There is a small black spot on my wall. It's there all the time. Watching me. Lurking in shadow at night, silently taunting me during the day. One day I couldn't take it anymore. I moved. And found a black spot on my wall, but now it's bigger.

There was once a man who stared at the heavens. From boyhood he sought them out, standing in the yard, ignoring his fellows in favor of examining the paths of the clouds and the stars. Life moved on, and yet he could still be found looking up into the sky during every idle moment. His wife nagged him to provide more for his small family. The villagers commiserated with her about her strange husband, and generally avoided him for fear of his madness rubbing off on them. And then one day he was gone. His wife's calls went unanswered, the children's searches unrewarded. To the villagers' relief, nothing more was ever heard of him from that time forward. Only the youngest son had seen the footprints in the field in the dew of the morning that halted in place, never more to return.