The Sheriff of the Inland Sea

More about The Sheriff of the Inland Sea

The creature arrived at dusk, punctual as regret. It rolled from the turquoise shallows blinking one brown eye at the mountains and one blue eye at eternity.

Dry Anthem had expected trouble, but not spherical trouble.

Sheriff Calder removed his hat. He had removed it before for a bishop and once for a traveling dentist. This felt more permanent.

The thing bristled with pink and gold spines, like a cactus that had studied astronomy. It stopped at the edge of town and regarded the courthouse, which immediately felt insufficient.

“Name?” asked the Sheriff.

The creature rotated thoughtfully.

“Provisional,” it said, in a voice like a harmonica dropped into water.

The rancher Hollis lifted his rifle. “Is it hostile?”

“Define hostile,” said Provisional.

Hollis lowered the rifle. He had never successfully defined anything.

Miss Darlene from the saloon approached with rye. The creature accepted the glass with a tendril that seemed recently negotiated. It drank. The inland sea brightened as if reality had been polished.

That evening Provisional occupied the judge’s bench and issued three rulings:
1. Sunsets are legally binding.
2. Horses are rumors with hooves.
3. Loneliness requires a permit.

Half the town confessed to insufficient wonder.

The Sheriff confronted it at dawn. “You can’t reorganize our metaphysics. We have fences.”

“Fences,” said Provisional, blinking past and future, “are lines drawn by those afraid the horizon might answer.”

Calder considered arresting it. He possessed authority, handcuffs, and a moderate sense of destiny. He did not possess a container for spherical inevitability.

At noon, Provisional rolled back into the sea, leaving only a circular imprint and a notice nailed to the saloon door:

Every citizen must look once with both eyes at the same time.

Dry Anthem attempted this. It was uncomfortable. It was also, reluctantly, beautiful.

By autumn the sea had receded. The mountains resumed their previous silence. Sheriff Calder kept his hat on.

But sometimes, at dusk, something pink and unreasonable glints in the shallows—waiting for someone brave enough to define hostile properly.