A Passing Glance
an excerpt

But this was different. This boy had been sitting in a school yard on a bench eating a lunch that must have been made by loving and attentive parents. The crusts had even been cut off the bread, and as Dorian later saw, a note had been written on the brown paper bag: “Have a delicious day! Love, Dad.” Dorian had watched this boy with the fascination of one seeing a new animal for the first time, curious and amazed by its manner and appearance. Dorian often fell into these meditative watches, envying the mortal life and the time line that came with it: the nature of birth and the helplessness of infancy; the joys of childhood and growing up in a world of family; the constant learning about the world surrounding until the whims of youth give way to the pangs of age, and the body wears down in defeated calm and passes seamlessly into the abyss. It was something Dorian both feared and craved, and often found himself intensely studying individuals who seemed exquisite examples of their age. Thomas was one such subject.
Dorian had foolishly thought it safe to watch him from such a great distance, and through the obstacles of bushes that hid him from the child’s view. It was pure unfortunate and cruel happenstance that just as Thomas turned to collect his lunch time remnants from the bench, a squirrel made a poorly timed and ill executed leap into the bush behind which Dorian sat. The combination of Thomas’s re-orientation and the animal’s clumsy attempt at a graceful landing caused the boy to glance upwards. Before Dorian had any hopes of averting his cursed eyes on the boy, he found himself standing at a bench, crumpled bag in hand, staring at a bush on the other side of the rapidly emptying playground, and he new immediately, as he had done so many times before, that the boy was gone.
Struck with immediate, but not unfamiliar, guilt at what had just happened Dorian did what he was accustomed to doing. He did not dwell upon the unfortunate fate of the 10 year old boy, but instead, resigned himself to the form he had, packed up the rest of what was now his lunch, and headed off in the direction of the nearby school, setting off to live what was left of this body’s life. He could have simply found a new form right away, but whenever faced with having taken such an innocent existence, Dorian always felt it was his duty to make the most of the form’s influence on the world. And so he hurried his pace as the bell signifying the end of lunch rang, with only a brief passing glance at a middle aged woman in a light cotton dress, sitting on a bench near a bush on the far side of the playground, looking as if she had quietly fallen into a deep sleep. Dorian hurried away from the woman who had once been so familiar with increasing speed towards the school. Thomas, after all, had a spelling test to take, and had been studying with his dad all week.