who we are and all that we're trying to be
Even with his blunders, his ineffectual demeanor, his inability to ever communicate with any god, he’d still managed to please the baker – bright smiles and effervescent grins, and he lowered his eyes to the fire, his intentions clear and concise. He witnessed them flicker in the flames, sent to either a deity amongst the stars or nowhere at all; but it didn’t really matter, in the grand scheme of things, because it’d been for Amalia, each action on this evening entirely anointed and consecrated for her; hands pressed, fingers intertwined, until the next movement.
For there are songs again, and he can feel the walls creeping back up over him, just like the first disastrous notes at Jigano’s mini-concert and poem reading, and why won’t the earth open up and swallow him whole now –
This wasn’t his place. This wasn’t his tether, his line, his strands.
He glanced over at Remi, at Ronin, at Amalia; wondered how they could be so comfortable opening themselves up to celestial beings and songs, laughter, merriment – chest heaving on an inaudible sigh, hands going through his bag, searching for the drum he’d used only once before. It was all he could do: listening to Amalia’s sonnets and strains, attempting to come up with the right beat, the right reverberations. It wasn’t a military match, but something else altogether, sometimes miniscule, sometimes deep, lingering fathoms, trying to match a righteous pitch to the divine.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
