aesthetics in light of the rapture [maisie; day three]

The night burns through sets of three like it knows no other number.

Bodies have settled in the dust, both dead and alive, and the three latter watch as three of the former flash through the night sky like feature showings of a lifetime. Here, the passing ten seconds of forced existence are all they are, and the happenings that have filled the here to now are all but forgotten in the wake of bodily death.

When the night sky sheds her dress of chatty woman and resumes her position of silent survivor, I watch in succession as Cade and then Caine fall victim to her quiet lull. They are silent now, which is not to say that they were not before, but even the rise and the fall of their chests has become muffled under the membrane of a sleeping heart.

I so badly want to join them. I long for the feeling of a heavy chest keeping this body of mine warm, but, I suppose I am destined to break the pattern of the triumvirate. And I determine that it is for this reason that I stay awake long into the early hours of morning, when the sure Tuesday sun comes to set the world on fire once more. I greet her with open palms and watch as her tongue spews color across the morning sky.

Caine and Cade have not stirred, and I debate whether or not to wake them so that they too can become beholders of this ephemeral artwork. But they do not strike me as the kinds of souls that appreciate things that exist physically for no longer than a moment.

This is the only kind of beauty I truly believe in, for this leaves the responsibility to my shoulders— I must remember the things I claim to hold dear to my heart. This sunrise will join the cyclic showing of aesthetics that never ceases in my mind:

I am sat upon my father’s shoulders at age three, and we watch as celebration marches through the street robed in every color I could not name. It did not matter what was being celebrated.

At age ten, I sit in silent solitude on our front porch watching the sky and trying to desperately match the stars to constellations found in the index I bought off the neighbor for twenty-five cents. The memory cuts before my father throws open the front door.

Seventeen. Kissing the girl across the street and apologizing when I accidentally bite her tongue. She laughs, and then proceeds to tell me that she likes a reckless woman. I do not believe that I fit this description, but I kiss her again anyway.

Now, the sunrise is threatening to roll over into high sky, but goddamn, what a beautiful show of power. The orange-tinged clouds and fading purple hues seep into my bloodstream and request that I display the same bravery.

And it is by means of this request only that I pull myself to tired limbs and give a final look to Caine and Cade, both still lost in slumber, before leaving them to their rest and returning to my restlessness. I have not walked far when I find myself staring at branches that will not point me toward home.

Here, I take only a moment to wonder where it is I had intended on going when I had left the safety of Caine and Cade. I had left the last physical piece of home sleeping in dry dirt and I now have the audacity to wonder why my stomach feels so empty and my nails so clean.

The sound of rustling branches and brush catches my ear and I turn in reckless excitement, thinking that Caine and Cade have tracked my footsteps to this place.

But this is not so, and the being that emerges is all too human with no heart to show. The face calls memory to mind, but nothing specific enough to fill in the gaps between flesh and bone.

And it is not so much my first instinct to strike at another human without hearing word or wisdom, but the rusted spear in her hand speaks to the most human part of my being and I find myself carried on the whim of nature alone.