08-15-2013, 10:59 AM
Sid does have to wait for an answer. And waiting is always the worst: heart-in-throat, that battering assault of adrenaline with nowhere to go and nothing to do but glance at the phone, and ask yourself if you should call someone, and assure yourself that no, no, give it time, everything is okay. Right?
That wait, that worry, because Who comes over the ether, the airwaves, the interwebs, Sera doesn't even know, doesn't understand all these pieces of connectivity, the way information soars through the air and ends up in her hands. Hell, when she wants new songs on her iPhone Dan has to handle that since she always gets confused by the connections and the options and the click-thingies that need to be clicked, and sometimes, some nights, she gets so fucked up she cannot even operate it. Just stares at it and it gleams back, buzzing hungrily as each new text comes in.
Anyway: who comes in and its small and buried and she's looking for other things and is distracted and distraught and is mostly not-crying but then starts crying again and then there is sleep.
It is ten-thirty-eight p.m.
Some nights she gets up at this hour.
--
Sera sleeps.
And nothing wakes her when she sleeps, nothing external that is, but her exhaustion is not really physical. She'd been awake for no more than seven or eight hours when Dan put her to bed, while Hawksley sat in the chair-shaped-chair uncovered from the pile of Sera's bizarre and wrinkled clean laundry. You can imagine what that consists of.
She wakes at two twelve a.m. and the house is silent and Hawklsey is asleep in her chair and she has the bizarre thought that it is dawn, that the sun is rising, and then: why isn't the sun rising, why is it still dark, tangled up in her sleeping mind.
Half-sleeping mind.
Her head aches from all that crying; throbs, really. And her arm throbs a bit too, but the wounds smell clean, antiseptic. Justin, she thinks, remembers, when she looks at the dressings, then reaches for her phone, scrolling through the updates, hoping for more.
And this time that text from Sid Who pings a bright point against her consciousness.
So somewhere in the neighborhood of two eighteen a.m. Tuesday-into-Wednesday night Sid receives a flurry of texts. They start small:
Pan.
And escalate.
Its bad, Sid.
She's slipping out of the bed, uncurling her legs, which are long not because she is tall, but because of the way her body is put together. She's wearing a Joy Division t-shirt and loose boxers which are black and covered in skull and crossbones. Half of the skulls are smiling.
The room is dark. Sera's mouth closes. It is two a.m. and this is like a confessional, this bright little device in her hand, the only light in the room.
We were attacked by these - things. Dogs.
They weren't alive.
Lena's with him @ hosp.
Remembers, abruptly, with a sharp breath out:
She was hurt too. IDK how bad.
And then, a few beats later, a few fresh tears in her eyes.
I cldnt make myself go w/them.
Call you tmrw.
More texts, at two twenty-seven a.m. Justin gets a Thank you.
And Lena does, too.
--
By now she has crossed the room, on soft bare feet. A few coils of her hair are still damp from her shower, which was hours ago. Which was Dan holding her beneath the hot water while she cried in his arms and he scrubbed the priest's blood from her skin. The garden is peaceful and so is the city and so is the room and so is the house. She looks out, through the windowpanes, which are old enough that the glass is wavy and imperfect.
There's Hawskley, sleeping in her chair-shaped-chair, all sprawled out - already a tall guy, taking up more-space-than-is-necessary. His elbow on the arm, fist beneath his chin. Sera wakes him with a hand on his shoulder, then reaches up to tuck his hair behind his ear. The gesture is likely unnecessary, won't his hair be perfectly toussled even in chair-sleep? but -
- she leans in, tips her forehead against his. Tells him, murmuring into his ear as he wakes, " - that can't be comfortable. Get up and come to bed." Holds out her hand as he stirs. Invitation, welcome, thanksgiving.
Looks up again, then. Out at the dark sky, flexes her arm and feels the stitches Justin worked into her skin. She wishes, Sera, that she had the magic to find him, whereever he is. That fucking hospital. It doesn't matter which one.
But she doesn't: not now and not yet. She's stuck in her skin, in the here and in the now. She can bend reality, yes, but only so far. And only in certain directions.
--
Sera sends a text, to Francisco Echeverría's fucking pager. Which is the stupidest thing in the world because it is a pager and the text will be gooblydigook, meaningess, nonsense, but she doesn't care.
Don't go anywhere.
You could call it a prayer.
If you die I will fucking kill you.
That wait, that worry, because Who comes over the ether, the airwaves, the interwebs, Sera doesn't even know, doesn't understand all these pieces of connectivity, the way information soars through the air and ends up in her hands. Hell, when she wants new songs on her iPhone Dan has to handle that since she always gets confused by the connections and the options and the click-thingies that need to be clicked, and sometimes, some nights, she gets so fucked up she cannot even operate it. Just stares at it and it gleams back, buzzing hungrily as each new text comes in.
Anyway: who comes in and its small and buried and she's looking for other things and is distracted and distraught and is mostly not-crying but then starts crying again and then there is sleep.
It is ten-thirty-eight p.m.
Some nights she gets up at this hour.
--
Sera sleeps.
And nothing wakes her when she sleeps, nothing external that is, but her exhaustion is not really physical. She'd been awake for no more than seven or eight hours when Dan put her to bed, while Hawksley sat in the chair-shaped-chair uncovered from the pile of Sera's bizarre and wrinkled clean laundry. You can imagine what that consists of.
She wakes at two twelve a.m. and the house is silent and Hawklsey is asleep in her chair and she has the bizarre thought that it is dawn, that the sun is rising, and then: why isn't the sun rising, why is it still dark, tangled up in her sleeping mind.
Half-sleeping mind.
Her head aches from all that crying; throbs, really. And her arm throbs a bit too, but the wounds smell clean, antiseptic. Justin, she thinks, remembers, when she looks at the dressings, then reaches for her phone, scrolling through the updates, hoping for more.
And this time that text from Sid Who pings a bright point against her consciousness.
So somewhere in the neighborhood of two eighteen a.m. Tuesday-into-Wednesday night Sid receives a flurry of texts. They start small:
Pan.
And escalate.
Its bad, Sid.
She's slipping out of the bed, uncurling her legs, which are long not because she is tall, but because of the way her body is put together. She's wearing a Joy Division t-shirt and loose boxers which are black and covered in skull and crossbones. Half of the skulls are smiling.
The room is dark. Sera's mouth closes. It is two a.m. and this is like a confessional, this bright little device in her hand, the only light in the room.
We were attacked by these - things. Dogs.
They weren't alive.
Lena's with him @ hosp.
Remembers, abruptly, with a sharp breath out:
She was hurt too. IDK how bad.
And then, a few beats later, a few fresh tears in her eyes.
I cldnt make myself go w/them.
Call you tmrw.
More texts, at two twenty-seven a.m. Justin gets a Thank you.
And Lena does, too.
--
By now she has crossed the room, on soft bare feet. A few coils of her hair are still damp from her shower, which was hours ago. Which was Dan holding her beneath the hot water while she cried in his arms and he scrubbed the priest's blood from her skin. The garden is peaceful and so is the city and so is the room and so is the house. She looks out, through the windowpanes, which are old enough that the glass is wavy and imperfect.
There's Hawskley, sleeping in her chair-shaped-chair, all sprawled out - already a tall guy, taking up more-space-than-is-necessary. His elbow on the arm, fist beneath his chin. Sera wakes him with a hand on his shoulder, then reaches up to tuck his hair behind his ear. The gesture is likely unnecessary, won't his hair be perfectly toussled even in chair-sleep? but -
- she leans in, tips her forehead against his. Tells him, murmuring into his ear as he wakes, " - that can't be comfortable. Get up and come to bed." Holds out her hand as he stirs. Invitation, welcome, thanksgiving.
Looks up again, then. Out at the dark sky, flexes her arm and feels the stitches Justin worked into her skin. She wishes, Sera, that she had the magic to find him, whereever he is. That fucking hospital. It doesn't matter which one.
But she doesn't: not now and not yet. She's stuck in her skin, in the here and in the now. She can bend reality, yes, but only so far. And only in certain directions.
--
Sera sends a text, to Francisco Echeverría's fucking pager. Which is the stupidest thing in the world because it is a pager and the text will be gooblydigook, meaningess, nonsense, but she doesn't care.
Don't go anywhere.
You could call it a prayer.
If you die I will fucking kill you.
But my heart is wild and my bones are steel
And I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free.
- Phosphorescent, Song for Zula
And I could kill you with my bare hands if I was free.
- Phosphorescent, Song for Zula