Molecules Of His Brother

Their last night in Saint Malo.

A room in the Hotel Kyriad.

Various sounds. Ticking. Heavy breathing. Scratching. Flutters.

The sea roaring and foaming, crashing onto the stone works outside.

Saint Roley can't sleep. He thinks of the past and the future, the dead and the living.

His brother is out there somewhere. Drowned probably. That is what comes of trusting a pointing god's finger.

And the Scarabée, about whom he has mixed feelings. Where is the Scarabée now?

His body will be in the bin, at the back of Les Embruns. His four unattached legs are in this room somewhere, entangled in hair.

Saint Roley gets up from his place on the floor, and steps softly over Sweezus.

Waaat! mumbles Sweezus.

Saint Roley soothes Sweezus back to sleep with the tips of his feathers.

Or tries to.

Shit! shouts Sweezus. Creepy feathers! Fuck off!

Arthur sits up. Feels in his pocket. Knife. Whose is it? Fork. Pizza cutter. Sticking plaster. He picks at his knee scabs, which always itch worse at night.

Scratch scratch.

Shh! says Terence. Baldy's sleeping.

No, I'm not, says Baldy. I'm thinking.

What about? asks Terence. The curlies?

Curloos, says Baldy. No, not them.

He starts sobbing.

His tears splash on Sartre, but Sartre sleeps soundly.

He dreams of a tree with tree like features. He dreams its branches and roots. Below ground he dreams fungal networks intertwining....

Gaius is restless.

The light bulb sharpener falls out of his pocket, and rolls onto the floor.

Saint Roley tiptoes over, picks it up in his beak and drops it on a low table. Rustle!

Rustle? Why didn't it ting?

He squints in the darkness.

Ah. That's why. He has placed the light bulb on top of the hair clump entwining the legs of the Scarabée.

Somehow this makes him feel better. He lies down again beside Belle.

Swish. Raah! The sea roils outside.

And who is to know that it doesn't contains a few tiny molecules...

... of his brother?