For Eddie

She could not hear the shuffles from where he stood, only the soundwaves they artificially conveyed and the music that came along. Color was wanting from all around him: the rain paled, summing vapors where fabric drew close to freezing, the degrees dropping at the speed of their own sound. In his world, the runway was unheard of and the stylist was far away into another century, ot the next maybe. A sea of solemn faces gathered, quieting at the first note in prayer-like silence. He reflected their endeavors, always knowing just by smoothing phrases others have no right to touch. He began to circle around, crashed the instrument twice, even, and never ever spoke. He had demanded attention after a manner, too. What wasn't there, he replaced with mastery. His arms restrained, features flipping back, his melody descending. His amateurism was lost on her. She stared but didn't spare herself for a moment. She began to question not the others' capacity but the picture they painted. There was greatness in what they know, and only deficiency in his company, and the world all over stood captivated. She couldn't have touched on its entirety; a secret unknown, unspoken, what does a child understand or otherwise know where deification is due? A simple worship, a frequent paying of respects; there are more to them than idle speculations, none of them she could ever explain.

Schizo

She will never forget the manic glint in his eyes as he flicked the match out in the open oily floor. There was little more than joy in his face as the flame succeeded what must be her stifled scream, her throat jammed, sweating the last drop of liquid out of her. Everything went too fast, not to mention in distant white hot anger. She stood awhile as she watched him waltz in burning glee; by the time she ran out of the store, her cling to life tightening, the rest of what she and her family built for over ten years melted in black ashes. The image erased itelf soon as the wind blew away what was left of it. Though even this would only spare her a little. Her neighbors started camping about her, standing on the balls of their feet, as still as the highway that went barren after a calamity. The sun was only slightly less hot than the flames that ate out her decade's amount of investment, and its light would afterward not be worse than the coldest stormy night she'd known. She'd dropped to her feet long before the men who came to the rescue decided to take action. As they did, she would loosen her final grasp to sanity.

She would resort to violence at the sight of this monstrosity, arms would restrain her from all directions, gripping her painfully now and then, and her screams would be the talk of the town for months afterward. If he could be murdered more than once, she'd get there ten times over.

His corpse would assume the strangest pose, his arms reaching to the heavens as if oblivious to the pain that precedes death, his feet only slightly closer to the ground. His jaw was slackened, his eyes pensive if not completely scoured. The doctors would excuse him, being more interested in the last identity his mind assumed than in the properties and lives he sent to utter ruin. He would be remembered only for his post-mortem diagnosis, not for his sweet child-like laughter as he rode a merry-go-round that never was quite there, nor for the adult jokes he cracked on one of his more mature days.

The media would buy her story, doing only the best they could by publishing, offering condolences on behalf of the whole country, and disappear into the thickets as though they never had a hand in all of it. In one sense, they didn't. She would leave this day to start anew, but by the end of each she'd catch herself exactly where she started.