It was nights like these that were the worst. Cecil was physically unable to sleep so he'd get himself high on nothing but the hot desert air and the thrill of walking down the middle of the road at night with no shoes. He'd imagine up new bits for his show and jot them down in his notebook. Sometimes he'd walk down to the train tracks and scream until his throat burned. Sometimes, further still, he'd sit on Old Woman Josie's porch and talk to the Erikas, though no one knows what was said.

Carlos worried about him on those nights, hoping that his husband would come home in enough large pieces to put back together. Sometimes he heard the bone chilling screams Cecil let out, and knew that he may not come home that night. He'd ask the Erikas if they would tell him what they talked about with Cecil, only to get the same disinterested, "Mind your own business."

It used to be Old Woman Josie who spoke to Cecil on those long nights, but she died months ago. She asked the angels in her last days to take over that job. The Erikas didn't mind, but they never said that.

Cecil sometimes would take a bloodstone and carve a wish on it before throwing it out into the sand wastes. You could tell that he'd been doing this for a while. That mountain used to be much smaller. Huntokar read every wish and did her best to grant them, which was easy because most of them were for those closest to him.

I ponder of something great, my lungs will fill and then deflate. They fill with fire, exhale desire, I know it's dire, my time today. The weather played so faintly tonight that he knew Huntokar couldn't grant a wish. All he wanted was sleep, but he also knew that sleep was something that could wait. So he went outside and went to the train tracks. He didn't scream tonight, but instead sat quietly and tapped his foot to the sound of the weather.

Carlos smiled to himself at home, knowing his husband would come home in peace tonight.