... Logan ...
Part o8
Logan slept fitfully. He drifted in and out of wakefulness for a while, aware, then not aware. He woke up shivering in the early hours of the morning and wrapped himself in the quilt then crawled around until his head finally found a pillow.
The dream slides over him like water drawing up a stony beach. There are bursts of colour. There are sounds, familiar sounds, something Logan can't place, a voice he can't quite hear. But it doesn't matter, it's just a dream. He feels a breeze rush past his face, a constant ebbing and flowing heart beat of air. It's quiet but for the whispering that falls on his ears. It's as though there's almost nothing left around him. The air thumps rhythmically into his chest, over and over, he finds his body swaying. A wisp of smoke coils up from the ground, writhing around itself, looping through, under and around its darkness.
The smoke grows in front of him, swirling out, wrestling into a shape, becoming a long body. So dark. Logan can't make out a colour, only shades of grey. The air thumps into his chest, stronger, harder until he thinks his heart will begin to beat in the same rhythm. The shape is still growing and finally Logan makes out long elegant limbs, vertical and swayed. Are they wings? Long, dark wings, slowly drifting back and forth, pushing the air against Logan's body. And, they fold back, slipping into a hidden center and Logan's eyes focus on a pale torso. A tall man, clothed in a simple pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Long pale lines, arms hanging by his side, firmly rooted to the ground. The winged creature turns toward Logan and smiles. The smile lights up his face with warmth and Logan feels comforted somehow. Familiar.
Logan feels the name in his head rather than hears it. "Kai." It's a low vibration, making his skin burn and the small hairs on his arms stand up. The pale face across from him flickers and appears closer, an arm's length away. It's an angular face, large dark eyes, the pupils blown wide open. Logan sees a bit of himself in that face, the high cheekbones ...the light dusting of pigment over his nose. "I'm looking for you Logan," reverberates down his spine, "we can find each other. Go south."
Kai reaches out two long pale arms and grasps Logan's shoulders pulling him into his arms. His muscles ripple as huge black wings slip from behind his back and fold around them both. The thumping air dies in the final closing of those dark limbs, silence falls and Logan inhales the scent of his brother, the warmth, and flesh, animal. He feels safe for the first time since he left home. Closing his eyes Logan rests his cheek on Kai's warm shoulder and sighs. A single black feather drifts past his face and he breathes, shakily, feeling as though all the oxygen has disappeared. He gulps air, let's out a sound somewhere between a moan and a sob and the tears are back once more.
Logan woke up with a start, arms flailing and wrestling their way out of the quilt he's imprisoned in. His hand connected with the lamp sending it crashing to the floor. "Shit!" He sat up panting, covered in sweat.
Micah whipped his head up and smacked it straight into the head board behind him with a dull thud. "JESUS CHRIST! You could have just said wake up." He rubbed his head looking sleepily at Logan through one eye squinting. "You're bleeding man."
Logan ran his hand over his face and looked at his palm ... blood smeared from the lip he must have bitten, a small cut on his hand. "Bad dream," Logan muttered finally untangled from the quilt. He slipped off the bed and stumbled into the bathroom.
Micah sighed. He rubbed his head for a few more seconds, rolled over and tucked his hands behind his head staring bleary-eyed at the ceiling and muttered to himself...."the guy's a train wreck."
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License.
story and words and photos Copyright Charlotte Kinzie 2009.
email for permission to use my stuffs.