His face covered with thick, iodine bandages, he could see the words pile up in his flesh, as the ink spread throughout his body, the blood of Anansi, spilled in the hands of himself.
He looked at the window blinds in Miles' room. He saw the sun beginning to descend down on the Earth, how lemon, how yellow it was, beginning to spiral its rays to the sad lonely kids such as Miles, remaining in his inked room, drawing pictures of angels dying. They had flown from the Earth, only to be sunk into Hell.
Just one step at a time…
And closer to destiny…
The sound of Miles' mother crooning came from the bathroom across from him. Of course she would never look. Of course she couldn't see angels. She never believed in them.
Her fingers were long, coarse, dirty, as she brushed her thick, coarse, dirty hair along with them. Her lips were as red as blood. Eyes a soft shade of cornflower blue. She had sung to her husband who could hear her in the basement, as he dealt out Oxys. She was about to do a line of cocaine.
I knew at a glance…
There would always be a chance for me…
The only thing he had that wasn't bleeding were his eyes, and even that alone was debatable.
The sun edged closer, to Miles' little house, as he talked about the death of angels.
The needle shook inside his flesh. He wasn't sure what it meant, and ignored it.
Anansi had awoken. He could hear his shallow breathing inside his skull. The god had tried to kill himself and Sonic, and he knew it wouldn't be the end. Both him and Sonic had more tears, more blood to shed for his stories.
"Did you know that raven story is a true story, Sonic?"
Silence. He gazed at the silver clouds that had marched directly to the sun, blocking their leader, their master. The sun had died away in the call, the parade of the silver clouds. The black sky that had emerged in the wake of a terrible omen.
"What do you mean it's a true story?" he asked.
"Well, it will be. Yehl is a raven. He will look upon the destruction of the world. He can only save you right now. He can only save the other gods. You just have me to keep you company. Me and my stories."
He replied with nothing.
The situation was so bizarre he needed no comment.
The blood had sunk through the skin of the bandages, unto the floor of his mother. She probably mistook it as period blood.
With someone I could live for…
Nowhere I would rather be…
"Why do you want to destroy the world, Wind?"
The sun had blinded his eyes. Yet he continued to stare. Angels had crystal, prism eyes. They could stare all they wanted and not fear going blind, but instead, create a spectrum of the rainbow for everyone to see. Inspiration for Pink Floyd's signature image.
"Because I am God, Sonic. And everything God says, He can do. Through God, anything is possible. I can save the world, and destroy it too. And I want to start over. I can't rule over this world anymore. Chip is getting tired of being my slave. You must help me. You're the only one I know of that can fit the job."
He could hear the flapping of wings. His powers led him to believe it was Yehl, but he had doubts. Yehl was too busy getting demon eggs. He was too busy trying to please Chip even he hated him. Yehl was too busy wanting to live forever, because Uncle took his parent's life away with a blender and with white paint.
He didn't need to know that, but he did.
"It's just a regular old raven Sonic, one of my favorite birds. They're smarter than humans, more aware. Did you know that? I created them, of course. And I'm making one a god. Shadow was always my favorite trooper. But I knew he wanted me dead. He said I was better off suffering from my cystic fibrosis. Better off letting him be in charge of everything. But there was you, brother. I never knew you loved me that much."
Is your love strong enough?
Like a rock in the sea…
"That's why Shadow tried to kill you. I could tell he found a friend in you, as you were similar in some ways, but he didn't want you reviving me, all the while Chip was glad you were thinking of bringing me back. So he went away and signed that contract, which that special pen meant as soon as I was done, you were God. And I can't go on anymore brother. I am sick. Much too sick. I am too proud to enter a psychiatric hospital. I want to only write, and nothing more, and be a god of my own world. But gods do die, Sonic. Soon, people forget about them. They are washed away in the tide, their skeleton drifting in the ocean of time forever. They just die very slowly, over the course of many years, even generations. Gods like Odin and Quetzalcoatl and Fudo and Xiuhcoatl and Horus…they're dying, Sonic. Soon no one will ever remember them. It's the worst fear of anyone, really. And many gods experience it everyday, once they're dead in legends or they're dead in mediocrity, so many writers and poets and artists, Sonic. Think of their suffering everyday. To be remembered on this small planet. A planet that is so much smaller than so many other planets in the universe. You can't tell how many there are. But I can, but the answer would make your head explode."
The sun had lied broiled in the black sky, the white ominous sphere that had turned the clouds and stars into blazing magnesium flames.
Am I asking too much?
Is your love strong enough?
"Will Shadow remember me? Will he be with me when I die?"
His brother coughed, hacked, and wheezed. Sonic could feel the harsh undulations in his chest, as he tried to gasp for air like a surfaced fish.
"You care about him, don't you Sonic? Even when he tried to kill you?"
He couldn't explain it. He disappeared out of his grasp quickly, and he felt he had a chance in cooling the beast out of him. Shadow was only an unfortunate creature he could heal, and the more he knew him as Anansi had given him his godlike omnipresence, he had learned that Shadow had a terrible uncle who had hurt him, a life that had hurt him, and becoming a god was the only answer to absolve that wretchedness inside of him. He had turned to God, Anansi, to heal his inner blackness, his vile soul, and He said yes, as long as you do these things for Me.
"Priests have always told him the wrong answer," he said. "They said to open up his heart to Me, when I simply wanted to take it and eat it. And I did. And Shadow soon became a raven, my favorite creation, and he was a tinkering toy soldier in my army, fighting the demon eggs that Satan had made. Only to get people to respect gods, and to make the world go round…"
He spit out some phlegm, and Sonic could feel the cold air rushing from the windows, the snowflakes that fell in what looked like May. February had passed and went, and winter still had its clutches on spring.
The goldenrods have decayed under the snow, and the trash, the once great beds that had been slept by gods like Horus and Storm, had soon been washed away by the flood.
Two little birdies had encountered tragedy, all over again.
"Will Shadow die? Will the other gods die too?"
He paused momentarily. He had caught the white burning sun in his fingertips, and had rolled it in the palms of Sonic's hands.
"Someone will die tonight. It might be Shadow. It might be these gods. It might be you. But I can tell you many mortals will die, my brother. Including Miles. Including his neglectful parents. You could never save him, Sonic. He was destined to die. I already had attributed a song to him. You can't change what I already set in time's stone."
"You…you can't make all these people die…"
The sun was fading faster in his grasp. It soon became a small dwindling flame, as the small white sparks had eaten his gloved hand, and they have done nothing to make him drop the sphere. The sun soon whittled away, to a spark from a cigarette, to nothing at all.
"There goes the sun. The world is in complete darkness now Sonic."
The lemon yellow sun had now become a black hole sun.
The neglectful mother had wondered why the world was suddenly black, until she pressed the switch to the bathroom. At least the homes and flashlights still had light. Her husband wondered around in the darkness, thinking a power outage had occurred, as he flipped on the flashlight and continued to smoke his pot in the dark.
Just one beat of your heart…
And stranger than fantasy…
His heart was a hole. That was all it amounted to. Gods were cruel. Gods were vain. And he demanded his brother to bring back the sun, to bring back the god's precious lives, to bring back Shadow's sanity, but God had said no, and His gold and silver eyes and the needle that thrummed inside his cheek, He said no, don't touch my powers, and leave yourself be, for the Christening.
I knew from the start…
It had to be the place for me…
The Emerald City was no longer an emerald, but an onyx, an obsidian, as black as the moon's veil upon her ghostly face.
Someone that I would die for…
There's no way I could ever leave…
Shadow had seen the purple cat praying to a glowing white lotus flower in the cemetery, carrying a demon egg with her, unhatched.
The two little birdies were nearing both the raven and the cat, upon the moonlit graves, and they could tell they would die for their Daddy, for their Mommy.
For their brother, whom they barely knew, and whom they barely knew was dead, his body eaten by rats, as they swallowed his eyes entirely…
The two reptiles had drifted to the shroud of moon, waiting for God to kiss upon their sad faces. Satan had seen them, and told them they truly were Satanists, and he would take them down to the bowels of Hell.
They were sucked into the ocean, into the seafloor.
And so was Jet.
The Thousand Year Old Child knitted a sweater for the approaching cold, one made from the flames of the sun. She had saved the very last remaining flames before Anansi had taken it away from the sky, including the blades of stars, and the piece of silver eye from God. God didn't know. It was her own little secret, as she had worn as she toured through the night, with her shoes made from the wings of Hermes.
She had turned every streetlight on, and every light in every shop on, and every light in every school, office, factory, she had made them all turn on, including all their functions, and she had told God that despite His warnings of The End, despite the warnings of the raven tearing the blood vessels of the New Christ, and the sun that had dissolved deep in the sky, a big black hole replacing the table's light blue cloth, The Show Must Go On.
She had danced as the stars had cloaked her, she had seen the passerby's faces as the other gods from Seattle had surrounded her, hearing their eulogies playing in the belt of the tongue of Miles' mother.
Is your love strong enough?
Like a rock in the sea…
Am I asking too much?
Is your love strong enough?
Gods had never ran on love, but only beliefs.
Gods had never ran on good deeds, but the deaths of those they killed in their names.
Gods had never ran on folklore, but time. Time had always sealed them away in the dust. No matter how well-known they were, they would eventually die, as the end of the planet is arising, and the gods that once inhabited people's minds are as dead as the people who once worshiped them. History was nothing but stories that would all be forgotten by the men and women who listened to them, as the planet dies further, every second, every day, every lingering year.
The inkblood that Sonic had produced, while he had lied in a puddle of his and his brother's own life, their own words and their own made-up stories, the stories they have heard in the past, their own influences and their own family blood, had produced a thick dark red wine that had looked black in the light of Miles' mother as she asked Miles what was going on, and a loaf of bread that was entirely as black as the wide pupils in Sonic's eyes, the gaping hole that was beginning to lacerate in his cheek, and his brother, with his smirk that he could feel the deep sinews of his brain, He had said, "Eat and drink that bread and wine. Eat and drink of it as much as you can to regain your energy, your wounds being sealed up. It's time to go. Enjoy the moments you have on this Earth while it lasts."
"Angels are dying mom," Miles said. "All the angels are falling from heaven like dead birds and letting Satan's worms eat them. They're dying. They're dying…"
"I'm sure they're not." She had styled her hair the way she liked it, her own little Janet Jackson look, and she had left her son alone, with his own little toys, and she had run to her husband, who was continuing to smoke the remaining joints, continuing to snort all the crushed Oxies and the little lines of coke.
"Give me some you little fucking shit! I don't care if the end of the world is coming, we're going to go out and score some more junk cause you used it all up!"
"First, keep singing that song."
"Jesus, what song, Roger?"
"That 'Is Your Love Strong Enough' song. You got a lovely voice. I want to hear the rest of that before we go. Sing it, or I won't lend you money to get junk."
"Why?"
Her fangs glared in the streetlights. Miles' father gazed at her, solemn. He wasn't intimidated by her threats. Not anymore.
"Fine…"
The bread kept multiplying, Sonic's health returning, as the blood in the blood-red wine had regained the lost blood that had faded and stained away in Miles' home. Sonic could walk again, as his one hand that didn't have scars on his wrists had handed the piece of black bread to Miles as he had cried over his monstrous drawings, and he had pat his back, saying his "there there's", and Miles, having not eaten anything so good in so long, had devoured the bread and wine voraciously, enjoying every last bite.
"Eat up Miles," he said, as he opened his dark closet door in his warm red room, to find a coiled rattlesnake of a noose inside, the rain beginning to pile on the world, the rain collecting in the bird bath known as the Emerald City, and he had loosened it, tearing it down, to the floor where it was meant to be, unloved and hissing as ever with its fiery breath.
Is your love strong enough?
Just one beat of your heart…
Is your love strong enough?
The two little birdies, on their quest to find their lost Daddy, after their Mommy had died, finding their lost brother and convincing him that the Path to Selfishness was not the path they had chosen to take, had found a loaf of black bread and a glass of blood-red wine.
"Wave…I've never seen bread that's so…black! Why is it black Wave? Why? Why is it black?"
She examined it thoroughly, seeing the contents looked as if it was ordinary bread, but with a few implanted seeds. Possibly poppy seeds. The seeds of the Jews.
"I don't know Storm, but I've seen bread like this, but we really can't be too careful. It could be a trap from those trickster gods, like Yehl, or Quetzalcoatl. You never know."
"But Wave…" He had sat on his two knees, his wings clasped together. Wave knew when Storm had assumed the position, he would practically do anything for her, even just to eat the loaf of bread.
"But please Wave…I'm hungry! We're all hungry! Can we have some? Please?"
"But it could be poisoned!"
"I don't care!" He puffed and ruffled his feathers, his blue eyes glowing. Just like Daddy had done, Wave thought. If only he could see how his son had grown somewhat like him.
"I would rather die with something in my tummy than nothing at all! Give me some, sis! Give me some!"
She looked at the bread again. It smelled enticing. Straight from the oven. And she had a black bread like this before, and had thoroughly enjoyed it. It reminded her back when their Daddy would take them to nice restaurants, like he used to. Their lovely Daddy. Oh precious Daddy. If only the world wasn't ending…
The end of the world was coming, so they might as well take the chance and have a nice meal like a family for once, and she had cut the loaf of bread, and passed the wine to Storm, and they sat and chatted and had talked about what they were going to do when they got home with Daddy. With Jet. Like a real family again.
"We're going to go back and get bunnies in our ranch, Wave! Bunnies are so soft and so cuddly…I would like bunnies when we come back Wave, I would really like bunnies."
She smiled. She had suffered no ill effects of the bread and wine, and they were having a nice moment together, like they used to. Storm was brain-damaged, but he still was her brother, and they still had to stay as a family, even if Jet had considered himself estranged from his "smartass" sister and his "weirdo" brother. She wished he was here, but Storm was the only one she truly liked from her siblings. Storm had tried to comfort her, even if he was eccentric and obsessed with his gadgets and tinker toys. Jet had always remained in his room, in the comforting darkness of the closed window blinds and his wine coolers and Smirnoff.
"Storm…"
"Yeah?" He had stuffed a loaf in his mouth, masticating it slowly as Wave had looked at the pale moon, and had wondered when the moon, too, will fizzle out.
"I love you. And I always had loved you, Storm. I don't care if you're a god. You're still my brother. You were…closer to me than I was with Mom. I don't know if we'll ever find our Dad, but…"
Storm was silent, chewing his bread slowly. The rain doused their heads and bodies, as the children up above continued to shower the world in their pails and watering cans, as mercilessly as the demons from the Earth could muster.
"Why is it raining so hard, Wave?"
"Spring is coming. That's why. 'April showers bring May flowers', remember Storm? But…I really don't think our father could be here. He could be…"
He looked as sad as an orphan child in the end of the world with no Mommy and Daddy to love him, as he shivered, bunching up to his sister, like birds on a branch in spring. Their chests expanded, gathering up the warm air in the cold weather, and Wave had decided to not tell him, his hand holding hers.
"Is Daddy fine, Wave? Is Daddy fine?"
Psychiatric hospital or no psychiatric hospital, their father would always be around, carrying the word that Wave had done her best to protect her brothers, and that's all she could say to God once she saw Him. She had done her best. One was going to Hell, and one was going to Heaven with her. And she would've preferred it that way. Jet couldn't be saved, she thought. Jet had to choose to save himself. And he never did.
"Yes. Yes, he's fine. We'll find him. Even if it takes years. Even if we're really old we will look for him. Daddy would've never abandoned us for no reason, Storm. I'm sure he had a very good reason to why he left us with Mom. Dad isn't dumb."
Storm had kept the photo of all the birds together, in their ranch home, with their Momma bird cooking up a buffet of a dinner, their father, holding baby Wave while Storm had stood under his father's wing, and Jet was actually standing near his mother, smiling.
Maybe he had never forgiven her for doing what they had done to their mother. Maybe he never felt like he truly belonged. Maybe he was jealous of his siblings. She could think up all kinds of possibilities to why her brother had schism away from them, but she remembered when he was once a bright, smiling hawk, always looking up to Dad, until the religious wave had hit the family.
Religion had brought both people together and people apart.
She thought for once, the gods had brought them all together. For one single, defining moment. Damnation, retribution, they had come and had judged them, and Jet had strayed far from the flock, his eyes always glazed, his beak always dripping blood, his knife that had turned into a gun. The gun that once held the power of a thousand suns had been crushed inside Sonic's home, by a father who had believed such weapons were advanced technologies that had wanted to put insane men like him in a concentration camp. Sonic's father, the news reporter that had once been so respected, with a wife that had once been a shining example of a mother as she carried both Sonic and Wind in her bosoms, had taken his own life, along with the mother that choked on Merlot. They were piled neatly, their bodies side by side, as the stars had ignited like the lights in the streets of Seattle, Van Gogh's urban version of A Starry Night, soaking up all the color of the blood, turning to a deep depressive black. The color of hopelessness.
And even they could find a moment such as this to be a family again. The black haze wasn't too strong for them to not entirely see. The silver lining still welcomed them. And the bread had multiplied, to Blaze walking through the lonely alleys of the city, carrying the white lotus flower to brighten her way.
Is your love strong enough?
Just one beat…
"We'll go home, Storm. We'll go home. And
Just one beat…
She wanted to go home too.
With Fudo, the god of fire. With Silver. He had protected her since she was such a young, fleeting girl. Silver was her father. Her mother and father suddenly left her alone in the world, and she was left alone in the Emerald City, the little girl knowing very little on how to defend herself. Her home had always been the Seattle's Best Coffee coffee shop where Silver had let her sleep near it, had always got a cup of hot chocolate for her to place her soft lips on. As she grew, she drank coffee, and had found out that it didn't have the best coffee in Seattle. They had ventured and weaved through other coffee shops, ordering meals of muffins and brownies and soups, whilst drinking mochas and cappuccinos and black coffee that had its steam drifting in the wind, her face reflecting the puddle of caffeine that had awaited her.
"Blaze?"
She turned his attention to him, as he smiled softly. The light had made his features more prominent, his shiny albicant fur, his hands that had glowed fire. She very rarely used her powers, but she believed she could only use them when it was an emergency. The other gods had wanted her sweet meats, her demon eggs, and she had collected them like Easter eggs, as they lied strewn throughout the red and green and yellow city.
"What do you hope to accomplish when you're a god? I know you just became one, but…being a god is such a big responsibility, Blaze. You can very well die doing this. You can become a shell of yourself. This job changes people. And I would say to continue on your former life, but you probably had no choice, being homeless and schoolless and foodless and parentless.
So many lesses. She couldn't take up a job in this city. They all wanted teenagers fresh from high school, people who had experience. She didn't want to end up in a center for homeless teens. She felt she didn't deserve the same privilege of being helped that they had. She was only a nameless soul, who was born without a name, and who would die without a name. People only called her Blaze because of the jacket she wore for so long. The flames that she hoped would cover her from head to toe, so no one could touch her.
She had lived off trash and water from drinking fountains that tasted rusty and metallic for so long that this cup of black coffee and this cheese and broccoli soup was the finest meal she had for a long time, even if the bowl was so small, barely the size of her hand. But it was fresh. It tasted like mead. She had appreciated it all the same.
"I know Silver, but I had no choice in the matter. I couldn't go anywhere to get help. I had learned to defend myself from junkies and rapists a long time ago. I had always carried a pocket knife with me to hurt those who had tried to hurt me. It is still fresh with the blood of a trenchcoated man. He thought I was a demon from Hell. And I might as well become something else than a demon. I became a god, and I can truly defend myself from the people who don't believe in me."
Is your love strong enough?
Just one beat of your heart…
"I don't want you getting into trouble. That's just all I want. You're too…good for me to lose."
His brownie was served to him, with chocolate sauce sprayed over the plate in an elaborate zigzag. He had sliced it with his fork, contemplating the right choice of his words before he put the fine piece in his mouth.
Still with the brownie and sauce in his mouth, he had said, "I can't leave you here. Something bad is going to happen very soon and I don't want you to die."
"What do you mean?"
The spoon rested in the soup, culling over the cheese, sticking its head like an ostrich who never wanted to learn the truth.
He had rolled the brownie in his tongue, contemplating. The end of the world would be coming. Yet he wanted to lessen the blow.
"God is going to take care of things," he said. "And when He's going to take care of things, very soon He's going to take care of all of us. We will be above. We will no longer be in this city. And I would rather be in a city I can truly appreciate before that happens. I used to be a god of New York before I had to leave and come here. And for some reason…I don't know why, but something is telling me that I have to go back. I have a brother that lives there. Maybe we can visit him. He's trying to be a stockbroker, you know, a successful person. Meanwhile I'm nothing but a lowly god. A god that barely anyone can remember these days."
She thought people could barely remember Morrigan too. A Celtic god that people had never cared for except heavy metal bands that were themselves Celtic.
She wondered if she could be good friends with Yehl someday. Morrigan was synonymous with ravens. But he seemed to always want to work alone.
"I would love to go to New York, Silver. I've never been there before. But something tells me it must be a wonderful place if so many people live there. Maybe they even have better coffee shops than this one."
He laughed, a laugh that Blaze had grown to love while they've been good friends.
"I'll take care of the bill. Once we're outside we'll run in the rain. Seattle is the place that has so much rain, but in magical moments like this, the rain seems…nice."
The movies never lied. Kissing in the rain was always a passionate and charged moment, but she could only kiss him on the cheek, as he carried the umbrella above her, looking at the cars that had waited at the stoplights to get to their destination, the birds that had sat on the branches of the pear trees and the bees that had dusted their legs with goldenrod powder. April showers brought May flowers. Especially in Seattle. It had rained many times a week, many times a month, many times a year.
They never went to New York. Silver had died shortly after that incident. And she had mourned his death by remembering that memory where they had promised to run away together, to live with his brother as the end of the world had opened its wide gaping mouth, and had sucked them all in.
The rain had reminded her the day they had kissed. It had even smelled the scent of the raspberry chapstick Silver had given her. And it had made her cry even more.
The dark red wine and the black bread had sat away from her in the corner, hungrily expecting her, the cat also hungrily expecting something in her stomach.
She had looked at the loaves, the wine that seemed clear and not at all fetid with blood and poison and knockout drugs with her black eyes, and she had laid the lotus flower in the center of the alley, glowing and unveiling each petal, as she had begun her feast of bread and wine, and she had lingered the taste inside her as much as the cheese and broccoli soup from years ago. It had been a while since Blaze had eaten anything that was good for her soul.
The moon had reminded her of Silver, as it faded away faster, the flames of the night flickering. They were the many candles that had honored the deaths of so many gods. Fudo was one of them, the god who had practically raised her. The god that was so willing to give her something to eat, something to drink, even give her a warm place to sleep in hotels when he could afford it. Since he had died, nothing had been for the better. She was back to sleeping in the cold, eating from garbage, and running dehydrated except when it rained. But the rain had still reminded her of bittersweet memories when he was still alive.
He had kissed her head and had called her his own little angel. He truly believed she was special. Blaze had thought Silver was the only person in the world who had, and who would, care for her. Her parents had never cared for her. They were too busy with their own lives. When she was one year old, Silver had seen her crying in the soaking rain and had given her a place to stay for a few days. It was an abandoned home, the wood rotting and about to fall apart, but the bed was warm, and Silver had food for her. The candy he gave her had tasted so sweet in her tongue that day.
Silver had soon evacuated her from there as he could tell the home wouldn't last much longer, but he had offered to keep her in a hotel for a while. And she obliged.
She wasn't sure how Silver had money when he didn't have a job she knew of. Maybe his brother sent him some money every few weeks. He had told her his brother, while not exactly rich, lived comfortably, and had tried to help out his brother. But he didn't tell him that he had no job in Seattle, and was in fact a god that was supposed to defend the world from demons and to carry out God's and Chip's orders. He said he worked at a factory that had dispensed yo-yos and other playthings for children. She had never seen the factory in Seattle, but Silver said he wished he worked there, and he wished he didn't have to lie to his brother anymore and keep using his money. His brother was smart, but gullible, and never believed that possibly Silver was a drug addict or alcoholic.
His brother somewhat learned the truth when he died, that he truly didn't have a job and in fact roamed the streets, but nobody had found a trace of drugs or wine and beer on him. He was just a bum who had liked the homeless life. Or he couldn't find a job. That was what his brother assumed.
She had caught a glimpse of her brother, but had never come out to meet him. She was too afraid of people who looked normal and had actually lived in a decent home and had decent pay. They never knew the truth of what it was like to be homeless. They just assumed it was all drinking and sleeping on beaches when it was just that no one had cared about her, even herself.
She had laid a piece of bread to the flower, and she said it was for Silver. "It's not soup, or a muffin, or a brownie, but it will do."
She ate in silence, looking at the cemetery that was a few miles away. She had to go there. To honor Silver's death. To stain his white lotus flower with red.
Is your love strong enough?
Like a rock in the sea…
Shadow had flickered away his last cigarette. He had no money left to buy anymore. And there was no point in panhandling on the streets anymore. The world was ending. And he might as well make the nicotine in that last cigarette last.
The entire city was quiet. The world had faded away to a black chasm, and the moon had shattered in scattered pieces. His cigarette had soon died, as the people on the planet had died, and he stomped it (them) away. It wasn't his business, as Chip would say. He was just destined to watch the world curl up in black rotted petals, shed by pencils in a line sketch, painted by intricate paintbrushes in 140 lb. Watercolor paper, made to withstand the heaviest ash and soot and ink.
He had smelled the death of saccharine bodies, the saccharine sweet sky that was lined up with many stars that welcomed him with bladed fingers, the gods that had haunched on his shoulder and had told him that the world was lost, the world was being destroyed, and that his fingers couldn't save it, they were too fragile, frail, and heartfelt.
"The heart can't feel anything except its own throat pulsating," the scarred mouth said. "And even then, it still can't feel emotions. People are wrong for believing in your heart. It's the brain that does emotions. Your heart just keeps you alive, especially when the world is beginning to come down like stars bursting to ashes. They are dying. Funerals are being planned for these planets, for these galaxies. Gods are becoming shorter-lived, more empty with their meaningless lives. The gods will have to return, but only if they can eat out of garbage again, like we all do now."
"I didn't."
He saw the black bread, and the red wine that bled around the edges of the wine glass. The scent of the bread was familiar, the smell of the blood was too…
It was ripe, with the smell of death. A death of two gods, one that was the master, and one that was only His puppet, His little carrier of His plans. The stories were being written in the sea of ink that had formed an ocean across the border of Lakeview Park and East Republican Street that was as black as the raven's wings that Shadow had once known to be his best friend, the shadows that Shadow himself known as his friends too, and he could see the light glitter across the edge, as the city continued to be drowned in words, pages upon pages of sentences and paragraphs and anecdotes and allegories were being spilled on the canvas like painter's blood, and Shadow had sliced apart the black bread, distributed it evenly between himself and the scar on his throat that now had grown a set of stomachs, and he watched the moon become paler as suddenly it was licked out of the night sky, and Shadow could see the world come to darkness, the world that had died so suddenly, when life was beginning to grow interesting.
He slathered some pig fat on the bread that he collected too long ago (ravens had always feasted on the dead, including the fat in all their meat and bones), and he savored the taste of the bread, the taste of the wine.
Just one beat of your heart…
"What do you want to do now that the world is ending, brother?"
He opened his eyes. Miles was gone. He had choked on the rattlesnake. His brother had told him there was no saving him. He was meant to die by his own hand.
He wished he had a gun now to shoot his brain with, but as the tears had shielded his eyes from the truth, he had sat on the floor, on the remaining loaf of black bread and the remaining glass of red wine.
"What are you going to do now?"
His hands were clenched, little balls of white, as white as snow, and he wished he could fight his brother, but he knew he couldn't. His brother was his brother. He was once a young boy who was so weak he couldn't get out of the hospital bed himself, with so many tubes and wires attached to him.
"What are you going to do now?"
Just one beat…
His heart was going to stop at any moment. It was clawed by this God of Temptation, this God of Desperation. The needle had quivered inside his skin. The silver point had bitten through, but he shoved it back inside. It had grown like a plant in potted soil, wishing to come out and bloom. A new life in the midst of death.
"You can't do much brother, because you're going to be dead soon."
He didn't understand anything. He didn't know what was going on in this world anymore.
He was thinking he would soon wake up from this wretched nightmare and find his brother still writing his stories, his mom and dad still around and as loving as they used to be, many years of his life taken away and subtracted to when he was four, when his brother was two. And could already tie his shoes.
He had covered his ears with his hand. He didn't want to hear anymore.
It is time to get up, his brother said.
"No, it isn't…"
It's time to get up from this world and start a new one.
You're God now Sonic.
Right when you die.
"Why would you do this to me Wind? Why would you do this to me?"
Wind had tucked the sewing needle inside him safely, letting it not bloom just yet. Blooming in a cascade of bloody violets and lilies and daisies.
Because I saw potential in you. I saw potential that you could be a great god.
Boredom. Not feeling right with your body. You even thought you were some kind of fetus inside your skin. Hating yourself. These are godliness traits, Sonic. I had those same ones too, when I had cystic fibrosis.
Sonic hacked, wheezed, and had choked on his blood and phlegm.
I felt sorry for myself. I wished I had immortality. I thought I could be reborn. And then Chip came. He gave me a job. And I decided to do it. But I don't like it anymore. I would rather die than take it up.
He looked at the piece of black bread and red wine he had seeped from his lovely body, his christening and blooming body as it rose from the ashes of the world.
He had eaten the bread, and sipped the wine slowly, and he realized he was eating food of his own flesh. But he was too hungry to care.
Spread it evenly to all those you met and haven't met. We're all having a meeting of the minds. A Passover. A feast. Someone is going to betray you, someone who you loved dearly and had felt sorry for.
He tore into the last piece of bread before crying diaphanous tears that had shined in the light that was once occupied by Miles' mother, as the two lovers had quarreled, spread their naked bodies before the raging ice of the black water, and they sunk to their deaths, while they had their last fuck and their last drag of the cigarette, Roger dying with a flaccid penis, the mother her tits as blue-veined as the finest white cheese, her red lips from Zanzibar as bloody as her neck.