Silver
Beautiful, thought Isolde; but she couldn’t say it because she knew that it was meaningless. The thing in there, the angel, Silver, whatever it was, transcended beauty. All roads converged here, she realized; all feelings, human or otherwise. There was no way to look back, nor any way to look ahead. There was only this one moment outside the vacuum of human existence.
Isolde pressed her hands against the glass and began to weep. She fell to her knees and wept some more. And beneath the fiber of her spirit there came an unraveling. It was painful, no doubt; not unlike being turned inside out . . . but underneath all that fragility there was a communicative device that had been there since the beginning of everything. It opened up inside of her like a swirling ocean-mouth brimming with universal truths.
And the angel/human’s eyes fell on her and there, from his wretched corner on the floor, smiled. It was every smile she’d ever received unconditionally and she knew right away that he understood everything in the way that it was meant to be understood…
With love.
4
“A bunch of mad, fuckin’ crazies is what you are!”
Willard Williams’ had the kid in a head lock. Blood gushed from the kid’s nose in snotty ropes.
“Get any on my shoes and I’ll bust it for good!”
There was a young girl too, her purple dreads lashing the air. “Let ‘em go mother fucker!”
“Not until you apologize to my friend here!”
“Apologize for what?!”
“The kid here… he made my friend sick! Made him puke up all over!”
“Your friend looks pretty drunk to me dumb asshole!”
“What you gotta say to that Smitty?”
“Kid touched me and…” Smitty’s eyes watered like he was preparing to lose it again.
Several people stood outside of Barney’s now. It wasn’t like anything new going on, but they got a kick out of it just the same. Willard Williams’ was a force to be reckoned with and they didn’t mind watching the gale and fury of his temper break loose. If anything, those carnival freaks were getting just what they deserved.
Purple dreads looked at the crowd. She knew she was much wiser than any of them and had seen things they couldn’t fathom with their beady minds, but that didn’t mean this didn’t hurt a whole helluva lot. She had spent nights anguishing over things like this and although she knew there was nothing she could do to change it, she would anguish even more. They all did; they couldn’t help it. It was partially because of him, Silver, but it was mostly because they all came from backgrounds of elusory climes; lives that sought affection in anything that might love them back… most times one just ended up getting hurt, sometimes badly.
