Friday, May 29, 2015

Immaterial

Immaterial
by
Bobby Derie

The dawn watch began the waking-song, low voices warbling at the edge of Sfza that faced the sea. In the row houses, the hearth-wardens tending the fires took it up, singing softly, and brown bodies stretched and scratched, yawned and rose to make water outside. Some were already up and about, stepping quiet as could be between the other sleepers for pre-morning chores, couples engaged in quiet lovemaking. Those whose shift it was took up the song as the wardens went to find their own beds, feeding dry sticks into the fire to raise the flames.

Daana Sendaugha kissed her lovers as she rose, and reminded herself to take the bitter herb today, because she still did not yet feel ready for a child. She opened the skins tied to the walls to let in the light and the air. The Daughters in the Grafza house were already at their exercises, women moving through the slow rhythms and poses of the moving meditation; the Sons sat a ways away, braiding each other's hair, the old men painting the faces and bodies of the young men. Their Speech was still strange, words clipped and full of new words, and Daana liked to listen to their stories, for their Mothers knew tales of Orbach that none others in Sfza had heard.

Taking her basket, Daana headed down to the beach with the others, with their wooden rakes and stone knives, part of the throng who combed the shores and shallows for the clams and the skittering crabs; to hunt with net and spear for the small fish and sharks in the deeper waters. The children came behind, herded by the old men and women, to gather driftwood, salt, and seashells, singing their own songs. A small group brought a fire-pot, which curled with smoke, and set up by the smoke-tent on the path from the beach to the Sfza, beside the great shell-middens. Through the morning the baskets were filled and taken to the tent to be cleaned, salted, and set to smoke. Daana's stomach growled, but the best crabcakes would wait for a few hours, when the old mothers had crushed the herbs and stoked the fire and set the tubers to bake near the coals, and the porters would bring the beer so that the sea-gatherers could break their fast properly.

Daana returned as Jonze was being untied from the pole. Black shit caked his thighs, and his lips were cracked and parched, and none would meet his eyes as the old women unthreaded the rope that had been tied through a hole cut in his lips. Three days was too little for what he had done, but it was the penalty that had been assigned, and perhaps now he would learn to ask before taking.

Flabby-breasted grandmothers cackled obscene jokes while rolling cigarillos of strong herbs as Daana passed, and the men tugged at their beards and shook their heads at the youths of today, who did not wish to join the Society of the Great Elk, but formed their own crude gangs, the Black Crabs and the Blood Wolves and other outrageous names. Daana laughed at the laments, and wondered if she would bitch as much should she live so long.

In the bathing-pool, Daana stripped and scrubbed, gossiping with the other men and women, watching a few young girls disappear together into the rushes for sport with a smile. When she was a girl, her own elders might have seen them beaten for such behavior, but times changed. The coming of the Grafza, the debate on the Sayings of Orbach, which recognized the Maiden's Rights, the overthrow of old Tmoch who had taken too many liberties during the puberty rites...and with him, many of those Elkers who had sworn by him, and hung their heads when they heard what he had done.

The news came with a yell as bright-eyed Yonya ran up to the shore, his eyes blacked to protect them from the glare of the sun, shell-beads woven into his hair. Daana listened as he said that the Sal-Tzona were three days away, and wished to hold moot on the grassy hills beyond Sfza. Daana felt her heart quicken; the tally-counters had said they would be by this moon, and there was much to prepare. The Sal-Tzona brought the most popular songs from the villages to the east, aromatic woods that did not grow near Sfza, amber and copper too, and that strange beer that everyone always drank too much of. The noise level grew as Yonya ran on, carrying the news.

There was much to do before they arrived - to set up the hearth for the sacrifice, the timing and preparation of the feast, the invocation...she remembered last year, when she had watched them doing their leaping dance by the fire, and dragged down a wiry pale-limbed boy with the most beautiful strange eyes...and sat up debating the Sayings of Orbach long into the night with a warm little thing that she was tempted to beg to stay. She had woken the next morning with a sore ass, a hangover, a Sal-Tzona sun-sigil tattoo'd on her arm, and three of her best shell-bracelets missing. With a smile, she shook the six shell-bracelets on her wrist, listening to them clink against each other, and hoped this year she would remember more...

#

Behind the glass, a bare-breasted plaster woman sat before a fire, her back to the wall of a rough cave. She wore no ornaments, her dress was little more than a dearskin frock. On the back wall of the exhibit was painted a great savannah, where a family unit of mammoths roamed; a man with a spear was just visible in the tall grass. Held up on a plinth nearby was the dirty brown-and-yellow skull, broken and missing teeth, a small dead thing.

"We still don't know much about this culture," the melodic electronic tour voice droned musically, "because little of their material culture has come down to us. Anthropologists can only speculate as to what their immaterial culture and society might have been like..."

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Friday, May 22, 2015

The Moral Universe

The Moral Universe
by
Bobby Derie

After tea found Mason and his young friend in the library, as one ghoul might with quiet pride show off his larder to a drooling compatriot in the forbidden feasts. Yellowed skulls decorated several of the mantles on the shelves, each with its own provenance of luck, purchase, or gift from a fellow traveler in the macabre. The contents of the shelves ranged from modern paperbacks to cracked old leather books with rusty iron hinges, delicate Japanese-style folding books and scarce letterpress editions, comic books and fanzines in their plastic sleeves, all stacked and sorted by an arcane system which only Mason himself knew intimately - for, as he said, every library should have its secrets, and ever librarian should guard and add to them.

On some strange impulse, Mason took down an expensive - if not particularly obscure - copy of Blake's The Stairs in the Crypt from a tall shelf, and opening to a page marked by a scrap of leather he claimed was human flesh, an old razor-strop made from the backskin of a particularly unfortunate Cherkoee - he read aloud a few lines from "The Feaster from the Stars:"

"For we are fortunate indeed the universe is blind and dumb to our actions; and that there is no intelligence Outside to judge us. There is no greater horror than a moral univere."

Mason's voice was a tenor, that tended to get high-pitched when he was speaking fast or excited, but here in his element his diction was slow, sonorous, and deliberate, and he could not help but deliver the reading except with a certain curl of the lips and a secret joy.

"What do you think he means by, a moral universe?"

The smile did not die from Mason's lips, but without a word he replaced Blake's book in its alcove, and moving over to another shelf revealed one of the secrets of the library: a hidden panel containing a few old bottles, and a pair of glasses. Without asking, he poured two stiff fingers in each glass, and pressed one into his visitor's hand.

"I should think it perfectly obvious. We live in a universe ruled by physics, and the laws, as much as we can discern and model them with our mathematics, have no moral imperative. Despite what the ancients might believe, there is no repercussion - at least not in this world - for murder, or rape, or sorcery. Governments and police forces were crafted to deal with theft and bloodshed and all crimes in between. Nor - and this is where it is important - are such activities rewarded." He took a sip and grimaced as he swallowed, and his eye fell on one of the yellowed skulls.

"Imagine, then, a moral universe. Imagine what would happen if there were things outside our perception, which watched and judged us. If they were anything like the god of the Old Testament, ours would be a strange and terrible world indeed, locked forever in an unending state, life subscribed by laws enforced by heavenly fire, poxes, and the promise of eternal damnation. But imagine again if the figures were malevolent - to empower dark miracles and rewards when there was murder or bloodshed."

Mason refilled the drinks.

"But all this is far outside our sphere of reference; such a world would be unrecognizable. Each battlefield would be Armageddon, each tribal conflict an apocalypse. No, let us think again, and refine our metaphysics. Let us say that such powers do exist, and that they do work certain effects - but that those effects are limited, and the powers morals are alien rather than outright evil; or at the least, their tastes are sufficiently refined from ours that the everyday sins earn no special effect. Instead, these entities would reward more specialized evils - not just murder, but long-drawn out deaths that involve betrayal and torture; incest heaped upon incest; abominations with animals ending in terrible feasts; artistic craftsmanship with human remains - nothing out of the sure spectrum of human history and experience, but crimes that are both rare and more terrible than others, fitted to a Gilles de Rais or Elizabeth Bathory, a Mengele or Gein. So this world would, at the least, have its share of horror stories, of supernormal acts that bring about supernatural effects."

He set his drink back down, and passed over to one of the larger cabinets, unlocked its glass doors, and brought forth a large book - at least two feet high by eighteen inches wide - and opened it to a familiar etching of a cannibal's butcher shop.

"Now, this is strange enough. But let us suppose it is a dark science, that the metaphysics in this moral universe are as sure as the physics are in our universe. One or two serial-killers might stumble upon a few effects that are reproducible - and, bolstered by their discoveries, seek to experiment and vary their sins. Perhaps a few even wrote down their  discoveries!" One pale figure pointed to the butcher, whose cleaver was raised against a background of human limbs hanging from hooks. "And, of course, perhaps someone with a hunger for power and fewer scruples took notice, and decided the whole thing needed organizing. Already in our own world we recall with horror the sacrifice of infants in the furnace of Baal, and God's demand of Abraham. Of the mass infantcide in China after the One Child Rule was passed. The Flower Wars of the Aztecs, where prisoners were led up the temple-pyramids to be sacrificed and flayed. Now imagine if there was a society ruled along those lines, but the powers worked."

Mason closed the book and replaced it in the cabinet.

"You see, that is the horror of a moral universe. It is not that there are things beyond our ken, or things that might judge our actions. It is the possibility that they might give us incentives. What would you sacrifice, for progress? Imagine an ancient Egypt where great trains were pulled by rites powered by the blood of newborns; an Egypt twisted to provide the fuel for an industrial revolution five thousand years early. Women brought back to rape camps, the raw material for the spells that kept a Pharaoh young for eternity. A shaven-headed scribe recording the results as father was bred to daughter, to granddaughter, to great-granddaughter, all in hopes that the sacrifice thus born would prove slightly more efficient went feasted upon in the dark of the moon, or its bones twisted into an amulet against unwanted conception."

Mason smiled, his eyes dreamy and lost in a vista of horrors that played in his mind.

"We are fortunate indeed."

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Friday, May 15, 2015

The Old R'lyeh

The Old R'lyeh
by
Bobby Derie



The sunset was painted on the wall in indelible pinks and purples, lit by carefully concealed lamps on a ceiling that faded from a cloudless blue to a star-studded midnight-navy night. All around the room ran the lazy river, unnaturally clear water circulating gently as it flowed and out of the pool which took up a full quarter of the basement, a private lagoon whose bottom was painted gradually deeper shades of blue-green to give the impression of depth it didn't have, and which sloped gently from about five feet deep up to an artificial beach that was perhaps nine feet long, the cement giving way at last to ragged green felt and spiky astroturf. There was a three-hole minigolf course spread out along the river, with silk ferns and palm trees with silk leaves that swayed gently when the air conditioner was blowing; a flight up steps that let up a ten-foot tall mountain, and a tiki god whose blazing eyes and balltrap mouth were currently turned off. Somewhere in the middle, tucked in among carven cannibal gods and artificial jungle,  was a small native bar, all bamboo, rattan, and dried palm fronds; a Disneyland special that was probably built wholesale, and hid a small refrigerator and taps, as well as a floor hatch that led to an underworld cave of pipes, kegs, pumps, and a small cellar for wine and the better beer. The bar was angled so those sitting at the stools could turn and face the beach and the wall beyond, which had been painted as an endless ocean, with a small island in the middle distance.

Vade, as expected, was behind the bar with jigger and spoon. Sheyla noted a few changes since the last time she'd come down. A hand-painted sign above the bar said "Pickman's Cove" in green letters on white, and the and the tiny bookshelf to the left of the bar proper had books with titles like Blasphemous Cocktails and old pulp magazines studded with bookmarks. There was some new drinkware on the counter too - squat, ugly green tiki-mugs like Samoan squid-gods, and tall fogcutters bedecked with skimpy mermaids with more teeth than normal. Vade smiled a hello as she took a stool across from him, and handed her a martini glass filled with something orange and smoky.

"Drink."

"Salut." He watched it disappear down her throat as the glass tilted. A river burned its way down to her stomach, and in its wake came a strong wash of dates and apricots. Sheyla handed the glass back with a grimace, unsure if the gritty remainder clinging to the bottom was sand, salt, or sugar. "Needs work. What is it?"

"The Alhazred." He pulled out a thin, tall yellow pamphlet that proclaimed itself The Compleat Lovecraftian Bar Guide. "I was inspired by this, but I broke one of the rules. Date wine, apricot brandy, overproof rum."

Sheyla raspberried. "Mixing liquors. No wonder it didn't wash. Always decide on your basis first."

Vade threw up his hands, lifting his head to the sky. "The scientist should not critique the artist."

She snorted, and dug a hand into the fruit bowl, digging out a small keylime. Without waiting for her to ask, he placed a paring knife and a tumbler on the bar before her.

"It is true," he said, as she began to peel the green skin from the fruit, and he washed her old glass. "Mixology is not a science, but an art. If it was a science, it would be a mere exercise in chemistry. But in crafting a drink, you have to seek a subjective balance, not an absolute one. Science cannot measure taste, texture, smell, and mouth feel."

"It partakes of science," She dumped the peel in the glass. Vade reached for a light Bacardi, but Sheyla gave him the eye and he reached for a bottle of Brugal. "Alcohol content. Ph. Specific gravity."

"Cooking too," he said, fetching the falernum and ice. "Measure by weight, not volume. For better results, use better ingredients - which may not be the most expensive. Fresh is better."

She stirred the drink with a dark-green swizzle-stick, the plastic pole headed with another tentacled fetish, ice clinking against glass until it was a light greenish-gold, the remains of the peel a dark secret in its depths. Vade watched her sip, and smiled at her smile. "Where did you get these things?" she held up the swizzle-stick.

"Kickstarter." Reaching across the counter for her free hand, she let him hold it. "I'm glad you're here. You can help me in my research."

That occasioned an eyebrow. "The Alhazred?" He shook his head. "Something else, I think. I have been inspired of late."

He reached down from the shelf and spread out the old magazines - not even full magazines, she noted, but yellowed and browned fragments that had been cut and taped together into thin make-shift books, the magazines themselves probably crumbled like ancient papyrus scrolls. Frozen in black-and-white ink on soft brown paper were strong-jawed men in Victorian jungle explorer mode, squid-headed idols draped in lianas or surrounded by fire, fish-men like Mayan friezes, terrified old sailors clutching at their bootleg whiskey.

"It must be exotic," he fetched out two clean, tall glasses. "But not too exotic. Simple enough to remember, complicated enough to entice."

"And drinkable," she took another sip. "Basis. Not whiskey or vodka."

"No, I think rum," he frowned. "A New World flavor, but to capture the story it must have a taste of the Pacific. Something tropical."

"Which means juice. You're thinking of a variant," she set the drink down, glanced at the artificial sunset painted on the west wall. "So let's start with a zombie."

"Not a mai tai?"

"I can't choose between Don and Vic."

"Very well, I have no objection. Let us leave out the Pernod, though. Too European."

"That'll leave the drink too strong. Flatten it out a bit?"

"I'd like to leave it with a little bite."

"Indian tonic water," she set the empty glass down, and he let her hand go to do the washing up. "Just a hint of ginger and quinine in there."

Vade nodded, and began assembling a collection of rums, tonic water, and fruit.

Sheyla tapped a jar of something viscous and yellow labeled '#5.' "Que?"

"Pineapple shrub, with raw sugar." He opened the jar and fetched forth a teaspoon. The syrup was the consistency of honey, with tiny yellow chunks still floating in it.

"That's quite good, actually." She smacked her lips, and Vade smiled. "A new recipe. I let it sit in the fridge, rather than boiling it. Retains more of the flavor of the fruit."

"Then you should definitely use that in place of the pineapple juice. A zombie shrub! I like the sound of that." He nodded, and moved the limes and syrup to one side, then assembled a row of bottles before her. "As for the rums..."

"Bacardi 151 for the float." She began turning the bottles this way and that. "Kraken for the dark - it'll help offset the tonic water. Brugal for the gold." She hissed and pointed at a small bottle. "Vade, no. Not again." He held his hands to his heart, but took the bottle of Bay Rum and pushed it to the side. "You never did try my hair tonic," and she gave him another raspberry. Finally, she picked out a bottle of Don Q. He obediently set the three bottles aside. As he crushed the ice, she flipped idly through the magazines, pausing at times to run a finger over an unfamiliar word.

"I have been thinking," Vade admitted, as he filled the glasses with ice. "There should be a ceremony to it."

"Drinking is not a religion; it's hardly even a philosophy." Sheyla played with a swizzle stick. "But, perhaps you're right. If it works for a Manhattan, it can work for a...what are we calling this?"

"Leave that for the tasting."

"Alright. Juice, tonic, and syrup first, over the ice. That'll help control the sweet and the sour."

Obediently, he began squeezing the limes into each glass, and measuring out jiggers of syrup and tonic water. The glasses were not quite half full.

"Rums, light to dark. The heavier rums will sink, the lighter will rise. Float the 151 on top. Just in case anyone wants to set it alight."

Vade poured the shots, and she scribbled on a cocktail napkin. "You know," as the glasses began to sweat and the drinks got darker and darker, "we had better get this right the first time, we won't be able to drink many of these."

"True. I think this will be it for me. You don't mind, do you?"

"Not at all." As he finished stirring, he handed one to her. The glasses clinked, and they sipped through the overproof rum. Vade swished it around before swallowing, Sheyla held it on the tongue then let it flow backwards down her throat.

"I could drink this."

"Yo tambiƩn. Needs something, though."

Together, in a brief moment of harmony, they both said the same word. Vade set the glass down and dug around behind the bar, bringing forth a selection of tiny bottles. Sheyla began rooting through the bitters.

"Nothing too new." She crinkled her nose. "I love those orange bitters, but this cocktail needs age to temper it."

"That leaves only two choices," he put the bottles of Angostura and Peychaud's before her. Without even consulting him, she grabbed the Peychaud's and began measuring out a doubledash in each glass. They clinked again, and drank.

There were no words, for the next few minutes. Vade came out from behind the bar and sat on the stool next to her, so they could sit and hold hands, staring at the painted sunset, and the lonely island. Overhead, the lights clicked through to the next cycle, the "sky" darkening, more stars visible on the ceiling overhead, forming familiar patterns as constellations emerged from hiding.

"I proclaim this, the Old R'lyeh." Vade held up the glass, empty save for the ice and dregs. Sheyla set her glass down and scribbled on the napkin, where she'd been recording the recipe in progress.

###
Old R'lyeh
1 part white rum
1 part golden rum
1 part dark rum
1 part Indian tonic water
1 part key lime juice
1 part pineapple vinegar syrup*
1/2 part 151-proof rum
2 dashes of Peychaud's Bitters


Mix the tonic water, juice, bitters, and syrup together, then pour over crushed ice. Slowly add the rums, from light to dark, floating the 151-proof rum on top.


* The syrup is made in the manner of a shrub. Take a fresh pineapple and cut it into small cubes - you'll need about two cups of cut pineapple - and crush the cubes, being sure to lose as little of the juice as possible. Add two cups of Demerara sugar and stir it up, then let sit in the fridge overnight. Strain out the solids (except for any remaining sugar) and take the syrup and add two cups of drinking vinegar; stir until the sugar is dissolved. Bottle it and let it sit in the back of the fridge, shaking or stirring occasionally if the sugar falls out.

Friday, May 1, 2015

Infidelity

Infidelity
by
Bobby Derie

They broke the kiss with a blush, and May turned away with a smile, hefting her suitcase. The taste of her lingered on his lips as he waved at the taxi as it pulled away. He waited until the bumper disappeared rounding the great oak tree, and quietly closed the door.

Dawnlight spilled into the breakfast nook as he spread out the paper and poured the tea. The steam rose and filled the air with the scent of ginger and citrus. Almost absentmindedly, he had set out two places, and smiled at the second cup as it cooled. Before him, the tiny black runes on the dead gray paper seemed determined not to give up their secrets. So he sat back and drank his tea, watching the steam rise from the second cup. The warp and weft reminded him of her, how she would hold the mug with both hands, eyes closed, and just bathe her face in it, as if trying to absorb all the essence of the tea at once through her skin.

Morning found him in the library; all interest in the now forgotten as he delved into the past. Some of the books were his, others from his father's and grandfather's collections, and two full bookshelves built into the walls had come preloaded with dusty, cracked leather-bound tomes from one of the previous occupants. The dust motes floated in the still sunlight as he rummaged among the shelf, tiny clouds of particles seeming to hang for a moment in outlines of a familiar shape before falling back again.

Night stole into the bedroom, where without a thought he had pulled down the covers on her side of the bed, and puffed out the candle flame. Through the window, the city light spilled in and gave strange shape to to the darkness and the thin curl of smoke. His lay awake, eyes settling into the darkness, colors muting into shades of black and blue-grey. Something about the sway of the trees and the smoke gave the illusion of ringlets of hair falling around an unseen head, tresses which did little to hide the shape of the breasts they spilled over. Sleep, when it came, found him wondering at the shape and heaviness of those unfamiliar teats.

She was there again the kitchen, as he instinctively poured the second cup. He could see her more clearly now, through the steam. Long straight hair, eyes that curled up at the corners, the ghost of a ghost of a smile on the shadow lips. He read the news aloud to her, eyes flicking through the articles at random, picking out words that became an impromptu poem. Again, by instinct, he became aware of the words, began to shape the narrative. There was a theme there, though he could not name it, and when he turned the last page the tea in both cups was cool.

The shade in the library was different, this morning; the light warmer, the dust settled as he came in. Yet there were three books he had taken down from the shelf and laid out the other day - and the shape, the curve of the spines as they lay there, was evocative of another, more familiar shape. Shaking his head, he fell into the researching, pen and pad at the ready to catalog, stopping every now and then when the subject matter was particularly interesting, or by an author he knew. Almost without being aware of it he felt her then, as the dust rose up around him in the golden sunlight. She seemed to be ignoring him, lazing idly in the bright patch on the floor like a cat. Not the same, he could see. The hair was curly, not straight, the hips too wide, the mouth too generous... With a dull thud, he clapped the book shut and set it back into its spot on the shelf.

He drank, before bed, and lounged long in his chair. The afternoon had been long hours of dread, and he avoided the bedroom, the library, the breakfast nook. The merits of an alcoholic slumber here, in the den, had its appeal...and yet, and yet. The brandy swirled in the glass. What if they found him here?

Midnight found him slipping between the sheets, but his heart beat too fast. The moon hid its face tonight, and the darkness had grown to cover most of the room. He waited, a slight feverish flush coming to his head and cheeks. Minutes slipped into hours, and still he lay awake, mind going back again and again to those shapes, those shades, those echoes of women, none of whom were May...

When the clock struck softly, and the wind was still, he saw her then. A thing of shadow, she walked towards him on long legs, the light giving just enough definition to her form - bony, taut, but the thinness that spoke of losing too much weight too quickly, the breasts unnatural mounds on a figure where you could count the ribs. A hand reached out to him, and the skin was not smooth or young, but webbed with the arches of veins and small, powerful muscles. He couldn't move, he realized, as she drew back the cover. At her mercy, the finger touched his shoulder - a caress like burning ice, there and then gone as she pulled it away. No pressure, no lasting pain, just the sensation. She touched him again, and his body tensed automatically, still not under his control, and withdrew. Again and again, fingers exploring him, the shape of him, the touches lasting longer each time, and each time he tensed less as he got used to the sensation. Before he knew it he shivered with a different kind of anticipation, he recognized the beat she was using, the direction her hands were traveling. Burning ice slipped down his pants and gripped his scrotum, and as he lay there panting, her smile was a wicked slash of midnight, a blackness darker than the night.

The dawnshade he called Miko. She waited for him, every day, to make her tea, and listened with wrapt attention as he read the paper to her, sometimes reading the news out loud, sometimes once more playing one of his little poetic games. Her smile chased back the shadows of the night, the odd aches and scratches that should not have been there, the cold ache between his legs. Sometimes, as he turned the pages, he felt the brush of a hand or arm against his own, a bright warmth like contact with a cat. He could see her much more clearly now, as the steam rose from the cup; he could make out the little bruises on her throat, where the chain had been wrapped. When the tea was cool, and the paper done, he would excuse himself and head to the library.

The bookwife sprawled outside her shelf, the stacks of old leather tremendously suggestive of her curves. He read to her too, while the light lasted, lying down to spoon around her while the sunlight lasted. Sometimes they slept that way, in the afternoons, and he woke to find his arm stiff and half asleep, and strands of hair too long to be his laying here or there. Once, they had spelled out in perfect cursive, the word "Ginger." So that is what he called her, during those daily trysts.

With night came the hag. She never rode him, never spoke nor cuddled. Somehow he felt she was always there, watching, as he prepared for bed, laying down the covers, lighting the candle and pinching it out, so the smoke trailed up to the ceiling. Waiting for the moment. She liked to let him wait, as much as he liked waiting. He had learned to like it.

One morning the door cracked, the hinges squeaked. Outside, a car engine was running. "Honey!" He could hear the smile. "I'm home!"

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