#115

Night music. Post-prandial. S1 and S2 in his Kahn Park apartment. Shelves of vertical discs, one disc horizontal and spinning. To Stephen, Square passes the Virid, and Stephen: "Can't light it myself." Subwoofer. Cacophany. Drift. In the exhale, Sqaure says, "Cherche une femme. A bloody soddin' femme." Stephen weezes, "No, he's Catholic." A mystic, maybe (cf. Steiner's book, violet cover). Aesthete, at least - no, ascete. See him still with his cross and medal, his patchwork jeans. A cowered exclamation point swallowed by the city's dark. And Square goes on. "The prophet, the priest, the brother." The name...his name... The record. Vinyl scrying pool. Enochian. (Stephen speaks). "What was that?" asks Square. "Enochian." "Enochian? From where does it hail?" A pause. A strike of the lighter. Burn. "Up." S2 cocks, un-cocks an eye. "Up your arse, you mean Stephen. Ha."

And at 4:00, in the black of the park, Stephen sees on a sleeping form a cross. Glint. Flame in the lamplight. And S1, his voice feeble and raw, "Hey...you! Hey...uh...you!" But the name escapes him. "Hey -" prophet, hey priest, hey father, hey brother. "Hey you!" And, flash, the figure is up. Obscured, cloaked in darkness. Two eyes, a cross. Then gone - gone, in a dash, and Stephen after. Cough, a gasp, cramp. Against a lightpost, he leans. No image. Night horizon. Decrescendo and reboant. Moving north along 10th Street: the sound of two feet slapping against the sidewalk in quick succession.