Evensong

Post-Levin, Velvet bag of shit Fucking autistic retard.

I needed the best, and Rafiq sent me you. A fucking autistic retard!

I needed the best, and Rafiq sent me you. A fucking autistic retard!

“Say that again, I’ll forget who I am.”

“When did you last remember who you are?”

“It does something a bit decisive, and thinks it’s turning into me.”

“It does something a bit decisive, and thinks it’s turning into me.”

“Something you haven’t told me. A final detail that over-turns everything else.”

The Detail. The Dead. The Detail.

Hate my opponents less, and understand them more.

Hate my opponents less, and understand them more.

Better than the most expensive whore.

The music paused. The words continued, sounding naked.

“I may not always be out here, in front of you, but God is always out there.”

“What did you make of that?”/“It sounded like Goodbye.”

She isn’t real. Appetites moodswings.Didn’t notice me then she did. Wanted involvement but maybe didn’t. Then she didn’t but maybe did. And me, the same but in reverse. Action and reaction. Not love. Not even companionship. Only action and reaction, making one of us the other’s opposite.

My feelings the opposite of hers, and (like hers)containing the opposite of that opposite. Containers and contents.

The music began again.

The one you run away from, chases after you the most...

Love came and went with deliberate perversity of timing. Deliberate. Like a lighthouse beam switching on and off. On when ships weren’t in danger of being wrecked, off when they were.

You mistimed.

Shot him dead, twice in the head.

Go back and kill it. Make sure it’s dead.

In Zagreb Marek went back. Shot dead two people who he noticed were still alive. At Fallingwater Marek went back. Shot dead a boy who he noticed was still alive.

Go back and kill it. Make sure it’s dead.

Shoot it in the head, in the head, in the head.

Gaetano went back. Anwar heard him, shot after shot after shot.

You’ve shown me double meanings and things under the surface.

You’ve shown me double meanings and things under the surface.

I don’t know if love exists but nothing else fits.

I’ve listed all the pros and cons and nothing else fits.

Sonnet 116 fits. The marriage of true minds. As usual, he got it right.

And now it’s academic: we both mistimed.

And now it’s academic: we both mistimed.

Today, whatever happens, the mission is finished.

The mission is finished, the mission is finished,

And we won’t see each other again.

The dream showed him October 20, when he’d reached down and touched her shoulder to wake her. “Time,” he said.

He woke, and cried out. He knew The Detail. 

14

He woke to an empty room. She hadn’t returned yet. And he knew The Detail.

He cried out, his soul tearing like his heart muscles had torn, his heart breaking like his bones had broken. He knew The Detail, and it didn’t swirl away. He wanted it to, but it wouldn’t.

She thought it would die with her. She didn’t think either of us would survive.

It was mid-morning on October 22, the day before the summit was originally planned to end. He hadn’t completely recovered, but he was well enough to do what came next.

In the wardrobe in the hospital room were the clothes he’d worn on October 20: the grey linen blend suit and woven silk shirt and underwear and socks, all variously pressed and cleaned and washed and hung up or stored in drawers, neatly and tidily. His shoes, soft leather loafers, were polished and stowed in the wardrobe.

He showered and shaved, then dressed. He walked out of the room to the hospital reception desk. “I’m discharging myself,” he told the receptionist.

“Mr. Abbas! Are you...”

“I’m quite well, thank you. Please call the Director and thank him for his attention. If he needs to contact me I’ll be in my suite at the New Grand.”

“I’ll tell him. So will you be leaving us, Mr. Abbas?”

“The hospital, right now. The Pier, soon.”