you, honey."

   *I will get you...*

   "I can't wait."

   Here he was in crazy's familiar eye.   It seemed we would never escape it, wondering if it was a blessing or a curse that the selection had been limited.   He had been made to check underneath the steel skirt and behind the envelopes for that perfect something.   Everything so far had been read at least once to the response of "No...that sucks...put that with the maybe...I don't know about that one...forget it...no..."   Now the store keep had popcorn, and had called the pharmacist over to share, only breaking once to direct a mother of young twins.   Grey counted between recitals the number of times he felt this embarrassed, and came up with seven, eight if he could decide if the peeing incident at The Haunted Mansion counted.   This came from a man who regularly slept on a cardboard mattress.   Finally, Meghan had cut it down to eight options, but an impasse had been reached.

   "Here's sixty bucks.   Consider it a deposit if I do not return."

   "Sure thing, son."   The store keep chuckled.

   "The wife's sick in the van."

   "Sure thing..."

    The town itself seemed to be settling in for the night.   The store was due to close as well.   Arms slipped out the van as cards were grabbed and inspected seemingly all at once.

   "Yeah...OK…This one for mom and dad.   Evelyn will like this one, John...whatever, this one I guess."

   "Don't like him much?"

   "I love him, but he's an arrogant ass sometimes.   Thinks he's God's gift to women.   I guess to more than a few he is."

   "He's not in hiding too?"

   "Nope, he took more after dad, but a serious beefcake.   Let's just say...he's 95% in the open."

   "You're leaving me hanging?"

   "Yup, just like he is, several times over."

   "What?"

   "Pay for these and lets go find a post office.   Hell, stop at the grocery store and grab a thing of bulbs and lights...and a roast or something, it's Christmas for Christ's sake, let's celebrate."

   Crazy, it was all chaos again.   Grey had done crazy.   He was used to crazy, the slow decay of the mind from the cold and hunger as you break away from humanity, and he had dragged another into his.   No more.   He would give Meghan the center, and take the ride on the storm to protect her and enjoy the view.

   Grey slept lightly into the morning.   Meghan knew she had broken him the night before, now content with only one hand resting on his chest.   All night his mind had traveled the haze between sleep and wake, where he heard the voices of strangers speaking words which turned to nonsense if he tried to discern their wisdom.   He listened to her breathing, wondering what would be unleashed if she broke into a snore, and a thousand other thoughts moved as mosquitoes though his half-lucid mind.

What now?   Shaving must be a pain for her...all that acreage to weed.   It's quiet here...had she even done it before he had shown up.   Shame.   Who cuts her hair, her? She would never be accepted...to see people’s reactions if she just walked in on the strongest man contest, the shrinkage there.   I wonder what she bought the ladder for...   Envy.   To feel normal...How many people she had messed with online, and how, and how she got away with it.   Why..famous...resentment...faith...WRONG!

   The predawn light was just starting to sharpen the edges of grey forms of the cabin when Meghan rose.   Her activity was impossible to hide, though she tried, and cleared Grey's head a bit.   Her knees popped like distant mallets as she stood moaning at the foot of the bed, twisting and stretching and from tips to core in her comfy torn sweats. It was the first time to him that she seemed to show any age, the cracks and pops of an ordeal that lasted a handful of minutes.   She showed no notice of him, and he felt a little voyeuristic as he watched through squinted eyes and tried to keep still, only one part of him not cooperating, which made him ache.   Then her clothes fell off again, right as the sun was to shine through the windows in its daily travels.

   'Even standing up, I could stack quarters on the top of her ass.   And twist off a bottle cap between her cheeks.'

   Grey had forgotten all about his night in the moment as he slunk to the banister. Meghan assumed something like same pose as she had yesterday, as if she had never left.   Her freckles were easily noticeable again as her skin had returned to a pale rosy color, perhaps only a shade darker than when they had first met.   Her fiery hair practically glowed with its own light.

   It had to be something in the bizarre genetics that made her, what, a quarter plant?   No, it would be something less than that, but some of the subtler effects on her had gone unnoticed, at least by him.   What would a biologist think of all of this?   That would be the worst, to be poked by and army of scientists with endless needles and questions.   And plants...they get their energy from the sun, take in water and grow.   The trees, the have a tough skin, some grow hundreds of feet tall, some live for hundreds of years, some make sweet syrup, or fragrant flowers, or fruit...

   Grey dressed and tip-toed down stairs hoping not to disturb her, what exactly that would take after his yesterday's experience.   He played some solitaire at the kitchen bar, racking up an impressive losing streak until he found he had been two cards short the entire time.   A hand searched blind underneath the sofa, quickly coming across the glossy holdouts.   He smiled as he stood, glad that they had not sailed into the fire from the ruckus the night before, and looked outside as he felt the warmth of the sun on his own face.   Another storm, of the other half of the first had passed in the night, dumping over an additional foot as they had slept.

   'I wonder if Meghan is hungry?'   Grey looked up at the eight-and-a-half foot, six limbed, Amazonian plant-goddess and sighed, wondering why his life had become so surreal.   She is tanning even more rapidly today...

   "Meghan, Breakfast!"   She returned no response.   Grey left the pile of bacon and scrambled eggs in their pans to keep warm.   "Meghan, hey sugar bear!   Who HOO!"   He waved a piece of kindling in front of her eyes, feeling foolish for sneaking around before, and worse, bouncing around like an ass now, finally breaking the limb across his knee in an impulse of mischievous vengeance before throwing the pieces into the fireplace.   He twisted to face her side again, slipping underneath her outstretched arms his mind at a loss, becoming as still as his body.    On impulse, he touched her.   First, on her lowest forearm, then running his fingers firmly up and over her shoulder to her chest, urged by fantasy and wonder.

   "Hrm, ah...Watch it buster."

   "You are so beautiful."

   "...You seem happy to see me.   Your gun is slipping over your pants."   It seemed Meghan's turn to stare.   She nudging him a few steps back for a better look.

   "You shouldn't have bought them so large."

   "How was I supposed to know?"

   "Measure?"

   "I only had metal tape.   You seemed to be rather proud of yourself there."

   "No woman I slept with ever complained, well, about me being too small."

   "Hmm...well, you don't seem so impressive.   I guess the web gave me the wrong idea about sizes."

   "Wow...you wound me."

   "Hitch them up stud.   What smells so good?"

   "I made breakfast, nothing fancy, you hungry?"

   "Not so much but I'll eat, can't have a repeat of yesterday."

   "Are you getting dressed first?'

   "I'm sorry, I hope I'm not offending your Victorian nature..."   Meghan twisted around to Grey, leaning bent over almost in half, hefting her breasts both out and together with her hands in an outrageous display while her final set of arms extended outwards, index fingers pointing towards the scene.   She stood so close, he could feel their warmth, and he could not decide to lean in or fall away; he did neither.   Her eyes crossed.   "Mega Milk has nothing on me!"

   "Huh?"

   "You know...Mega Milk...Titty Monster...the meme?"   Her body slumped as her shoulders and arms lost their spirit, the hands of the lowest slapping against her thighs.

   "Sorry, I've been out of the loop for a few years.   I'm sure it would have been funny."

   "I'll going to get dressed now..."   Meghan was practically dragging her own body across the floor.

   "You were hot though.   It was funny, sorry..."

   Two plates were served, while Meghan soon returned in a outfit nearly identical to yesterday's, this wide-sleeved blouse having an almost camouflaged look.   He ate almost in sympathy, piling the remainder onto hers.

   "You know...in SOME ways, you're more detached from people then I am."   Her pace had slackened for a while; you could tell she had been giving this a lot of thought.

   "Perhaps, perhaps even likely.   The difference being I know what's important to know."

   "Oh really?"

   "Sure...Judging by you attire, we're heading outside."

   "Well, since it's Christmas.   I thought we would get a tree."

   "What do you want to decorate with?   I only found a couple of strings of lights left at the grocery store.   And I think there's only an ax here.   What about a stand?"

   "First things first, we need to find a good tree."

   Meghan was out the door first this time, forgetting her sweater until Grey caught up with her, a large wad of jade spilling over his arms. She muttered a 'thanks' between comments on a grove of young trees and their pine smell that she remembered from yesterday nearby.   It seemed that she would have preferred to have left the sweater, at least according to the stink-eye Grey was given.   He had his own reasons for grabbing it, as he made a pretense with his shoes.

   "Oww, hey...what was that?"   Meghan brushed snow off of her buttocks, her sweater still half-way over her head and one arm through.

   "Count yourself lucky.   I was a star pitcher in high school.   It could have been your head."

   "Why you little..."   Meghan squatted to grab a wad off ammunition herself, only fall on her ass as she tried to duck a second snowball aimed to prove his boast, her feet catapulted out from underneath her and she landed on her rear.

   "Careful, you might split those jeans."   Her face lit up with rage.   She had been thwarted; she would have revenge as her looping throws from two right arms simultaneously struck the overhang wide of Grey.   "Ha, you throw like a girl."

   "That's it!   You have twenty minutes to make your ammo and whatever, and then IT'S on!"

   "You really want to do this, after yesterday afternoon?"

   "I'm not the little cheater!"

   "You've been looking for a fight."

   "Who threw that snowball yesterday?   If anyone's been spoiling for a fight, it's been you, but I'm going to see this through.   This has been stewing for weeks.   Let's settle it."

   "Fine, but you can only use two arms in the fight.   It has to be an honorable duel."

   "...Fine!"

The battle lines were drawn at twenty-five yards across the clearing.   Grey howled of cheating as Meghan used all her arms in the construction of snow balls and fort, but was reminded to his vehement protest that it wasn't a part of the deal.   Then it struck his fancy to get those walke-talkies out of the van, tossing one on the snow in front of Meghan, making bold claims about war and preparations.

   *You know what, I'm sorry about the snow ball.   Come out of you fox hole, and we'll call a truce.*   Meghan peaked her head over, only to be nearly miss by the first throw of the battle.   *sucker.*

   Meghan returned fire, quantity for quality, but she could not defy physics.   Her mass was too much of a disadvantage, and Grey's aim too true.   Time told the tale, and flakes of snow stuck to her form front and back, and melted between strands of multi-colored hair.   Her sweater seemed to have squirrels underneath as her hidden arms tried to protect her torso, and then face as they wiggled their way out of the sweater's sides.

   "No fair!"

   "Whatever..."

   "Fine...whatever then, you still throw like a girl."

   "I can't throw anything with my arms covered like this!"   Meghan stood and cocked back with snowballs in each of her three right hands, and Grey's grin dropped off his face.   He responded only was he could, diving behind his snow barrier.   Three explosions shook the drift off of his ramparts onto him, one cracking the foundation.

   *Mercy!*

   "Never!"   Another huge snowball soared over.

   *Comon'.   I would use my underwear as a flag, but they are not exactly white anymore.*   Grey peaked over his wall.   Meghan was strutting closer, a swagger in her hips, a hand extended in a truce.

   "Fine, you surrender?"

   Grey stood up, brushing off his knees.   "Well, I didn't exactly say that...what's behind your...WOAH!"   He lunged backwards too late.   Two of the ICBM's of snowballs stuck him square, and it was his turn on his ass.

   "Truce?"   Meghan stood high over him, straddling his body.   Two upper arms held over her head a large section of his fort, a lowest offered an escape.

   "Truce."   He took her hand, pulling himself up unassisted.   The section of his fort was hesitantly lowered until it sat balanced in one hand.

   "We just shook on it.   No shenanigans..."

   Grey wandered in the direction where her final, hardest throws had gone.   "If you actually knew how to throw...damn, you just wrecked my tree."

   "What, that pine?"   She followed him, catching up quickly.

   "Yeah, one of the limbs is split.   It's no big deal really, it'll survive."

   Meghan watched as Grey turned the broken limb over in his hand, holding on by a just a splinter.   Her eyes got big and her pitch jumped.   "It's perfect, here's our Christmas tree."

   "You want to cut my tree down?"

   "No stupid, we'll decorate it here.   We got soda cans, and those chili beans.   Are there any tools around here?"

   "A few..."

   "Well, let's get to work. We only have three days until Christmas Eve."

   A couple of pliers, one a needle nose, a claw hammer, screwdrivers of various types and a brick of iron that neither understood it's reason, and this was found only after an hour of turning everything over twice in and around the cabin.   For a moment Meghan seemed disappointed at what she had then excitement took over, dogged determination, and a bit off arrogance Grey had come to know and enjoy.   'I am an artist after all.    This is simple stuff.' It was with this confidence that she worked with, handling the intricate work with an uncanny skill from hands so large, at times multitasking several pieces at the same time with her long fingers that could tear the aluminum like tissues with one errant motion.   It seemed that Grey was right after all, now that her loathing did not rule her anymore.   He did not gloat this time, he was proud, and left for her to figure out some day.

   Over the day, coke red stars were formed, along with forest green spiraling bulbs, flat steel snowmen, suns made from the round bases.   Mistakes became an experiment in something new, not always a success, but another challenge to seize.   Materials were too soon exhausted, and more were ordered, causing a lengthy trip for groceries, an early dinner gorging with an impromptu belching contest, many bathroom trips and some jitters for Grey as they worked deep into the night.

   How long have we been here, my whole life?   Are we the only people alive?

   Meghan lie on her side, propped up by two left elbows.   She had woke to his snore, soft and low pitched through his long nostrils.   It was the first time she had heard him do that, and it strangely pleased her that he was finally comfortable to sleep deeply, perhaps to dream.

    'True, I talk of dreams,
    which are the children of an idle brain,
    begot of nothing but vain fantasy,
    which is as thin of substance as the air,
    and more inconstant than the wind,
    who woos even now the frozen bosom of the north,
    and, being anger'd, puffs away from thence,
    turning his side to the dew-dropping south.'

   Meghan recited this as she ran lengths of his dark hair through her fingers.   Once or twice he had mentioned getting it cut, and she had teased him for it.   'If you looked any younger,' she had said, 'I will be arrested for just being alone with you.' His razor had been 'misplaced' before they had come to the cabin, and his scruff had begun to soften.   To be young again...but so old and very grim.   It was not a youth to envy.

   And what had she done?   Found herself work again.   You couldn't just relax and enjoy a vacation?   Meghan knew why.   This was a beautiful fantasy that had only traded one lie for another.

   "We're going to need to head home soon."

   "And why is that?"   Grey responded, his attention on scrubbing a skillet and dishes as Meghan walked towards him, pulling her arms through the holes of one of her familiar flannel shirts.   Grey had left her alone with sun this morning, just to see what would happen.   She had eventually come out of it on her own, so slowly, gradually that he had not noticed until she had spoken to him.

   "I need to get back to work, I'm getting fat."

   "After three days?   I don't see it.   I don't think it's even possible."   He wasn't even looking at her, which was all the more frustrating.

   "Four, and my clothes aren't fitting, so something's going on, water weight...something."

   "You’re wearing your flannel and Dickies, you can't tell from those.   Who brings work clothes on a vacation?"

   "The top doesn't even go to my belly button anymore, see?"   She twisted towards him, as if he needed three index fingers to point out her stress.   Sure enough, Grey noticed a seam of bare skin at her sides.

   "I told you that you looked taller."

   "You need to stop fucking with me."

   "That, or water weight, take it or leave it."

   This did not satisfy Meghan.   She wandered the living room ignoring breakfast for the time being, trying to measure herself against various objects until finally backing herself up against the doorway, testing her height in inches above the frame.   Something near fear came over Meghan's face as she studied where her palm rested, shaking her head before sitting at the bar and throwing herself at the food.   Grey looked her over for a moment as he finished the dishes, and opened his mouth to speak, then though better of it.

   "Spit it out," Meghan spoke through bites of hash browns without looking towards him.

   "It's fine."

   "Just say it."

   "I was just noticing the outfit, and with what you said..."

   "And?"

   "Do you regret this?"

   "No...never think that."   Her voice was breathy as she reached out with her top right hand across the bar to hold his cheek.   She held her wrist in response with both hands, which she then cupped with two more of hers.   "I will always remember this, perhaps even the best moment in my life.   "But you know it's just another cage."

   "Yes...but perhaps. Can't you just move your work here, where you're safe?"

   "Perhaps...It's quiet out here."

   Grey was all too relieved to be sent on a mission into town find a soldering kit and more materials, as the cursing and frustration and pile up as aluminum and steel dwindled.   It seemed to him that all the sugar and caffeine were even having an effect on her.   Nothing but perfection would do anymore.   He worried as he drove, it seemed that was all he could do anymore, but she did have a point.   A piece of him was angry, resentful towards her.   Even if he could not express why, he still was.   Still, he returned as soon as he could, and soon forgotten, tried to whittle something out of the sticks lying around, coming up with candy canes as he used some boiled down cranberry juice as a stain.   It wasn't much, and it went unnoticed, but it satisfied him and it passed the hours of Meghan's fussing.

   "Arrugh!"   She swept her latest half-finished piece to clatter on the floor.   The furrows in her forehead had been gouging themselves deeper all day, betraying the years that had been hidden.   "I can't get it right!   I can't work with this stuff.   It's too fragile, I don't have the tools."

   "You've been doing it for the last two days.   Your hands are just tired, take a break.   This was supposed to be a vacation."   Grey walked over next to her, scooping up a piece off of the table, an elongated sphere with tapered ends twisted from a vegetable can.   "There's nothing wrong with any of these, they just have 'personality'."

   "They look terrible.   I do this for a living."

   "Nothing in your repertoire I saw ever was this delicate.   It's incredible what you have done."

   "I know....you're right.   It's the best I can do given the circumstances."

   "Stop it!   They're fine.   I don't know anyone that could do better, and that's a long list."

   "SORRY!" Meghan stood up, tossing her hands in the air while pacing a single loop, groaning, her arms falling to slap against her thighs and slouching just for a moment as she looked at the latest victim of her violent temper where it had fallen on the hard wood.   Just that quickly the pity party was over as mischief flared in her eyes. She had snatched Grey before he could duck her, lifting him up to cradle him in her four lower arms.   "You are such a pain in the ass," she said softly to him, this time with no resentment, just a tenderness that still, even now, was unexpected out of such a form.   And for the first time, Grey seemed relaxed in those arms, knowing that nothing could hurt him there.

   "It's the dexterity exercises you had to do when this first happened to you, huh?"

   "Yeah...probably, am I so easy to read?"   Her grin paled just a bit.

   "No, not really, I'm just that good."

   "Your hands are shaking..."

   Meghan tossed him up just a bit, and jerked like she was about to drop him, and laughed as to right himself.   "What am I ever going to do without you?"

   "You have me.   Now, let's knock off the work and carve up that roast I've been working on all day, then finish that game of cards."

   The next morning, fishing hooks were blunted and their line used for string.   It was Christmas Eve, and that afternoon was spent decorating a tree that never should have grown there except for a boy's charity.   As they lit the strand of lights against the sun set, everything seemed to come together as the admired their work through the fading light.   The homemade ornaments would be left on the tree as a mystery to whoever found them after.   For a moment there was peace and the promise of joy.   Something which was all too ethereal and never seems to be grasped for long.