Artifacts [Read Only] - Printable Version

+- alonimi (https://alonimi.net)
+-- Forum: Out of Character (https://alonimi.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=68)
+--- Forum: The Repository (https://alonimi.net/forumdisplay.php?fid=76)
+--- Thread: Artifacts [Read Only] (/showthread.php?tid=638)

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 10-03-2016



“Whose phone is that?” Cain asked, his fingers were inside the peritoneum of the anesthetized canine on the operating table repairing a severe hernia. A phone was vibrating somewhere in the room.

Indigo, who was assisting in the procedure, glanced around spying the phone in question, “Yours.”

“Make it stop.” He ordered, grey eyes glancing over to hers from above his surgical mask. His hands were still, they’d continue the work when it was quieter. “Actually see who it is.” Usually only Akiko or Holland texted him. Sometimes his siblings. Even more rarely his mom.

Indigo broke away, pulling off her gloves and disposing of them in the bin, before taking his phone. “How do I unlock this thing?”

“Zero nine two nine.” Cain answered, his fingers were already moving again.

Indigo unlocked the phone and quickly opened the text messages that had come through. Indigo rolled her eyes at the cutesy contact name: It’s Akikooooo.

> Hey!
> wanna check out that new sushi place later?
> let me know

“Can you hurry up?”

“Sorry your phone is weird. I don’t know iPhones. I have Samsung.” Indigo complained. She was lying. It was fairly self-explanatory how to silence a phone. She texted back:

> Can’t. Vet called off.
>Working a double now.

Indigo deleted the messages with the exception of the last one ‘working a double now’ and turned the phone on silent before dropping it back on the countertop. She knew Cain had lied about working doubles before, so she thought she’d go ahead and do it for him. She banked on the knowledge that Cain likely wouldn’t remember to go back and check for those messages later either. “It was Akiko saying she’s going out with her co-workers tonight.”

Cain frowned, “Oh.”

“I guess you don’t get an invite?” She suggested trying to make trouble but Cain only shrugged. He probably wouldn’t have gone even if Akiko had invited him. “So you wanna hang out tonight?” She asked as she moved to the sink to return to a sterile state.

“Sure why not. I’ll just tell Akiko I’m working a double.”

She beamed at him moving back to her position by his side, “Already done.”

Without looking at her Cain shook his head, “And what if I had said I didn’t want to come out tonight?”

Indigo shrugged playfully, “I’d just convince you anyways. Like I always do.”

He seemed satisfied, “True.”


Cain was stumbling drunk through the doorway of an apartment he didn’t recognize. Indigo tripped and fell into him from behind. She caught herself, hands on his hips, laughing into the space between his shoulder blades. His tail trapped between them. She liked the feeling of his back.

“I’m wasted.” Cain observed pulling away from Indigo, tripping again over her shoes that were piled at the door. “And you’re a slob.” He muttered kicking at the shoes.

“Nice guest I have.” Indigo pouted but took his arm to guide him father into her apartment. She pulled the cord to a lamp flooding the room in light softened by a dark purple lamp shade.

To Cain, her apartment resembled a hookah lounge more than a living space. Floor covered in overlapping multi-colored rugs, pillows, cushions, and throw blankets piled along the walls, a low table in the middle. It smelled like incense, something spicy, and vaguely of weed. He wondered what Anita would make of the place.

“So whadda think?” Arms out she spun in the middle of the room while she asked his opinion. When she stopped she stumbled nearly falling over the table.

Cain caught her by the arms so she wouldn't fall. She leaned into him, hands on his chest, gazing up at him with dazed eyes. “It’s...something.” He remarked flatly, clearly it wasn’t his taste. Cain preferred his living room fitted with a flat screen TV, his gaming consoles, and he and Akiko’s ridiculous book and CD collection.

She wrinkled her nose and swatted at his face, “You’re such a downer, Cain. Little naysayer. Grumpy Cat.”

Cain dodged her hand and moved away. “I fucking hate when you call me that.” He didn’t need to say what part he hated. She very well knew.

“Oh sit down.” She demanded, pulling now at his hand.

Cain didn’t need much coaxing, the room was spinning, and he very much wanted to sit down. He wanted to lay down and sleep, really. Maybe not lay down just yet, that usually made the spinning worse. The pillows were soft, but Cain would have preferred a couch. He had long legs and sitting on pillows and cushions on the floor was not ideal. Indigo plopped next to him, wiggled close, and purposefully brushed her hand against Cain’s tail. It flicked away from her, moving to the other side of him. Indigo giggled and reached for his ears.

Cain batted her hand away, “Can you knock it off.” Her obvious advances had gone largely unnoticed by Cain, but the attention to his cat features was a forever no-no and it didn’t matter how drunk he was.

“Does Akiko get to touch your ears?” She pried as she leaned closer to him. She lifted his arm and maneuvered beneath it.

“No.” Cain let his arm be manipulated. Better than his ears or tail.

“Why not?” Indigo nestled against his side and closed her eyes. He smelled like sweat and alcohol and a hint of musky cologne. She didn’t mind at all.

“Because I don’t want her to?” Cain, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the line of questioning, moved his arm from around Indigo and scooted over to give himself some personal space.

“Why?”

“Because I’m not a pet! I’m a person!” He was angry now and started to push himself up again. “I’m going home.” Indigo grabbed his arm and pulled him down again.

“No, you’re too drunk Cain. Stay with me.”

“You’re making fun of me.” He jerked his hand away, but didn’t move to get up again.

“I’m sorry. I’m just curious. I’m not making fun of you.” Her hand smoothed over his arm to his shoulder. “You can be yourself around me.”

Cain looked away, he shrugged his shoulder to get her hand off of him. “Fine. Whatever.”

Indigo playfully bit him on the arm. “You’re so grumpy!” Before he could react, she was up again. “I’m going to freshen up a little bit. I’ll be right back.” She disappeared into an adjacent room, shutting the door behind her.

Freshen up for what? Cain didn’t ask. The room was spinning violently. The last round of shots was catching up to him. He was just sober enough to know that he didn’t want to be this drunk anymore.

When Indigo returned from ‘freshening up’ she was wearing silk pajama shorts, a tiny camisole, and smelled like apple cinnamon. She was trying to look cute, hovering at the door jam, with her best 'come hither' look in her eyes. Cain paid her no mind. He was on the floor with his shirt unbuttoned and pushed off one shoulder. His belt was around the upper portion of his left arm and he was trying to start an IV on himself.

“You’re fresh, I guess.” He said good-naturedly even as he used his teeth to tighten the belt around his arm. With his free hand he palpated the veins in the crook of his elbow. He found a good one and in went the needle. Cain forgot to cap the catheter and small spurts of his blood squirted out in time with his heart beat from the line he’d set before he realized his mistake. “Whoops!” He laughed and stopped the flow before attaching a bag of fluids into the line and opening it again.

Indigo rushed into the kitchen for paper towels or anything to clean up the blood on her cushions. “What are you doing Cain! Goddamnit you’re getting blood on my shit.”

He didn’t seem to notice that she was mad. Either too drunk or he didn’t care. “I’m sobering up. I’m about to go home.”

She returned with a wet dish cloth and some paper towels. She dabbed at the blood on the cushions trying not to push it deeper into the fibers. She felt her desire for Cain fading away. Or at least her desire for him at that particular moment was fading. He had bled on her cushions like an idiot and wasn’t playing along anyways. “Where did you even get that stuff?” She asked, impatience in her voice.

“I took it from the animal hospital for tonight. I got it out of the car while you were getting fresh or whatever. It’s just normal saline. Well I put a GI cocktail in there too. My own homemade banana bag.” He was more talkative when he was drunk sentences spilling out of his mouth like he had been saving them up. “Works like a dream. Do you want one? I can set one for you. I have an extra.” Cain smiled with pride as he poked gently at the IV site before holding the saline bag up with his free hand.

“No, I’m fine.” She stopped her work to look up at Cain. The dim lighting played across the sharp angles of his face and the curve of his lips in a rare smile. Her eyes spared a glance to the half of his exposed chest and stomach. He was so hot it hurt to look at him sometimes. She dropped the rag and towels and moved next to him. She took the bag to hold it up for him and made as if to examine the IV site. “Are you going to be okay to drive Cain? You can stay here if you want to.”

“I’m taking an Uber. I’ll get my car tomorrow or something. Akiko will be expecting me.”

He was completely oblivious of the effect he had on her. Indigo wondered if it was like that with Akiko. Whether he was so annoyingly absent-minded and unaware but impossible to get mad at because he was also so annoyingly dreamy. Those impossible grey eyes. How had he perfected that devastating stare? Those messy yet perfect curls of his. The colorful tattoos. The line of his hip bones so sharp looking like he could detach and put on a new leg if he so chose. How dare he.

“Oh.” Her mouth snapped shut. Indigo was disappointed, but she leaned against him anyway. His head fell against hers. His cheek pressed to her scalp. That was the only reciprocal physical contact Indigo could hope to expect and she knew it didn’t mean what she wanted. For the moment it felt like progress.

To Cain, it felt like progress too, for different reasons. Like he was finally making a friend who wasn’t related to him in someway or sharing his bed. But Indigo and Cain had both had too much to drink that night and their judgments were both impaired.

They stayed that way until the saline was empty. He made her explain why she didn’t own a TV. She made him describe his favorite video games. When the saline was gone so was he. Cain went home, leaving only the smell of sweat, the discarded IV supplies, and the stain of blood on the cushion.

Indigo posted pictures of them on her Instagram page. Selfies taken in a dark bar to memorialize the night. Finally talked him into it. She captioned on a picture of him somehow looking very serious yet amused. She hoped Akiko would see them. She wanted someone else to hurt when they looked at him.

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 10-07-2016



Position Title: Personal assistant to the Lieutenant Colonel
Type: Full time | Covenant of Allied Forces military contractor
Start date: ASAP
Compensation: TBD negotiable
Benefits: CAF health, life, disability ins. & 401K

Duties: providing confidential and executive level support to the Lt. Colonel including managing and coordinating administrative functions in both professional and personal environments.

Requirements:
Candidate must be literate
Candidate must handle confidential and critical details with discretion
Candidate may be required to undergo vetting for a security clearance to handle classified materials

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 10-25-2016


When Cain called his father for relationship advice, he was desperate. By the time the phone call was done, he was…surprised. Owen may have been talking to himself. Comforting himself. Reminiscing a little bit. Reassuring himself. He may have been manic rambling due to being high on cocaine. Or he may have spontaneously tapped into a well of self-reflection he didn’t know existed inside himself.

O: This is either going to be the worst relationship advice you’ll ever get, or the best. Maybe both. I don’t know. For someone who’s apparently survived relationship storms and made it work, I still haven’t figured anything out yet. And besides, nobody ever came to me for advice before. So here it goes. Listen up:

First of all, you shouldn’t be too worried. You can fix this. If she ever stops asking you for more, that’s when you should be afraid, that’s when it’s truly over, that’s when she’s given up. Setting boundaries and moving boundaries and asking for more, are signs of a healthy relationship, in my experience. There’s no such thing as a stagnant relationship held together by unconditional love. It simply does not exist. You may differ philosophically with me on this one, but I’m preemptively pulling the ‘I’m older and I have more experience with relationships’ card. And if you find yourself in a stagnant relationship with a woman who supposedly loves you unconditionally, it’s probably fatally boring. You should run away as fast as you can. That’s not healthy, or fun, or passionate, or anything you want. Relationships are flux. There’s peaks and valleys. And its commitment, expectations, and boundaries that keep it surviving through the valley and into the next peak.

Now second of all, I know you suffer from the same disease of feigned indifference that I do. And believe me, I’m sorry about that. It’s passed down on the Hart Y chromosome. I know it seems cool to be unfazed, to act unmoved, or unaffected by anything. To never admit that you’re vulnerable, or scared, or need anything. But that also translates into nothing exciting you, nothing impressing you, nothing making you happy. And that is the root of your current problem. When you’re protecting yourself from any unexpected hurt that means you miss out on a lot of the good stuff too. Specifically, you’re missing out on what she’s offering you. I don’t mean you need to walk through life catching all the bad things, letting in all the pain, having all the bullshit affect you. But if you’re not willing to let some of that stuff in then you’ll never get the good stuff. If you’re indiscriminately closed to everything you’re closed off to her too. So open up and let her in there with you. Maybe you’re afraid to be vulnerable, maybe you’re afraid she’ll figure out she doesn’t really like you all that much. But maybe actually some bad stuff will happen when you open up. Stuff you have to fight about. Like secret raves and secret drugs. But over time maybe the good outweighs the bad. I don’t know. I can’t say for sure. It’s some sappy ass sounding bullshit, I know. But I do know that I, at some point, decided that potential pain, heartbreak, disappointment, it was all worth the risk to be with your mother. So that’s something you gotta choose for yourself.

Third, I know recreational substance use is fun and all. Believe me I get it. But don’t make the same mistake that I did. Don’t have a love affair with substances, they will never love you back. Invest that in something else, someone else, anything. Just be smart about it.

And last here’s the worst advice ever, I don’t really care if you’re sorry about what you did or didn’t do. Admittedly, a lot of the time, I wasn’t sorry. Speaking as an addict here, I was never really sorry for getting high. I was sorry that your mother was mad at me or hurt by me for it. I was sorry that I got in trouble. I was sorry about the consequences. But the behavior itself. Getting high? Fuck it, I was never sorry for that. But that’s beside the point. You don’t necessarily have to be sorry for the behaviors. She just needs to know you’ve heard her. You’re listening. You’ve acknowledged her feelings. Tell her you’re sorry, even if you’re not that sorry. Try to change, even if you can’t really. Pretend you can. A lot of change comes from pretending. It feels like faking, but it’s not really, not if it actually changes you a little bit. Maybe you’re thinking, ‘well dad I’m not being true to myself if I fake being sorry’ or whatever. But are we ever really one hundred percent true to ourselves? No we constantly confine ourselves. Do you ram your car into every asshole who pulls out in front of you? Do you call your co-worker a fucking bitch when she throws you under the bus for being late? Do you kick your dog in the face when she ate your favorite shoes? Do you ever pretend to feel okay when you just fucking don’t? We pretend all the fuck day long to survive. So pretend a little bit with Akiko so your relationship can survive, see what I’m saying? I’m not saying pretend you love her when you don’t. That’s not fair to her or you. I’m saying pretend you’re sorry for not coming home on time, even if you’re not. Pretend you want to ‘share your feelings’ even when you don’t. Because that little bit of contrition, that bit of openness means more to her than it means to you to protect yourself from the momentary discomfort you experience in vulnerability. And at some point, somehow the cognitive dissonance goes away, maybe you do actually feel sorry for not calling. Maybe you do actually like the way she nods her head and touches your arm sympathetically when you tell her how you feel.

Then again maybe you can’t change. Maybe it’s not that we change or we don’t change. Maybe we just cycle around. But we’re never completely static as people. We never stop killing off these little bits of ourselves that we don’t like or that she doesn’t like and then letting those bits grow back, like warts or something. And we kill it again, digging deeper next time. So maybe if you at least try a little bit, pretend for her sometimes, that will probably get you a long way. And she’ll help you make up the distance you can’t reach. Trust me, if she loves you, she’ll meet you there wherever you get. If you just try a little bit.

C: I feel like I don't deserve her.

O: Fuck that. Listen if everyone got what they deserved, there would be no such thing as injustice. Do you think I got what I deserved when I was executed? Maybe. Probably. I did a lot of fucking horrible shit in my life. But do you think your mother deserved to be widowed because of that, because of me? Did you and Anita and Keiavan deserved to lose their father? The world just doesn’t work on the merit system. But I can tell you something about who deserves what. Akiko doesn’t deserve to have the love and affection she wants to give you minimized by your low assessment of yourself. Julianna… your mother, didn’t deserve to have me repeatedly throw her love and commitment for me back in her face like she made a bad call for choosing me. We can’t help who we love sometimes, I know. But this goes back again to boundaries and expectations. Again we can’t help who we love sometimes. But we can say, enough is enough. When Akiko says I need ‘x’ for this to continue. That’s her claiming what she deserves in love. Akiko is reaching out to you to give her what she deserves. And you have direct control over that. You have the power in this situation to give the woman you love what she deserves. And that’s a fucking opportunity you shouldn’t throw away. My marriage worked out because I cashed in on the opportunity your mother gave me. So, you feel like you don’t deserve her? Well a) stop telling her how to feel about you. Her feelings are valid, her feelings are hers, they’re not yours to control. And I, perhaps am biased as your father, think she made a fucking great choice with you. Hart men, are one of a kind. We’re not a credit to our kind, surely not. But we’re something. And b) do as she asks, meet her expectations, and I guarantee you’ll feel more like you deserve her.

C: So what do I do?

O: Send her some flowers. Put on that aftershave, or cologne, or whatever scent she craves. Whether you think it sucks or not, just put it on. Put on that shirt she complimented you on. Put on those pants she likes. Clean yourself up. Listen to some sappy love songs. Have a couple of drinks. Then call her and tell her you want to meet her to talk. You’ll be looking good, all contrite, smelling fucking fantastic, and you’ll apologize. Things might get heated, you might argue. But if she tries to walk away you stop her. You tell her to sit back down, you’re not leaving without me, or I’m not leaving without you, whichever the case may be. Tell her you belong together. Tell her she belongs to you, and you’re not willing to let go without a fight. Ask her to give you another chance. And before you know you’ll be having make up sex. You aren’t on a quest to resolve unrequited love. She already loves you. You just suck at loving her back. So show her you don’t suck as much as she thought. Or you’re willing to not suck so much at it. If it doesn’t work, remember, I warned you I am not good at relationships. Your mother was good at that. She showed me what to do, and even though I was a slow learner, she was a heavy weight champion at forgiveness. Let’s hope Akiko is too.

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 11-03-2016


A fragmented almost syncopated rhythm of rain on the roof crescendoed into a full on percussive battering. Knowing how the rain made Owen restless and anxious, Ishara had tasked the child with sketching the images of herbs into her journal. She provided him with the plants and a healer’s encyclopedia to copy the scientific name of the plant and its medicinal properties for her. She had noticed her youngest had a talent for drawing having caught him in the act of producing impressive, realistic renderings of their house and other buildings. She’d even caught him on occasion tracing maps from his father’s military files. Ishara would occupy the uneasy child with a job that could encompass his attention and encourage a natural ability.

Ishara brushed her fingers over his hair. She smiled at the way he stuck his tongue out as he studied the plant. How best to draw it, he seemed to wonder. Satisfied that her son would remain engaged, she slipped away to have a moment of peace. The child had not let her alone since Renly had died. Though certainly old enough, he hadn’t accepted that his father was gone. A solemn military funeral did nothing for his denial. He had stood with that stubborn frow set on his brow during the entire ceremony. Crossed his arms and refused to take the white lily to lay on his father’s casket. When it was time to leave, he was suddenly unwilling to go. He didn’t want to leave his father there in the ground it seemed. Ishara wept and Darcy carried the broken child from the funeral service.

Since then it had been a series of unending ‘when is dad coming homes’ from the boy. She felt worn to her breaking point.

His father had left on a rainy night. Owen frowned at the ceiling when the sounds of the downpour drowned out every other noise in the house. He finished drawing the stem of the plant his mother had given him and glanced around for her surveilling eyes. She was nowhere to be found. Quietly he stole to the door. The locks clicked and he was out on the porch scowling into the rain. Maybe his father would come home on a rainy night. He stepped out far enough to feel the dripping of rain from the edge of the roof on his shirt. A figure moved in the dark on the ground some distance away. It cried out in pain. Cried out for him. He ran back inside, slamming the door shut as he did so.

The sounds of Owen’s desperately yelling for her from downstairs drew out the worried mother. “What is it Owen? Why are you wet?” She knew full well he’d gone to look for his father. She couldn’t leave him alone for a moment.

“Father is outside.” He was tugging on her hand. “He’s hurt mom. We have to help him. Come on. Come on.”

Ishara jerked her hand from her son’s urgent grasp. “Enough!” Her voice sounded shrill to her own ears and he jumped, scared of the sound she’d made. “Stop. You have to stop, Owen.” She knelt down to pull the child in her arms and pleaded for his obedience. “He isn’t there. He isn’t coming back.”

Owen squirmed to push away from her. He stared at her just as Renly would. Rational and levelheaded. Serious in his claims. “There is someone outside.” He affirmed.

She sighed. He wouldn’t be moved. He wouldn’t be satisfied until she took him out in the rain to look for the man. Ishara held her hand out for him. “Let’s go see.”

Owen was wrapped up against the downpour in a bright yellow raincoat and Ishara covered herself similarly. Out into the rain and sure enough there was the body of someone in obvious bad shape on the ground. Ishara would be lying if her heart hadn’t picked up at the idea of it being Renly. Just for a moment. But the figure was small. Much too small to be her Renly.

Owen followed close behind until Ishara’s arm stopped him some few feet away from the body on the ground. “Wait here.” She instructed as he craned his head trying to get a peak around his mother who purposefully placed herself in his line of sight lest the child see something gorey. He was much too young for viewing mangled bodies.

Owen was left watching the soggy grass that squished under her feet. The sound like a growl and the jerking of the body. Eager he moved forward as his mother tsked and coaxed the broken figure to stand.

It wasn’t his father. It was a woman. A strange looking woman with wet cat ears and a terrible wound on her arm. He found himself staring wide eyed at her. The disappointment that would settle upon him later was delayed by his morbid curiosity.

Inside, the door to a healing room was shut in his face with a sharp command from his mother to stay away. Owen ran to find his sister to brag about what he’d witnessed.

“I saw her bones inside her arm like in the medical pictures.” His eyes were wide with the excitement.

Victoria feigned puking with her hand over her mouth. “Gross. Why do you always like that stuff?”

Knocked down somewhat by being called gross, Owen frowned at his sister. “You’re just jealous you didn’t get to see a lady with ears like a cat.” He pushed his hands atop his head to mimic the shape and wiggled his fingers at his sister to taunt her.

“You’re lying.” She sneered and shoved her brother’s hands down.

Owen folded his arms over his chest and lifted his chin. He would have looked down his nose at his sister if he weren’t the shorter of the two. “Fine. Suit yourself.” And he turned on his heel to leave the room. “I’m going to go talk to the cat lady with the gross arm.” He swung his arm back and forth in a way he felt would emphasize the grossness. “You can sit here and play with your stupid dolls.”

Her younger brother was ever the one with a sense of adventure. He was always instigating trouble. Though Victoria resisted his peer-pressure for one brave moment, she was quickly running after him in the halls. “I don’t play with dolls anymore.” She humphed when she caught up to Owen. He snickered cruelly knowing that he was partly responsible for her decision to put her dolls aside. She couldn’t keep them from her mischievous brother who somehow found more and more heinous ways to destroy them.

When they entered the room, Owen and Victoria stole inside like bandits. They weren’t supposed to bother their mother’s patients but here they were almost settling a bet. And Owen, of course, was the winner. A woman with cat ears sat up on the bed.

With a neutral face, Owen gazed pointedly at his sister. I told you so. He mostly sat frowning as Victoria dominated the earlier portion of the conversation. The basic facts of their names were exchanged and he filed the information away. Rylan, a two hundred and fifty six year old cat woman. Clearly a foreigner which was Owen’s astute observation when he finally spoke demanding to know where she was from. He almost scolded her when he made his observations suggesting that she shouldn’t have been out in the woods after dark. She was an interesting guest but she simply wasn’t his father and he wouldn’t forgive her for that. She even claimed to be of a land that his father had never showed him on any map. He stormed from the room to prove her wrong.

He probably won't find it. The woman was saying and he wheeled around creeping back towards the door. Owen positioned himself out of sight and eavesdropped on the conversation. The woman’s hand disappeared into thin air. Disappeared into darkness cast about by the fire and out came a paper. Old parchment.

Give him this.

It was a map to prove him wrong. He was furious and turned back to where he had been headed. Hours and hours he’d sat on Renly’s lap learning the continents and countries. States and cities. Waterways, mountains, deserts. Owen had been voracious for the information. In wonder and awe that he could point to a map that represented where his body was on the planet. He could pin point himself in space. How dare she call in to question the knowledge Renly had patiently laid down for him.

Victoria found him in their father’s study pouring over the maps that hadn’t moved and hadn’t been touched since Renly’s death. She dropped the parchment over the map he’d been reviewing.

“Hey!” He started to brush it away in annoyance but there were islands drawn on it. A map he had never seen. One his father had never shown him.

“She pulled it out of a shadow like magic, Owen.” Victoria’s hands worked in the air trying to mimic the action she’d witnessed. “I think she’s a witch.”

“She isn’t a witch.” He hissed displeased with the woman who’d crushed his hopes and turned over his worldview all in the matter of a few short hours. He didn’t look up from the map having no need of Victoria’s display since he’d witnessed the event himself. “She’s just some lady. With cat ears.” He did the hand motions again and shoved at the map that had been given to him.

Ishara found her children messing around in Renly’s study and shooed them away to bed. Owen was particularly feisty with changing into his pajamas not wanting to let go of a map her patient had given him. Without scolding him for pestering her patients, Ishara tried to explain the language he’d been unable to decipher.

Her understanding voice and soft kiss to his head did nothing to calm him for sleep. When the house had gone quiet, Owen threw the covers from over his legs with the goal of interrogating their guest further without the presence of Victoria to dominate the questioning. To his dismay, Victoria woke to the sound of his door creaking open and met him in the hall.

“You aren’t supposed to be out of bed.”

“Leave me alone.”

“We’ll get in trouble with mom.”

“Then you go back to bed. I am going to talk to her some more.”

“But she’s a witch.”

“She’s not a witch!”

They argued in hushed tones until the sound of a struggle met them. Owen and Victoria crept down the hall. The sound of their mother and another voice talking came through the open door to Rylan’s room.

Just couldn't be bothered to keep to yourself. Just like your husband.

Owen moved forward just enough to push the door open with his fingers. His mother’s body pinned against the wall opposite to him. Green eyes wide with terror to be met with the gaze of her youngest child. His eyes seemed so cold and quiet like the first season’s snow.

The sound of bones cracking, something like gurgling, the metallic smell of blood. Victoria screamed and hid her face. Owen didn’t look away. Or couldn’t. Or willed himself to keep watching. His mother’s body thrashed around like a patient he had watched while peeking through a crack in an open door to a healing room. What is happening to him? He’d asked to his father who’d scooped him up to shield him from the sight. He is sick. It’s called a seizure. Your mother will fix it. Something about the way his mother’s legs beat against the wall seemed more deliberate that the seizure he’d witnessed. She knew what was happening to her. She was suffering. There would be no one to fix it. There was no one to fix it. The man on the bed hadn’t been there. He hadn’t seemed himself. Not really. Owen didn’t know he was crying. His face just felt moist. Maybe he’d been sprayed with blood.

Rylan turned to follow the gaze of their mother and fell upon the children in the hall as his mother’s body slumped to the floor. Do you remember my name?

Victoria was clutching him. Hiding her face against his shoulder. His gaze flickered to the heart in Rylan’s hand, blood and clots dripped off and soaked her hand leaking red down her arm. He matched Rylan’s gaze and nodded.

He would never forget her.

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 11-15-2016

Covenant of Allied Forces
Headquarters Joint Readiness Training Center
Special Reconnaissance Division
Orders HQ95187
9 April 2002

Hart, Owen Renly (CAF Spec R GC3759)

This letter serves to inform you that you have not satisfied the criteria for reinstatement to active duty combat status due to continued physical disability incurred while entitled to basic pay. Annexed hereto is your Functional Assessment Results data sheet. Please be advised that your physical disability entitles you to Honorable discharge and early retirement for permanent physical disability. Disability is based on injury or disease received in the line of duty as a direct result of an armed conflict or caused by an instrumentality of war and incurred in the line of duty during a period of war as defined by international law.

Thank you for your service.
Sincere Regards,

Barker J. Mansfield
Division Chief
Covenant of Allied Forces
Headquarters Joint Readiness Training Center



Functional Assessment Results
Hart, Owen Renly (CAF Spec R GC3759)
Test date: 29 Mar 2002
Reviewer/Examiner: Barlowe Settle, M.D., Ph.D.


Combat status: non combatant
Effective date / date of injury: 8 Aug 2000
Allotment type: active duty non combat (ADNC)
Statute authorizing retirement: 1591
Disability Retirement: available


Functional Assessment:

Carry and fire individual assigned weapon : Y
Evade direct and indirect fire: N
Ride in a military vehicle for at least 12 hours a day: Y
Wear a helmet for at least 12 hours a day: Y
Wear body armor for at least 12 hours a day: Y
Wear load-bearing equipment for at least 12 hours a day: N
Wear military boots and uniform for at least 12 hours a day: Y
Wear protective mask and MOPP 4 for at least 2 continuous hours per day: Y
Move 40 lbs while wearing usual protective gear at least 100 yards: Y
Live in an austere environment without worsening medical condition: Y
2-mile run: N
Sit-ups: Y
Push-ups: Y


Assessment Commentary:

Veteran unable to complete 2-mile run test at a reasonable pace. Veteran unable to tolerate the stress of maneuvering with load-bearing equipment. Veteran unable to reliably perform evasive maneuvers.


Medical Conditions:

End stage post-traumatic tri-compartmental arthritis of the left knee and post-traumatic arthritis of the left hip requiring the use of a hand-held assistive device for stability of an antalgic gait.
Chronic median nerve neuropathy of the left upper extremity.
Insomnia (non contributory)
Myopia (non contributory)
History of traumatic brain injury (non contributory)

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 11-30-2016



A silver lined ear fell lopsided at the appearance of Owen Hart on the lit screen of her phone vibrating loudly across the kitchen counter. It was odd to Drusilla to see his name there. Odd because she had spoken to him not a half hour ago in his office which was but a few yards from where she was standing. Odd because he had a habit of opening his door and saying her name with that quiet insistence that she come to him. Odd because he only ever called her phone when she was on base or when he was on base.

He never called from inside his own house.

Something like worry coursed down her spine. She stood on her toes and peered with suspicion through the kitchen window. The yard looked as it ever did. When she picked up the line she did not have a chance to greet him before he was saying. “It’s me.” Even though she knew full well who it was. Which never stopped him greeting everyone with that same phrase. Even her. Always it’s me.

“Lieutenant Colonel.” She greeted him with a slight question in her voice. Why are you calling me, sir.

“What are you doing right now?” A demand in his voice. He already knew that she was meal planning in the kitchen.

“I’m -”

“Nevermind,” He interrupted her. The baritone of his voice was clipped and sharp over the line as if she’d done something wrong. “Do me a favor. Go upstairs to my bedroom and stand in the west facing window.”

Drusilla pulled the device away from her cheek for a moment to frown at the phone. Frown at his name since he wasn’t standing in front of her to frown at. He had a way about giving strange instructions at times. Better not to question him. Better to just do as he asked. She still wondered if he knew how he came across. If he was aware of the tone of his own voice.

“Yes sir.” She said finally.

Neither spoke as she moved.

Owen could hear her transitions as she moved through the house. He pictured her in his mind in each room as the sounds clued him in as to where she was. Clipped heels on the tile of the kitchen were muffled by the rug in the hall. A creak of the fourth stair from the top. The latch of his bedroom door as it opened and closed.

If Drusilla had any question before as to which window faced west, she wouldn’t have any more questions as it had already been shoved open. A slight breeze through the open window teased the dark masculine curtains which were pushed to either side. Owen’s bed was made. Drusilla had made it herself earlier that morning but the window had not been open then. Had he left it open for her?

She hesitated before crossing the room and stood before the window. “I’m here, sir.” Her clear voice broke the silence which fell again as Drusilla awaited Owen’s response. The other line was quiet almost as if there was nobody there.

From his position in the yard, Owen watched Drusilla through his new holographic rifle scope with the most advanced magnifier on the market, side and top mount capabilities, a quick detach mechanism, and high definition digital recording capabilities.

She pulled the phone away to check if the line was still active. Her ears fell against her scalp and she ran her finger self-consciously along the window frame. Rubbing at whatever her fingers had collected, perhaps some dust, she spoke again. “Sir?” Drusilla heard the other line come to life. A slight change in the quiet from nothingness to a subtle white noise. And his voice filled her ear.

“I know. Just stand still a moment, Miss Haven.” Was all he said before the line returned to that dead quiet. Is he muting himself, she wondered. Owen was indeed muting his side so she wouldn’t hear the sound of his breath or the rustle of the leaves coming over the line. He had positioned himself on his belly in the far corner of the yard in the unkempt bushes. He knew he couldn't be seen. The rifle was mounted on a tripod as he watched her through the scope. A black rim around the peripherals of his vision and the view of his window with Drusilla standing in it in the center of the cross hairs.

At times Owen felt that Drusilla looked on the verge of apologizing for her appearance or her presence. She held herself before him with a sort of timidity. It was subtle to him. Just a slight raise to one of her shoulders and a tilt of her chin downwards. At times she sat with her neck resting on her hand. Protective of herself. He wondered at what went through her mind. Was he intimidating? Was it the way he spoke to her? Was it something else entirely? At times he felt this desire to shelter her with his body against whatever ate at her when she wasn't aware he watched. Or to lift her chin with his finger. Or to touch to her shoulder to tell it to relax. To brush his fingers over her neck.

He watched her ears spring to attention when given the task of being still for him. She let her hand drop to her side, staying it from fiddling with the window sill. It fell out of sight in the frame of the scope. Her back was straight with determination. Or it seemed to him that she stood straighter when he’d given her the instructions. And she seemed to hold her head up confident in her ability to comply with his demands. Did she know he was watching? Or was she just that determined to obey?

He magnified the image of her which changed the placement of the cross hairs to the level of her chest. She wore this black top with a peep hole. The shape of the shirt accentuated the curve of her breasts. With a near imperceptible adjustment of his rifle he could line the center with that little exposure of her skin. A slight movement upwards and it lined with the hollow where her collar bones met. Shadows from her jaw cast a delicate v-shape down the sides of her neck around her throat. Strands of her hair fell around her shoulders covered in a deep blue blazer. He demagnified the image by several powers to confirm his theory that the shade of her jacket matched the trim of his house.

The trim brings out your eyes Mr. Hart. Has anyone ever told you that you look good in blue? The words of the flirtatious middle-aged realtor echoed.

Yes.

You look good in blue. Drusilla had reluctantly complimented him over a soup lunch recently. Green eyes had been shrouded briefly by lids framed with thick lashes as she glanced down at her meal. I was under the impression that you liked blue.

She wasn’t wrong.

He did like the color and the range of emotion it could provoke. He liked the color of his eyes in the mirror when he put on a blue shirt. He liked the trim of his house. He liked the royal shade she wore today; it made her skin look extra warm.

Owen placed the magnification of his scope back to the original setting and settled it again on her face. They were both still enough that the center of the cross hairs landed neatly between her eyes exposing to him the perfect symmetry of her sculpted eyebrows which were slightly hidden by the ends of her bangs. Her green eyes moved in a lateral motion to track something in her line of sight and Owen pulled his face away from the weapon in time to watch a grey warbler fly by.

He closed his eyes and pinched the skin at the bridge of his nose. Of course she would have let herself become distracted by that little bird. If he had been standing next to her, she might have touched his arm and pointed it out to him smiling as she identified the species. He would have bent down to be at her line of sight with the smell of her perfume overloading his senses.

When Owen moved into position again, he noticed that Drusilla seemed to grow weary of her stillness. The resoluteness in her shoulders had faded. She blew at her bangs with impatience sending them billowing upwards until they settled again slightly askew. She didn’t rake her fingers through the hairs to correct them, but left the wayward hairs sitting there charmingly out of place. He had often had the urge to run his fingers through her hair to correct strands that found themselves going awry.

Owen was mid-sigh when he unmuted himself again. The sudden sound of his breath like wind across the microphone of his headset made Drusilla blink in surprise. “Miss Haven.” He was more quiet than usual, the last syllable of her name was almost a whisper as it crossed the line. He almost breathed her name into her ear over the line. Her ear twitched reflexively as if the hairs had actually been tickled. “Turn around please and step away from the window five paces.”

She opened her mouth as if to protest or clarify the intent of his instructions but it snapped shut and she obeyed his instructions. Her height left him with only the tips of her ears in his view. Five paces was too many from his angle to keep her head in his sights.

“You’re too short.” He muttered. The insult caused her ears to fall disappearing from the frame. “Back towards the window two paces.” The back of her head with ears fallen against the crown of her head reappeared in his frame.

It was supposed to be easier this way. When he didn’t have to see her face. Owen’s finger tightened against the trigger. Just a flex away from ending her life. A moment he’d waited for a long time. A moment he’d imagined for a long time. But he started trembling. She was so trusting. She obeyed his every command without hesitation. He was almost purposefully signaling to her that her death was eminent. An open window? His voice over the line giving her exact instructions as if he were watching her. She must know.

His finger fell away from the trigger when he imagined picking her lifeless body from his floor. She wouldn’t feel like much when he moved her. She was light and small. He knew the curve of her waist would fit his hands. There would be pool of blood spreading out beneath her. A dark stain on her blue jacket.

If he shot her from behind the exit wound would be her face.

He couldn’t be the one to ruin the delicate symmetry of her face. The sculpted brows, those green eyes and high cheeks, that gentle curve of her nose, and fullness of her lips. The thought sent his hand to the safety mechanism on the weapon. An ominous click over the line that Owen had neglected to mute again. He sighed in relief. A heavy and emotional breath.

He had so many more questions to ask Julianna. He had yet to call her by name. He had yet to solve this nagging feeling that she wasn’t who he thought she was. That there was no guile in emerald eyes that tracked a warbler as it passed by his window. There was no guile in lips that blew at bangs that tickled at the bottoms of her eyebrows when they grew too long.

“Sir?” She asked as she twisted around to face the window again sensing that she would be speaking to him if she faced that way. Her eyes searched the yard. “Are you alright?” There was no guile in her melodic voice cautiously asking him if he was okay. He the one with the deadly weapon.

Owen pulled his face away from the gun and let it fall to his arm that rested on the ground. “Yes. That will be all Miss Haven. Thank you. Please close the window.” His voice was muffled against the fabric of his sleeve.

The line went dead. Drusilla frowned at her phone as it glowed. Owen Hart. Call ended. Duration 0:05:13. She closed the window and pulled the curtains over it casting his bedroom in darkness. Drusilla crossed the room and exited into the hallway. She pulled the door closed behind her and leaned on it momentarily. Her fingers pressed against the side of her neck to feel her pulse racing for a reason unknown. What had just happened? She shivered involuntarily.

A familiar squeak downstairs signaled the kitchen door opening. Drusilla descended the stairs to meet Owen who was angrily pulling attachments from a long rifle. A tripod had been abandoned in the middle of the kitchen. He released the round from the chamber of the weapon, grasping it between thumb and index. It disappeared into his pocket. Owen refused to make eye contact as Drusilla hesitated in the doorway of the kitchen.

When he moved towards her grasping the rifle in one hand, her tail curled up towards her spine and she resisted the urge to step away from him. Her heart pounded anew. His free hand engulfed her shoulder and he stopped in front of her. Her eyes rose from the level of his chest to meet his. Something like desperation seemed to brew in grey eyes that stared down at her. She felt a pang of fear but also worry. Not for herself but for him and whatever he seemed to be doing to himself.

When she opened her mouth to ask him what was the matter, he gently pushed her aside and disappeared into his office.

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 02-11-2017

Date

The video opened in disorientation. Hands that held the device shook as the film focused in on the torso of a man and a woman. Julianna and Owen. It became clear that the shaking of the video was in rhythm with foot steps. The more audible steps were the even clip clip clip of a woman's heel. His were off rhythm and more dulled sounding. The couple bundled up against the cold walked down a dark and damp city sidewalk. Breath like white ghosts billowed from their lips. The length of Julianna’s arm clothed in a light wool coat extended out in front of her.

The couple walked slow together. Gaits were mismatched somewhat due to his limp and reliance on a cane. They almost seemed to be re-learning how to walk side-by-side. She seemed capable of a much brisker pace but held back turning slightly towards him. Her patience accommodating the pace he set. With her free hand, Julianna adjusted the scarf draped around her neck that had been blown over her shoulder by a gust of cool air. She moved closer to Owen, cautiously hooking her arm through his free one. She pulled hand which had been tucked away into the pocket of his longer black wool coat out and let her fingers slide through his. She pressed her face to his arm as if to draw warmth from him.

Though her touch was tender and patient, there was a glimmer of mischief in her eyes.

“Owennn.” She seemed to taunt the taller man. She drew out the last consonant of his name enticing him to look at her. She gazed at him from the tops of her eyes through darkened lashes flashing a toothy smile.

He knew that look and he stared straight ahead. Steely stare. Firm jaw. There may have been the shadow of a smile that teased at the corner of his lips. He glanced momentarily at the camera - no more than the slightest of looks like a light flickering before going out - and returned his eyes straight ahead.

“It's a videooo.” He mimicked her style of speech drawing out the ‘o’ as she had the ‘n’ of his name.

There was a gentle familiarity in his mockery. They had done this before. Many times. This routine had become a strange term of endearment. One of those idiosyncrasies that were born of long-standing relationships. A game they played - she - played with him. Asking for a selfie but taking a video instead while he was left figuring it out.

She continued to crowd the taller man, forcing him to occupy the camera view with her.

“I’m just documenting our night.” She chimed cheerfully. She gazed at the camera as if to suggest to her invisible audience that they were in on whatever joke or amusement she gleaned from teasing her husband. Her ears twitched atop her head.

“Is that so.” He muttered the words seeming not to believe her.

She tried to stifle a jingling sort of giggle against the back of her hand and reported to the camera. “My grumpy husband is taking me on a date tonight. Where are we going?”

Owen also addressed the camera. “She will see soon enough. When we get there.”

A fit of giggling erupted from Julianna. “I took a screenshot of you during that. So now it's a...it's a... a...video turned into a selfie.” The sentence could hardly be spoken around fits of gasping giggles. Tears threatened to spring to her eyes. She hid her mouth against his arm, staring gleefully out of the corner of her eyes at the camera.

The palm of his hand covered the camera lens. “Oh my god.” He growled to an accompaniment of Julianna’s chorus of giggles before the video went black.


“Owen where are we?”

The video opened again to the sounds of Julianna’s voice pitching higher in amusement. The video panned from the ground up the length of Owen’s body. He leaned on a cane, staring upwards in confusion. His free hand gestured outwards and slapped against his thigh in frustration.

“Where are we Owen?” She repeated her question, switching up the phrasing.

The camera panned to show a boarded up business front.

“What is this mystery place?” The camera shook with Julianna’s mirth. She snickered quietly seeming to enjoy her husband’s confusion. The camera panned back to him and zoomed in on his face. The relationship of couple less familiar with one another likely could not stand this kind of teasing. His plans were dashed. It was funny - to her - because he was ever so confident in himself, in directions, in all things. Her mockery of him in this trivial moment was a privilege earned over years of growing comfort with one another.

He frowned. Lips pulled downward somewhat over his cleft chin. “Well fuck.” The frown disappeared. This time more than a hint of a smile teased his lips at the edges. He knew he was the butt of the joke. And he didn’t mind.

“So where are you taking me?” Julianna repeated the question asked in the earlier video.

“Just -- go that way.” He signaled waving his hand at her before moving to approach the camera.


The video reopened again to the wet city sidewalk. It faced outwards as they walked.

“I think it’s only a couple more blocks east of us.” Owen’s voice came through the sounds of heels on concrete and a car passing by.

“Look at that.” Julianna’s arm and her finger pointing off screen appeared in view. She turned the camera and focused in on a large mural painted in an alleyway. A realistic image of a man in black seeming to peel away the brick siding of the wall revealing what appeared to be hell in technicolor beneath what he pulled back. Multicolored demons tortured people spilling blood and gore in rainbow colors.

The camera panned to Owen leaning on his cane, head cocked staring thoughtfully at the art.

“What do you think it means?” She asked as he turned his head towards her.

Owen shrugged, glancing back at the impressive graffiti. He scratched at the back of his neck as he considered. “My guess would be it's a commentary on the subconscious maybe. Battling with the demons deep inside can be beautiful? Better than walling them off with ugly brick and mortar?” He glanced back at her and shrugged dismissively seeming to say your guess is as good as mine.

She hummed contemplatively behind the camera as he moved to walk back towards the exit of the alley. He hitched and caught himself on the wall gasping in pain before grabbing the thigh of his obviously weaker leg.

The frame of the camera was forgotten as Julianna rushed towards him. “Are you alright?” She asked voice pitching towards concern as the camera captured the ground and part of her stylish heeled boot.

“Yeah I -” he breathed. “I think - I need to sit down a minute.” There was a reluctant resignation in his voice as his will was bent by the needs of his body.

“There’s a bench over there.” She chimed helpfully before the video went black again.


When the video opened up again it focused in on Owen and Julianna sitting on a bench. Her arm curled through his with her cheek pressed to him. He sighed heavily.

“Should we go home? I’m not -” He didn’t finish and looked away suddenly aware of the camera.

Her hand lifted to touch his jaw and pull his face back towards her.

“I’m sorry, love.” He slipped his arm around her shoulders bringing her against his side. She snuggled close.

“Sorry for what?” She lifted her face from where it rested against his chest.

“This has been a bust.”

“No. Not at all.” She whispered affectionately and pressed her mouth against his cheek. “I just like being with you. Even walking around downtown at night.”

His mouth curled in a self-conscious smile.

“This is the first time we’ve been out since -” she continued.

“My accident, I know.” He finished for her, his hand lifted to push at a lock of hair that had blown into her face with a breath of winter’s breeze.

“We can get some snacks and go home and watch a movie?” She suggested, her voice becoming more chipper at the prospect.

“You gonna stay awake?” He asked flatly.

“Of course.”

Owen scoffed. He didn’t believe her. But he kissed her anyways and the video went to black.



The video opened one last time to Owen’s face. “Look at this.” He whispered and panned the camera downwards to show Julianna tucked against his chest fast asleep. An ear twitched. Her fingers weakly gripped his t-shirt.

It was back on his face. “Look at this disgrace.”

The camera view flipped to show a laptop propped up on his stomach. A movie was paused and he zoomed in on the time 14:58:38.

The camera flipped back to Owen and panned to Julianna’s sleeping face before returning to him.

He tsked and shook his head. “A disgrace. Can’t even make it fifteen minutes into anything before falling asleep.” He pursed his lips and shook his head as if disappointed. The glint in his eye and slight curl to his lip suggested otherwise. And the video went black.

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 04-13-2017

Missed Connections: A Craigslist Ad

You were jingling around for change…

at the phone booth on 7th and Park with this cigarette precariously dangling from your lips in a way that defied the laws of gravity. Its a wind tunnel at that spot on 7th and you had this almost halo of curly hair flying all around you.

I said, “‘scuse me, do you need some change for the pay phone?”

You had these green eyes that looked surprised that a stranger had offered you some help. You took a little half step backwards. I think I was standing too close. I was trying to block the wind for you. You see, you were such a mess, I couldn’t stand to watch you struggle with your purse and the wind and that damn cigarette ashing all over the place. It gave me this feeling of existential burden.

“Yes,” you said, “my phone died.” And you laughed self-consciously like the jingling of coins muffled somewhat by a purse over-full.

“Sure,” I said funneling quarters from my fingers into your palm. “So long as you agree to have a coffee with me sometime.”

I’m not sure why it happened in that order. I gave you the coins and then made my demands. The coins were heavy in your hand probably with the weight of my expectations. Maybe when I gave you those coins I transferred all my loneliness to you. I'm sorry for that.

But you just shrugged and said “okay” giggled and “why not” and dropped the coins one by one into the phone slot as if they weren't heavy to you at all.

I only said “great. See you around then.”

You were already speaking into the receiver. Apologizing for your lateness. Frowning at your watch.

I walked off and didn’t get the number to the cell phone you let die.

I’m hoping that’s a trend of yours. Letting the batteries in cellphones run down. So that I might catch you by the pay phone again sometime?

I would block the wind for you again. I would pay for your call again.

And I would never make a little woman with green eyes and a halo of curly hair and a purse too big for her apologize for her lateness.

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 04-30-2017



They made quite the pair riding around in a freshly waxed, newly restored fire engine red 1956 Buick super convertible. Sunrays glinted off the shining car’s exterior but the glare didn’t bother neither the driver nor his passenger. Both were equipped with matching reflective aviator sunglasses. Both had their hair parted on the left and neatly combed with a swoop towards the back over their right eyebrows. Father and son were often seen together this way, especially on sunny mornings that lent themselves to cruising.

Owen parked alongside the curb in the picturesque downtown Macrilan. He parked purposely so that Nicholas would exit on the sidewalk and he on the street. It spared his young son the responsibility of judging and anticipating the speed of oncoming traffic.

Nic had already fed some quarters into the parking meter when Owen joined him on the sidewalk. Owen rested his hand on his son’s shoulder and ushered him towards the cafe they were heading to for breakfast before Nic had to be at school.

Owen parked some ways down so that they could enjoy the stroll along the bricked sidewalks and quaint storefronts. Nic chattered at him about what he would be studying that day. Owen was half listening but acted as if he heard everyword.

It only took half a city block before Owen confirmed the suspicion he and Nicholas were being followed. He’d noticed a man in dark sunglasses driving a nondescript white sedan a careful two cars behind them all the way downtown. That same nondescript white sedan had been parked by the man in sunglasses up a side street with a convenient view of where Owen had parked. That same man kept a steady thirty paces behind and pretended every now and again to peak into a storefront.

While waiting for the crosswalk to signal, Owen touched Nic’s shoulder again.

“Take your sunglasses off - slowly. Hold them up as if you’re looking at some spot in the lens.”

The boy complied with his father’s instructions carefully but with a look of confusion that nearly twisted his mouth into a frown.

“Do you see the man with the sunglasses and grey windbreaker?”

The boy nodded. For a moment it seemed a fun game, spying people behind them in the reflection of the aviators. “Yep!”

“He’s following us.”

Nic glanced up at his father concern clouding the back of green eyes The walk way signaled for pedestrians and Owen ushered the boy quickly across. His free hand fished in his pocket and produced a currency bill in the amount of five which he handed off to his son while pointing to a nearby magazine, newspaper, and snack stand along the street.
“Go buy today’s paper and a pack of bubble gum.” He instructed the boy who looked askance at his father. Owen nodded once encouragingly. “It’s alright. Go ahead. I’ll be right behind you.”

Trustingly Nic trotted off to the newspaper stand just down the way. He stood in line behind two other customers but found himself quickly purchasing the items his father had asked for. When he turned around to return to his dad, Nic didn’t see him on the corner anymore. His heart skipped a beat and increased its pace as he scanned the morning crowd that milled along the sidewalk. No sign of him.

But the man in dark sunglasses and a grey windbreaker was making a direct line for him.

Fearful green eyes cast about for the father not seen.

“Hey - kid!” The man started to greet but was damn near run over by another pedestrian. “Hey watch it -” he complained but his face went blank when presented with the man who he’d been following. That same man had directed his son to the paper stand. When he’d tried to keep eyes on the both of them, Owen had given him the slip in the crowd and was lost suddenly. He'd taken advantage of using his son as distraction and bait.

“Nic, there you are!” Faux relief tinged his voice. Owen passed his hand over the boy’s head for further effect. In truth he hadn't let his eyes off the child. “I told you never to wander away from me in the crowded street.” He offered his hand to the boy who looked momentarily betrayed before he accepted the hand. Owen pretended as if their pursuer hadn't even registered to him.

Owen wasn’t in the least bit concerned about Nic’s reaction and pulled him swiftly away from their stalker and into the breakfast joint. The boy, having been frightened and then partly reprimanded, maintained a sullen silence through the seating and taking of the order. Owen flipped through the paper scanning the local news.

When the food arrived, Nicholas picked at his eggs, feeding himself only the tiniest of bites. Almost a petty amount to be feeding himself.

Owen raised his brows, “What's the matter?”

The boy’s feet kicked under the table restlessly. “That man - why was he following us, dad? Why did you make me go to the newspaper stand and then you got mad at me? Why didn’t you ask him why he was following us? You just walked away.” The boy's questions turned into complaints.

By way of answer Owen reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet that didn’t belong to him. He grinned and his eyebrow arched mischievously over twinkling grey eyes. “So I could get this.”

Green eyes lit up and Nic’s jaw hung open in shock and awe. “Wow! Did you pick pocket him?” He asked not minding his volume.

Owen laughed and shushed the boy. “Quiet,” he instructed but nodded as he examined the identifications inside. A confidential informant working for the CAF it seemed. Owen tsked and put the cards back into place. His former employers didn’t seem keen on leaving him alone in his new life.

“Will you teach me, dad?” The boy asked. In his excitement he’d forgotten to be sullen about being scolded on the street and was shoveling eggs into his mouth.

“Slow down. Chew your food, please.” Owen sipped at his coffee and glanced out the window. The man in the sunglasses had stationed himself on a bus stop bench caddy corner to their breakfast location. He’d acquired a baseball cap and abandoned his windbreaker and was pretending to read a paper. How amateur.

“Well, will you?” Nic pressed.

“Not until you’re older.”

“Aw man, that sucks!” He said too loudly.

“Hey. None of that.” Owen lifted his index finger to police the boy’s outburst. “You don’t need to be tempted to steal, it will only get you into trouble. Besides your mother wouldn’t like that very much. Finish your fruit.”

After breakfast, father and son loaded back up into the convertible.

“He’s still following us.” Nic complained. Much to Owen’s pride the boy had used the sunglasses trick he'd been taught not an hour before. Quick learner.

Owen patted Nic’s leg and slipped his aviator’s up the bridge of his nose. He revved the car engine. “Let’s dust ‘em.”

He sped off and took a wild illegal turn up a one way street while Nic laughed.


It was an hour ‘til he had to retrieve Nic from school when Owen arrived at the motel their stalker was staying at. It had only taken him a couple of excuses to Julianna for his absence and a few hours of leg work to find the man.

Owen knocked on the motel door number 207 and moved out of sight of the peephole. He heard two locks turn but not a chain lock. The door opened just enough for the man to peak out. It was held at the maximum length the chain lock would allow.

It was enough for two quick shots. Nobody would be alerted by the sound as he used a military grade silencer bought on the black market.

The man fell forward and his weight pushed the door shut. Owen shoved the door open which required enough force to bust the chain and shove the body aside with it.

The man was still alive and clutching a Colt .38 in his right hand. A CAF military issued sidearm. He was attempting to hold himself together with his left hand slick with the blood that couldn’t be stopped. Owen knew that desperate feeling well. With little sympathy, Owen kicked the man's gun aside. It skittered across the cheap linoleum flooring and bumped to a stop against a chair leg.

“Don’t you want to know who’s getting my reports? Who’s watching you?” The man groaned miserably with the effort of speaking while dying. “I had a price. I could have been bought.”

“I don’t give a fuck who it is. I’ll eliminate the informants they send one by one until he, or she, pops their little head up.” Owen said as he opened the man’s jacket and tucked his stolen wallet into the interior pocket.

“And then what?”

Owen placed the barrel of his pistol square between the man’s brows. “Bang.” He said just before pulling the trigger. The man slumped over once and for all.


“What did you do with that man’s wallet, dad?” Nic asked from behind his reflective lenses as they drove towards home into the setting sun.

“I gave it back to him.”

Nic smiled and fiddled with the radio. “That was nice of you.”

Owen patted the boy on the shoulder, “Yeah.”

"Hey dad," Nic asked cocking his head inquisitively seeking permission to ask another question.

"Yeah son?" Owen feared the boy would ask something that would require him to lie.

"Why did you have me buy the bubble gum?"

Owen grinned at the child before working at something in his mouth. He puffed his cheeks out to blow a rather impressive bubble that popped and stuck to the bottom of his sun glass rims.

Nic laughed and fed himself a piece of gum from the pack in the center console.

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 05-14-2017

Remembering the (Late) (Former) Lieutenant General Owen Renly Hart
by Arland Ward for the Correlate Press



I interviewed the late Lieutenant General, Owen Hart, more than two dozen times before his recent death. As his posthumous trial gets underway--in which Mr. Hart has been charged with a dozen or more offences the highest of which is treason--I wanted to publish my impression of the man, as I knew him while he held the office of Lieutenant General.

Mr. Hart, having been recently buried by his wife and children, has no voice to defend himself in the aforementioned proceedings. While I do not purport to speak for him, I have stories, other than those being circulated as a part of the legal circus, about him that need to be told during this time.

When I first asked for an interview with the late Lieutenant General Hart, he had recently been appointed to the position but had yet to be pinned. His correspondences were funneled through a Ms. April Monroe who managed transitioning officers in Central Command. A mousy young woman with bottle-cap thick spectacles, Ms. Monroe politely directed me to a bland personnel press release and informed me that the soon-to-be Lieutenant General would not speaking to the press for interviews or any other reason.

“The Covenant Central Command today announced the appointment of Major General Owen Renly Hart to the office of the Lieutenant General. Mr. Hart is expected to formally accept the position and the coronary service will be announced. The youngest individual ever appointed to the office of the Lieutenant General, Mr. Hart will be responsible for development and execution of military strategy at the Central Command level. As Lieutenant General, Mr. Hart will function as the liaison and delegate unifying the four branches. Mr. Hart is expected to head the Covenant’s Special Task Force for emergency and classified operations.

“I trust in Mr. Hart’s experience as a strategic visionary evidenced by his decorated career in the Special Recon Division. With a proven track record for executing successful large and small scale operations, Owen’s expertise and leadership skills are needed at an executive level to drive the Covenant’s broader mission,” said Commander Sullivan Barnette.”

Mr. Hart was pinned and signed to the office of Lieutenant General on a sleepy evening in late August. The pinning of any officer to a central command position is typically a media spectacle and involving an elegant supper and a ball at which the new officer and their family becomes acquainted with the other central command officers, families, and individuals of interest.

The somber pinning ceremony was interrupted by the new Lieutenant General’s young daughter, who, it seems, escaped her mother’s arms and ran towards the stage calling, “That’s my daddy!” She called this out to a chorus of stuffy and uncomfortable laughter. The stern line of Owen's lips cracked and he smiled affectionately down at his daughter and waved with his fingers before the child was gathered by her mother. The call of that little girl identifying the stoic man on stage as her father seemed to humanize him. A necessary characterization for a man who was a controversial choice for Lieutenant General.

The timeline of events leading to his pinning have recently become a matter of interest in his posthumous trial. In early July, Mr. Hart found himself facing a closed congressional inquiry lasting a historically long sixteen consecutive hours of questioning. The subject of this panel was said to be resolving issues surrounding certain classified military operations that Mr. Hart was apart of, in addition to probing his known relationship and marriage to a sitting monarch of a neural country, the Queen of Veridian. These files have been declassified for the purposes of entering into evidence in the ongoing proceedings.

I spent many hours sitting outside of his office at headquarters waiting to catch him as he came and went. In the weeks preceding his pinning, I watched the birth of Hart’s administrative entourage. At one point Ms. Monroe took pity on me and informed me that Hart worked almost exclusively from his home office and that in large part his bustling office at headquarters was a subterfuge. The entourage of administrators and advisors were an illusion of his presence.

Needless to say I stopped waiting for him there but I kept sending my card and bottles of aged single-malt scotch to his office. After a time I received a handwritten note from the Lieutenant General on a half of a sheet of handsome embossed cardstock. Admittedly, his handwriting was difficult to discern. I later learned was attributable to some fine motor function loss in his left arm due a service-related injury with nerve damage. He wrote:

“Arland--- It’s not so much your quiet persistence but rather my curiosity about your desperation to interview me that is eroding my will to continue evading you. Thanks very much for the scotch --- how did you know? Try again at my office next week. I will try to be as interesting as you think I am. Yours in service, Lt. Gen. Owen R. Hart.”

I showed up at his office everyday for a week after that but Lt. Gen. Hart never appeared. Ms. Monroe apologized graciously and sent a fruit basket to my office. And I received a second note the following month which was written by Ms. Monroe:

“Dear Mr. Ward, Please accept this invitation to attend the Commander’s Press Conference to be hosted by the Lieutenant General this afternoon at 4 in the HQ press room. Afterward the Lieutenant General will grant you a private audience. Sincerely, April Monroe, executive transition manager to the Honorable Lieutenant General Owen Renly Hart.”

I interviewed him for the first time that day.

There was something about him. He always walked with an erect posture and a gait that was strong but was paradoxically either sauntering or systematically precise. His cane swung in a tight, seemingly well practiced, arc above his left boot and jabbed at the ground punctuating every step. He projected this overpowering menace like a man used to calling the shots.

He appeared to be a sort of lone wolf in the leadership who had succeeded by doing as he saw fit whether that meant compliance with regulations and orders or not. A lot of men who served under him were taken in by that image. It was suspected that his persona was one of the reasons he was promoted to such a high office - that it was a morale booster. But that’s a theory circulated by some of the same individuals who, perhaps, would have liked to have been Lieutenant General themselves. Despite his lack of pedigree - it is well known that Hart did not graduate high school or attend college -- my impression of the man was that he was more refined than others seemed to give him credit for.

After I came to observe Mr. Hart closely, I could tell that his behaviors and words were highly calculated. He was like a chess player seeing multiple moves ahead. He was also careful to draw a line and never stray beyond it. He was, granted, a high-strung man whose more outlandish behaviors and ways of being were mostly for show.

I suspect that Mr. Hart had this neurotic attention to detail that mingled with an intense level of paranoia. He personally performed a bodily search on me every time we met alone. He was never perfunctory with the search and had little regard for respecting the privacy of my genitals. That is not to say that his search could be mistaken for playing but he was thorough and wholly unembarrassed to ensure his personal safety at the expense of patting down another man’s testicles. I imagine he would have searched the pubic area of Snow White herself if he were to grant her a personal interview.

In fact, many times I interviewed with Mr. Hart while he was undergoing physical therapy treatments in his office. A few years prior he had suffered a traumatic crush injury to his left leg in a car accident that was an attempt on his life. His time at the Covenant headquarters was limited and precious so he often had me interview while he cringed through therapy. He never complained about the pain from the therapy and endured it rather stoically. I believe he liked interviewing then to keep his mind from the painful stretches, exercises, and massages.

His therapist, Ms. Candace Huntington, was a sprite young lady who Mr. Hart subjected to searches every time. I remember the first time I spoke with him when he had a session scheduled. Mr. Hart performed the same thorough bodily pat down I was familiar with.

He also searched the vinyl duffle bag the therapist carried which contained implements for her therapy. On that first day she also had what appeared to be a small make-up bag, Mr. Hart opened it and emptied the contents which included several tampons and sanitary napkins. I was astonished to find him unabashedly weighing each object in his palm as if to deduce whether its weight was appropriate to the item it purported to be. He placed each item back and respectfully handed the case to the therapist.

“This must seem very crass to you Arland. However you should know Ms. Huntington receives a generous remuneration for her services. You have to understand that her work involves manipulating my body including my leg to and from which very important arteries flow. My bodily safety is priceless to me and is not something I am comfortable entrusting to others. As a preface, I was once assigned to bring in a very dangerous woman who was wanted for questioning. Being the gentleman that I am, I confiscated everything dangerous from her but left her with two seemingly harmless tampons which she had in her pocket. It was a rookie mistake because she ended up stabbing me in the neck with a deadly sharp little blade hidden in one of those tampons -- and by luck missed everything important. Needless to say that was the day I stopped being bashful about women’s sanitary products.”

I never knew what Owen believed about anything. (For the remainder of this memorial, I will refer to Mr. Hart as Owen, because that’s how I came to know him). He always spoke in circles.

“Come on Candace, ready to make me feel alive?” Owen had asked Ms. Huntington once when she came in during the first part of one of our interviews.

I asked him what he meant by that and he answered: “I suffer therefore I am.”

Ms. Huntington asked him, “Do you really believe that?”

“No not really,” he said, “You know some people say suffering is the universal language.”

“Yes and some say love is,” Ms. Huntington countered. During this day, the interview went more like a conversation.

“That’s true,” Owen agreed.

“And what do you believe, Owen?” I asked him

And he said: “Neither or both. All I’ve figured out is love is the purest form of suffering.”

So I asked him, “What do you think your wife would say about that?”

“Oh she knows she makes me feel alive.” He was laughing while he said it.

“So you mean to say she makes you suffer?” Ms. Huntington trying to clarify.

He had a funny little grin on his mouth. “Exquisitely, yes.”

So you see, I was never too sure what Owen believed about anything.

There seemed to be a softness about him that I kept uncovering. It was there under the surface, in the ways he expressed himself when he opened up to me and in the ways others talked about him. I once interviewed a man who had been in the same convoy with Owen when he was a mere marksmen in the Special Reconnaissance Corps.

He said about Owen:

“He could be this really funny guy at times. One time we were in this convoy that was completely backed up and hadn’t moved more than a mile in an hour. And Owen was always this impatient kind of guy. A real bastard when he didn’t have something to occupy his mind. You know? And he would do shit to entertain himself so that day he just starts humming that song ‘Tennessee Whiskey.’ Do you know that song? And the rest of us start to get into it. And so he switches to singing it. And he’s really getting into it. I mean really getting at the vocals. And anyway then he pushes the radio and broadcasts himself belting the chorus over the coms. And we’re cracking up dying laughing at him trying to sing this song soulfully.

I asked whether Owen had a good singing voice.

“Not bad really. I honestly could picture him being the kind of person to sing to the radio or in the shower or something. You know? It was really a remarkable thing to watch him.”

“First you described the event as ‘funny’. And now ‘remarkable’ can you explain that?” I asked.

“Well sure, he’s a very serious guy a lot of the time. Especially on assignment. So him singing like that to the whole convoy was hilarious. And he said afterwards, ‘never waste an audience, boys,’ like he’d given us an example of something important for our careers.”

“You speak very fondly of him.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” He looked away from me then and asked not to speak of Owen anymore. This was two days after Owen’s funeral.

The suddenness of Owen’s death, then, still hung heavy in the air. It seemed that to everyone he’d left behind that it came as a shock. An earthquake unseen that left rifts in the world he’d created around him. And yet, in my conversations with him, Owen struck me as a man who remained acutely aware of his mortality.

“You know Virgil?” Owen once asked me, musing off topic. “He wrote ‘Death twitches in my ear, / ‘Live,’ he says,/ ‘I am coming.” Owen quoted from memory. “Virgil was talking about me."

“You seem like a well read-man.” I observed.

“I appreciate that insofar as it’s complementary, Arland. I do enjoy books.”

“There are rumors that you’d like a stab at chief command,” I suggested to bring him round to topic again.

“There are rumors about lots of things.”

“Would you like to be Commander?”

“Are you an ass-kisser or a complete idiot, Arland?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t follow.” I said, unsure how I’d provoked him

“Just now you were complimenting my intelligence. Now you ask me a question to which an affirmative response would be akin to treason. Machinations for the commandership are not spoken of out loud, Arland. So you were either kissing my ass earlier about being intelligent and think I’m an idiot who’d be distracted by my ego enough to incriminate myself. Either that, or you’re an idiot yourself.”

“Lieutenant General,” I said paying my respects, “you haven’t answered the question. Would you like to be the commander?”

“I serve subordinate to and at the behest of the honorable commander, may he out-live me.”

“What are your career goals?”

“Actually, I would like to retire, someday.”

“And what would you do in your retirement?” I asked.

“Read. There are so many things I’d like to read before I die.” Owen said.

“You speak as if death is soon,” I observed.

“Death is a possibility for any one of us at any moment. Haven’t you been paying attention to anything I say?”

“You’ve led an active life and career and I am to believe that the only thing you’d like to accomplish is retirement for the purpose of reading?” I pushed him.

He laughed, “Yes of course. I think my wife would put me under house arrest if I did anything else. She would be very pleased to find me reading every day and occasionally going outside to check the mail or take her car to the gas station for her.”

“It sounds as if your wife has a lot of influence on you,” I suggested.

He leaned forward with a twinkle in his eye, “Just between you and me: she let’s me off my leash because she knows she’s got this dog trained to come crawling right back to her.”

It took me a long time to get Owen to speak of personal matters, particularly to speak to me of his marriage and wife. He opened up to me once about his relationship. The following is a transcript of that conversation:

A: So your wife.
O: Is there a question there, Arland?
A: People want to know, what’s your story? How did you meet? How did you fall in love?
O: Well, that’s a very long story.
A: We have plenty of time.
(Owen sighs and leans back in his chair. The room is silent except for leather groaning. He picks up a scrap piece of paper and fiddles with it. He’s rolling it and rolling it between index and thumb)
O: I first met Julianna, well, I should say, we reconnected again in the summer just after the start of that conflict over in Morocco, you remember?
A: Yes. I do. You say you reconnected?
O: Yeah. Yeah that’s the right way to put it. We had a history.
A: A history.
O: Yeah.
A: Can you elaborate on that?
O: No. No, I won’t talk about that.
A: Okay. Did you two have a prior relationship?
(Owen stopped rolling and cut me off with a slash of his hand in the air)
O: Arland, no. Stop. Just let me tell it. We reconnected again in the summer. I put an ad out for an executive assistant and she answered it. There’s nothing about that day or that moment that should stick out to me. But I remember everything clearly. Its funny. You know? You don’t give a damn about the moment in the moment but I can remember everything about it. Every feeling, every thought, the way she looked to me, the words we said to each other. It’s just burned in my mind.
A: So she got the job
(He laughs nodding and picks up the paper again to fiddle with it while he speaks).
O: Yeah, she got the job.
A: Was it love at first sight?
O: No! Oh no. It wasn’t anything like that. I mean that isn’t to say I didn’t notice how beautiful she was. I did. I definitely did.
A: Do you think it was love at first sight for her?
O: No. No. I don’t think so. I was - well - very high strung then. I think I intimidated her a little bit. And, you know, we had this history sort of looming over us. I think … I think we were both afraid to confront it, but we knew we would eventually when we were ready.
A: That sounds tense.
O: Yeah, yeah it was. For a while, but we got used to each other pretty quickly.
A: What did you talk about together then?
O: I can’t really recall anything specific. You know? Nothing special but we both continued to avoid any mention of the past.
A: What was it like?
O: Working closely with a beautiful woman?
A: Yeah. Sure.
(Owen laughs again and shakes his head).
O: Painful. Very painful. (He swivels in his chair and I can tell he wants to say more, so I hold further questions). You know back then she loved office supplies.
A: Office supplies?
O: Yeah, I know it’s weird right? She had all these multi-colored pens. All the colors in the rainbow. And then some. Little stickies all shapes and sizes. And these paper clips in the shape of cats. I remember her so clearly this way. She was always scribbling and doodling in this planner journal thing of hers. She’s Veridian, you know, so she has the feline traits. Her ears would always twitch when she got a little bit excited or interested in something. They would fall down on her hair when she got embarrassed. And her tail was always doing something too. I just - the more I observed her. The more I came to like her.
A: So when was your first date?
(He stares at the ceiling, frowning at it as if the answer wasn’t clear).
O: Well our first date, I suppose we can call it a date. I’m not sure of a better word for it...was this night at my house. She was teaching me to dance for the annual Christmas thing here.
A: She taught you to dance?
O: Yeah, so I wouldn’t embarrass myself. You know I don’t have the same pedigree as the other officers. I had to learn some of this extra stuff by the seat of my pants. But Julianna. She taught me to dance. At first it was all about the steps. It was serious. Professional. Strictly business. But we kept dancing after I learned all the steps I needed to know. Neither of us were concerned to be so close to one another and casual with one another. (He smiles, he’s not even speaking to me directly anymore, but just speaking as if to himself from memory.) I was real smooth when I kissed her. I knew, I knew she was a little bit… I guess nervous that I might? Or maybe the tension I sensed in her was anticipation. It was such a relief though. To finally be with her like that, even if for just a moment. We cooked dinner together, afterwards. Well she cooked for me, while I hung around her in the kitchen. I was drinking Scotch while she cooked. We ate together at the breakfast nook. It’s a booth, so, of course, we sat together. It was a good night.
A: So what happened after that? You kept dating each other?
O: Oh no. My girlfriend at the time walked in on us. It wasn’t like that. We were still eating dinner. I think twenty or so more minutes and she would have found us somewhere else.
A: So, you were in a relationship with another woman?
O: Yes. Yes at the time I was.
A: What happened with the other woman?
O: Well, obviously we broke it off.
A: Right then and there?
O: No. Not immediately. We hung on for a little while longer. But it was doomed.
A: Hm.
O: Yeah, I uh, I’m not proud of myself for the way I was with her then. My girlfriend then.
A: She just wasn’t the one?
O: No. I enjoyed sleeping with her. But she ultimately...she didn’t move me the way Julianna did. The way Julianna does. You know?
A: Sure, sure. Of course. So, did you know you were in love with Julianna then?
O: Um, yeah, yeah I think I knew. I think I knew something momentous was happening to me. And she was responsible.
A: That’s an interesting way to characterize falling in love.
O; Well that’s how it was with us. Nothing short of momentous.
A: So why not break it off with your girlfriend and be with Julianna?
O: I don’t know.
A: You don’t know?
O: Well, I was afraid. Of her. Of myself. Of hurting her. There’s no way to describe what I felt then.
A: So -
O: Well, look at it this way. It was a little bit before this dancing date night whatever you want to call it. Just a little before that, Julianna and I ended up somehow walking around downtown and looking at the holiday lights they do. You know? I just remember her shivering. It was so cold then. Unseasonably cold that year. So I offered her my arm. And she clung to me. She really clung to me. Shoved her hand down in my pocket and walked pressed against my body. I remember feeling so guilty. So guilty.
A: Because of your girlfriend?
O: No! Not at all. I felt guilty on account that I wasn’t the man Julianna needed me to be and I knew that. I wasn’t the one she should have been coming to warmth for. I didn’t have the warmth she needed. But I knew, I knew, the way she held onto me then that she was trying to convey how she felt about me. I remember we’d look each other in the eyes and say a bunch of meaningless stuff that way. No words, just looking at each other in a helpless sort of way. And I just - I couldn’t step up for her, then. And that’s how I felt for a very, very long time.
A: Even after you got together?
O: Oh yeah, oh yeah. I still feel that way sometimes. A crippling sort of why me? Why did she pick me? When will she wake up and realize what a big mistake she made investing so much of herself in a man like me?
A: That’s...what you conveyed here, do you feel like that’s a low way to see yourself?
(Owen looks down at his hands. His eyes look glassy for a moment.)
O: I don’t know. But you can’t publish any of that.
A: Why?
O: It’s off the record. It’s too... it’s too personal.
A: You don’t want your wife to know this stuff?
O: Yes. No. I - I don’t know. But you just can’t publish any of it. It’s too private. I shouldn’t have said any of it.

He told me it was too private and that I couldn’t publish any of it. I must go against his wishes now. Many things in these days that are ‘too private’ are being said about about him.

Whether he betrayed the Covenant or not in a professional sense, Owen Hart deserves also to be remembered as a man that one a little girl was proud to yell out in a room full of over serious adults, “That’s my daddy!” As a man who fell in love with a woman who liked paper clips in the shape of cats.

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 05-29-2017



He could feel her eyes on him but he didn’t look up from the book he was immersed in. Well, trying to be immersed in. It was hard when the weight of her gaze drew him out of the narrative.

Owen was sprawled comfortably in bed. The length of his torso elongated by the stretch of one arm upwards so that his hand sort of propped his head up. A badly abused paperback was bent down the middle and propped up on his bare chest. As his eyes traced the words from the top of the page to the bottom, he would lift the book off his chest to avoid craning his neck.

Now she was moving towards him. He still didn’t look. From the tops of his eyes he could see her crawling on all fours like a cat stalking prey. Her tail swayed back and forth playfully like a housecat preparing to pounce on it’s favorite toy. He positioned the book so it hid his proud grin.

Slowly she crawled up the length of his body with hands and knees on either side of him. She then sat right down on him, straddling his hips like she owned the place. And, in many respects she did.

Still, he didn’t lower his book.

This had long since become a game.

A game Julianna knew she could win at.

She walked her fingers up the muscled plane of his stomach and down to the side. Then her fingers danced lightly over the bones of his ribs made evident by his stretch. He gasped in response, stomach muscles contracting. His arm fell down and squeezed against his side, pushing her fingers away. He was trying to hide a smile behind his paperback.

Her ears were perched at attention, tail flicked back and forth with cat’s curiosity. She liked that reaction. She wanted more of it, but now he was protecting his ribs and making it hard on her probing fingers. She stole the book from his finger tips to barely enunciated protest. She didn't even mark the page. Just smiled perversely and dropped the book over the edge of the bed. It made a splat sound when the splayed pages hit the ground. She giggled in response. Owen knew it was no use to resist or protest, the kitten wanted her fun. He smiled as his eyes tracked her tail that swayed back and forth behind her head.

Julianna took both of his hands in hers and lifted them upwards to pin them above the crown of his head. She placed them palm up and held his wrists. For a moment she stared down at him. Morning light caught grey eyes in such a way that made them look almost white. Tufts of blonde hair stuck in every direction. The way she had arranged his hands made him look so vulnerable.

From Owen’s perspective, a frisky feline was inspecting her prey before she continued playing with it. He was acutely aware of the movement of his stomach with each breath he took in anticipation of the tickling sure to come.

She let go of his hands expecting them to stay above his head.

"Just this once," He warned sternly.

Julianna smiled coyly; she wasn't at all fooled by that hard tone. They both knew better.

His arms stayed for about a half a second. Jerking downwards reflexively when her fingers went back to dancing over his ribs. The sensation made the hair on the back of his neck and along his arms stand at attention. A breathy laugh also escaped him. There was nothing to be done about it. He was miserably ticklish.

They struggled a little bit with one another. His hands trying to capture hers as they feathered over his spasming stomach. They were both laughing, but his was involuntary. He rocked to the left and right as if to throw her off of him, but she clung valiantly to his hips with her thighs until they both stilled.

Owen was half-way to breathless from the fit of tickling when Julianna took his wrists again and more forcefully pinned them down next to his head. She let go for just a moment. Then she settled her hands on his, giving one more forceful push indicating she expected better compliance this time.

He could feel himself harden underneath her in anticipation of another round of his bucking hips and her shifting around on top of him. Imagining that his hands were truly bound to the pillow helped stay his hands longer while she began her torture of his sensitive torso. He couldn’t help the involuntary twitching of stomach muscles, gasping breaths and giggles, and finally the bucking of his hips. Her ears twitched deliberately like little satellites picking up every different sound he made. By the time his will had given in to the need to protect his rib cage from her onslaught, she was bent over him and pressing purr vibrating kisses to his chest, ribs, stomach, all over his abdomen. She tested at teasing his nipple with her mouth and hummed with pleasure when his hand went to her hair.

Her kisses worked higher until she was in the crook of his neck. She teased with a darting tongue and brushing teeth until he shrugged laughing at the tickling sensation she could produce with just her mouth.

“I want you,” he told her, both a request and demand, when her mouth finally met his. He wouldn’t let her pull away from the seal of the kiss, holding her mouth on his and capturing her lips repeatedly while their hips ground into one another.

Finally, he released her from the kiss and she sat up, her fingers trailed down his chest to his stomach. She snatched up his hands and pinned them once again against the pillow next to his head. Whatever they were going to do next, she wanted to do herself.

For the moment, he was content to watch and be played with.

She lifted her hips off of him long enough to tug away his boxers. Too eager to have him inside, she didn’t bother taking her own clothes off. She pulled black cotton panties to the side, and lowered herself on to him. Both hands were between her legs, one to keep cotton fabric out of the way, and the other to work a hard cock around in her arousal. She wasn’t even looking at him. Her hair had fallen forward, a curly sheet of dark hair as her face was down-turned curiously watching what she was doing to herself.

Julianna was both purring and moaning by the time she slid his cock inside her. Finally, lowered onto him, she made small adjustments to her hips to find just the right spot. Once settled comfortably, her hands went to the hem of her shirt - his CAF Navy shirt - and she lifted it over her head just to discard it over the side of the bed. She wasn’t even finished with the task before her hips started rolling eagerly on his. Biting her lip, she tried to hide an eager whimper of need behind nearly closed lips as the fabric fell from her fingers to the bed next to them.

Her hips worked in up-and-down circles as her hands explored both their bodies. She made a display of herself for Owen to watch, touching her own breasts and sliding her hands down her curves. Owen wanted so much to touch her. To enjoy the feeling of her body the way she clearly was. But he waited having never seen Julianna so ... full of herself. So unabashedly relishing in self-indulgent satisfaction. There was a hunger in her eyes, he had only the benefit of seeing just a few times.

It was she that broke first, though, wanting his hands on her. She reached for just one and brought it to her face so she could kiss the palm of it lovingly.

He took that as a kiss of approval to touch and brought both of his hands to cup breasts that bounced with the rhythm of her hips. He teased her nipples between index and thumb to her response pants. His own hips bucked eagerly upwards into hers in time with the rhythm she set. The first sharp buck took her by surprise and she yelped an ‘Oh!’ in response.

His hips didn’t stop, so she leaned back, bracing herself with her hands on his thighs while he thrust upwards into her as she cried out. Owen growled in appreciation for the sounds she made. Both hands dropped to grasp at her hips while their bodies crashed together. One hand dropped between her legs. He rubbed and kneaded at her clit with his thumb, maintaining that unforgiving cadence all the while. Her ears pinned down against her head and her head dropped backwards with spine arching as waves of pleasure became more intense. Their breaths were ragged.

His hand had stopped its work between her legs, but she wouldn’t accept it. She grabbed his hand and pushed it back between her legs. “No. Don’t ---- stop. Please, please.” He couldn’t argue with her pleading and placed his thumb back on the swollen sensitive bundle of nerves. Owen clenched his jaw in deep concentration, trying not to get too swept away in the feeling of her too soon.

She yelled his name at the ceiling when she came. Head thrown back, hair dangling down her spine, as her body went taut. When the fit had released her, she felt suddenly weak and collapsed down against him. Her clit and somewhere deep inside throbbed in continued waves of pleasure.

They stayed that way for several moments, both gasping breathless. She could hear the frantic beating of his heart that barely settled even after several minutes of rest. He petted her hair and kissed her scalp before rolling over on top of her. One hand held their hips together. She gripped the back of his shoulders, whimpering and sensitive from her orgasm while he bucked into her. His face dropped to her shoulder while his hips thrust. The sharpness of the nails that dug into his skin and the noises she made quickly sent him over the edge that he had been holding back from.

They both laid on their backs next to one another as they recovered.

Julianna rolled onto her side and walked her fingers along his hip bone. “You’re ticklish aren’t you?” She asked, her tail was back to it’s playful flicking beating lightly against the sheets.

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 06-01-2017

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 06-17-2017

Just Two

Owen’s hands worked clumsily peeling potatoes. The skins and some chunks of the white meat fell sloppily into the kitchen sink - and some on the floor at his feet - with each stroke of the paring knife.

He knew for one he didn’t have the ideal tool for the task. Julianna had always used a peeler. It made this chit chit chit chit sound when she’d used it. Her hands had always worked rapidly. Peeling these delicate strips of ugly potato skin. Hardly any meat was wasted.

He couldn’t find the peeler though. So he’d chosen a paring knife.

Julianna hardly ever needed to look at what she was doing half the time. She could turn the potato and by feel peel the skin on the next side. She often stared out the window when she peeled. Or chattered with him or the kids or on the phone. She had gotten so good at peeling she could pin her cell phone between her shoulder and ear and talk and talk while peeling.

He wondered what she was watching when she looked out the kitchen window while peeling. Probably for birds. She had this knack for spotting wildlife. He never found bird watching interesting but she would grab his hand and point out species to him nonetheless. Always bent towards life.

He put his face closer to the window to watch sunlight filtering through leaves in the big oak that shaded the back yard. Prismed light moved along the grass when the breeze ruffled branches. A squirrel bounced around like a stage actor in the natural moving spotlight seemingly pleased with itself. Peering closer still he watched the neighbor’s pine tree dust the yard with dead needles. He made a mental note to check the gutters that invariably filled with those fucking needles.

An open-eyed dream started playing over the scene in the yard. Julianna with her hair pulled back into a bun wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her arm. In that same motion she shoved her boxy sunglasses back up onto the bridge of her nose from where it had fallen to the tip. It immediately started sliding back down her nose which was a little bit slick from perspiration. She was bent over the little herb planter she asked him to put together for her with cute brown work gloves embroidered with a flower and butterfly on the wrist. She had sanded and painted the planter herself and was filling it with herbs she would use for cooking. She stopped looking distressed for just a second before a cute sneeze seized her whole body. Then she laughed heartily chin tilted upwards amused because the force of the little sneeze had made her drop a handful of dirt on their patio.

“Shit.” The sensation of knife meeting finger prompted the curse. It wasn’t even pain that drew his attention but rather the feeling of the knife meeting a squishier texture. He’d been staring off out the window lost in thought and gone and cut himself while trying to emulate Julianna’s peeling style and the way she watched the yard.

Now he was bleeding all over the potato. It looked like some piece of shit abstract art exhibit. A weird pale vaguely potato-shaped polygon with a red substance smearing over it. He dropped the ruined vegetable into the sink and washed out the wound with a stinging hot water.

When he stepped to reach for napkins he felt potato skins squish underfoot.

“Fuck.”

He hadn’t realized he’d been dropping skins all over the floor. It looked like he was missing the sink half the time.

After wrapping his bleeding finger in a napkin, Owen bent to pick up the potato skins from the floor. He dragged the garbage can over pile and flung the skins inside. The actions were punctuated by the sickly wet sounds of the skins meeting the plastic bag.

He threw out the bloodied potato too. He wouldn’t have normally wasted the vegetable. Surely washing and boiling it would rid it of any germs. But he was cooking a dish for Nic’s class. His conscious couldn’t allow him to knowingly cook up a potato that had touched his blood and serve it to the other children.

Nic needed a traditional Eskran dish for the International Food Faire. This was a task Julianna would have delighted in. She had cooked the very dish for their family many times before. A hearty pot pie always in the winter. Served in a cast iron skillet.

Owen had found the recipe card. Worn with use. A grease stain on the corner. Her handwriting faded.

2 pounds of potatoes peeled and quartered.

Two pounds suddenly felt too heavy. Her absence felt too heavy. It wasn’t that he missed her for the tasks she performed. He could learn to do all of that. He missed the way she did things. Her smile, her laugh, the little bones that shifted under the skin of her hands when she fiddled with kitchen stuff he had no knowledge of. He missed the long-standing joke they played out over the endless implements for baking and cooking she stuffed into their cabinets and asked him to get down for her.

He missed teasing her.

We don’t need that, love. He would warn even as her eyes sparkled with the victory she had yet to win over him. I do need that. And I want it. He would sigh and pick the box up for her. Fine.

Owen knew he could survive alone.

But I do need her. And I want her.

Somehow he had torn the kitchen apart. The cabinets were open. Baking pans had thundered together and against the wall when he threw them screaming that he wanted her. He tore open drawers and threw spatulas and spoons and measuring cups and a garlic press. He wasn’t hearing the noise he made. Just this wooshing sound in his ears.

Owen ran his finger over the recipe card, her once perfect handwriting. He picked it up and pressed it to his chest and sunk down to the floor. He let his hands fall away from himself. The recipe card fell to his leg and slid off onto the floor. His legs were somewhat apart in a small open V. Hands at his sides palms up. The posture felt good to him. It was weak. It was open. Like he was giving his grief up to the room. He sat there looking at the messed up kitchen and worried over whether he had given her everything she had ever wanted. Was there another pan he could have bought her? Another witty joke he could have told before swiping the card? Had he missed any opportunities to touch his hand to her shoulder or back as he reached for whatever she asked him to retrieve?

“Dad?” At some point his son had come to investigate the noise after it died down. Best to let the storms pass before surveying the damage. He found his father sitting on the floor, bleeding into a napkin, and staring at the fridge.

Owen didn’t move. He couldn’t bring himself to make eye contact with Nic. “I can’t do this.” He whispered.

Nic moved into Owen’s line of sight. The boy bent to take the recipe card from where it had fallen next to his father’s thigh.

“I’m sorry, Nic.”

The child’s green eyes moved over the words on the recipe card. He read the directions one by one to understand the process. He knelt down and placed a small hand over his father’s injured one. “I can help you, dad.” He offered quietly. “We can make it together.”

Owen’s eyes flicked to meet his son’s gaze. He felt a welling of something inside. He touched Nic’s face and then pulled the boy against him in a hug. He crushed down the tide of emotion inside and smashed the child against him.

“We need to buy a potato peeler.”

Nic pulled away and tapped his his father on the nose with his index finger. “Two peelers, silly.”

“Two. Yes.”

Nic wouldn’t know how the number two stabbed into his heart. It was an even number and weren’t even numbers nice to deal with? Sure, but it wasn’t round and full and complete like the number three. Like the three of them could have been together if she wasn't dead.

Two could be enough to live for. It had to be enough for the patient-like-his-mother green eyed boy that waited for him to stand.

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 06-21-2017



He didn’t know what he expected messing with the MoD9 gang.

He had heard they had a knack for some real sick torture - particularly of people who made their shitlist.

He wasn’t stupid though. Just too much of a busybody to let his sister go around dating a dude from that notorious gang. So he fucked the guy up. Did a real stand-up job on the guy’s face and got in some great kidney shots.

So, yeah, no, stupid is correct.

He survived being revenge dragged behind a dirt bike for --- how long had that lasted? A lot longer than he had ever lasted on the back of a mechanical bull. Being dragged was an interesting experience. Hadn’t he always sought unique experiences?

Pain was a funny thing. Looking back at that moment, the thing that bothered him most was the dust stabbing his eyes. It wasn’t the arm that had been dislocated from the shoulder socket and shredded like it had gone through a meat grinder. It wasn’t layers of peeled away skin along his side, and back, and down his thigh. It wasn't the incandescent pain of his mangled beyond hope - I didn’t know it could bend like that - arm. It wasn’t the burning road rash. It wasn’t stabbing broken ribbed breaths. It was the damn red dirt in his eyes. More annoying than painful.

Though he felt the pain coursing through his entire body he thought that he had transcended beyond it. The pain had crescendoed until it hit a plateau in which being and time and space became incomprehensible and everything sort of melted away into this new form of consciousness.

The pain he seemed able to acclimate psychologically too, but that dust in his eyes just wouldn’t let him.

Then he survived the rough load-up into the back of a pick-up and bumpy ride back to a bunker.

And then he survived the part when they sawed that ruined arm clean off his body.

Now having rejoined the world of the conscious, Owen didn’t know if he would survive much longer.

Well, he didn’t know if he wanted to.

Not when he was laying on his side on a cold floor, in a clammy warehouse bunker, shivering and bleeding into some dirty rags bound around the massive wound at his shoulder and staring over at - what was that?

These two scarred up looking guard dogs were jumping at something hanging from a hook in the ceiling. Something would drip from it every now and then and the dogs would clamor over one another to lick the droplet.

An air conditioner hummed to life sending drafts of colder air over his trembling body as he watched the frustrated dogs bark at what was definitely his own arm. It was hung by the shoulder where the flesh looked shredded from the ineffective way it had been sawed it from his body - didn’t they have any better tools for it? He thought they were professionals, but their limb severing set up was amateur at best.

The air that kicked on had enough force to make the arm hung there by a rope twist and turn these little flourishing pirouettes to the song of barking below.

Owen closed his eyes on the macabre scene and decided with the utmost determination to just go ahead and die. He almost changed his mind on dying wondering whether his finale would be as good as the rest of his torture so far - but no - he wasn’t staying until the end of this movie.

Much to his chagrin, cold water and slapping to his cheeks roused him and he was confronted by the visage of his savior who was sporting a handsome beard and a withering stare. “I told you to leave it alone. Let’s go.” Darcy kept all concern from his face as he pulled at Owen’s good arm encouraging the dying man to sit up. He avoided staring at what had been done to his friend and treated this as if it were any other day waking Owen from a night of drinking.

Just another day in this fucking fucks life.

“You got your ‘I told you so’ now if you don’t mind I was very busy dying here. It’s quite hard work. Taking all my mental focus.” When Owen put his mind to a thing it was hard to turn him back in the other direction. He had his pride and all.

“Shut the fuck up and stand up, Owen. You’re going to be fine. Less an arm, but you’ll survive.” Darcy sounded confident, but wasn’t entirely sure. That was a lot of blood on the floor.

“Well I’ve already decided to die. I would hate to disappoint myself.”

“Being a disappointment is what you’re best at. It's your calling. Now get up.”

Owen allowed himself to be helped up gulping at air from the pain. He hunched into himself guarding the most injured parts. “This is the bottom, eh? Not much worse than this. Nowhere to go but up.”

“No doubt.” Darcy answered flatly as he arranged Owen’s good arm around his back and acted as a leaning post while they walked. “To the stars.”

Owen laugh-groaned in response to Darcy’s sarcasm as they passed the corpses of the guard dogs and under that swinging arm.


They were in the middle of a screaming match.

“I didn’t save your ass for you to throw it away to the CAF! The level of your idiocy never ceases to amaze me.”

“Fuck you! Fuck you. You didn’t lose your arm! I didn’t ask for this.”

“Plenty of people manage to live without limbs! You would have been fine!”

“Yeah and plenty of people sell their freedom in exchange for cybernetics! So fucking sue me.”

“You’re going to regret this.”

“I won’t live long enough for that.”

“They never release their contractors.”

Owen laughed morosely as he drank straight from a bottle of liquor wielded by his shining new cybernetic arm he’d gotten in exchange for a lifetime contract of dangerous corporate security work for the CAF.

They were both wrong though.

Owen did live long enough to regret it. And he had been released from service. But that was because the last bastion of order - the CAF - fell. And now he was stuck with a high-maintenance prosthetic in a time when the world had been practically flung back into the dark ages.


Pain was a funny thing.

There were places where the nerve lead attachments were eroding something awful - it was actually the damn dust that gathered inside the shoulder cuff and irritated his skin to no end that bothered him more than the phantom nerve pains that woke him gasping with tears in his eyes in the dead of night.

Oh yeah. He regretted it.

He wasn’t supposed to have stayed for the end of the movie.

Hey, at least he got some fucking sick scars and a great story out of it.

---

RE: Artifacts [Read Only] - saronym - 07-30-2017


Neither of them remembered what the movie was about. For the entire two hours both had been entirely consumed with the exact placement of the other’s body. Did she just move her arm to the rest? Did he just reach for the popcorn? When was the most opportune time to touch one another? And when he finally reached for her hand, slipped his fingers through hers and curled them into place over her hand, both lost sense of any reality beyond their two theatre seats and their hands linked together. He had never felt anything so electrifying.

When the credits began to roll and the lights gently rose enough for the patrons to dismiss, Cain regretted not taking her hand sooner. Time had run out so fast. Now they were busy gathering their trash and filing out into the harsher light in the theatre lobby.

When he asked her out, he hadn’t planned past the movie part. For one he was stunned she had even accepted. For another he almost expected her to come up with an excuse as to why she couldn’t go. But then a few hours earlier he found himself in his car taking the blue columbine lined drive up to her house to pick her up. The cancellation never came.

“So, um...did you like it?” He asked holding the door open for her to exit the building. Other lay moviegoers were asking one another the same question and giving their own opinions. Since neither of them had really watched the film it was almost as if he was asking whether she liked him holding her hand.

Half a second went by, “Yeah!” She answer enthusiastically passing by him and onto the sidewalk. “I did.” Akiko probably couldn’t name two minor characters from the film they had just ignored. But she liked the way he held her hand. “So what now?” She asked cocking her head at him and smiling.

Cain’s heart beat hard and fast while he racked his brain for what to do next. An idea - perhaps a bad one - entered his head. “Have you ever been to the botanical gardens?”

“Yeah! My dad and -”

His tail flicked around mischievously behind him. “At night?”

Akiko’s eyes rolled off to the side and then back to Cain as she realized what he was suggesting. “Aren’t they closed?”

The corner of his mouth curled upwards. “Yeah.” He didn’t wait for an answer but started walking along the sidewalk away from the theatre that would lead them to the botanical gardens a few blocks away.

Akiko huffed and trotted to catch up with him. Nervous butterflies tickled somewhere in her stomach. “Cain, what if we get in trouble?”

“We won’t.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t. But I do know my dad’s a general and my mom’s a queen and that you’ve never been in the botanical gardens at night.” His arm suddenly extended out to stop her from continuing to walk. He rounded in front of her and took both of her hands. “Are you scared?”

Akiko gazed up into blue eyes that had more sway than they had a right to. She swallowed hard before saying. “No. Of course not.” She had been raised on a ranch a glorified flower garden at night couldn’t scare her.

“Then let’s go.” Cain tugged at her hands, his tail flicked erratically, and they continued their walk to the garden. This time he kept one of her hands in his.

When they reached the park, as one would expect the gates were closed for the evening. A sign printed with red warned No Trespassing.

“Can you climb that?” Cain asked of the minor fence that was posted to keep out trespassers such as themselves. He asked it as if challenging her.

“Of course!” Akiko replied exasperated and shoved him aside so she could take the fence first to demonstrate.

He followed after her and once he was over he grabbed her hand and whispered “‘run.’” Akiko afraid they had been spotted dashed away from the gate and ran hand-in-hand with Cain deeper into the dark gardens. They didn’t run far before Cain started laughing and stopped.

“What!” Akiko asked him. “What’s so funny!” She has half breathless and her voice sounded loud in the dark quiet.

He was gripping his stomach and laughing. “You were - so - scared.” He said between breaths.

“Cain!” She swatted at him with the back of her hand and he let the blow land against his chest. She wasn’t even that mad, but her voice pitched higher towards the shrill.

“Shh!” He warned pushing a finger over her lips. They were parted from her breathlessness and felt soft under the pad of his finger. “We’re being too loud.”

She shoved his hand away from her face even though she hadn’t minded the contact. “Don’t shush me.”

The hand that pushed at his was captured and manipulated until their fingers were locked with hands palm to palm. “You need to be quiet.” He warned again smiling now because it was all a game of flirting.

“Why?”

Cain didn’t know what came over him. None of his previous experience being himself would lead him to believe he could be smooth with a girl. But he heard himself saying “because.” He felt his own hand take her face and he pulled her close to him so he could press his mouth to hers. Akiko seemed to know what was coming. She responded as if she had been entirely prepared. As if she were one step ahead of him. Was this her plan all along? She sort of collapsed against him and threw her free arm around his waist. Their hands untangled so hers could go around his neck and his could find a resting spot against her spine.

At some point someone pulled away. They couldn’t keep going on kissing like that in the dark amongst flowers they couldn’t even see. At some point the sun would come up. Sometime sooner than that Akiko’s curfew would come due. They were both almost thankful for the cover of darkness. Both flushed and trying to suppress giddy smiles.

“Let’s keep walking.” He offered and took her hand again. It was getting easier to just reach for her. Each time was less scary than the last.

She didn’t say anything but leaned against his arm as they walked.

“I’ve never been here when there’s nobody else. My parents are annual pass holders.” He said to make conversation. “We come all the time in the spring and summer. My mom likes looking at all the flowers and stuff. Anita is like an encyclopedia on plants now.”

“That sounds so nice.” She mused.

“I hate it.” He said quickly so that he could go on to the point of his story. “I feel like people stare at me. One time, this kid pulled my tail and I, like, hit him a little bit. Just his hand to get it off me. And his mother started shrieking at me. That I had assaulted her kid. Like, he grabbed me lady. Maybe teach him not to grab people’s bodies, you know? Anyways, that’s what my dad said. He got all mad and confronted the lady. And then my mom swooped in and explained stuff and smoothed it over. It was so embarrassing. I didn’t mean to hit the kid. It just - like - happened? I reacted without thinking. Now I’m always super paranoid some kid is going to grab me again.”

Akiko’s hand tightened around his to express sympathy for his story. Her free hand rubbed along his forearm as she tried to soothe him. “That sucks.” This sounded lame to her even though Cain appreciated the sentiment. He appreciated that she listened to his negativity at all. “I know!” She chimed suddenly. “We could come one day together when it’s raining. Get umbrellas and rain coats and rain boots.”

“Why would we do that?” His question was incredulous.

“Because nobody would be here so we could enjoy the park during the daytime.” She smiled up at him.

“That’s emo as hell.” His remark was overly flat and unenthusiastic sounding which made Akiko deflate a little bit. He could feel her literally sinking down. “But it’s really sweet. And cute.” He bent down to press a brief kiss against her lips to make up for it. “The next Saturday when it rains we’ll have a super emo date here.”

She smiled into the kiss. “Okay!”

Somehow it had been established right then that they both wanted more dates with each other.

---