I'm in a dimly-lit, rustic town hall in a forgotten village. There will be a meeting here soon, where important decisions will be made. But a person like me must stay outside of the meeting hall, and listen through a wall of flames. The flames issue from and are contained by equipment kind of like in a restaurant's kitchen, but made from stone rather than metal.

I start arranging beans near the fire, so that more people like me can attend through the flames to the meeting, and not be hungry.

But there is a man in the corner, sitting in a chair with a back taller than him, in shadow. He looks like a picture of a shellshocked veteran of the US civil war, and the shadows even make him look sepia. He doesn't like what I'm doing with the beans; I'm probably not supposed to. His pupils glow like sodium lights, like a cat's irises catching the glare, but with him it's specifically the pupils: sharp pinpoints of hatred.

But I know he's only making his eyes glow to scare me. I finish arranging the beans.