Ether by Ben Ehrenreich

German.”
    â€œWho told you that?”
    â€œNot Gujarat. Fuck no. In German. That one we met at the club last week who just came back from Leipzig, he kept saying it: judo maus . White power!” He shouted and punched at the ceiling for emphasis. “Where should we put it up?”
    The tall and fat stood suddenly. All three men kicked their heels in unison, and threw their right hands in the air. The short and fat clenched his straight razor in his fist. Together they saluted, “Judo maus!”
    The folding chair creaked as the tall and fat took his seat once more. He indicated the far wall of the room with a nod. “Hang it above the chaise lounge,” he said. “With the others.”
He is filled with wrath.
    He could no longer see the boys. Even their shouts and giggles had faded, so the stranger aimed at the unkempt hedge over which the four had leaped. It shivered, and for a second it seemed to even bleed. It glowed orange for a moment, every last twig of it, then fell away, just ash. He took aim at a tree beside the hedge. Its leaves slipped from its branches and the bare trunk danced like a hair held over a flame, then disappeared. The stranger reduced every tree in sight to black and sticky dust. A cypress, two oaks, some pepper trees. He burned the grass and the weeds and the abandoned house behind him. With a screech that sounded as if it came from a living thing, the windows shivered, then burst. He burned the rocks and the fallen branches and fallen leaves and the snails and beetles and spiders and worms that made their homes there. He scorched the earth itself, every ditch and lump and pebble, until it bled and pussed and healed hard and sharp as glass, so that no living thing would ever wish to walk on it, and no seed would ever think to germinate there.
    When he was done, he gazed around him at the smoking ruins. A breeze still blew. From somewhere he could hear a siren. He didn’t feel any better, so he kicked a hot and blackened rock, and broke his toe, then yelled and limped away before the fire department came.
I feel a little sick.
    I’m halfway home when the stranger stops me on the sidewalk. It hasn’t been the best of mornings. I paid the rent and I’m pretty sure the check won’t bounce, but I forgot to pack a lunch so I’m walking home to save the five dollars a sandwich would cost me, plus another three bucks for round-trip bus fare. I’m almost dizzy from adding and subtracting numbers in my head, checking and rechecking columns, trying to figure out what it’ll take to get through the month, so I’m happy, in a way, for the distraction, if hardly in the mood to justify myself. But this is none of your business. Really. He stands in front of me, his arms akimbo. He’s whistling softly to himself and tapping his right foot.
    I step around him. The stranger turns and walks beside me. He rests his left hand on my right shoulder. It is not an affectionate gesture. “Tell me something,” he says, and squeezes hard.
    I twist away to shake his hand off. “No hello?” I say. “No how are you?”
    â€œHello how are you,” he says. He smiles flatly, a little too quickly to come off as nonchalant.
    â€œShitty,” I answer. “But thanks for asking. What do you want to know?”
    â€œWhere is this going?” he asks.
    â€œThis?” I say.
    He waves his hand at the sidewalk to indicate the path before him. “This,” he says.
    â€œDon’t you know?”
    â€œHow could I?”
    â€œBecause you’re the one who’s going there.”
    â€œYou’re not funny,” the stranger says.
    I shrug. I didn’t mean to be funny. We reach the corner. The light is red. A few yards to our right, a dog in the yard of a transmission shop barks behind a chain-link fence. It’s a chow, its greasy fur matted in uneven auburn dreadlocks, black gums drawn back and howling. Clearly,