Pluto Waits for No Man: Grumio's Story

1

Darkness knows nothing of you.
Light desperately tries to outshine you.
Fireflies flicker just to catch your eye, the ocean sways just to reach out to you.
I emerged from the darkness, I carved the moon into the sun, I gave fireflies light and pulled waves to shore for you.
Vulcan's might took hold of me long ago. I am burned and callused. Metal made it's way into my bones- I am iron, I am steel. I am work. I am broken skin and mended toys.
But you- you, he who leaps from century to century with spiralling words, he who wraps emotions in nooses to hang heavy hearts on rotten gallows, he who'd blow kisses at his own damn corpse, you.
You, the beautiful.
You, Venus on Earth.
You, Pugnāx.

Grumio softly blew strains of wax shavings away from the tablet. He swept them into his palm and curled his cupped hand into a fist.

Six steps west brought Grumio to the garden, where he shook the shavings off his fingers. Some had melted in his grip. One crumbling layer of soft wax resisted removal. The slave ignored it, though all sticky things refuse to ignore him.
Six steps east landed Grumio in the study. Six steps brought forth a wax tablet with a shitty love poem carved into it.

Six fingers for stabilization and two palms for pressure broke the tablet in half.

15 steps west brought Grumio to the kitchen, where he melted the wax tablet. The crudely written words had wasted away. Fire was fed again. Perhaps love belongs in the jaws of flame.
5 steps brought him to liquor. 5 more steps gave him a bedroom. 5 swigs replaced rationality with a loose tongue.

5 years ago, Pugnāx was put into the ground.
5 years since then, Grumio has sunk lower than any set of bones drifting in dirt.

Pugnāx is dead.
The heart resists all notions of closure.
Grumio is killing himself;
minute by foul fucking minute.