#kimblar

When the earth leaves underfoot, it doesn’t hurt at all and it’s not even scary - just think, a blow under the breath and lungs, pulled together as if with a steel hoop, were worse. The soldier does not need to be afraid of inconvenience. Frank Archer never doubted that there was nothing wrong with death.

     The terrible thing is that he is still in place, and his palms are not at all transparent, when he desperately, out of habit, tries to reach Kimbley - exhausted, wounded, with a crust of blood on a tattered tunic - limping in his direction.      On the side of that, to be honest, what remains of his flesh: meat, a lot of meat, even more sticky dark red muck that poured a white as a sheet of paper face. Frank Archer tries not to look there - he, to admit, already never considered himself handsome. The death of him, this will not fix.

     When Kimbley squeezes her lips tightly, tries not to cry, while hundreds of ordinary eyes are directed at the two of them, Archer's mouth is flowing - this is a phantom heart that does not beat, but all the same, damn it, reminds me of aching pain. This is generally an eerie strange sensation, standing next to realize that it is useless to pull skinny fingers to a dry cheek and therefore sway nearby.

     It is no less strange that Kimbley swallows tangible tears, and both of them hold back impulses alien to them - run up to the corpse, falling on a frozen chest, squeeze in a ghostly embrace, loom a third superfluous and hidden from prying eyes.

     Frank Archer, unlike others, like him, poor fellow, sees no reason to deny that his life was interrupted. However, the time has not come, and he hangs in the air with an absurd hologram - not even a ghost, not a seedy ghost, and not even a dead man. He follows Kimbley everywhere, thanks to unknown gods for the fact that Zolf survived.

     He does not dare to ask how to touch the alien cheek again, to feel the native warmth of the skin that is familiar to the touch; Does not dare to hope.

     The hot wind of the eastern desert sways the thin tail of coal-black hair. Alas, this is the last time Colonel Archer can see how heavy strands develop on the fly - returning to an empty (now) apartment, Zolf without mercy, with undisguised rage, cuts them with a knife, standing near the mirror, but hesitates to look. Frank does not even want to think that the fierce tears frozen in the amber of his beloved, distant eyes now reflect his own face, dimmed with compassion.

     "I am so sorry."

     Archer drops his lips, the missing ligaments, and his voice, which exists only in the imagination, no one can hear. An imaginary pale palm rests on the shoulder trembling from convulsive sobs. Kimbley's hair is now short, short, cropped - he is still naive, touching, when he hopes that he can become even a little like him.

     Sometimes it seems to Archer that he was here not just like that: it is foolish to believe in destiny, fate or even more karma, but something makes him hope for his own need here. In fact, the Truth itself does not punish him for an unworthy life lived by the sight of throwing on a cold empty bed, too big for one, his beloved man.

You can't quit until you try

You can't live until you die

Until you learn to lie

You can't breathe until you choke,

You gotta laugh when you're the joke.

There's nothing like a funeral