#rekant

This queue is long. A thin file of humans, one by one. As though order, for them, can only be retained if rigidly and individualistically imposed. Someone misjudged Brandt’s attendance rate. The line inside the bookshop uselessly and uglily switchbacks several times, intestine-like, before it disembowels out the front door and onto the sidewalk. Johnson talks to no one as he waits. He smiles to no one as he waits; not even when he reaches the front of the line almost an hour later. An hour could be nothing to a being like him. But time contracts through him like blood in fisted hands. Each moment is pressurized, dense, and felt. He sets the new copy of Brandt’s novel on the table in front of them; he will throw it away in the nearest trashcan—public or not—once he exits the shop.

          “For Lee. Lee Melanthom.”

“If you tried to wipe me, baby. Nothing would happen.” 

“You’d use your power. You’d find a real-life hard drive in the way. A full-blown radio station. You might even get zapped, but I’m not sure.” 

If one were to fact check those statements or put them to the test, Spirit isn’t entirely sure what would happen. But she sounds very, very right. 

She also sounds sort of like Kill me, kill me, kill me. Angry Bunny hasn’t, angry anybody hasn’t, angry she’s the one who’s supposed to be tail-tucked-between-the-legs in this situation. 

a premonition clinging like snow. gone at the first feeling of warmth warm because they’re like him. warm things rise (lifts dough and stale bunk bed air and mouth corners). blow warmth into a memory and it’ll density. mass per volume. feeling over memory sorry, dissipate. i don’t know the physics of staying. i can’t touch the premonition with sentiment without it seeping away. gone, anyway. gone into something else. into fog. or a part of fog. or does it really matter. it’s all icecaps. icecaps to ocean water. from solid structure to cradle. is cold a feeling is stuck a place. where ever it is, i can’t cross it.

lee pours himself a black cup of coffee in a mug he's used for the past five days and not cleaned. brown coffee seep stains all along the brim. it’s all coffee going in. what is there to clear away? he doesn’t see the point. lee sets another mug down for eden. he sits in the wooden chair across from them. at his dining table. stuck still sit set stay. lots of words that all amount to stagnation. why make it sound better than it is.

          “i forgot a future now. does that happen to you? i’ve never met another prophet. do you want a cup of coffee?”

“she’s not here.” he gestures with his chin at the doors to the therapist office. “family emergency. didn’t even have time to call and cancel all sessions.” 

david is melting and dripping down the plastic chair. his chin is on his chest, his hands are tucked into the pockets of his striped pants and his feet are firmly planted apart in a pose that could be described as the next level of manspreading. he looks like a high schooler aggressively waiting to be picked up by the parents who forgot about him.