smokeSCREEN : bookFOUR

you think too much, Om

"The unexamined life is not worth living."

plato?

"Yes."

perhaps you read too much, as well

Down at the Monestary, things are going on as they always have.

Virgins in white linen tending to their wholesome tasks.

Kind monks, teaching languages.

Mothers, caring for children.

"What do you think it suggests, Drac, that in this place I am a man and you are a beast?"

if I were to indulge in such thought

I would conclude that you

represent the culture the world has pressed on you

and I suggest a baser

truer nature

Virgins in white linen, practicing their letters.

"Hardly a conclusion. Perhaps an observation – but not the result of deductive logic."

what is your conclusion

then?

I sit on the pebbles, and his bulky mass hits the ground in front of me, blocking the wind. Even the clouds seem to pause in their trek across the sky. The Sun bows to us, and rests for a moment on his descent.

Time for a chat.

"I am much the same as I look in life. Does this not suggest that I represent our true nature?"

you are forgetting a crucial element

"And what is that?"

you are not living

in the world you were born in to

the world is no longer educated

it is savage

:

that is why you must rely on me

"First of all, that was a non-sequitor. Changes in the world around us could never have changed our basic, truer nature. Even if I should rely on you, this is my life. I was born into it – equipped with you at my side, indeed. And if I do, in fact, have some role to play, then it is mine. Not yours."

you will fail without all your strength

"You're not my strength – you were a crutch."

He rises from the ground and the wind hits me like a freight train.

is that why you're here?

needed a break?

The clouds are shooting across the sky. The Sun is crashing.

"Yes."

And as lightning gathers overhead, the fire rises in his eyes.

then rely on yourself

//

Michelle's huge brown eyes dart back up to mine. She wants to know.

"Ow," her leg flinches as I place a new bandage over the wound.

"Almost done," I smile.

"Well – I can just tell Crow we didn't do anything – she'll have to believe that," she says.

Goddamnit, why does she have to be so… Michelle.

"I don't know," I frown as I double-tape the bandage. "The said she wouldn't believe… a third party if they defended me."

"Who's the third party?"

"I'm sworn to secrecy," I give her a half-grin.

"It's a tangled web," she smiles back.

"But you don't think it's a lost cause with her, do you?"

I can't tell what answer she expects. So I shrug.

"I don't know."

"Jesus, Cypress, it looks like you got real lucky a lot of times," she says, pulling up my sweater to reveal the wound where the rifleman had clipped my side.

"Funny, I didn't feel like I was having a lucky day."

She laughs.

"Well, you survived it, right?"

"Yeah. Just to do it all again tomorrow."

"Remember McDonald's food?" she says, reminiscing.

"I hated that shit," I frown.

"Really? I loved it. We went there every Thursday."

"We went for dim sum every Sunday," I say.

"What's that?"

"It's like Sunday breakfast, Hong Kong style."

"Chinese food?"

"Sort of. Not really."

"I don't get it," she says.

"It's sort of a unique experience."

She lets my sweater fall and rips off the bandage on my arm where the butcher-knife lady got me.

"Much like sex, I'd imagine," she says. Our eyes meet.

//

Mountain. Wind – fresh air. No.

//

"What I'd like to know is why Lisa would go telling Crow fibs," I ask. Her brow furrows at this. Lisa has always been Michelle's best friend – this isn't quite cricket.

"Has Lisa come on to you at all?" she asks.

I nod.

Funny she should ask.

"Maybe she just wanted to… get you and Crow apart."

"I dunno – it doesn't ring true for me."

"Maybe not," she shrugs. "You want to ask her?"

"Why?"

"That's probably her outside in the hall."

"How can you tell?"

"No one else has insomnia like her."

And I listen – I strain my ear.

Someone is indeed aproaching.

I snap on my pants and tiptoe away from the bed.

"Lisa?" I whisper.

I push the door open to reveal snappy boots, kneepads, a Catholic school skirt and a white cotton shirt.

"Cypress?" she stares at me. Huge, cracked-ice blue eyes that cannot believe what they're seeing. "Crow," I gasp. Looking behind, I see what she does – Michelle jumping under the sheets, her naked legs kicking. As I turn to her Crow reaches out…

"I can explain-"

…and slams the door in my face.

I turn back to the bed – Michelle is just staring, a hand covering her mouth.

I'm exhausted.

Leaning back against the door, it swings ajar and I fall – slamming into the hard tile.

A low, but nevertheless whiny sound bursts from my lips;

"Fuuuuuuuuuuuck."

* * *