His Descent
His descent was glorious.
Butters jeered in his face, soft-spoken persona forgotten in the wake of his giddiness. The insults remained as unimaginative as the boy shouting them. His shoulders tensed against every word, his body collecting the words like shrapnel. I smirked at the scene. The scenarios I plotted for Butters veered down the road reserved for people like Scott Tenorman.
The taunts fell off my tongue in smooth wisps of breath, slipping underneath the flaps of the dreaded green hat, sparking tendrils of thought to weave their way deeper, deeper. His responding glare lavished me with venom, a hatred all the more decadent for its truth, but I could see the idea taking hold.
...
The dullness around him made him so much brighter.
...
The warmth of my jacket faded in the darkness, but that flash of ginger death filled me with heat. His eyes mimicked the twitching flame that reached toward his very breath, ravenous for a little destruction. I pressed my cheek to the glass, offering my own.
...
The delicious smell of kerosene stole the air, infecting every inhale. He stood a few feet away, surveying the spread of fiery teeth, his body heaving more with each lungful. The orange, green, and red, red—always fucking red—blistered the darkness. The snow crunched underneath my boots and he jerked toward me. A ginger curl had fallen out.
"How does it feel?" I asked.
He kicked snow at my legs.
"How does it feel?" I asked.
"How the hell do you think it feels?" His words emerged through bared teeth. "If you're here to point out my disfigurement again, don't bother."
"How does it feel to be at the bottom of the list?" I asked.
"Shut-up, Fatass."
His glare seemed to stroke the veins underneath my skin, for all its lacking. I turned toward the symbol of my triumph, eager to watch the decay of those walls, formed with such care, such precision. But still weak for all of its supposed strength. The plaster was already filled with so many holes.
"How does it feel to be at the bottom of the list," I said. "With me."
The scene played out much longer than it should have. When the sirens finally screamed in the distance, I grabbed his hand. He didn't speak and he didn't struggle. His hand remained limp in my own. And I towed him into the heavy green of the forest. Deeper, deeper, until the rage had faded into a tiny spark in the corner of our eyes. I cradled it along with the cold hand now ensnared between mine.
