Soothsayer. Steve Harrington.

I. Everything Eats and is Eaten.

Soothsayer,     Volume One
Angel in my Bed.

One.        Everything Eats and is Eaten.
(Time is Fed)

✷

          Rage has become to Kahaan a childhood house ⎯⎯⎯ an unsettlingly familiar solace that he finds when drowning in alcohol, bloodshot eyes gazing into the ground beneath him, sparked with a flame nothing could calm (nothing but the hopeless dream of the dead rising). It's the quaint house that sits empty in California, its doors etched with childish drawings and fading yellow walls, floorboards that creak with each step, a mother's voice buried in the back garden, between a child's laughter. Mother can't help. Mother can't push Kahaan away from the house. (What is a mother if not the shovel beside an early grave?)

He wishes Mother could help.

Mother does, too.

          Mother taught Kahaan of scuffed knees and bruised knuckles (a child sits in his bedroom, frowning, Shouldn't Mother be caring?) Father groans, shakes his head, shouts ⎯⎯⎯ an angry man or worried parent? Kahaan isn't sure. Father is quiet most days, sat in his tattered armchair with a newspaper in hand, downturned mouth. Calloused hands shake with their clutch on the bad news of this Friday, a picture of a familiar face in black and white, a green rectangle in the corner ⎯⎯⎯ white star and moon decorating the centre, but the moon isn't so bright this time and the star isn't so pretty. Their warmth is dim, overcast by a bold headline that Kahaan is too young to comprehend, but he makes out a few words: 'Man left dead in brutal attack.' He isn't sure of the rest of the report, but what he does know is that his uncle's face is the one in black and white and that the flag in the corner is the same one that hangs in his parents' bedroom.

          Heed Father's warnings, Kahaan learns early in life. He doesn't stay out past eleven p.m. ⎯⎯⎯ a strict curfew that mustn't go unfollowed, an echo of a worried father's voice, They wait for you at night, Kay, because then, they'll get away with it. Kahaan's feet don't pass his front door after eleven, despite the nagging slither at the back of his mind, taunting, urging, They'll get you whether it's night or not, you know they will. They did it once, they'll do it again.