Liothel, we will follow even if you lead us to hell.

Mikael knew he was home when he read that slogan. It had many variations, of course, but this one in particular once helped his younger self find the way home. Look for hell and you will find home, he once told himself, and true enough, Mike knew he was far away from his village unless it was the same slogan, word for word.

The line was on a poster plastered to a lamppost, crammed between a full column of their leader’s pictures. Unlike his mother, whom he could only see after long hours at work, the president was always with or around him. The president was an overprotective father who never wanted his country-wide family out of his sight.

I am your guard, and I can’t keep you safe until I can see you all, said a poster that depicted him in his military uniform. Have you ever seen a father who lets his children out of his sight? said another, showing the president hugging a little girl.

They walked smothered in a flank of framed pictures, posters, and animated graffiti of the president, most of them in his golden military uniform and black sunglasses. Rows upon columns extending as far along the street as possible. Not a single Crow, Wolf, or Lion was there. The president was the only law-enforcer around these parts. Once, a dozen Crows arrested a thief and executed him with a firing squad for stealing from a house close to a row of the president’s pictures. Next morning, Mike and his neighbors hung so many pictures and posters to drive off thieves until the bricks on the walls weren’t visible anymore. After that, the only thieves that remained either quit or joined up law-enforcement.

The graffiti was alive with movement and sound. Some of it shifted along the wall at slower frames than others. A handful were ads inviting people to try magical products that ranged from food and cosmetics to pets and mood selectors. The others, the majority of the lot, depicted the president with either his son or brother, all in fancy military uniforms and sunglasses. The scenes were mostly them clapping over a military demonstration or parade, the others, however, were snippets of the many dull speeches that made up the philosophy he shared with his people.

At one wall, the same graffiti was copied at least a dozen times, playing and ending simultaneously. In it, the president gesticulated and turned his sweaty head about.

“I want to urge you to understand that the anger and harshness of our security forces are the product of contempt for our enemies,” the president announced in his cool, commanding voice. His forehead was larger than average, perhaps, Mike giggled, it was his infinite wisdom and intelligence trying to escape his head. His blond hair was thinning, his sideburns trimmed, his mustache a single line of black and white. “If we can’t respect our security forces, we can’t respect our fathers. Aren’t they angry and short-tempered? If a soldier or a father scolds us, it’s probably for our own good.” A chorus of clapping issued from the wall, the president pressed sunglasses to his face, and the scene replayed.

What leaders didn’t understand about philosophy was that few people enjoyed it, and even when they did, they'd rather receive it from an author they respected than from a leader who didn’t respect them. Philosophy could indeed attract and win respect, but when it came from a dictator, it was going to be either comedy or tragedy rather than illuminating.

The sound of shuffling feet tore him from his thoughts. Mike’s friend, Sckin, muttered, looking from one poster to another.

“Did you have to badmouth him like that?” Mikael asked. “You shouldn’t have said all that about the president. We weren’t alone! Walls have ears, my friend, and men have tongues.”

“This isn’t any other city, Mikael. This is the coast, Kerdaco, the president’s hometown.”

“Do you need to see the leash to know we are dogs?” Mike asked.

“There you go. We are the president’s dogs, that’s why we are treated better than people.” He flashed a yellow grin, his hairy face coursing with sweat. “Dogs are fed, Mikael, but people are left to starve. And for that, I’d rather be a dog.”

Sunlight fell through the gaps in the foliage, golden shafts sliding into a sea of emerald. Some of the bark on the elms was peeling, a handful of leaves swirling down and crackling beneath their boots.

Once out of the shade, they appeared into their village square. There was all kind of transportation methods: horses, mules, carriages, a couple of steel cars, and – the newest to the collection – a flying broomstick.

"Bastard still flying that all day and night,” Sckin muttered.

"They give you that if you graduate military school, Sckin. I told you we should join, but you said you’d rather join a rotten hag in bed.”

The ‘bastard’ was their neighbor Wodo, named after the tradition of flipping words until the person earned his namesake. But how Wodo would prove to be ‘Wood’ was beyond him. It was a farmer’s tradition, a coastal tradition.

Wodo circled in the air, gripping his saddled broomstick by its horn, crying out at the top of his voice in an affected show of thrill. Their neighbor was never blond, but ever since he became a Lion in the army, he dyed it in the middle of their town square. A military tradition for the people to be reborn as soldiers. There wasn’t a single Lion who didn’t have golden hair. A crown over their head.

“You think he will start reporting his own people now?” Sckin asked.

“You don’t have to be in the army to report people. All you need is a grudge.”

“Doubt it,” Sckin muttered.

“You know, we can do it together, write reports on people. And it wouldn’t be immoral or anything, we’d be serving this country.”

“Mike, you can’t serve your country and your people at the same time. You have to pick a side. Me, I’d rather be with my people.” He scratched a match against its box, lighting a cigarette behind a hand.

“We’d be heroes in the shadows, Sckin. We wouldn’t report anyone who isn’t evil.”

“Do as you like.”

“Just hear me out, we are not like any people in this country. You said it yourself. We are the president’s dogs, but how will he feed us if we don’t bark at his enemies? Think about joining the army as if it’s a business enterprise, except we don’t need any capital. Everyone we know or grew up with joined the army, police, or even one of the Four Eyes. We can’t make money teaching people, we make money by beating them.”

“Where did you get all this?” Sckin narrowed his eyes.

“I thought about it. We can’t put on suits like businessmen, can we? Well, we don’t need that for people to respect us, do we? No, because a military uniform is poor people’s business suits.”

“I don’t report my people. How do you expect me to eat with the hand that reports people and starves them?” Sckin took a drag and sent a jet of smoke through his nose.

“But what about Sir Ragny?”

“Shove him and his promises up your ass. I won’t put people in jail because I will end throwing myself after them. Don’t give me that look, Mike. I already told you my head is my jail and my conscious is the jailor.”

Mike muttered.

“Are you looking for my permission or something?”

“No, I wanted to see how you feel about it. I got the message.”

“Are you already one of them?”

“Not if we can’t be two of them, no.” He grinned, clapping Sckin’s shoulder when he chuckled. “I want a good life for me and your sister, Sckin. I want you to know that for her sake, I am willing to jump in a pool of blood. But It seems that I can’t dive into a pool of water without first jumping into a pool of blood. Maybe that’s how you get rich fast.”

“It doesn’t have to be fast. Fast isn’t always satisfying. You, of all people, should know that, wise author. And as for my sister, there is nothing like patience to test love. You won the girl, Mike, now keep the girl.”

In a nearby alley, a stranger held up his hands in an odd angle, as though gripping someone’s shoulder. There wasn’t, however, anyone there but him. He swore, yelled, and spat.

“You think you own me because you are my boss? Wake up, asshole.” He shook the air relentlessly back and forth and pressed his hands against the wall.

“Hallucinator,” Sckin said.

“Must be.”

“What do you think he sniffed?”

Mike shrugged. “Probably something to make him see himself beat someone up. You heard him speaking about his boss.”

“Poor bastard.”

The man now unloaded his fists at the wall, thudding and cracking, until blood spurted from his knuckles. Finally, he kicked at the floor, stomped, spat, and walked away, greeting Mike and Sckin. They laughed it off and walked away.

At the village square, Nair, Sckin’s sister, leened out of a window, greeting them, greeting him more than her brother. But no one could see or understand eyes like a lover. The sky borrowed some of the sapphire in her hair, which had a pair of golden locks that she left unpainted. Blue hair was never something he expected to see on girls, but the president’s only daughter had another opinion.

“Nair,” Sckin cried, “get you something from the store?”

“No, get up here already. Mom won’t let us eat until you are with us.”

“Nair,” Mikael whispered. He loved to hear her name, to whisper it, to move his lips as slowly as possible to give justice to each letter. His beautiful neighbor already earned her namesake. Rain. For she was softer and warmer than fresh rain drops. But there was another Rain whom they all feared. Rainess Crowster, head of the Political Security Directorate in Kerdaco. But according to everyone he knew, she respected and listened to all people, provided they were from the coast. Every Crowster was like this, but it was their family words that terrified him worst of all. Don’t forget, don’t forgive.

They parted after a quick embrace, each going to their apartment block. Mikael nodded to passing neighbors, greeting elders sitting at their storefronts and sipping their afternoon tea.

He looked back to the opposite building. Nair was still there, her chin propped up in a porcelain-smooth hand. She winked and took her sweet time closing the window, waiting until he disappeared behind the gate. The elders laughed, urging him to hurry home before anyone saw him. He smiled and ran upstairs.

Why is love at its sweetest when lovers can’t be together all the time? Maybe it’s sweet because we can’t have it, because we took but a nibble and judged from it, without even reaching the core where it’s bitter.

He took the cement steps three in one stride, lost in thought but aware in reality. If such a thing existed.

It’s not that it doesn’t taste as good, it just takes longer to cook. The burning desire becomes warm comfort. The flame dies out and they press to each other for warmth, and this is the warmest fire. An eternal flame.

His stomach sank a bit and he felt as though he was falling. Am I romanticizing love just like people did with knights in shining armor?

The idea, most of the time, is better when it’s only a fantasy. Reality is no different than people in their destructive nature. It has a tendency of botching beautiful pictures. It’s beautiful as long as it’s in our head, the land of perfection. Your head is your secret magical world; if you spend too much time there, you will never want out. Everything is lovely there until you realize it’s awful outside. But if you are always in your head, wait until you listen to your own voice all the time. No matter how hard you try to escape, you won’t be able to. There is no escaping your head.

His mom opened the door and her arms, taking him inside with a hand that kept smoothing his clothes. He stopped in the hallway, picked up the bills, and stuffed them in his pocket. He had to pay for water and magic.

The only one who won’t stop talking to you, even if you beg, demand, or shout, is yourself.

After a quick shower, Mikael sat with his mom for lunch. Lentil soup with a bread loaf for dipping, as well as slice of lemon and hot sauce. This was poor people’s meat.

He took a sip, nodded, and squeezed some lemon juice into it. Better. Then, he broke a handful of bread and dipped. Much better.

“We had a guest today;” his mother said.

Another sip. “Who?”

With a plop, she filled her spoon with soup. “Kreesta Crowster.”

“He was in our house?”

“No, he was in the village.”

“What did he want?”

“He wanted to stand under Nair’s window.”

His breath stopped in his lungs, and for a moment, he forgot to draw another. It was common knowledge what that Crowster boy liked to do for a hobby: women.

“Was he alone?”

“Had a whole entourage of black cars behind him, blocked the whole street when he parked. He had about fifty Crows, all of them wearing those creepy masks and those awful, feathered mantles. Scared off all the children going back from school.”

“What did he do under her window?”

“He wasn’t there for long. Took half a dozen of his guards and visited the girl and her family.”

“What did he want?”

“Her mother said he respectfully asked for their blessing to take her out on a date.”

“And?”

“No one can say no to a Crowster, son. They don’t forget and they don’t forgive.”

“But she –“

“She is yours, but not while Kreesta wants her. That boy Kreesta, he takes what he wants from a girl and then leaves her to the man she wants. You will have her after he is done with her.”

“MOTHER!” He rose, slamming a fist to the table.

She looked up to him for a heavy moment, then surrendered her gaze to the table between them. Her weak sigh was more painful than a slap, quiet yet louder than an angry shriek. And he discovered, as his heart sank, that silence was a lot louder than yelling.

There is nothing more horrible than the silence that follows yelling at your mother.

I scream with a voice that isn’t mine, or at least that’s what I tell myself to push the blame away. I hate blaming myself almost as much as I hate doing the bad thing.

She replaced her spoon. “Are you screaming in my face because you can’t scream in Kreesta's?”

He flopped back down to his chair. “No.”

“Are you blaming me because you can’t blame him?” she whispered.

It’s difficult to take the blame because it’s hurts to admit we are wrong. We’d rather accept an apology than give it, just like gifts.

It’s bad enough that I feel terrible for screaming, but I also have to offer a sacrifice, an apology. I hate apologizing but I love my mom.

He kissed her hand and asked for her forgiveness. Once he received it with a pat on his head, he crossed to his veranda, leening against the railing. Riffling in his pocket, he pulled his Codebook. A fountain pen was on a coffee table, with a bottle of Ink he had filled up from the tab in his room.

Most Codebooks asked for the user’s password once you flipped to the first page, but there wasn’t anything to hide from his mother. It was a hand-sized notebook, with an index that took you anywhere inside it if you circled your destination or wrote it out.

Mikael fed his pen some magical Ink from the bottle and took the tip to the index, scratching out page number one-hundred and thirty-seven.

Pages rustled before him, taking him to he last time he sent an Ink message to Nair. To one side of the book was the log, where it showed their message history. The other was where he wrote them out and saw them vanishing into her own.

I want to see you. The message vanished, swallowed into the paper, rotating as though carried up in a rushing vortex.

The window? Her message appeared for a moment, and then wrote itself into the log.

Yes.

It was a minute, less than that, and her face poked out the window, a gentle breeze playing with her loose bun.

What is it?

He scratched a response, dipping the tip into he bottle. Is it true?

She told you?

It really is true!

Yes, she wrote.

What are you going to do, Nair?

Her face showed nothing but cold indifference. Was it really like this, or was she trying to protect him from his feelings?

I have to give him what he wants, or he will take from my family what they need.

It was hard to breathe, even with the breeze cold and fresh around him. It was tugging at his hair, blowing in his face. He searched for words and breath, and wished he had spent a little longer seeking them.

Did you accept anything from him?

She looked to him, asking a million questions with her eyes, but only a single one with her words.

Do you think I am a whore, Mikael?

His answer was quicker than a moment’s happiness.

No.

I told him he could take me by force, but he can’t buy me. He smiled and told me he didn’t have to buy what’s already his.

Son of a bitch. He crossed it before it sent, afraid – no – terrified they could be reading their messages. For Kreesta was Rainess Crowster’s son.

Did he say when he will come back?

Tomorrow afternoon. Don’t do anything stupid, Mike.

Nair, how are you so calm?

If you can’t break his hand, kiss it and hope it breaks. I want to live, Mikael, and I suppose it’s time for me to pay the price for my life. I can’t be angry because then I will be looking for a solution, even though I know there isn’t any.

In a single, long breath, he scrawled a message in a handwriting uglier than a child’s.

You know what he wants, don’t you?

He wants my body, not my life. Let him have it and let me keep my life.

Nair, this will break you.

We are glass, Mikael. Sooner or later we break. I was waiting for the moment of my breaking.

He dipped the tip of his pen into the Ink, dripping all over the table and his fabric pants.

What are you talking about? Who wants to be broken? If you think you are glass, then you can’t heal, silly.

Because I won’t be glass anymore. I will be sharp shards. No one will be able to hurt me anymore.

*****

AN: Make sure to check my profile. I post nice quotes (my own, of course) and updates.