an unlikely sort of friendship . electric-hum quiet congeals between it and stacks of dust-swept records, the sort of hush that never quite belongs in the belly of the WSQK 94.9 after hours. an accidental sanctum made , carved out of cheap linoleum and old vinyl. the on air placard, long since extinguished. eddie exists there in the middle of this mausoleum of sound , some errant constellation stitched out of denim and unease and incomprehensible insult of existing in a place that believed him to be a monstrous thing. rather, still does.
observe: .. his silhouette flickers as though unstable, a figure whose atoms have forgotten the choreography of remaining still. the board before him, a leviathan of knobs, sliders and dead bulbs watches with unblinking devotion. and into this, one robin buckley speaks. selfishly.. i hope you stay. @rawkinrobin not loudly nor with any sort of flourish, just enough to cleave the room in clean two.
and that sentence of hers detonates without sound, a bloom of meaning that ricochets off the soundproofing. it lands where the world has been scraped thin: the place where he's tucked the word murderer , the place where hawkins has carved its thesis into his bones. robin, a captain of quips, harbinger of cutting commentary now stands in the quiet of the squawk offering something fragile.
he laughs. or at least attempts to. it's half incredulous and half doubtful, thumb worrying at the fraying duct tape on the arm of the rolling chair, peeling and re-peeling a strip. āĀ is that a legitimate, unironic, emotional statement from rockin' robin buckley ? ā he swivels a little, twirling to meet her face to face. āĀ call scotland yard. ā
his fingers drum relentlessly against the chair : rat-a-tat-tat. softens, āĀ i dun'no, man. i'm not sayin' i'm packin' my bags tonight. i just .. ā a falter so minute it might be mistaken for a static hitch. exhales through his nose, long and uneven. his gaze breaks toward the empty booth window as though someone may be watching. a boot scuffs at the floor, shifting gravel-dry dust and shrugs one shoulder. chrissy is dead, the upside down locked down. and yet, it's still not enough. āĀ it's a limbo. hawkins carved some bullshit kind of headline. y'know. murdering freakshow. facts don't matter. so ..yeah, it's kind of tough shit to settle back in with that fan club. ā the familiar quake of a boy who has never once been invited to stay without calculating the exits. his throat is lodged with shrapnel beneath the sternum. a tremor running the faultline between fight and flight , because eddie's a quiet cataclysm. town pariah, headline villain.
