Psychofauna

Week 3: The Saint & His Prince

Previously: The CDC analyzes this new retrovirus, the Psi variant. It seems to give humans the ability to sense the weak electromagnetic fields created by each other's nervous systems.

○ The Great Opening: Week Three, Brooklyn

St Lenny howled to moon over Prospect Park.

A couple who'd been caressing on a bench turned.

"Oh, hello. Here." He found a fresh rose amidst the folds of his furs and tossed it to them. Mm. Something was off with their auras. "Hmm. She isn't that into you and you're pretending not to sense it. No masks, anymore, my friends, no masks," said St Lenny, tapping his skull as he passed.

"Fuck off!" said the man.

But Lenny was already on his way, skipping around an overturned trash can, prancing through oak leaves that speckled the once-tidy path. Hm, wouldn't it be nice? thought Lenny. Wouldn't it be nice to have a beaux of my own to caress this evening?

Gunshots sounded in the distance. St Lenny howled again. An older woman walking the other way clutched her purse. Between her olive cheeks and brown-trending-white hair, two metallic dragonflies dangled from her ears. Lovely, he thought, thumbing his own earring, a upside-down cross dangling from his right lobe.

Lenny tilted his head as she grew near. "Bold for a classy someone like you to be out so late, with the lockdowns, the riots, the madness generally about."

"They'll never take my evening stroll from me," the woman said in a Hispanic accent. She strode past without a glance.

"Oh, an evening stroll? Don't need money for that."

The Prince had taught Lenny how to be quick with the knife. He flicked it out and her purse was off her shoulder in no time. He tucked the woman's purse into his furs. "There you are, unburdened. Oh! Running! I'll run with you!"

Now St Lenny and his new lady were out for an evening run. She was easy to catch up to, but harder to run alongside of because she was slow, and Lenny was impatient with all these gods and demons on the mind. "What's your name?"

"Leave me alone!" She darted through some bushes. "Police!"

"They have bigger problems nowadays, you know that."

The air around Prospect Park was full of sirens, sirens that had no time anymore for Lenny, who skidded forth to block the woman's path. "I wanted to give you something," he said, reaching for the tiny sack in his pocket.

The woman froze. Lenny cupped her cheek with one hand and blew aromas of frankincense and myrrh into her nostrils. On cue, a faerie leapt from Lenny's consciousness and filled the woman's senses. Her eyes went wide and wondrous.

"Yes," said Lenny. "Yes, yes, do you see? It is a wondrous evening. A wondrous life."

She looked at Lenny, and then at herself, and then at the shadows dancing across the ground, of tree branches across streetlights. "Dios. What grace."

"Yes. Yes! Come with me, will you? They call me St Lenny. Your name?"

"Saint Lenny," she said, savoring the consonants. She savored the sight of him next. "Do they have saints in India?"

"Oh, I wouldn't know. They claim I'm aboriginal."

"Yes, you are an original."

"Ohhh! That's clever."

"What is?"

For a flash, Lenny saw his own glorious self through the woman's gaze, his curly top-bleached hair, his laughing eyes and warm brown skin. He could feel her insides thawing to the lilt of his melting chocolate voice.