...and Black Inked Lies

          It had been a long time since Lazar had a dream. Not like he was a heavy sleeper, just that he didn't have anything to dream about. If that was something to be pitied, he didn't care for it. He could think of things, places, consciously. Play war and house alone.

          House wasn't any fun, alone.

          Once he had imagined himself a room full of glass. So many windows and bottles that caught the light and broke just the right way, distorted shadows like monsters. Why there were monsters in his daydreams, though - Lazar had no clue.

          He probably needed to go out somewhere, or sleep more. One of the two.

          Not like he was going to do either.

          A pad of paper lay discarded on the floor next to his bed, half torn sheets spilling out like a flood of doves. Several pages were stained with bloody imitations of watercolors where he'd cut his fingers on the corners, or his lip had dripped over. Little letters inked in black files like marching bands and soldiers and ants. None of it made any sense when he reread it, pretty words mixed with lies - but that didn't matter. So long as he knew which direction was up, that was what mattered. The rest he could figure out himself.

          And God knew he tried to figure it out, sat awake in the pale hours before the sun rose and searched himself from the inside out and back again. Just thinking in circles. He wondered, idly, if he could be a romantic without ideals. It didn't leave him enlightened, to be sure, but what was left?

          Tragic, those non-entity citizens. Existing, but not counted among the living. Maybe that's what he'd become - some wayward soul waking to find a different place each day with hair and clothes that stank of foreign cigarettes. In his mind, he could.

          In his mind, he was not some stumbling, faltering train wreck of a man. He'd never wanted that. It made his head hurt to think about - or he was just tired.

          Maybe he should go out.

                                                                         
                                                                        †

          Lazar walked through the city as night was falling, and watched as it came alive. The vivacity that leeched from the ground up through his legs was enough to quell the nagging at the back of his mind, if only for a moment. Though the air was thick with sound and smog and wet, all wet, it thrummed with life and light. Rain caught on his eyelashes and cheeks and he tasted it until he was sure it was rain, and not some chemical shower in this Chernobyl whiteout of a city. Vice and virtue, this City of Saints.

          He passed relics of old times, grand cathedrals and monuments to heroes of forgotten wars, blocky offices and apartments of Soviet design, and newer buildings with flashier tastes and tendencies toward the rich. Which did he fit in with? The relics, he decided. His style of thinking - well, he liked to think of it as a style, flair - was outdated, obsolete for nearly a century, and yet…

          Was he completely missing the point?

          Maybe he was. Maybe there was some unspoken law that he hadn't seen. Savvy - or rather, not. Sighing, he stopped to lean against the railing of a bridge bright with artificial lights and shoved his hands into his pockets. Made an internal checklist, looking at his surroundings. Bright lights, check. Black ties. Check. Matches - check. A lighter. Click. Better.

          He stood on the bridge with no real aim, smoking and pushing a piece of trash around with the toe of his shoe. When he realized what he must look like to passerby, he couldn't help but smirk a little, and that smirk turned into laughter, loud and unrestrained and completely his. Ownership. He could deal with that, would like to own something for himself once in a while. That thought turned out to be more humorous than the last, and he laughed harder for it. Either he was drunk, or something was very seriously wrong.

          The sun set, all fire and flames, making way for the moon. It was just a Cheshire cat grin in the endless expanse of sky, not quite full. Its silver light painted the Dnieper ethereal, and he could hear music floating from across the river.

          He might have expected to hear booming bass from a club in the area, but as it stood, someone somewhere was playing the piano with everything they had. It was most certainly not base. When he thought about it, there was no grey area on a piano, was there? Black and white. Extremes. Opposites. But… when they played together, they were beautiful.

          Instrumentality must be a pun. It curled up towards the sky like a tiny flame, that idea, and was lost. A car drove past with horn and headlights blaring. He blinked, slowly, twice, and the spell was broken.

          Flicking his cigarette to the ground, he found that he didn't care if it lit on fire, because he had more important places to be.

                                                                        †

          When Lazar wakes the next morning with hair and clothes that stink of cigarettes, there's a sweat-stained handprint on his window he is sure is not his. Blood red leaves frame it from outside like a fire, clinging onto almost-bare branches with nothing more than defiance.

          That's probably beautiful, too.