In Case of Fire, Burn This First

Purple Sludge

Do we simply stare at what's horrible and forgive it?

- Richard Siken

I didn't know the cost

of entering a song---was to lose

your way back.

- Ocean Vuong

A tall body resembling an exuberantly embalmed corpse was laid out on the steel table, limbs dangling way past the edges. Chanyeol. Discernible through eyes that were enormous even when closed, the too-small face, and the aquiline nose. Then his big fists banged until red-skinned against metal. Sehun left his work behind and approached Chanyeol.

"What's the matter, hyung?" Sehun asked. He was sharp-featured, gaunt, and dressed in gothic splendor that clashed flamboyantly with the tropical climate. It's as if they were shooting a pastiche of frilly art school coming-of-age films, but ended up taking themselves too seriously to stick to a parody anymore.

Chanyeol aggressively mimed writing on a piece of paper. Strips of plaster gauze heavily weighed on his face, exactly like a death mask, and a swimming cap secured his pastel purple candy floss hair. A handful of curses must be waiting to detonate in his sealed mouth.

Sehun dutifully pawed around for a pen and a notebook, and once found, pushed them into Chanyeol's jittery hands. Chanyeol wrote, in handwriting about as neat as a blind man's, PLASTER IS GETTING INTO MY EYES.

"What do you want me to do?" Sehun asked, scratching his head, perpetually angry-looking eyebrows knitted.

REMOVE IT ALL was Chanyeol's reply.

"Kyungsoo-hyung, he wants me to ruin my perfectly-arranged work for his own comfort. Should I?" Sehun asked through clenched teeth.

"Don't," Kyungsoo said, voice monotone and thick with ennui. He was seated by another table, bleary-eyed, rubbing mixed plaster of Paris onto the corners of his work. He had actually completed it weeks ago and was only putting unnecessary finishing touches, just so he could lessen the futility of this late-night grind.

"Sorry, Chanyeol-hyung. Just bear with it. Your suffering will be all worth it in the end." Sehun's pitch was better meant for a child having a hissy fit. Which Chanyeol may or may not be. Sehun palmed Chanyeol's plaster face cast. Still fever-hot, a long way from setting. WHAT IF I FUCKING GO BLIND???? Chanyeol scrawled.

"Kyungsoo-hyung, is he really gonna go blind?" Sehun asked. It was impossible to tell if he was truly worried or just snidely going along with Chanyeol.

"A little plaster in the eye won't hurt anyone," was Kyungsoo's verdict.

Chanyeol, in his usual histrionics, acted like he received a death blow, and Sehun sat down again. He attached borders to the illustration board before him with a tired glue gun. Working as if their assigned plates weren't necessary detours (evils) to their eventual hard-won, post-grad, champagne-everywhere success.

It was the end of January, Tuesday, in the darkness before dawn. They were in Kyungsoo's apartment at Teachers' Village---a short distance away from UP Diliman College of Fine Arts, the institution associated with their study abroad program.

They were as sober as any stick-in-the-mud college student should be on the teetering edge of a weekday. But Sehun and Chanyeol, frighteningly transgressive and partners in petty crime, were adrenaline junkies. They had an incorrigible habit of pulling all-nighters---the crunch time rush supposedly stimulated their creativity more. There's less room to dawdle, or so they said.