YOU MY GODLESS HUNGER

5. Die 4 The High

Earth #5619
We are the boys who swallow their own tongues. We permeate on the brink of insomnia. An unknown amount of minutes after our birth, our mothers wanted to eat us raw.

At night, the artists gather in the woods, around the campfire. They make a big one, they say, for all the gods to hear that they've survived. It amazes Zoltan how little the circus people try to understand, how they have the ability to just be grateful for another day. They are certain that they live only as long as they're meant to, and today someone forgave them, but they were never in any real threat; they couldn't have died in the storm even if they'd tried.

Wild flowers have started to grow from the fissure down in the valley. They're stitching the wound.

Zoltan joins the bonfire. She hasn't seen Han since they killed the storm; Han retreated inside the train to tinker with her Cosmic particle.

Zoltan takes the jump all alone.

The circus artists are hallucinogenic creatures. They rise from the earth, step out of gaping tree trunks, crawl up from the roots of hydrangea and rhododendrons—migrating birds heading for the same place. Their cheeks are painted, their bodies are scarred with runes, their clothes are the skins of wilderbeasts. White, painted masks hang at the back of each of their necks. They have the shape and features of animal faces—wolves, or otters, or bears.

Zoltan hovers before the fire, hesitant. She looks at the empty spaces between all these strangers. She has no idea where she belongs here. What do any of these people mean to her?

The back rows are entirely disclosed by growing smoke.

"Where are you?"

Zoltan has recognized that voice a million times.

Aruman is sitting by the fire, and she looks like she's been waiting. Bold brush strokes of gold taint her cheeks: warpaint. Smeared with colors that have been drained by hand from blueberry, pomegranate and cherry, her exposed torso is a mesmerizing, spinning painting. She wears short, dark blue pants with sewn ornaments, rune daggers strapped to her waist and a crop top made of wolf's fur. Too little. Too much. The grey canine fur drapes over her back, but barely covers her breasts. A winking necklace of sharkfangs droops over her chest. She's lounging, legs spread—the image is delicately obscene and unbearably intimate.

"What...?" Zoltan asks, anemic.

"Just now. Your mind was somewhere else entirely. Where did you go?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"When have I ever doubted you?" That question from that mouth blows Zoltan's mind. "It's alright. I'm a nomad too. Don't be so far away." Fireside, she looks wide open.

Zoltan sits next to her. Birdy pinches her leg to break the ice. She doesn't know that she has just started a war. Zoltan pinches back.

Indigo plops on the ground between Zoltan's legs. Smiling, Zoltan lets her hands get lost in her hair. Even here, she diligently uses hair gel.

"Hmm... I'm in the mood to sing," Indigo smirks up at her.

"Noo, but you're awful at that." This is a new friend of theirs. Whoever he is, he can tease Indigo and get away with it. His viper teeth glint in the firelight.

"Sing 'For a fisherman's wife', it's my favorite!" The fundamental rule seems to apply even here: what Ari asks is obliged.

"For a fisherman's wife, the smell is no strife. So when she gets down—"

"They say she's the best in townnn!" Birdy steals her thunder, throwing her head back, shouting with her whole mouth. And Zoltan remembers that you're supposed to make a wish when you see a comet.