Karura appeared on the horizon like a mirage. Cloaked in red velvet, he floated to me gently, landing with a light thud on feet encased in buckled black shoes. I said, "Hey, man," and he rasped like whisky-drizzled sandpaper. His mammoth hand engulfed mine and he whacked my right shoulder with such force he may have torn my rotator cuff. "Easy," I said, "you don't know your own strength." He lifted his beak and said, "This is what it is, my reality. I choose to be unabashed at this stage." I held my stomach and fake-laughed. "Make no mistake," I said, "I respect the hell out of you." He smiled. "And so you should," he said.  He lifted his head and spewed a flame.

We moved on to our scheduled activity. Karura wanted to improve his ability to relate to others. "I offend everyone," he lamented, his black eyes moistening. "No matter what I say or do, I piss people off. And then I can't help myself. I'm compelled to retaliate, lash out, and even though defensive in nature, due to my formidable appearance and energy, my reactions unavoidably make me the heavy. I'm always the villain." He paused. "Do my emotions resonate with you?" he asked. "I want you to understand me. More than anything, I want you to understand me."

"What happened to your wings? I asked. "I had wings?" he said with false surprise. "Well, I've changed," he admitted. "I used to wear armor, too. We could churn this shit all day and never achieve butter. Two creatures come together at dusk and everyone believes they have a thing. What is this thing?" Always overreaching, always somewhat preaching, Karura knew he didn't stand a chance with the public, no matter how well I mentored him, no matter how well he disguised himself. Nothing masked that beak; nothing hid the flaring black crest on his head.

"What is it you want, exactly?" I asked, grasping his massive hands in mine and squeezing them. I could feel his sallow, low-ebb energy and it troubled me. "I want to be Tip Top Magoo again," he said. "I want to be happy." I smiled. O that we could all be happy, ha. "You were something once," I said. "Then you got too big. People began to resent your size. They envisaged you as sleeker and swifter than themselves, and more beautiful. Alas, beauty is ephemeral."

"So I'm not beautiful," Karura said. "I never was. It was all an illusion: tricks of a showman. My own special kind of kabuki. Know what I'm talking about?"

We walked through a neatly manicured parkette, Karura grunting. "These shoes," he said, "are too tight." He bent and untied one, then retied it. "They look like tuxedo shoes," I said. "They are," he said, "but they used to fit like kid gloves-now bunions, goddamnit. It's unpleasant growing old. People yak about it all the time, but it's true." I asked how old he was, something I had always wondered. "I'm old as the hills," he said, "and the thought of it weighs on me like an Everest." Karura glanced at his Rolex. "Fifteen minutes have passed," he said, "and I'm no wiser. You're the wise man, no?" I nodded, for thus I had been labeled. People often came to me for advice or to vent. That said, I was not a certified psychologist.

A St. Bernard came bounding along the parkette pathway. His spidery owner had unleashed him without reserve. I've no fear of dogs as such, but Karura looked leery. "Have you ever watched the movie Cujo?" he asked. I told him I hadn't, and that I had no stomach for horror movies. "They keep me up at night," I explained. Karura eyed the dog as he sniffed his shoes. "He likes you," I said. But almost as soon as my words left my mouth, the dog began barking at Karura. I couldn't blame the creature. I would be barking, too.

The owner arrived, breathless and waving a plastic green poop bag. He quieted the dog with a sausage end. "Did he go?" the man asked. "He hasn't gone in three days. Wonder if he has an obstruction." He hadn't noticed Karura's beak at first. When he did he grabbed the dog's leash and began to walk backwards. The dog looked confused and defaulted to barking again. I looked at Karura and he shrugged. "What did you expect?" I said. "Imagine if I had, say, the head of a lion? People would flee." Karura could not disagree with that. Adjustment took patience.

"I'm tired," Karura said. "Can we sit for a bit? There's a bench over there."

We sat in silence and listened to the birds and the little rodents hopping about the bushes and dwarf trees. "Do you understand them?" I asked. He looked at me. "I mean, the birds," I said. "Do you understand the birds?" I heard a sniff of laughter. "Should I understand them?" he responded. "Do you understand the chitter of monkeys?" Still, I thought he must have understood some of it. But I wasn't going to press him. Part of coming to terms with reality is accepting your deficiencies as well as highlighting your strengths. "I understand the crows," Karura admitted at last. "You're joking?' I said. "I'm not joking," he said. "They're talking about this cat they want to rip to pieces." Karura chuckled under his breath. He was pulling my leg. Maybe he was pulling my leg.

What was my story, anyway? Who cares? I'm just this guy, this guy who tries to help. Fill in the blanks yourself. "This is nice," Karura said. "Never get to relax like this." I nodded. "We spend so much time frenzying about we never just sit down and reflect," I said. "What is it all, exactly?" Karura asked. "Why the fuck are we here? Ever wonder?" I knew why I was there, ostensibly to help; but I could not fathom the reason for his appearance in my life, and could not understand why he chose me to help him, of all people.

One had to tread carefully when dealing with questions of ontology, teleology, and causality. Individuals, even semi-mythical ones, quickly gather the wrong impression when confronted with the truth. "What I know is this," I said. "We're here serving as the eyes of a superior being, possibly one who initiated the whole shebang. I'm not calling this being God, because I think it has little to do with morality and more to do with process. This divine being is more interested in ends rather than means. He wants us to get somewhere, and he doesn't care how."

Karura tugged his cloak flap and turned to me. For a moment I thought he might jab out my eye with his beak. "Sounds like a lot of horse shit," he said. "Like, where does this being expect us to go? Compared to this being we're slugs trying to figure out a chess puzzle. I think all of this is random, a freak occurrence. The universe doesn't give a fuck about us. There's no superior being. Our genesis is a cosmic fluke. Look at me, for instance. Do I owe my existence to an eternal being, or to the imagination of the highest ape? My endpoint is nowhere. My product is nothing that would radically alter the trajectory of reality."

Karura had pricked a hatpin into my dirigible of confident rationalization and I could hear the hiss of all my hot air escaping while the birds sang and the little rodents rustled mindlessly.  Time passed. I had nothing more to add. "So where does that leave us?" I asked. "I don't know," Karura said, "I'm wondering if I should go see a proper psychiatrist and get a prescription." My shoulders sagged. "Promise me you won't do that," I said. "Don't take it personally, man," he said. "But this isn't helping me. You are not helping me. And I don't like you enough to be your friend." I was going to mention the contract he had signed, but I decided not to bother. If Karura was truly unhappy with my services, what could I do? He was much bigger than me and his beak could probably cause me great harm.

"Okay, I'm off," he said. I asked him where he was going. "I feel like some sushi, you know," he said. "I'd ask you to join me, but I think I'd rather eat alone today. You understand, no?" I nodded. He walked off. From behind, he cut a handsome figure. When he lifted his beak and shot a single orange flame into the sky, this impression was embroidered with mythological effects. You'd never know this being was riddled with issues, full of self-doubts. I noticed people gawk at him as he blew past them. One woman cried out and pointed in outrage. It happens, even during our more tolerant times haha. Despite the setback, I felt sanguine enough. Reaching people is difficult enough. Reaching minor deities tests the soul.