A Dinosaur is a Man's Best Friend (A Serialized Novel) | Part Four: "Blues for a Drifter" by Wayne Kyle Spitzer

“You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”

Williams didn’t turn around. “Yeah. I guess I am.” He exhaled cigar smoke. “It’s not like him to be so …”

“Morose?”

“Yeah. I guess that’s it. You know, he’s been at that pond almost since we got here … just drinking and staring … completely oblivious. Remember how I told you that neither of us could recall our previous lives? Well, maybe he’s recalling …” He paused, struggling to find the right words. “A different state of being. A different incarnation. I think he was a man once. A man who lived for a very long time.”

“A lonely man, then …”

“Yes. Sort of a last man standing. And I think when we met … he rediscovered something he’d been missing for a long time.”

“Friendship. Someone to talk to,” she said.

“More than that. A reason to live. I—I’ve felt it myself. All those weeks, months, spent walking alone. I told you about Tanelorn. Well that was what we called our reason to live … our reason for putting one foot in front of the other. Because without that …”

“‘Gazelle Theory,’” she said.

“What?”

She laughed a little. “Something my husband used to say. It means, ‘move or die.’”

He laughed a little himself. “That’s good. ‘Move or die.’ Whether it’s a physical death or an emotional one.” He stared at Ank in the gloaming before another hand touched him, this time Luna. “Is Ank all right?”