Conrad looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. His bags under his eyes were prominent now, and the slight acne scars cratered his brown face. He looked fairly pale for his darkened complexion. Being of Native descent in Canada, he found it strange how ghostly his face had become from all the horrors he experienced in this dimension. His straight-edged eyebrows framed his chocolate-brown eyes, and a slight stubble showed on his jaw. His black hair was short, styled in a slight pompadour.

“Yup, still in this bitch,” He muttered while looking at himself.

That’s when he heard a knock. As he walked forward, he noticed it was raining outside, making it impossible to see across the street. He opened the door and found a letter with a forest-green umbrella attached.

Anīn Conrad,

Please come to the park.

Wāpan Kiniw.

He read the small note and decided what’s the harm? I think he’d seen hell anyway. He let out a laugh and took the green umbrella.

The trek through the rain was hard as he couldn’t see past the umbrella’s rim. Instead, he stuck close to buildings, causing the umbrella to scrape along the sides. Finding the park was easy, as he spent a lot of time there on Earth. He walked the paths and finally arrived at the Sherbert Park sign.

The rain did not let up at all, and he pushed on. His shoes and lower pant legs were soaked with rainwater. He did like the smell of the torrential rain pouring down, mixed with the soil smell. It was cold now. Then the whispers started as if people were walking by him on the park path.

“Haha, Conrad is such a loser…,” a woman’s voice shrieked and cackled as it passed by quickly. “What a weirdo…” “How stupid can he be?” “Kill and burn the Indian.” He heard more voices. The voices occasionally echoed and fragmented from the torrential rains. Some were even shouting from further away.

The sound of raindrops in between insults and threats helped Conrad continue.

He kept his head under the umbrella. Surely they knew he was unshakable now, but the disembodied voices continued to be heard. He continued to search the park for the person who wrote the letter while the voices incessantly continued to verbally attack him, hidden in the rain.

Then he came to a clearing off the path. Weirdly, there was no rain coming down in the circle where the man had a small trailer set up. A tipi stood nearby, and a fire was crackling in the middle of the circle. There sat a First Nation man, looking real mythical with his long black hair and animal pelts over his denim clothing. He was poking at the fire and then threw another wood log on the fire before talking.

“Anīn Conrad. I have got a story to tell you…” The First Nation man said.