A memory.
He is tall with his back to the sun, casting the shadow of zealotry over my face, but he looks at me with reverence, kneeling to take my hands and press them to his face. It's smooth and cold like a cemetery monument in the winter. "I'm yours," he says, his voice so much more human than I expected, "Your will is my action."
The sun is in my eyes again. "Don't do that," I tell him, pulling my hands free from his, "Stand up, Batter. You're stronger than me."
"But you're the puppeteer," he says fondly, nothing but a child's unconditional love in his eyes.
It's a memory I think of often in the barely-lit hours of the morning when my bed is cold and empty and I think of him, miss him, and call him a liar.
