GOD DIES A THOUSAND TIMES A SECOND.

the song that had been playing on repeat in marla’s head for days now sang of aspiring fires, and if she had been the sort of person who properly believed in omens she might have been taking the significance into account as she accidentally-on-purpose tipped the can of turpentine over. there wasn’t much in it. probably a good thing, which didn’t stop marla from being somewhat disappointed. pretending that she’d only just noticed this opportunity, she took her journal (it was full to the brim with writing, and therefore long overdue for a ritualistic pyre) and dipped it in the little puddle. “marlowe,” she called, voice all sing-song. “you seem like the kind of guy who might, like, provide matches to people in need at times like this. you seem like the matches type.” she turned to him. “like, all traditional. i, like, guess i can just use a lighter…” she tossed the journal onto the ground and retrieved the one she always kept in her pocket, that she’d found on the floor of a theatre and decorated. it didn’t so much match her aesthetic as contribute to the chaos of it. it had a lot more glittery adornments than it had started out with, though the base colour was a pale blue. “marlowe,” she said, still staring at the journal where it lay, covered in a thin veneer of turpentine and in a pool of that very same substance, looking a little bit like paperback roadkill. “i think i might be an idiot.” @jamesmarlowe

Well past midnight, Marlowe sat in one of the red booths, arm stretched over the backrest, his beach tan glowing under the artificial lighting. There was already a small pyramid of apple pies stacked in front of him, warm and waiting. Next to them, some fries spilled out onto the tabletop; he was slowly emptying the carton while gazing out the window, admiring the puddles of yellow reflected on the wet asphalt, the huge Golden Arches providing the only splash of color in the black night. The late-shift cashier was a heavy-lidded girl with a lopsided ponytail, her nametag identifying her as Annette. For once, she wasn’t sleeping on the clock; Marlowe had made one-sided game of trying to engage her in conversation. “Hey, how about a quiz? My Mickey D’s knowledge versus your’s.” Annette looked up from her phone, her expression clearly reading as I’m-not-paid-enough-for-this; Marlowe angled an easy smile at her, then motioned through the air with one limp fry. “Only one location in the world doesn’t use the Golden Arches. Where— and, bonus point, what color are they?” Kohl-lined eyes rolled. Her expression remained staunchly unamused as she dropped her gaze back to her phone, muttering, “No fucking idea.” Unfazed by this divided attention, Marlowe continued. His voice had the cheerful intonation of a game show host. “Sedona! They’re turquoise. Or teal, I guess, somewhere in that family. Wanna know why?” The lack of an affirmative answer, or any kind of answer at all, didn’t stop him. “Some zoning committee decided that the yellow would clash too much with the natural landscape. Bad color combo. All that red sandstone, the blue mountains in the distance, and then you’ve got this ugly, honkin’ yellow McDonald’s sign smack in the middle. But, can’t say no to the potential money-grab of a fast food chain when you’re a tourist economy. So they compromised on teal. Corporate will, bending to the law of complementary colors.” Annette was obviously tuning him out, with no response or movement except the sweep and play of her thumbs as she tapped her phone screen. It didn’t matter; he could go on like this for hours, talking so vividly, so amusingly, to no one at all. Hence why the gig at the school radio had proven to be a perfect match for him. Minutes trickled by. Drops collecting in a bucket, plink, plink. Filling it up more than expected. His eyes slid back out the window to where his own face was visible in the black glass, then beyond that, to the darkened parking lot occupied by only a few remaining cars. Levi was much more reliable than he was— by the world’s standards, most people were— so there was no question of whether he’d show up. Just a matter of waiting. And Marlowe had time to spare, time to waste. Time like a kid at an arcade had pockets full of change.

“Your friend’s here,” Annette announced in a voice devoid of any inflection, a brief blip of attention before she resumed her game of Candy Crush. Marlowe twisted around to see the door as it chimed open. “Hey!” The greeting came paired with a smile, one of his best: spreading on both sides, lacking all symmetry. Then he turned back with his arm still draped over the vinyl seat and waited for Levi to slide in across from him. “As you can see, I’m on the straight and narrow now. Payin’ for my fries and apple pies like a good upstanding citizen. Annette can vouch.” His eyes flicked up to her, ready to wink mischievously if this almost-confession earned any reaction. She didn’t even lift her yellow-visored head. Clearing his throat, Marlowe’s brows drew together as if pulled by an invisible drawstring. “So.” He chose one of the last fries in the container and eyed Levi carefully across the table. “Thanks for showin’ up. Already more than I deserve. How’ve you been?” A nonchalant question, asked with what seemed like genuine, friendly concern— but one they both knew was really just an opening for something else.

RADTASK 005 ➯ “You gotta have style. It helps you get down the stairs. It helps you get up in the morning. It’s a way of life. Without it, you’re nobody. I’m not talking about lots of clothes.”

Lana preened at his touch, no matter how fleeting. Sometimes, she felt like the light up piano Tom Hanks danced along in the toy store, each key only illuminated when someone had put their weight to it – she could hear the coordinating melody in her brain, was always tempted to hum along. “Some guy told me not to grab my can when it flew – like, flew, sucked up by the wind like God was slurping a Henry the hoover. Anyway, it flew on the grass and he was, like, hooting and hollering about it. You know, ‘cause it was raining. Called me baby and everything. Totally sickening. Had to defy him.” She missed out the part where she’d shimmied along the grass, hips shaking, mocking him with various dance moves while the rain gently spit. Bubbling laughter died in her throat when he barked a last order, elastic of his patience snapped, seeing her prance back and up the steps. They’d ventured to the bathroom shortly after, Lana pulled like a rag doll. A strange part of her liked it, had grown accustomed to the hard gouge of an unrelenting hand – it was required, she thought, to be made new, reborn in a way, shaped into something different she had more of a chance of liking. Instinctively, she reached to twirl at whatever fraying thread of Marlowe’s was closest. “Exactly. A tingly toe is totally sacred. If you ignore them, they turn black and drop off. And that’s gross. Nobody wants that? Except maybe Viktor, but. I just feel like he’d appreciate a black toe. Keep it in a jar,” Lana chattered, dimples becoming prominent at his choice of name. “James. I like that name. Makes me think of, like… vodka on the rocks, blazers with puffy white shirts. Navy and candles.” All based on one she’d met in high school. Lana was like that. She assigned names tastes, colours, smells. Most of them changed all the time, it depended on the mood. Out of nowhere, Lana lifted a card so high into the air it strained her shoulder – it practically reverberated around the room, the slap of it down against the carpet. Somebody in the corner cricked their neck in shock. “Three of swords!” She announced it like she was manning a bingo wheel, excitedly shouting the number. “Huh. Interesting. Eeeeen-ter-es-teeeeng… This one’s kinda, like, heartbreak, I think. All, like… wah, me heart’s gone mouldy!” she butchered a British accent, something dated and Cockney, before tapping it twice. “Had any light saber battles with two other dicks, lately? Three swords. It’s what I’m sensing. Or maybe it’s just on the horizon. Much to think about.” Barely leaving an intermission, Lana lined up another at random. The Devil. “Whoa. He’s, like… kinda hench. Shredded. I mean, look at those abs? I couldn’t nap on those. Hard and bulky. Kinda hot, though. Hm…” trailed off, realising in delay she hadn’t given a reading. “Maybe this means you’re gonna go to Texas. If the devil were a state, it’d be Texas. Suddenly? Your flight’s booked. You’re chewing a strand of wheat. Playing a banjo.”

In Lana’s company, everything became a story— sometimes, in the wandering middle of these stories, there came a point where you could stop listening to the words and just listen to the way she said them. The whimsical musicality of her voice. Flew– like, flew, sucked up by the wind like God was slurping a Henry the hoover. Marlowe let his eyes close. There was something about it, something about listening to her that felt like watching a kite dance, weaving through the air on unpredictable currents, soaring and dipping like bird— it was easy to forget everything else. You were up there too, for the time being, light on the surface of the world. Makes me think of, like... vodka on the rocks, blazers with puffy white shirts. How like Lana to make it seem interesting; reality could be much improved if only someone replaced it with her imagination. A smile formed on the outer edges of his mouth when he said, “Oh, yeah. Very seafaring. Very nautical. Naughty, nautical...” Talking without thinking, his voice a slow-moving stream. His words floating away like toy boats set loose on the current. And then, with the same enigmatic smile, “Makes me think of nothing.” 

A pond with no ripples. A cluster of wind chimes on a windless day, hanging perfectly still. No recognition. No sense of ownership. Nothing he could still identify— like turning on the light and illuminating a childhood bedroom where all the furniture had been removed, all the pictures had been taken down, only outlines in the dust and scuffmarks on the walls and a few notches on the doorframe. Nothing else to show it had ever been his. But it was not a loss, just a name. An arbitrary arrangement of letters. A luggage tag. Didn’t matter that Marlowe didn’t entirely belong to him, either. There was a whole litter of them somewhere in Virgnia, all variations on the same face. Helle with her narrow, golden eyes, flashing so often with scattershot fury. Luke with his high, scraped-back cheekbones, his smile like a wire bending. All of them angular, hungry, like the feral cats that haunted the park, their mirror eyes glinting from the undersides of trailers. And he’d taken this thing that was equally theirs— a family name, the only inheritance they’d ever get— and made it his own. But fuck them. They could let him have this one thing.

Marlowe: hey heard you're back!

Marlowe: i set off the fire alarm in perkins last week and when you didn't show up in 5 seconds flat (your current record) i asked around

A headache had made a home behind Abel’s left eyebrow since the second day of the trip. Probably a poor mix of several medications, too much alcohol, and definitely not enough water. It didn’t deter him, even now - overtired and simultaneously refreshed, somehow, Abel made his way into the Perkins kitchen with a grin. He made it a habit, to stock up Moris’ kitchen at random with whatever snacks he could think of in case any of the students there needed something. When he technically wasn’t supposed to be on campus, it felt safer to stock up Perkins’ kitchen instead, less likely to be caught there than his own residence, “Morning!” he chirped back automatically, grin only widening when he saw Marlowe’s classic sunshine demeanour. It took a few seconds for his brows to furrow in confusion, glancing down at his watch then back at the boy across from him, “Afternoon,” Abel corrected, setting the armfuls of snacks he was still clutching onto on the provided kitchen table, “You look like a very put together zombie. Not bad enough to be a real one. Not The Walking Dead level. Y’know?” Wordlessly, he walked closer to where Marlowe was so that he could pick up the brick of cheese, “I’m gonna take a wild stab in the dark and guess this isn’t yours?” he asked, already placing it back into the fridge, “You can have something from what I just brought, but I don’t mind taking you somewhere to get a proper meal. It’s the least I can do, got nothing better going on anyway. You even have anything real to eat since we’ve been back? Not to sound like your dad or anything. Just a concerned citizen. I’m not ready for grey hairs, yet,” About as dramatic as Abel got, he was already starting to reload the fridge with the other ingredients Marlowe had taken out, set now on dragging him somewhere that had more than just eggs on the menu, “Was the trip fun for you? You’re very popular, I didn’t find you once even when I actively tried to.”

The version of Abel that came through the doorway was freshly-tanned, a smile stretched broadly across his face— he seemed looser, after their week at the beach. Good for him, Marlowe decided, mouth curling up on both sides. Every stick in the mud deserved a wiggle every now and then. You look like a very put-together zombie. This earned a faint noise of amusement, somewhere at the back of his throat. “Well that’s encouraging, ‘cause that’s exactly what I was going for. Three days resurrected. Half-a-corpse, half-a-god.” He was good at striking that balance. Most days, with his lazily-buttoned shirts and unbrushed hair, he had the demeanor of someone just-roused from some luxurious sleep— disheveled, but always purposefully so. Now, there was very little glamor to the way he looked. Standing barefoot in the weak afternoon light, sour-mouthed, eyelids raw from being rubbed, hair tangled and damp— but still, somehow vivid. The fire of him, still burning; his amber eyes, inextinguishable. After a yawn, which segued into another smile, Marlowe leaned over the counter on a straightened arm. He gave Abel a proper up-and-down now, moving only his eyes. “You look like you just came back from a fuckin’ week of rest and relaxation on the beaches of Maui. How the fuck did you manage that? Did we go on the same trip?”

There was a certain thought process that occurred when she was about to cook, and it didn’t ever matter if it was the smallest minuscule snack or full meal. She could hardly even focus on what Marlowe was or wasn’t putting away, a slightly manicured finger tapping her lips in deep thought as she thought through her choices before finally deciding. One would have thought she’d have chosen a major in culinary, with how careful and precise she was about flavors and recipes––and the fact that sometimes there really was no recipe. 

Once she wasn’t so focused on what she’d planned to make she can answer his many questions––and there were many. “Uh, yeah. Sorry I don’t know your name though. Just sorta seen ya here and there.” She shrugged, pulling out a variety of ingredients for the cajun pasta she would make. Tomato slicing and an assortment of other veggies had soon begun, eyes focused and yet distant as she spoke. “My mama was an artist so she was real into that whole scene––personally I’m not too particular about what I like, all real beautiful and each has their own uh, story and style.” She shrugged, giving him a glance for the first time since she’d arrived. My daddy just really loved the name too, and loved my mama enough to just trust her with it so..yeah, that’s about it.” Mauve lips spoke with their southern tone, a hint of a smile perched on them as she moved to start boiling water for the pasta. “Cajun pasta––and good, probably gotta see that someday.”

He thought by now he’d earned his notoriety, and could simply walk around with it attached to him wherever he went— secure in his status as a campus celebrity, Marlowe rarely ever introduced himself. Even in first-time encounters. After all, who didn’t remember the strange, fantastical sculpture garden that had overtaken the lawn in front of Noland for three days last fall, a guerilla art exhibition he’d sprung to celebrate his feature in Cultured Mag— before a summons from the Office of the Dean had politely but very, very firmly, reminded him that his scholarship was not unconditional (it was in fact, very conditional on whether those sculptures came down in a matter of hours). Or, the blaze which had taken out one of the studios in the Art Building, which he’d never admitted to causing— though that smoldering husk of electrical wiring and burned plastic, still vaguely resembling poor Olivia Newton John, had him written all over it? Sorry, I don’t know your name. Marlowe blinked at Monet, mildly baffled. Then he leaned further back on his hands, shoulders hunched, and replaced his lifted brows with an easy smile. “Sorry, guess I’m used to just havin’ my name flashin’ on a marquee sign above my head, visible from twenty miles away— don’t know where that’s gone, but, anyway,” He inclined his head, placing one hand to his chest in a formal introduction. “Marlowe, Monet.” The hand swept out. “Monet, Marlowe.” 

Propped up by elbows as she lay on her front, red cowboy boots kicked up in the air behind her, Lana had made herself right at home on a sheepskin rug during the embers of a dying gathering – some student house, she didn’t remember the address or how she’d arrived. Her ride bounced while she was in the bathroom with a stranger. Light glinted off a butterfly clip keeping a lock of hair at bay, hair framed in rogue waves for the majority – subtly damp with rain. “Wanna have your June predicted?” She’d fanned a pack of tarot cards across the carpet, stolen, and was poking at the naked bust of lovers on one without lifting her eyes from the artwork. “Boop!” Distractedly, she’d merited the sound effect to a finger touching a nipple. Moved on without acknowledgement. “Jameson edition. Very high brow, sought after. Exclusive offer. My toes are tingling. I have the sight, I can totally feel it. Doesn’t happen often, so… Come sit, I’ll deal you in. You have to pick a new name for yourself, though. It’s a strict rule of my operation. Keeps things spicy.”

freya: nice try but ik that medieval torture is one of ur kinks. these psychological mind games won't work on me. i won't give u the gratification 🔪

freya: it was quite hard for me 2 admit? considering that i personally have never done anything wrong in my life bt i'm such a kind soul....i choose to see the best in everyone ❤️

freya: haha sure

freya: [...]

freya: nothing explicit

freya: [...]

freya: awww....widdle marlowe.....crushing hard....look at him go....watching maks' text bubble hoping for a reply....weeping when nothing's sent....the yearning....the anguish.....💔

marlowe: dw a knife emoji from u is all i need i'll be thinking about it later👌😩💥

marlowe: i know ❤️ ur an angel without a single blemish to her name ❤️ hey when they make u a saint or whatever can you put in a good word w/ the big man and pardon all my sins? i think that would be a nice thing u could do for me

marlowe: [...]

marlowe: just wanted to know who ur source was on all this

marlowe: clearly it was levi so! mystery solved.

marlowe: anyway i love our talks freya but this adhesive is starting to set into concrete and this garbage isn't gonna assemble itself