Purposeless

"Because you were careless and refused to examine the world around you, a sacrifice you shall be."

The thing pointed and laughed.

The man heard the sentence read, but he did not comprehend.

The thing understood this.

The man felt it graze his cheek with a single bony finger. And then he recoiled. And so the thing recoiled, lifting itself high above.

"I don't care if you follow me, but I'm leaving," the man said.

"And to do what?" the thing inquired. "Throw your life, your potential this way and that? Seek and wonder and dream and come up short?"

"You, as a thing, have misjudged me. I hold layers you cannot see. And I refuse to be led down some side angle road or be caught up in your confusion. I have my own. And I sit with it. And I will clear it up."

The thing laughed and looked. And smiled and studied. And groped toward the man. It seized the man's toe and quickly upended him. And it tore his belly with its tongue. And it watched as his insides spilled and poured. And when he was empty, the thing laid the man down, gently.

Both the man and the thing then did sigh.