WHAT IS PEACE?
Coffee: The near silent trickling and whooshing sounds of cool water transforming into blistering hot; going up little pipes and streaming inside a fist-sized boiler and running free into mini mountains and pointed hills and steep valleys of finely ground, bitter and sweet, coarse and smooth, packed and fluffy grains of coffee beans that grow best in Ethiopia. The enticing smell of a little whiff of heaven carried by evaporating water that rises and fogs over silver painted, outpouring Saeco spouts. Drip, drip, drip drops of brown gold. Then there is the feeling of soft, edible energy washing down ailments from future days passed. The wafting steam of a fresh cup painting a groggy morning face.
He picks up a brimming cup of the purest kind known to man. It is thick, like a syrup, and dark underneath a layer of foam created by precise pressure and timing. Dark all in all, just like he understands. No sugar, no milk, no flavors. Just coffee in its flawless African purity. It sifts free between shivering jaws, falling into minuscule spaces between cracked teeth, nestling underneath a bitten and bruised tongue, down down down a crimson sodden throat. A bow tie of foam stains his greedy, cut lips. Steam kisses a face of mourning death. An almost chocolate-like aftertaste temporarily obliterates the rising sour taste from bruised intestines.
Ferrero Rocher: The waxy, strong, and smooth gold and brown paper slipping between fingers. The crinkling and crackling that unfolds the wonder of taste buds. The seconds of thrill and craving as it starts melting between fingers. First, the milky chocolate and golden roasted nuts. They melt into a pool of what sunshine and moonbeams would taste like. Bite into the crisp wafer slowly. It crumbles like summer sand in dusk wind. Taste, but take not another bite, not until the silky chocolate inside unclothes the Mother of Pearl. Let it linger. Close eyes. Lean back. Chew little. Swallow a pinch of innocent euphoria at a time. Nothing but the arresting burst of a million and two flavors packed into a million and two taste buds exists in that little eternity.
Broken fingers reach for one…hope for at least one. He can set his purple and black and blue tongue on fire for all the right reasons.
Death: The feeling of falling and not being afraid, of jumping knowing you can fly. It is laying down without worrying about how or why to rise again; reaching out to the deepest darkness trusting whatever hands of demons or angels you brush against. It is the serene call of the end of your soul guiding you closer, closer, and closer still to the fading line between alive and dead. The orgastic moments of lingering in limbo with a special mark in chest that is neither evil or good and that neither expects nor desires evil or good. It does not matter if life has been fulfilled – that was all a beautiful lie anyways. Scars are medallions, perfections flaws.
But even limbo must make decisions. To cut the shifting thread? To snuff out the marred lungs? To silence the still vocal chords forever? Or to show mercy?
Loki swallows the last fiery gulps of his coffee, relishes one more golden treat. Then he falls backwards.
Onto icy wood. Onto the inanimate between shards of glass and broken chairs and their splinters and a pool of blackened blood. Into silence forever, whether or not it be given to him today.
See, the shadow prince doesn't want mercy. He wants peace from the army of ghosts and golems that rise from the marrow of his decaying bones, that surface when he catches but a clue that he, the Sinner of Old, still breathes.
How did he get here? It started with an ocean without water.
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