Flashes Of Light

Present Day

"Of course," the presenter says. "Some of you might cover for the others. We've always known Percie Tolkien liked Sveta Metis, back in the day."

Sveta is embarrassed, and tries to hide behind her hair.

She has never imagined Percie could feel such things for her, let alone hearing it from somebody else.

Sveta has never paid attention to things like that. She played cool, but really she was too anxious. She didn't want to find out what it was, exactly, that the others thought about her.

However, Percie Tolkien probably doesn't like her now. Which is for the best.

If she had liked him, it had been a long time ago.

"Aw, Perce, I can't believe you were friend-zoned!" Logar laughs, and tries to give Sveta a high five.

Sveta can't recall why she had forgotten that it was always the worst, when the two of them were in the same room.

"Brother-zoned," she adds, however, trying hard to make it sound like an existent word. "That's even worse, man."

"Really? Don't you have anything else to say?" Percie asks. He's embarrassed, though not as much as Sveta is.

"Well it must have been hard, to be our Diplomat," Logar says. "And I give you my condolensces. I thought it was one of those things everyone with a brain between two ears could do, like being the drummer for the Beatles."

"You know," Sveta says, before she can catch herself. "Sometimes you're actually funny."

She is about to bury her head in her hands. Just what Logar doesn't need, someone to enflate his ego.

But are the things she thinks she knows about her friends even true? Why does Logar appears so weak and insecure now?

And back then, she'd seen Logar being his kindest self, behind his mask, and it felt...

No. This last thought is so ridiculous, one of those things that could never be true, but probably are, that Sveta almost hiccups to hold back laughter.

"Sorry," Logar frowns. "You don't find me funny, or do you?"

And they all know. Because of a mix of things, there are only two types of people Sveta isn't kind to. Herself, and everyone who insults Logar Iris.

But, for some reason, she had always been up to insult Logar Iris herself.

"No, you are," Sveta says. "I'm sorry. He was. I'm pretty sure the person here with us now is Logar's clone."

Logar asks himself if it's meant to signify that anyone with a brain between his ears could be their Visionary, or if it's a Beatles joke. Maybe it's both.

"We are sad to announce," he says, mimicking a fake robotic voice, and grabbing the presenter's microphone. "That the real Logar Iris died in prison of dysentery, at the age of twenty-one! The end. You can all go home now."

Sveta can't help but laugh, and remembers for a minute what it felt like, once upon a time. When she was under the impression that Logar was her best friend.

"That seems like an ending suited to how you lived," she says.

"Why?" Logar asks, giving her the microphone. "Because it's shitty?"

She really can't help but laugh again, and Logar seems satisfied. 

"Next, we're talking about physical appearance," the presenter coughs, and gets back the microphone from Logar's hands. Sveta notices that he could have paid more attention -- he almost slapped his friend's hand to make him let go. "There's a very famous quote by Jonath Cincinnati -- 'everyone wants to be pretty at weddings and funerals'."

Sveta can't believe her ears. She's always known this was Jonath's mask, but she's also always known that he was terribly, terribly insecure deep down. A different kind of insecurity than the one Logar had, the probable opposite, if so many kinds existed. He wasn't confident, he always thought he wasn't worth a spit under anyone's shoe.

While Logar thought he was ugly and untalented, and so many other things Sveta had begun to see were not true, but he thought he was worth so much that he'd be the spit under your shoe that made you slip on the pavement and brought you to an early grave.

Now, she's beginning to wonder what side of himself Jonath had shown to the public.

"Sveta," the presenter says, talking to her as if she was dim-witted. Logar is red in the face, and he looks like he's ready to make the whole world explode. "Why are you making that face? Do you remember Jonath saying that?"

"Well, no..." Sveta scrunches her eyebrows, and she looks actually sorry. And the fucking problem with her, Logar knows, is not that she's dumb as she looks. It's that she always want to do the right thing and... why did no one ever tell her you can't please everyone?

But who could have told her?

"I actually said that," Logar finally says.

"Ah, that explains," Percie laughs. "If you were under the impression that you only had to be pretty at weddings and funerals, why we've never seen you looking pretty."

Logar finally explodes. "Did you all go to The Anti's funeral? Sorry I couldn't come. I was locked up in jail. But rest assured, if it wasn't going to be that, it was probably going to be his ninth wedding."

And Sveta, to everyone's shock and surprise, laughs again. And again.

"What?" she asks. "I loved him, but he was a bastard. He really was."