One night I was sleeping. It was hot, There was no air conditioning in the bunkhouse. We had these single beds made of wood planks. At the start of every week, the wife would haul out the bedclothes and do the laundry. That laundry needed washing. At the end of the day, the men were dirty and sweating. There was an outside shower which was nothing but a wooden box-thing watered by a garden hose, but sometimes, you were just too tired and went straight to bed. Some men of course didn't take to showering. You get all types working the fields. Some would carry ravenous bugs with them. Had to be careful with the bugs. Had to be careful of infestation. Frank was an old hippie. Long beard and a funny hat. He was a slow mover. I don't know if he an actual hippie. But that's the label I placed on him. We would sit outside the bunkhouse, the sun on our face, rolling foul-smelling cigarettes. I was asking Frank about our bunk mate. I suggested there might be something 'off' about him.

“Well...” Frank started, taking a long drag off his cigarette. He took it out out of his mouth and Looked meaningfully at it burning in his fingers. “This shit will kill you.” He then looked me in the eye. “We call him Hollow Man.”

“What's his real name?”

“Don't know. I'm from the Eastern townships.” He looked at his cigarette and took another hard drag.

“I'm not from around here.”

“Nobody is...” I replied. I was being funny, but mostly it was true. People drifted here from all sorts of unsavory backgrounds.

“Hmm.” Frank peered through burning eyes at me. “All I know is that they call him Hollow Man. Talk is that he saw something. Something that made him what he is now." There was a long silence. Frank looked at me as if he saw me for the very first time. He turned his head as if examining my features. It was as if he was weighing whether he could trust me or not. The silence continued. Then finally he spoke. "Years ago, he saw something terrible”