Ouroboros II | The Wolf

1 | Ira Starts Over

Sunlight kissed at his skin, filling him with warmth as gentle as the scent of strawberries on the breeze. He stretched his arms over his head, yawning wider than even his pet cat Peter could master. The day was perfect for this. He belonged exactly here, relaxing into the soft scratch of the untamed grass. 

He knew that he couldn't exactly recall how he'd fallen asleep beneath the oak tree, sprawled on the crest of the hill, overlooking the strawberry fields. But, well, did it matter? No, not when the weather was so inviting. The bird song so lulling. The clouds so beautiful, streaming across the endless sky. 

His eyes, as bright as that far away sky, flickered open. He lazed on his back, staring up into the soft green canopy, which stretched out to shade his body from the harsh yellow sun. The oak tree's fingers spread out across the sky, shielding him from sight with its tangled limbs. 

Sight from who? He wondered dizzily. There was no one beyond the puffy white clouds. The angels didn't care--not for him. Not after their tricks. 

"Are you awake?" 

The voice didn't startle him, instead it filled him with familiarity as sweet as the strawberries around them. Ira rolled over onto his side, placing his bent elbow beneath his pale hair. He smiled, fitting his pink lips to flash his white teeth. 

"No," he laughed. "If I was awake, we wouldn't be here together." 

"If you were sleeping, we wouldn't be talking." He chuckled, a sound as smooth and comforting as warm blankets on a cold night. 

Ira forced his eyes towards the figure sitting just beyond the oak tree. He was perched in the grass, his broad back leaned against the rough bark. His legs splayed out before him, his fingers drummed along the tops of his knees to fill the time. And Ira thought, if he leaned just a little to the left, then maybe he might catch a glimpse of his face. But he did not cross the oak tree, and when he spoke he did so looking straight up into the green leaves. 

"You have no idea." Ira murmured. 

The rough bark of that single tree might have been an ocean to them. A barrier which Ira could never cross, keeping from him the only thing in all the universe that he needed. That he needed so desperately he dreamed of it. 

Carried along on the sweetly enchanted breeze was something else, beneath the soft tang of berries, the faintest whisper of petrichor. The soft and subtle way the pine forest smelled after rains tumbled from the sky, washing the needles in heavenly kisses. It was the scent of his skin, and Ira drank it in knowing that when he woke it would be gone. 

His heart twisted behind his ribs, sending a jolt through his spine. He could recall another night, one dark and plagued with fear, when they had stayed beneath the pines and been washed by the rain. But those drops had been tears. Divine and angelic, warning them of all they stood to lose. 

And they did lose. 

Ira pressed the heels of his palms into his eyelids. The sky above them flickered, threatening to fill with gray storm clouds weeping over their summer afternoon. "Speak to me." 

"And what should I say?" 

"Anything," he begged. "Just make me think that this is real." 

"It is real, Ira." 

"If you were real, you wouldn't call me that." He pressed his hands into the fresh tears flowing down his freckled cheeks, collecting them on the tips of his fingers.

He was shocked to see that he could cry in this place, shocked to see his tears gathered there, flowing over hands as warped as melted plastic, molded from lumpy clay. Another inadequacy. Another picture he could not paint to mirror image. "If it's inside my head, why can't I make it perfect?"