[P] STARLINGS

[Raziel]

The memory of Raziel's skeletal summerborne solitude paws like a pining dog at his feet; a dog that hopes for a bone - or a touch - or indeed anything at all.  For it is autumn and he has been waiting for the change to come.  Anticipation is a cumbersome business, one that impedes and distracts; a man might lose an entire fortnight to the affair if they are not careful. Raziel likes to think of himself as careful, if he does not know indeed that he is careful, but even the most meticulous of gentlemen can fall foul of apprehension if the very issue they laggardly await refuses to rear its ugly head. You see, Raziel does not like distraction nor anticipation and most certainly he does not like change.  Raziel likes the gunmetal grey of his cellar floor, he likes when the day closes and the morning opens, he likes the click of his bedroom door sealing out the face of his aunt. These things he knows. They will not alter. They furnish the salve that soothes his hidden wounds. But he is not a fool.  Raziel is well aware that adjustments and modifications to his small, fastidious world will always come knocking whether he likes it or not. Still, awareness of universal truth does not seem to make the acceptance of it any easier. Every year the expiration of summer promises to bring many revisions to Raziel's routine  and none of them are pretty.  (The return of his family from their remodelled apartment in the city, the cold, the swell in the number of Saudagar's household staff, the worsening of Gahenna's mood, his birthday. They shrank and paled, nevertheless, under the weight of Raoul's deathday. The anniversary of his brother's slaughter somehow felt both sharper and duller with every passing year.) And so here, under the pinched shadow of a palm tree, man and hound stand in a shared silence, holding vigil to a summer they wished would last forever. ♣ @august