(vii) Mancuso on fire

I can see light. I can see the sun shining through the trees reaching out to touch me. I can see light. I can see a bus pass me that would have taken me from there to here in the same time but with less effort. With less effort than I use everyday to see that bus as I do. But still I see light. I see it crackle on the river I cross and sparkle up through the window. The window I look through that is covered with the grease and scratches of those who love or loath to leave their mark. But the light. The light that illuminates my desk, and shows all that I’ve done and all that I’ve missed. The same light that breaks through a tiny window on five broken souls and creates lines of shadow down their lives.

Five people arrested for the same murder. Five people waiting in that cell. Two lights watching them in turns. A third light waiting for them in hell. One breaking through the window, breathing the life of night with it’s death call. One burning from the ceiling, flickering every time we turn on the chair down the hall.

These five can see the light better than anyone. They can see little else. Than that flicker. Flicker.

Except the two tough ladies who somehow found each other from across the world who see only each other. And the girl who’s tears won’t stop exploding from her face in wave after wave of self pity. So it’s the yanks only who see the flicker when it comes. Who know what that light really means. Not that nuclear flash that they’re so proud of, but that quiet glow that shows the real difference between life and death. Just a flicker.

The light I see isn’t there’s though. It cascades across my fingers warmly following their contours, easily even with the movement I use to continue my work. I make a rabbit or a dog every now and then to play with this light, and when it goes I make paper planes of my work and float them out into the courtyard all the rooms share. I don’t feel like that today though. As the light goes dark, reminders of flight would be wrong.

I look at the dress on my desk and think of the corpse I took it off. How the fuck does this make sense? A man who flies and wears a dress? It’s like a superhero but without the sense of stature. Why these five freaks turned themselves in I’ll never know. This was the first man I have ever killed without a good reason, and it’s the first cover up I’ll ever get out of doing. Who to pin it on though? Who knows.

It’s dark outside now, but I still see light. It’s right where the pilot left it.

At the end of the tunnel.

flicker