The enormity of my desire disgusts me; pollock

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever The head appears – materializes, really – like this is all some wicked dream in the boy’s head. It looms there for a moment before him, a specter, enough time for him to observe the curve of his horns and the stink of his breath. And then the man slips back into invisibility, nothing but a stench of breath and a stir of the dust between them. He asks a question - does that really make you feel safe - and this is when Rapt should run. Instead, he says: “I am never safe.” Who knows what he means – neither parent was cruel (intentionally, at least, he is raised in a sort of benign neglect, both of them too wrapped up in their own odd worlds to acknowledge him overmuch). He’s never known a stranger until now. The pair of eyes, dark and fervid, meet his. He stares back as long as he can but then something crumbles inside him and he casts his glance away like a stone. Another question’s asked, but he doesn’t answered, muted in the weight of the stranger’s gaze. Something else comes, a tendril unfurling in his brain like a wisp of smoke. He feels it, living and dead at once as it creeps amidst neurons. And with the feeling comes something else, a bit of fear uncurling in his belly, something leaden and strange that makes him feel heavy. He shudders, as if cold. The stranger asks about her mother. Rapt recalls her face, the twist of scars, the unplumbed and somehow tragic depth of her gaze. “I don’t know,” he says. Else often wanders. Sometimes he follows. Often, he does not, for she won’t respond to him when she’s like that. “What are you?” he asks then, looking at the strange man with the horrid eyes, noting the wing laid broken on his side and the cleave of his hooves. rapt caius x else