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There was an old hovel in the middle of a reserved forest at some isolated corner of the Colorado.  Between one  palm of the shadows cast of the Rockies and some miles of road that were headed for a forgotten town called Fork Ridge, a young man, not to say a boy, spent his time inside the bungalow, stuffing a three-generation old cast-iron oven with coal.
His routine never changed – he wakes up from his drug-laced dreamless sleep, takes a shit, splashes his face with warm water and obtains his nourishment, soluble coffee and canned food. And afterwards? More pills, this time to relieve his muscle pain, read his weary books, or perhaps jerk off to sleep, waking up again to alleviate his increasing biological needs. That’s how it goes until the sun goes down and back up on the sky.
He had no television, radio, newspapers, internet, or a phone, nothing that could connect him to the outside world. If for some reason the human race suddenly went extinct, he would only know if his caretaker, who visited him weekly, never showed up again.
	Dok is how the boy used to call him, since he always did a physical and mental checkup on him, after delivering the supplies that kept him alive with a sliver of dignity inside that kennel. This time, he was already late by one day, and this could be preoccupying. Dok’s a Swiss after all, and like the stereotype, he was as precise as a Swiss clock; always on point on Wednesdays, 2 PM.
	What could he do besides waiting? If he left a perimeter delimited by a 30-feet radius, established around his hut, his anklet would emit a signal that could attract dangers hidden in the forest that weren’t exactly bears, wolves or coyotes.
	Food wouldn’t be a problem for now. The boy didn’t eat much and his atrophied body was starting to feel the effects of this diet. However, coal for his oven was beginning to end, and being the very beginning of January, the snow outside would accumulate more and more on the next days. If the situation became troubling, he thought as he lit his precious cigarette, he could use the book as burning fuel, leaving his journal and a Napoleon’s biography for last.
	Hypothermia didn’t look so bad if his lifestyle was kept like this. He had been living there for three months, ever since he left Denver, and if it wasn’t for Dok and the promise of the return of his protectress, his sanity would have crumbled a long time ago, and even then, he was almost at his limit.