#52troop

and for a moment, even the flicker of midnight candlelight appears to bow, arrested mid-gesture , mockery, she'd said, & oh — that quip of her ingenuous heresy strikes him deeper than any blade or prayer. the chamber exhales, perfumed with dust and lingering perfume of mischief made flesh. loki remains very still, [ the way an actor does before his cue. every inch of him aware that this is his element : spotlights and mockery and such. ] ‘‘ .. mocking you? never, my dear syn. ’’ the voice arrives honey-laced, deliberate, perfidious. vowels unfurl like smoke from some invisible censer. he might jest syn the way a thirsting man touches water: hesitant, greedy, like the young do.

somewhere, the wind drags itself across the carcass of this land .. a hymn sung through hollowed-out concrete. somewhere, in unfathomable beyond, a church bell rings, its echo mangled, its note caught in the throat of the wind. crescendo of dusk, or perhaps what remains of it, bleeds into the hollowed out arteries of the woods. FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF: that’s what’s left of the church now. four walls, a roof, and the echo of hymns turned to nothing. [ observe then conclude : the pews still bleed from the boards, the air smells of rot and resurrection, of faith left too long in the sun. ] rick’s voice just a threadbare whisper, confessional in its cadence, folds itself into that same shape. the words stir something dormant. and frank, creature of aftermath, that iron-wrought reliquary of violence and smoke, exhales through what one might call a laugh.

‘‘ .. yeaaah .. yeah, man. place like that wouldn't take us no more. damn pew'd fall in soon as we walk in. roof, too. ’’

there is no blueprint for this. no comms, — no schematic that tells him how to stand or breathe beside a girl who is almost his and yet not at all and also smells really good. it's a paradox of closeness and distance sewn into every glance. she is a friend and half-step between laughter and confession. every word she gives him feels like the answer to a riddle he’s been asking his whole life, even when it’s something this simple: she loves the song he's playing in his new shitty car.

is he going to faint? he might faint.

boyhood is a restless sort of thing, all knees knocking under the table, all bitten lips and swallowed words. he is not yet a man with the language for love, only a boy clutching at phrases too small, too crooked to carry what he feels. beside her, nerves make a cathedral out of his bones, ringing with the tremor of almosts— almost brave enough, almost certain, almost hers, almost too excited to respond right back. ‘‘ .. really! -- yeah, no, totally me too! did you know, um, that the dude who wrote it did the riff by accident, like he dropped his pick and-- ’’ oh. conductor gone rouge, sketched lines in the chords. ‘‘ 'n and .. uh .. it .. riffed. -- ’’