My air was somehow pulled out of my chest.  My stomach got heavy, like I had just swallowed a brick and it tore my throat the whole way down. I mean, try to imagine something so depraved but so captivating that you can’t stop looking. It would be very bad.  It’s best to turn your head sometimes. I should know, I’ve turned my head plenty of times, I mean, look at my life for the past eight years.  But, I also done what I could to help as many as I could.  It was hard but usually, it was just a matter of timing. 

The things the old lady put on me were close to this, but what I saw come up out of the dark and across the headstones that morning – wasn’t native to this world. I hate that I stared at it, like I did, but I couldn’t move and it destroyed that kid.  I didn’t know exactly what to do.  

I tried my magic (which always worked in a situation like that), but I couldn’t concentrate and even though the words left my mouth, I just squeaked a tiny mouse whisper and fogged the window pane.  

That was when I felt the presence behind me – I know you understand.  It’s that feeling like a warm pressure against the nape of your neck and between your shoulder blades.  It interrupts the energy field for a moment and makes your ears ring.  She quietly cleared her throat.  It made the pores on my forehead dilate.  I could smell her bergamot and sandalwood perfume as she moved further into my space and pushed her breasts against my back.  Her lips parted just beside my left ear and I could hear the moisture of her mouth as she formed it into the whispered words, ‘Be still, my Marco, his pain is over.’  The bubbles of spit crackled in the crevices of her lips, and her breath smelled like old parchment paper. 

She wrapped an arm around the back of my neck and her right forearm, ending in a perfectly manicured, flesh-toned fingernail stretched out toward the window.  ‘That boy is tired. He’s had enough and he knows it.  He knows it or he wouldn’t have had all the mischief of today.’

I asked her what the thing was that was devouring Caid’s face.  She was quiet for a moment and then told me that it was the pure spirit of judgment and resolution.  A being of simultaneous artistry and bedlam.  A perfect thing of refined creation.  “It will sing you a song or a dirge; for him, it’s a dirge.  But it will sing, nevertheless, and the forces of all the world will bend ear to hear it.  

Watch, you’ll see. 

Watch, and then, get back to your work, lest the next dirge bear your name.