Rivulets of pathetic nostalgia course down Julian's broken profile, indifferent as the boy himself.
The pretty thing in front of him is smiling sweetly—sympathetically—something exotic and unusual to a child who fancies himself ice. She softly implores self-indulged mercy and clemency—but he's too drunk, too far down the spiral for a maiden with eyes even as lovely as hers to revive the slow helix descending in his skull.
The words—babbled fragments—although cohesive and coherent enough are still paltry mediums to communicate the paralytic anguish gingerly licking his spine. If such sympathy and altruism from such a woman as she, Julian thinks to himself—mid-sob—can't convince me that this is ok—that I'm ok—then what hope do I stand—
Alone.
But then, he thinks, what if that's the problem? What if the reason I can't accept this as genuine - her - my pain—is because of beauty? What if she's just another echo of the primeval scar-lenders, and this is just all I'll ever see?
No, he brushes himself aside, ugly—beautiful—none of this has any bearing on my inability to permit perpetual torture.
The sweetest smile and the sweetest eyes will only ever allure; they can never dive into a drowning world, and rescue a child who has already filled his drunken lungs with water.
-M
