It climbs, reaching upward for the sky. You watch the graffiti blacken and curl, and see Kelly’s love for Sam evaporate on the wind. You wonder if they were the ones who left behind the used condom that melts and fuses itself to the burning bench.

You stand and watch as the bus shelter is utterly consumed. But it doesn’t help at all because inside your head, still he is screaming.

POSTED BY thefirewatcher AT 6:15 AM

1 COMMENTS

DarrenP said . . .

Loser!!

The media is in a characteristic frenzy. Tyler sits at the breakfast bar that is the sum total of his dining furniture and watches the breakfast program on his laptop while scanning through various alternative news feeds. Theories abound as to how Gerald Cartwright ended up bricked in his own cellar, but no one seems in any doubt that it is Gerald Cartwright, even though no formal identification has yet been made.

Above him, the spotlight he replaced last week crackles and fizzes, cutting in and out. Perhaps it’s just the wrong wattage or something, but he can’t shake the feeling it’s laughing at him. Some subtle movement in the corner of his eye alerts him, and he closes the laptop smoothly. Oscar is standing in the doorway, watching. He’s wearing nothing but a pair of tight yellow jockey shorts. His washboard stomach flexes, and the bold tattoo on his arm glistens in the flickering light.

“Hey,” he says, yawning and stretching somewhat artfully, running one hand down his torso to scratch vaguely at the light downy hair above his waistband.

Tyler stands up and moves to the kettle, deliberately turning his back. “Coffee?”

“Black. Thanks.”

He flicks the switch and feels, more than sees, Oscar lope his way across the open-plan living area. There’s a small cry as he collapses too quickly onto the cheap sofa and discovers the lump of plywood shoved under the cushions to replace the springs.

“You slept on this?” Oscar asks. “You didn’t have to, you know.”

“I don’t have a spare bed.”

Oscar grins at him. “That’s not what I meant.”

Tyler looks away again and goes back to preparing the coffee.

After a few moments Oscar says, “Man, you have a shitload of books.” He’s on his hands and knees now, in front of the bookcase, bright yellow buttocks raised into the air like a fisherman’s shimmering fly. “Did someone nick your telly?” He seems reinvigorated, the forlorn Oscar of the night before nowhere to be seen.

But by the time Tyler carries two mugs of coffee across the room it is the vulnerable Oscar he finds waiting for him, curled up on the sofa, his legs tucked under himself, arms wrapped protectively round that skinny waist. When he speaks it’s quietly, almost reverentially. “I think it’s him,” he whispers.

Tyler places the mug on the coffee table and withdraws to perch on the windowsill. A safe distance.