Mirage: It’s a vicious cycle.
I can’t stop creating no matter how much it hurts, no matter how many times it drives me into this kind of headspace. I guess it’s better than leaving it alone and letting it fester, but goddamn.
Why don’t you stop, then?
Mirage: I can’t. Once I stop, something in me begs for me to let it out again. It’s an endless excavation of me and I can’t stop digging down.
Am I understanding myself more by doing this? I don’t know.
I think this is part of me now.
Stereotypical of me to ask, perhaps, but was there any event in your childhood—
Mirage: That’s the funniest part. I was perfectly fine.
[laughs]
Sorry I gave you that impression.
~~~
The bouncer at the entrance to the bar tonight is a Swordsmachine, peeling magenta paint revealing the rusty yellow underneath. It leers at Gabriel when he approaches, hands tightening around the straps of his bag.
The machine lifts its sword arm. ‘Halt.’ It looks him up and down with its lopsided eyes. ‘Aren’t you the bitch who spilled my drink when that band was performing?’
Gabriel honestly does not remember, so he nods. The Swordsmachine makes an annoyed whirring sound.
‘I’m expecting reimbursement for this.’
‘Ah.’ Gabriel reaches for his bag. ‘Monetary, or…’
‘I’m just joshing you. Get in and party properly this time.’
It opens the door and Gabriel darts in, the bizarreness of the interaction still swirling in his mind as he navigates the darkness. The stage is empty today and the room is not as full as usual, with only the tables lining the walls occupied. Halogen lights barely illuminate the place, and its flesh-coloured wallpapers (Gabriel shudders at the choice) are still peeling.
He’s here early so he finds a seat and orders a drink of plain water. The Drone who takes his order tilts its head (the entirety of its body) before flying off, chirping the whole time.
Gabriel’s gaze flicks to the ceiling, at the lightbulb hanging down above his table. A miniature sun of his world that comprises the table and the burnt-out candle in the middle. The light is warm and the bulb sways gently.
Like a moth, Gabriel’s attention circles the light.
He thinks of his missing Father, and his restored light.
Most of all, Gabriel thinks of home.
Home is where he was created. Home is where he grew up. Home is where he learned everything he knew, became a good obedient angel. Home is where he carried out the Will of God. Home is where he hacked up two men for rebelling against the Council. Where he broke his first and only promise to someone that loved and trusted him completely.
He can go back in an instant. But he can never truly return.
The chair opposite him creaks. Gabriel looks up.
White sheet, gold ornaments. A pair of skeletal hands, stained a deep blue, clasped atop the table. He looks over his shoulder once, twice.
The Ferryman’s voice is muffled by the sheet, wispy.
‘My radiance.’
Gabriel wants to tell him to stop, that now, away from the context of home they are equals, but the words get stuck in his throat.
The Ferryman’s sheet rustles as he leans forward. His ghost, haunting him all this while, finally made manifest. ‘You came looking for me.’
Gabriel nods. ‘I am glad to have found you.’
What else can he say? What words of comfort can he offer after that betrayal? An apology would not suffice, not now, not when they’re so close to normalcy, like nothing has ever changed—
Gabriel speaks first. ‘How have you been?’
The Ferryman extracts a pack of matches, removes the single match from within the box. With deft hands he lights the candle between them.
Over the faint warmth of the fire, in a bar where no one pays them any attention, where they might as well be shielded from the roiling world around them, the Ferryman begins to speak.
There is no hatred in his wispy voice, no underlying current of rage threatening to pull Gabriel beneath its waves. He speaks as if to a friend, the two of them playing their respective roles in the push-and-pull of ‘how have you been’s and ‘I’ve been fine, thank you’s. A veneer for both of them to dance on, the truth buried beneath their feet.
And Gabriel learns that his friend dropped out of college to work as a delivery driver. He’s been staying low-profile because he isn’t sure if the Council still has all of his identification and legal documents. He enjoys his job. Some customers pay him in obol still. He likes the ratty old car he’s been fixing up. He might use it on the job one day. He’s been living in the suburbs close by, and his neighbours are mostly other Husks. They’ve been decent to him. He still paints when he has time.
And Gabriel looks at his hands, clasped together, sweat coating the palms. Wanting his companion to break down and lunge across the table and wrap his hands around his willing throat. Give him the catharsis of pain for throwing him to the wolves. But the Ferryman speaks on, a hint of timidness in his voice, as if nothing has ever happened.
Gabriel readies himself to speak.
‘I’ve fallen out of the Council’s good graces.’
He doesn’t mean to sound so self-pitying, so pathetic.
The Ferryman stops mid-sentence, crossing his arms in front of him. Then, he exhales a short laugh, a noise that sounds like a flute.
‘What did you do?’
‘I came here, against their wishes.’ To look for you. ‘I neglected to return within the timeframe we had agreed on.’
He leaves out the part about his divine light, how he had threatened the hand that had wielded him for all these years, this tentative freedom he now holds.
Instead, Gabriel’s next words come out haltingly.
‘Now we are one and the same.’
The Ferryman seems frozen in place, hands outstretched in an aborted gesture to reach across the table.
‘No,’ he says, finally. ‘No, my radiance.’
He is right, Gabriel realises; he, the archangel, is worse. If sin can be measured, then the misplaced devotion of the Husk before him pales in comparison to what Gabriel has done.
He says that out loud. The Ferryman listens, hands folded.
‘I do not think it matters. Who is measuring our sin? God, silent? The Council, apathetic?’ The Ferryman catches himself. ‘I have gone too far. My apologies for stepping out of line.’
‘No. You speak the truth. If righteousness still existed in this world I would have been exiled instead of you. You deserve a seat near the Father more than I ever did.’
The Ferryman shakes his head. ‘If you are no longer within that esteemed circle, I want no part of redemption.’
And that was precisely where it went wrong, wasn’t it? Because God no longer speaks. Because rot infested his order. And he—alongside everyone—grappled for forgiveness from false idols. Mistook the rot for faith, and when it poisoned him—when it poisoned everyone—
Long, bony hands wrap themselves around his fists. Gabriel forces himself to return to his body. See, the flickering flame. The Ferryman’s head tilted as he gives Gabriel’s hands a squeeze.
The armbands he used to wear, gold, spanning the entire length of his forearm, are gone.
Gabriel gathers himself.
‘I cannot grant you redemption. I am not God. If you knew the depths of my sin when you used to pray to me… I do not deserve your worship.’
‘But you did save me.’ The Ferryman does not let go of his hands. ‘First you saved my life, then my soul. If it weren’t for my exile, I would not have seen the Council as it was. I would never have known that my endless efforts were futile. That God was not listening. That God was found with my own two hands. Forgive the blasphemy, my radiance.’
‘It is not blasphemy to speak the truth,’ says Gabriel, and immediately a short bark of laughter leaves him. From a fallen archangel, to a sinner… the Ferryman’s soft flute-like laugh sounds again. For a while the two of them are caught in that feedback loop, laughing together even as the other patrons turn to look at them, one Mindflayer near the back of the room giving them a rude gesture.
The Ferryman composes himself. ‘Perhaps, by some metric we cannot see, I am spiralling further into sin than I ever have before. No matter. Let it be because I loved you, because you saved me. Not God.’
Gabriel’s breath catches in his throat.
Of course, this is blasphemy of the highest degree. He is just an angel, and to impersonate the Father is unthinkable. But how can a love like this be anything but pure?
The Ferryman changes the subject, thankfully. ‘I have talked enough about myself. Have you been well?’
The rest of the night goes by in a pleasant haze. They don’t order a single drink, drawing ugly glances from the bartender, but neither of them care enough. Gabriel talks on and on, about his friends, about the classes he has been taking. He’s falling behind on coursework, but in this singular, transient moment, he cannot find it within himself to care.
The Ferryman’s demeanour noticeably changes when he brings up the band.
‘I saw you that night,’ he says. ‘Talking to them, backstage. I was taken by fear, then, that you would resent me. I have too little faith in the kindness that drew me to you at first.’
‘I was afraid, too, that you would resent me.’ Gabriel watches the candle between them burn out. ‘It seems my fears were misplaced.’
That sends them into a laughing fit again, and the bartender climbs over the counter to ask them to leave.
Outside, in the cool night air, a faint veil of moonlight illuminating the asphalt beneath their feet, the Ferryman hands Gabriel his phone number, written on a slip that he pockets for later.
‘I have work tomorrow,’ the Ferryman brings up. ‘I’ve taken up enough of your time.’
‘I always have time for you,’ says Gabriel.
The Ferryman looks at him for a while, as if wanting to say something. Gabriel waits, the cool night breeze whipping his skirt around his ankles.
‘You look beautiful tonight,’ the Ferryman says.
Gabriel nods his thanks, unsure what the fluttering in his ribcage means.
‘I have one last request, if you will.’
Gabriel nods again.
‘Can I whisper it to you?’
Gabriel allows the Ferryman to pull him down, bony hands wrapped around his shoulders. Voice like the wind, still tinged with shame, but overpowered by desire.
The Ferryman lifts his veil, allowing Gabriel to join him underneath the holy cloth. The clack of skull against metal helm, the Ferryman’s hands chastely by his side, too afraid to overstep.
Gabriel wraps the skeleton in his embrace, the first time they have ever shared one since the first time they met. The Ferryman returns it, hands trembling, their shared breath quickening.
The moon as their only witness, Gabriel whispers an apology, and the Ferryman embraces him tighter in return.
the antidepressants are working so well man
merry yaoimas everyone
the last few chapters have been pretty short tbh and the next few will be as well. but don't worry the end is almost in sight for us