Trigger Finger

November 22, 2025

Crrrr-UNCH!

Oscar flattens a pinecone under his boot. Takes a deep breath. Looks out into the endless expanse of snow that his porch opens up to. His view is obscured for a single moment by the puff of hot smoke from his long exhale. He looks east, and then west, checking for movement in the still forest, and then takes off down the little rabbit trail that leads alongside the church.

If every day is exactly the same, then nothing can ever go wrong.

It’s these mundane tasks that rule the day in the quiet, new world. Dust the pews. Hang the doldrums. Crush the pinecone. Look for gold. Oscar mentally relays the step-by-step morning itinerary, does a lap, and pauses to cough when particles of ice hit his lungs too quickly. Stabbing pain shoots down the side of his rotten torso as if his ribs open like petals. If you feel pain, then you pray the rosary. He only makes it through the first three beads on the loop around his neck. Coughs again.

The most disappointing thing about being stuck in this world of in-betweens is that, although the body has no real need to hold onto its old functions and routines, something deep in the mind believes that it can’t survive without them. If your diaphragm and intercostal muscles stop inflating and deflating the lungs, then the motor cortex senses that the body is not consuming the correct levels of oxygen. Your motor cortex sends bright red sirens ringing down to your medulla oblongata, the stem of the brain, where you store the base of all respiratory functions. In the ventral-lateral region of the lower medulla sits the pre-Bötzinger complex, your respiratory rhythm generator, that continues to function and assumes proof of life past complete loss of oxygen. If your diaphragm and intercostal muscles stop inflating and deflating the lungs, then your pre-Bötzinger complex will quickly send distress signals to the rest of the respiratory centre of the brain, which does everything it can to kickstart your oxygen intake. If you stop breathing, then the hypoxia should be like a curb stomp to the head. Oscar rolls his eyes.

So much for sweet release, he thinks. Takes another breath. If you stop breathing here, then you just keep on breathing.

This morning, like every other before it, is spent looking for flowers. If the days get so cold the air feels like poison, then their scent will help with the stinging. With the same day replaying itself over again, the never ceasing loop of nothing new makes them sparse, but priceless; never growing, never spreading, and yet never dying all at once. Relaying the itinerary. Knowing this, he holds a deep sense of faith in the woods around him to have let something gold survive through the harsh weather. The white satin snow dusts everything in sight, the coast of Harbourton still holds small traces of every colour Oscar could find even if in the living world. The woods are never ending. He thinks they must have something hidden, and it won’t take him much longer to find it.

Collecting these colours is a grounding ritual. Red and orange in the firethorn bushes that dot the edges of the road into town. No gold, but pale yellow tulips that sprout triumphantly in the back garden of the house. Green moss the colour of wine grapes, frozen onto bark, crawling up towards the dark green forest roof. Wishbone Falls, deep into the other side of town, and its muddy whirlwinds in light blue, dark blue, black. Early-blooming lilacs. All these brighter sides to forever, and yet something still missing. No gold, but pale yellow in his painted wooden rosary beads, holding them tightly in between his fingers as he crosses the property. He knows nothing here knows him quite like it. He traces his thumb, aching, across them one by one. Red. Yellow. Red. Yellow. No gold.

A little field finch scatters through the yard. Cries above in the thin, twisted branches of a tree above at the sound of him passing through and closing the gate at the end of the property. Flutters away. Every morning, the bird follows the same path through the trees, from southern reaches of the island all the way through to Oscar’s house on the edge of town. The echoes of it cawing as it swoops through pine trees get further and further from earshot.

If the finch caws six times, then turn north to walk towards the creek. Relax your trigger finger. He holds his breath as he takes his balled fists out of the pockets of his hunting jacket— click, click, click— and slowly releases them.

If your joints are sore when you reach the creek, then dip them in the icy pool to shock your pain receptors. Inflammation and swelling of the synovial sheath in the early mornings will lead to pain, tenderness, and warmth without immediate temperature therapy. Break off a branch of lilac buds from the frozen shrubs circling you. Melt the frost off of its small petals with your breath. Oscar sees the pale yellow reflection of the sun on the droplets covering the lilac’s petals. Takes a deep breath. Enters deeper into a foggy dream.

The walk to the thin road that connects the airport to the main circle of town will be simple. If you know the correct steps, then you can follow the path from the creek back to the church in no time at all. Walk straight around the patch of lilac until you face the patch of young birch. If you continue walking straight down this line of trees, then six breaths to your right will be another bird travelling in the same direction to you. Feel each expansion and contraction of the thoracic cavity. Stop. Listen to the sound it will make. Note the chatter of its pale yellow beak. If you understand the sounds, then it will not see you as a threat. It wants the same things that you do. Go.

Oscar picks at his lips with his teeth. Superficial veins— teal. Superficial fat— tangerine. Red lungs. No gold.

Oscar collects firethorn from the roadside shrubs. Recoils from the sting of its spines. Takes a deep breath. The blossoms, glossy bubbles of red and orange, don’t have much of a scent but they pair well with the colours of others in the set arrangement. Two lilac branches. Two firethorn branches. Two yellow tulips. He follows the edge of the cracked pavement with his head down, watching the gold zipper of his jacket rise and fall as the vapour of his own breath’s condensation clouds up the whole world. He walks like the sheriff. On this road, he knows everything.

At the front of the property, Oscar flattens a pinecone under his boot. Takes a deep breath. Looks up at the view of the snow-covered steeple. From this point on in the day, after plucking the tulips from the garden and setting them on the diner table in the suite, he is free to do whatever he may choose until the sun falls to the top of the trees. He will retreat into the halls of the church and surrender into the stone fortress solitude. In the morning, the winter bouquet will dissolve into shards of ash upon the table. He steps through the wrought iron gate. If you find the yellow tulips, then peace will be upon you. He steps through the snow. Reaches the rabbit trail that circles the building. Turns the corner towards the garden. Looks one last time for gold. If the tulips are–

THUD!

Oscar squawks. A small figure crashes headfirst into him, staggers backwards, and tumbles into the overgrowth peering through the snow. They aren’t visible at first, crawling in reverse into the shadow of the gardenboxes, face obscured away into the foliage. Leaves around their head ruffle and fall to the ground. Oscar freezes up. Feels his heart flip and flutter. If the parasympathetic division of your autonomic nervous system is triggered by a fear response, then it can affect your ability to breathe, digest, and control your muscles. You may experience symptoms such as trembling, sweating, fatigue, and shortness of breath.

Oscar breaks through the dream like a ship out of rapids. The fog clears. The world widens.

The figure, from across the squashed bed of tulips, stands up in their full height and twists to look at Oscar face-to-face. A band of light reflects onto them from the windchimes hung from the roof gutter and brings alive a bolt of lighting boring through the centre of Oscar’s head. Bright eyes, like sheep in the sun, like honey poured through a funnel. Opening. Fluttering. Golden. Closing. Black. Gold. Black. Gold. Black. Gold.

There sounds a crunch as Oscar’s boot steps back into the snow. He sees now that the creature– not quite a human being, but almost made to look like one– flinches in the light, with the head of a sheep and ragged, woolen clothing. Its two thin legs stand pigeon-toed. It lowers its head with its eyes pinned to Oscar, almost malevolent, and takes off sprinting behind the far corner of the church and into the forest. A zigzag trail of hoofprints through the snow and a missing tulip in the garden bed are the only traces of another soul here. He tries to step forward towards the path. Sways in place. Narrowly remembers to breathe.

Time begins to warp very quickly around Oscar. How long has it been since one of the other residents came to visit him? How long has it been since he had seen anything of that colour? How long has it been since he had seen something not predetermined by the loop?

If every day is exactly the same, then nothing can ever go wrong.

If something has changed within the loop, then everything is about to go wrong.

Oscar drops the bundle of flowers. Takes a deep breath. Imagines the end. Sees only gold.