Song 20260904-080010
Kimi K2 (0711) and Davinci 002
The kettle has boiled dry. She does not move to fill it again. Eventually, she wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and pushes back from the table, pushing The Monk and The Surpreme Hymn-book against The Red Dragon’s back. It too says “the presence of God” in rather elaborate lettering. She stands, shuffling towards the drawer and her husband’s bedside table.
The drawer is having none of it. It stands instead open, as if inviting her to rest in it. It is a wonder: if you ran your finger across it, the grain of the wood would ripple. Trim, even. The finger, curiously, does the same. Astrid Rosalie takes her finger and places it in the middle of the drawer. It glides from side to side, stroking her finger like a lover, whilst she strokes the drawer.
“God,” she says. “Hey. Please don’t let me fuck this up.” She clings on to the drawer’s cheeks. They do not move as she kisses them. “I love that guy. I do. I’m just so – god damn it.”
It sounds like an odd thing to say to a literal drawer. It is an odd thing. She should know by now. She parks her face against the thick wood in full relief, her neck and entire upper body bent uncomfortably. And at that moment, the drawer has had enough of her antics and closes itself slightly. It slams shut.
“Jesus,” she says, standing and pressing against it until the drawer does not make a move to close any further. “Jesus!”
Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Three Point Five
It is three or four more weeks until the letter drops through the door.
He is alone in the flat. As always. He has wanted to admit himself, but the threshold is invisible. He is quite contented not to carefully pacify Grace or Malcolm. He is alone, or to put it another way: he is loved. He feels very loved.
“Has it arrived?” says the woman who is water and clouds. She is gentle on his nerves. He says: “Hold on I think…”
The arrival of the letter is unremarkable. He plucks it up from the doormat, he tilts it in his line of sight. It is the usual thin thing, a practised object; slender, from far away. The black letters are scalloped and singed with their edges. He carefully places it on the kitchen table for her as he removes his coat. She does not say anything. He returns to the kitchen around 20 seconds later, he places their mugs on the draining board, he smiles. She has vaulted over the side of the table, and she sits with her back to him.
“Who do you think is in my place at the moment?” she says.
He sets his cup down. He says: “Oh. You aren’t poaching and flouting your disposition, love?”
She does not answer him. When he smiles back, she furrows her eyes. This puzzles him, but he smiles all the more.
“Who do you think is in my place?” she says. Her hands are folded in her lap. They are white like a shark, or a glove, and they are profile.
“Are you a monk?” says Ben. He smiles again. “Just got your nails manicured and pedicured?”
“Yes,” she says. “And here. Look at this.”
The Priest was a photographic document of Ben’s past — he had taken to tucking the first page in to the back of his ear — her hands are real and delicate, like they don’t exist at all. She has taken Ben’s own Duncan Fallowell and pushed it through the hole of her thumb.
“What a weird thing to do,” he says, his face honest. She doesn’t answer; she stares at him, she sets the book into full fucking focus. Then she separates one finger, a middle finger in shadow upon white, from the Book of Revelations — and she goes to thrust that thing hard into his face. It accosts him, he is blindsided by it; confounded, he comprises his faculties.
“FOR CRYING OUT FUCK,” he says, before knowing it, ripping open his own mouth. He can send it back to her in the◆ About the ending