[P] you wanna hold a gun but they made you a pinup

[Hagar]

HAGAR IESHAN

i go red hot like a demon
i go ghost for no damn reason
stupid boy think that i need him

I

n the street, someone is laughing. Below me there is an ongoing festival, Solterra's tribute to the oncoming winter, a celebration of warm days and frigid nights, not much different than every other frigid night. Overhead the sky is smeared with red and purple and blue, with just the crown of the sun still visible above the horizon. It is an orange sliver in the distance, ringed in red-- and i can see all of it, from here.

Perched on the roof with my neck stretched over the low wall, and its edges pressed into the skin of my cheek, I feel more like a proper beast than any other time. It is easy to be a cat from here, hunched over in the dark, watching mice scurry by. I am obscured from the street by the glow of a lantern on the other side of our estate wall, I think, just a silhouette behind it, crouched low in waiting.

At least this is what I decide, as the minutes tick by and I search faces for recognition, or even just eyes, turned up my way. 

There are none. I breathe sharp enough that it makes a sound, the sort of sound our father would have been mortified to hear, inelegant and petty and crass-- and slide my head from its resting place, floating back through the door like the ghost that I am.

If I am self absorbed, if I am vaguely narcissistic, it is only because as I descend the stairs toward the office, there is a feeling growing in me that I am perhaps not here at all. I sometimes wonder if I am a ghost, especially these days when our family is so bitter and broken. I wonder if I am really dead, and have been dead for so long I've forgotten just how.

Maybe I died with our mother. How can one know?

If I am self absorbed it is because my self is somehow fractured, I think, or at least not working properly. There is still a rock on my stomach when I knock on the door and push it open before the single servant in the room can be sent to do it for me. I step into the room with a rock in my stomach and a calm smile on my face and say--

"Pilate, I'm surprised you're not at the festivities."
And, looking at him, looking at a face I have literally known my whole life, that hasn't changed except to become sharper as it grows-- I feel real again.

@Pilate