#*relevant

“Good morning, dear.” The clockmaker awakens with a yawn, having already overslept. Another foggy morning settles thick beyond rocky shore, stirring as if foam from the frothy waves. His wife rubs her eyes, looking enchanted through the morning grogginess. Her coils of black fall just short of her shoulders, loose and frayed. The clockmaker can’t help smiling at the sight of her. “Morning, Rick.” She leans in for a kiss. “Oh,” He reels back, gingerly pushing back her shoulders. “Dear, I have morning breath.” “I don’t care, now get over here.” She yanks his collar, their lips connecting. When they are apart, she pulls a perplexing face, black eyes studying with scrutiny. “Little scruffy, there.” Rick’s full beard and mustache of orange and white completely conceal his mouth, like ginger vines obscuring a cave opening. He smiles sheepishly, teeth barely visible. “Well, it’s either prickles or scruff, dear.” “I’ll settle for scruff.” She snides, and the sun peeks through the clouds for only a moment, casting rainbows of light over her incandescent eyes. She’s the town beauty, her skin gleams in the sun, reflecting gold off her brown skin. Her eyes are wide and doe, always a coy glimmer visible if you look close enough. She’s got pink rollers scattered in her curls, turning rusty in the light like a black cat. Her sleepy smile carves dimples into her soft cheeks and her eyes into wrinkled crescents. It’s mornings like this that Rick knows he’s a lucky man. Before she can lean in to steal another good-morning kiss, a discordant chime rattles through the air. “Rick, can’t you just throw that one out already?” She scoffs, a dramatic eye roll accentuating her annoyance. “Alright.” Rick pinches his nose bridge, easing out of the creaky bed onto even creakier, cold floorboards. “If I don’t sell it, it’s out.” His words fall heavy off of his tongue. It brings him melancholy to see it go. That clock has been a staple of the shop for who knows how long. Its obnoxious tone can be heard over each and every tick. It’s both a blessing and a curse, such a beautiful thing beyond repair. It was a timeless find, and yet, it just can’t be sold. Hell, the damn thing runs backwards. The somber is thick in his eyes, and thick in the sky with morning drizzle that drips down the windowsill. He slams the window shut, drawing the curtains to release shadows that cut through the drafty walls of the shop like steely, black knives. He turns, immediately averting his bashful pink face from the sight of his wife changing clothes. He scurries off to the bathroom, his wife chuckling in the backdrop of ticking clocks. He’s seen her exposed a million times, she has to admit with a shake of the head how cute his flustered nature can be. Sluggishly mixing his shaving foam by the sink, Rick’s feet hit familiar creaks in the floor. His wife calls from the loft, gracefully perched with her arms crossed over the railing. “Rick, you’re opening late. There’s a man waiting by the door.” Her voice induces a rush of rose to Rick’s face, though this time, with embarrassment. He huffs, abashed. “Let them wait. I haven’t even had coffee yet.” He takes his sweet time, half with spite, half with care not to nick his cheek with the razor. A kempt beard at last, he slinks away from the loft into the sleepy shop below, lamps lit with a hiss of gas and warmth under his shoes. The shut of the back door, his wife heading into the dark morning, marks the beginning of another restless day with no sleep until sundown for the busy woman. Rick heaves a weary sigh. He’ll pamper her tonight, she deserves it. Rick flips the ‘Open’ sign, shuffling back behind the counter, a soul softly stirring awake in the loft above. Within seconds, a jingle of rusty bells announces the arrival of a customer, door slamming behind them with a rush of wind. “Repair or purchase?” Rick asks, polishing the glass face of an ornate pocket watch with his vest. “Mr. Sjoberg.” The stranger calls, muffled by a large scarf over their mouth. Rick finally takes notice, peering over his glasses at the customer. Who he sees is an odd sight, their skin is ghostly pale, the haze of tobacco in their ruby red eyes and batting white lashes. Their short hair is straight like a flow of frothy water, sticking up with curled bangs in the shape of a rabbit’s ears. They approach the counter lightly on their toes, shivering, their lightweight black garb barely concealing their snowy skin from the cold. Somebody new? Around here? Has hell frozen over? “Is the Missus home?” They mumble, barely audible. “Adeline… Isn’t here. You’ve just missed her, I’m afraid.” There’s a twinge of suspicion in his voice, the squeaking of cloth against a watchface filling the awkward, uncomfortable air. “Ah. Pity.” The stranger sniffles, a red button nose peeking over their scarf. “I’m here for a purchase.” Their scarlet eyes scan the wall-to-wall selection, pausing over cobwebs. “Oh, good. Anything in particular you’re looking for?” Rick clasps his hands together, a polite, catty smile on his face. The stranger is briefly distracted by his appearance. He works precariously, attaching chains to watches and tuning them carefully. The stranger, at first, had thought he was wearing gloves. But no, he had wooden arms and legs, with black glossy joints and delicate, steady digits. His hair is a peachy color, shocked with white, fluffy and unkempt like his freshly tidied beard of salt-and-pepper. He has curious eyes of teal and gold that glare over black spectacles at all they see. He’s got the body of a father, and they mean that nicely, with a gray sweater-vest and black tie,pinstripe slacks hiked up by an old-looking leather belt. His sleeves are rolled up, the fuzz on his freckled neck standing on edge. The stranger didn’t mean to stare. “Um?” “Sorry. Yeah, just… What’s the cheapest thing you’ve got?” At once, Rick takes to his feet, kicking up the smell of mildew in the carpet. While he rummages to find a stepstool, footsteps creep down the steps, only to stumble clumsily and nearly miss the last step. The person in question, now of solid footing, is a familiar face to the stranger. “Sinclair.” Rick doesn’t look up from his busy hands. Sinclair snaps his eyes open, timid. He’s Rick’s adoptive son, a scrawny, chicken-legged boy in his late teenage years, a shaggy middle-part of greasy lavender hair and faded roots framing skin that never sees the sun, large square glasses, and sad gray eyes that always seem to droop to the floor. He twiddles his thumbs, in a pigeon-toed stance. There’s eyeliner smeared down his cheeks, another heartbreak staining his neck and white shirt with mascara. “Yeah?” “Can you move these boxes for me before you head out?” “Ugh. Yeah, I guess.” Sinclair trips over his own feet to haul a box of cogs, trailing gears behind him as he takes them out back. He jitters, recognizing the stranger and shutting the door quickly behind him. “I’ll bring you back a Macchiato. Love you. Bye.” He huffs. Typical teen. Eyerolls and all, dark circles to boot, jingling spurs on his heels clicking against the cobbles, heard through the door. He must be off to the bar, he used to sing on stage. Recently, he played a drab tune lacking melody that he called “Purgatorius”. He has lyrical talent, but he will never have the vocal prowess of his mother. Rick finally grabs a clock off the wall, looking at it with scorn in his eye as he turns it over in his hands. “Here.” He adjusts his glasses. “This blasted thing, I will sell to you for mere pennies. It was a passion project, but... It's beyond my help.” The stranger takes it in their grasp, thumbing over the old, battered wood. A one-eyed bird juts from a green trapdoor, chirping discordantly on a broken spring. The ticking seems wrong, somehow. They squint, realizing the truth. It runs backwards. What a delight! “It’s perfect.” The stranger rummages in their pocket, tossing crumpled bank notes on the counter, leaving without even a ‘Thank you’. The freezing wind swirls in the quiet of the shop behind them, leaving a perplexed clockmaker behind in their wake. The image of the boardwalk is a familiar one to the stranger, a memory of fog and clouds lying low to the shore. How frigid, the heart of Autumn. Seagulls keen, unseen through the swirling mist. Between foghorns and the gentle sprinkle of rain, a song stirs. A sad, yet optimistic song that swells in the chest and spills from the strings of a violin dances on the fog and breaks apart worries. There is something there, however, that feels slightly off. ‘Must be out of tune.’ The stranger thinks. The stranger struts down the boardwalk, cutting through the mist and rain, an unfamiliar black and white shape slithering between homes. As the song on the wind grows, an anxious patter worms into the stranger’s heartbeat, only accentuated by inhaled black smoke from the roaring chimneys atop every shack, bungalow, and storefront. Nearly there, a voice bleats from a corner. “You don’t seem too familiar, do I know you?” A jaded-looking old widower leans over the banister of his porch, dangling chains from his glasses blowing in the cold wind. He looks as if a Billy goat was a person, long hair in all shades of gray tied back from a hollow, wrinkled face and cloudy, kind eyes sitting above a crooked nose and goatee. His posture is hunched like a vulture, neck bent awkwardly forward with an Adam's apple like a rock and hands curled politely into his black patchwork shawl. Frail ribs stick out beneath billowing, loose fabric. “No, you don’t know me.” “Just passing through?” The widower blathers. He may not know them, but they know him. His name is Todd, his wife died 50 years ago just this week. “I’m here to stay for a short while.” “That so?” Todd begins, pausing to scan the stranger with disturbing clarity through smudged bifocals. “You look cold.” “I forgot my coat, that’s all.” The stranger replies with disinterest, hoping to move on. “Well, that’s no good. Care for something warm?” Todd breaks off a crust of rye bread, tossing it down to the stranger, who wolfs it down without another thought, finally taking the time to see the loom poised before Todd, tangled with mauve threads across splintered wood. “Oh, no, thank y-” The stranger is struck in the face with a massive white shawl that nearly blows away in the gust. They hold it, a silent nod of thanks hidden by their scarf. They pull the garment over their head, and fashion it in a way that’s slick and doesn’t hinder mobility, a master of working with even the most frilly of things. It’s adorned with red, bejeweled tassels that match their eyes. “Free of charge, min vän!” Todd chuckles, bony hands already at work with the loom, patterns of fields and trees unfurling into fabric before their eyes. With an affable smile, the stranger is waved away, whisked with the wind across damp, dark cobbles and under dripping awnings. They wouldn’t be seeing Todd for a while longer. Once again, the mesmerizing melody leads them around a corner to the chapel by the seaside. With the percussion of the sea striking the rocks, the violinist appears from the fog. The church pastor sits upon the concrete steps, shoes wet by rainwater. Their bow glides across the yellowed strings, head bobbing about gently to the rhythm like driftwood on the waves. Nothing can be seen of the loosely hung figure but a sprawled pose and thin, calm smile displaying a row of pearly teeth, just barely visible beneath the wide, flat black hat that conceals his face beneath its brim, shadows cast over his form. He’s a peculiar sight, but not to the stranger, who walks past without blinking into the warm glow of the bar next door. Blaring horns sever the music. A massive ship docks just outside, sailors smelling of salt and sweat flocking to the streets and into the bar as frolicking geese. Captain Blåhaj steps onto the deck, picking absentmindedly at the barnacles clinging desperately to the weathered red metal of the hull like Adams Rock to the star-spackled tide. His hair is short, spiky and blowing behind him. He tucks the front of his navy peacoat over his chest, the felted fabric straining over his arms. He’s not a sight for sore eyes, his scarred, tan face, tasteful scent of tobacco, and black eyes make even his own crew swoon. He tamps leaves into his pipe, rummaging for a match in his pockets. “Captain!” His right hand man comes galloping over. His name is Crockett, a poor and white-haired young man with shocking blue eyes and a scrappy figure that barely holds up the white cotton of his uniform. Blåhaj’s broad hand lands on Crockett’s narrow shoulder, sending a knot in his stomach. “Beautiful morning, huh, boy?” He gruffly smiles, a sharp smile carving his face, a true Renaissance statue. Crockett strikes a match and gingerly lights Blåhaj’s pipe, a small wisp of smoke rising with the Sun. The brief glow of flame makes him look painterly and sickeningly handsome. Crockett gulps. “So, uh,” He squawks “Our haul has the grocers impressed.” He twiddles his thumbs, gesturing back with his head to a net of mackerel dangling precariously down to the dock. Blåhaj smirks, a gold tooth flashing. “Good work, boy.” He puffs smoke, and Crockett can feel it on his face, suddenly feeling a little weak in the knees. Blåhaj’s stern, aged face has only become fine wine to the crew across the oceans, his strapping and broad-shouldered silhouette is simply mesomorphic and kind on the eyes. “How’s about a gin to wind down?” Another waft of sweet smoke that’s more intoxicating to Crockett than a drink will ever be. He can’t help but notice the slight tangle of Blåhaj’s fingers in his ponytail. “Ah, yeah, that’s a good idea…” The walking juxtapositions make their way to the boardwalk, a well-decorated sailor can catch anybody’s attention. The bar is alive already, even so early. The sun has only just come up, but the sailors and sleepless countrymen flooding the place means a busy morning. The stranger sits themself in a far corner by the bar, ordering a White Russian and kicking up their feet. Their mind wanders in the dark of the bar, to the clockmaker and his shop. The murder of chivalry may be in store. All those cobwebs, all those promising shadowy corners. What eight-legged friends could be found? All this time spent searching, all that trouble in the scrub, and it was in the very town where it had originated. Those webs are so perfect, they’re just right- they have to be. They can practically see the outlines of red on black abdomens crystal clear in their mind, the spindles of silk betwixt each other- the patterns match up just right. They have to return. Just not now, the Sun keeps ambition at bay for ghosts and strangers alike. Heaven in vocal form envelops the bar, every patron hushing to complete silence as the lights dim. The stage lights up, and out steps none other than Adel Sjoberg. She looks like an angel up there in her form-fit black dress, velvety and mimicking the shape of a mermaid’s tail, for she is truly a siren to every sailor in the crowd. Her voice is thick and sweet like honey, flowing and clinging to the dust in the air, an archon earworm. “It begins to tell, 'round midnight, midnight.” The stranger’s spine tingles, the crisp white hair on their arms standing supine at the twinge of her Veery clarion call. It’s throaty, and warms up the air, or is that just the breath of the masses being stolen? Whatever it may be, she’s captured the hearts of all. Her dress sparkles in the spotlight, her tight curls bounce, her eyelashes bat like butterflies. Lucky clockmaker. "I do pretty well, till after sundown, suppertime I'm feelin' sad; but it really gets bad, 'round midnight." With the men and women under her spell, a hum of whispers returns. Sailors joke. Old women gossip. Sinclair kisses a countryman right under his mother's nose, as if he doesn't have permanent, black tear stains down his neck. From beyond the neon glow of an Inn sign, an eccentric-looking drunkard stands atop a table, telling tales to his ashamed friends, all to the backdrop of Adel's enchanting chords. She opens her eyes just enough to grasp the microphone and give a sassy glare to a woman ogling her figure. The gazes of countless avert in tandem. Her simulacrum is anything but bland. The stranger remains in that bar, wasting away on coffee liquor into the hours of the evening, morning to sunset, the fog bleeding out into an amber glow upon the still waves beyond closed doors. Green, red, and blue lights flicker on to announce the Inn's vacancy. 'Don't wander' The sign warns in a neon flash beneath brighter eyes, an owl chewing on white, bloodied fur. The head of a mushroom bobs under a drip of oil and water from the awning, looking like a familiar hat. Waiving the anemoia off, the stranger basks under the yellow light around a billiards table, piercing the wooziness to sink the 8-ball into the pocket across from them. Sinclair hands over a sizeable chunk of money to Captain Blåhaj, losing the third bet of the night. The money is passed off to an old maid, summoning a forlorn sigh from Crockett that just screams shaken limerence. Realizing the time as the cuckoo clock jabs into their side with another chime, the stranger surrenders the cue stick to the wall and scurries out the door, leaving astounded bartenders wondering their name as they fill up yet another beer for the sadsacks. To the church they creep, wrapping the shawl tight over their arms, the evening chill giving way for the freezing night, the fog begotten as the Red Sea. The stained white brickwork looks black in the night, the shape of the steeple cutting out the Milky Way. An oddly cloudless night, perfect. From a nail on the door, a lantern glows and flickers. The stranger removes it, extinguishing the light and walking with dire purpose back to the clockmaker's shop. The occupant has long retired for the evening, not a single light inside but a dull candle. The stranger tries the door, to no avail, it's padlocked. No matter, the stranger has a bobby pin holding their sleeve garter in place. They jam the bronze pin inside, googling it around until a click brings a satisfied grin to the stranger's obscured face. Careful to take off the bells before entering, the stranger enters. With only the light of the candle to guide them, they creep behind shelves upon shelves, the ticking of countless clocks in the darkness is enough to drive any man mad. The floor creaks beneath them, each making them wince. There's not a sound from the loft. Upon the walls behind the counter, among mechanical mysteries and showy ornamented clocks is a sight much less Baroque. The web of the prodigious arachnid they've been searching for. Upon the stranger's shadow approaching, a cluster of spindly black legs retreat into a clockface. Promising. The stranger opens the empty, desolate shaft of the lantern, prodding at the clock with the pin until the spider within stirs, stumbling into the lantern, a nervous threat trailing behind. The stranger snaps the lantern shut and holds it to the light, appeased with their prize. Illuminated by candlelight, it comes into view, what gorgeous and rococo majesty! A black widow. A delicious thing to behold. With the widow obtained and the future in sight, it's shaping up for the stranger. No more brush and brambles, no more spider bites. A thump. Then another. Wooden feet scale the staircase. As if never there, the stranger sweeps away and out the open door with the wind, leaving not a trace. Rick stands in the shop, all life barren, the glimpse of a shadow disappearing between shelves into the night. Down the road and where the drunk men sing shanties, mass is coming to a close. Father Winecroft reaches for the heavens with veiny hands and the digits of a musician. They can taste Heaven in the air, feel Hell beneath their feet. Just like Adeline, Winecroft has them captivated by his hypnotic sermon. “It’s on the night that God had graced us, and we did not give Him enough. And so He took what He had been owed…” The stranger listens in, knees tucked high over the lantern. “He knocked thrice upon the door of Satan and drove him away.” The stranger knocks on the wall. A chorus of amazed gasps rises a chuckle from Winecroft’s chest. “Yes, my sheep. He is with us always…” The droning is all a blur, oil paint soundwaves. When all is quiet and they are certain that the mass has concluded, Winecroft descends into the cellar, where the stranger resides. “Ehud.” A striking white smile appears in the gloom. The stranger stands, their name clear. “Sir, I have good news.” “Well, tell me quickly, I haven’t got all night.” Winecroft positions himself like a gargoyle in front of Ehud, lighting a candle. His fluffy mane of auburn looks like fire in the warm lucency, tallow dripping over their fingers. His smile twitches, yet never ceases. He stands straight and tall, cossock concealing a dynamic and long body with feet positioned like that of a ballerina, stock-still and awaiting disclosure. “I bring you, firstly a clock fit for tonight.” Ehud presents the broken cuckoo clock. Winecroft leans forward, looking like a robot with an unwavering expression, the hand tucked behind their back inching forward to stroke the clock’s surface. Their fingertips graze it oddly, dust lifting from it. His smile gets a little wider, which shouldn’t be possible. They rise again, making a strange noise that can only be described as smug. “Perfect. Good work, friend.” They hiss, a small giggle of anticipation slipping between his flat teeth. “What else do you have for me?” The trepidation tickles his throat. Without a word, Ehud hands over the lantern. Winecroft sets down the candle, turning over the lantern in his hands against the light. “Well, I’ll be damned.” Their crooked hat reveals a wide, raving eye. The deceptively warm brown turns to amber in the flame, tracing the spider’s form and shaking violently. “What a specimen, oh, perfect- By God’s Gospel-” He sets down the lantern to lean with his elbows against the tablecloth. “The perfect spider. So gorgeous, and oh-so deadly, how lovely! The power this little treat holds is more than your little mind can imagine.” They wax poetic, a waver in their throat, sounding like the Prince of Horror. Black gloves removed, they unlatch the lantern, the grotesque spider crawling onto the back of his hand. He holds it gently, eye falling half-mast as it crawls from one palm to another, non compos mentis. “Macabre, isn’t she? I can’t resist, you’ve brought me such a trophy, Ehud. I commend you.” He cups the spider, prodding at it with one finger. It rears up, lashing out, fangs sinking into his palm. He winces, smile wavering for only an instant before it is once again plastered on his pale face that is painted with dancing shadows. The spider tries to scurry up his sleeve, only to be seized between two fingers by the leg, squirming. “Odger-” “Sir.” “Sir, that’s venomous.” “Ah, I know. Nothing I haven’t drank in communion already.” His eye nearly rolls back into his head with each throb of the bite, pain turning to pleasure. “It’s time.” He groans. Massaging the bite in an uncomfortably sensual manner, he tosses the black widow without another care into the lantern, striking a match, lighting it aflame. The hourglass on its back turns a boiling black as it jitters and curls up in the heat. Moths flock to the light to nibble on clothes and drop dead. The lantern is sealed, Winecroft leaps onto the table, dancer-like, daintily hanging the clock on the wall. Perfect timing, the clock strikes a false-midnight, the wooden bird singing its broken song. Ehud scrambles to join him on the table, adorned like an altar, bones clattering to the floor in a cloud of dirt. The writhing spider thuds against the glass, burning into nothing, a pitiful curl of black legs. A rattling- no, a chattering- is heard. The chattering of teeth. Winecroft stands close behind, too close, Ehud can feel his breath on the back of their neck. They turn to see, from beneath his hat’s brim, an odd expression with furrowed, sorrowful brows, a twitchy smile, and grinning eyes that glisten, devilish in the growing glow until they disappear into their mess of hair. From the ceiling, an ethereal gleam spills between floorboards like a waterfall of luminous dust, the Aurora Borealis encapsulated into a smoky stream that strikes the lantern. It sounds like rain on a tin roof that spirals into a crescendo of screaming. Agony. Pure agony, that’s the sound. The pain of awareness. A skull rises, then a rib, then a collarbone, a femur… Before their eyes, a skeleton is assembled. Winecroft jitters, hands sweaty and posture kingly. A ripple crawls down Ehud’s spine at the sight of the skeleton’s very own spine snapping into place. Fully arranged, it collapses in a pathetic, shaking heap on the ground. Winecroft leaps like a frog to its level, quickly covering the bones in a shaggy, torn cloak that was probably once purple, now covered in soot and dirt. They creep away, backwards as a mime and away from its view. Ehud’s heart nearly leaps out of their chest. Their scarf falls, failing to conceal grit teeth and a quivering white lip. Their painted nails scrape into the white lace tablecloth that’s slipping beneath their feet. The skeleton quakes, an arm snapping upwards and leveraging the skull. It looks around, narrowly missing the two shaking humans by mere inches of darkness. It kneels, catching its breath, despite a lack of lungs. Its hand rubs its skull, causing reason for pause. “Hnnggk?” It moans, staring down at its skeletal hands. “No… No, no, no, no no no-” A distorted, raspy tone rattles from the skeleton’s chattering teeth, sounding nothing like the Gary Cooper that is Winecroft. “I was supposed to die, just let me die.” It weeps without ever shedding a tear. Its breath smells of rot. It stumbles to its feet and wobbles like a newborn giraffe, slipping its old cloak over its bone shoulders, ribs clacking, hand already adorned with a dangling lantern. Its jaw painfully cracks, muttering to itself about death, decay, ascension, and all kinds of rambling of its pain. Just like that, through invocation of some God they’ll never know, The Nightman walks the streets again on shaky legs. Lantern light fading into the fog, all across town the sounds of shutters slamming shut can be heard like applause at what Ehud had done. Terrorized no more had they been, and now they’ll suffer for it. 50 years of peace is too long. Rick wakes again in the dead of night, not too far after his wife threw herself into bed beside him, hair tousled and wrinkled evening dress still on. Her makeup smears her pillow. The sounds of clicking heels and shaky feet on the boardwalk riles Rick to once again descend from the loft. At first seeing nothing, he blows out his candle to return to bed, briefly relishing the smell of sweet smoke. Then, from the inky black comparable to the deep sea, a single yellow light swims, an angler in the depths. An achy figure shuffling down and stopping just outside the shop, facing the sea, as still as a mannequin. Rick nervously opens the door. The figure doesn’t so much as flinch at the jangle of bells. “Uh, hello?” Rick coos, half inside with one foot out the door. The silhouette doesn’t move, cloak hood billowing in the slight breeze. “C-can I help you?” “Hungry.” “... Excuse me?” “I’m hungry.” The figure looks up, lantern raising to the firmament. A flash of razor-sharp teeth and a bone-white face slip through the hood, fangs clicking much like mandibles. “Do you need food?” Rick swallows hard. The silhouette doesn’t respond, looking like the Grim Reaper. A yellow, jaundiced eye blinks. “Are you… Are you from here?” “Used to be.” “Hmm?” “I’m supposed to be up there.” “...In the sky?” Rick scoffs, licking his dry lips. The silhouette points to the stars, rail-thin hand shakily settling on a bright, twinkling dot among many paint splattered suns. “I should be up there. I was happy. But… Somebody brought me back. I can’t be back. I just want to go back. I’m so hungry.” “Well, can I help? I don’t understand-” It turns its head. Half-masked by the shade of a hood, a funereal, gaunt shape with sunken sockets stares back, lantern clutched protectively to its chest. “Food.” After a mostly one-sided exchange, the Nightman stumbles off, snarling. Two strangers in one night? Impossible. It wobbles its way to the dock, disgusting eyes swaying back and forth with the waves, scanning from boat to boat until it comes upon a crate of ice and something that smells enticing. Gazing at it like a newfound love, it slinks off to have a new meal for the first time in so, so long. “Ehud, you’ve done it.” Winecroft appears, nearly from thin air behind them. He stands proudly with that signature smile and his hands folded neatly and cordially behind his back. “I guess I have.” “Isn’t it exciting? Oh, don’t you think he’s hungry? What a darling- it’s coming together just as I thought.” They gaze together onto the docks, where a cloaked figure stumbles in the moonlight, gruesome spider legs jutting from either side of its face as it latches onto a chunk of food and swallows it, greed in its growl. The way Winecroft jitters at the sight makes Ehud feeling gross. Just standing beside him feels enough to warrant a shower with how little he makes an effort to conceal the power-high that goes to the wrong head. “They’ll be wanting a body soon.” Ehud chokes, running a hand through knots in their white hair. Ehud gags, recalling the many times that Ol’ Odger called their hair spider silk. “Hmm, that’s right.” He flicks up the brim of his hat, drawling with a suck of the teeth. “Just pray to our Lord that it doesn’t take yours.” The sirocco nearly blows off his hat, and with an unwavering, coy grin that reeks of malice and unspeakables, Winecroft takes the warmth of the coming morning in his stride; a serpent among rats in the lighthouse’s shadow. Ehud is left to stand and stew in the doorway to the chapel, drenched in the chagrin of Winecroft’s euphoric violin and the ignominy of a new, deadly occupant.

Awww Hailey 🥺❤

I only watched the video once/heard the song twice cause it was already really late for me, but it's such a comfort song for me. The beginning reminds me of the guitar section in No Shame, and I just really love that song, but it's like so much softer and laid back.

I love the word play with the complete me - mess situation, how it brings a different meaning to everything. The song is really about them, and I saw a tweet where like they were talking about how Ash said maybe that the tackle is like a "brotherly fight", and that goes along so well with the complete me/ss situation - that's honestly how I feel about my own brother. I wouldn't be complete without you, but bro you drive me crazy with some of your life choices and stupidity. Kinda like that.

Also, everyone is singing, so that's always the big bonus point - I was missing that in the CALM era, cause I'm really fond of them all and what they bring to the table.

And the video looked really good? Like parts made me burst out laughing (yes, the tackle), but I loved the shots and the colours and the day/night switch. I like doing music videos in my head and this was a mix between my Babylon fever dream (the day part) and the Take What You Want imagine (the night part), and the very end reminded me of that fan drawing/animation that someone did here for 2011, where they are chasing the shooting star and then running into their younger selves doing the same.

I think this era really lets them be just themselves - just the 4 of us. And I love that for them.