[private] Rapt

[rapt]

there is a dream in the space between the hammer and the nail ------ the dream of about-to-be-hit, which is a bad dream ------------ but the nail will take the hit if it gets to sleep inside the wood forever He's ready to leave the boy, to untangle himself from the uncomfortable weight of his stare, the strange formations of light telling a story in a language he doesn’t understand. He’s gazing past the boy, looking for an escape route, so he does not notice how his eyes go glassy, worlds taking place behind them. A noise breaks the silence, stuttering, and Rapt wonders what it is, if an animal’s been hurt, somewhere, when he realizes the boy is finally talking, or trying to. But a steeliness befalls him, and suddenly he looks older, less coltish, as he stares at Rapt, the gaze so penetrating he feels it in his stomach. You. Hurt. Her. Rapt feels a wave of something – anger, almost, at least a cousin of it – wash over him. He has cauterized that particular wound long enough ago, but this telling of it is a different kind of hurt, a disbelief at how mistaken someone can be. (Or perhaps it’s her narrative – who knows what story she’s woven to her wife, to her new children?) “I did not,” he says at first, a childish denial. Then, “she left our son. Abandoned him. Nothing I did hurt more than that.” As if the magnitude of a sin was all that mattered. rapt caius x else