rinue | A Skulk of Foxes

Patrick at the card table, (for once a real table and chairs, not a folded up plane in the corner,) hands flicking through balsa and foamboard and craft knives to build a stage set, one-quarter inch scale. Craft knives scare me, although I use them -- scalpels, razor blades, Xactos -- and I can't see them as anything other than torturers' tools. Mutilators. I don't get like this with other blades -- swords, cleavers, Ginsus, parers, swiss armies, daggers. Those don't bother me.

The light on Patrick as he works, three angled bulbs, frosted to soften the shadows. In the play for the set, all the men die -- the stage is littered with their empty chairs, crowding out even the actors.

He'll be staying with us for a while; I don't know how long. He doesn't either. The panic just hits him and he's sobbing tears and snot and blood. He's here as long as he needs to be; he was meant to live with us from the beginning.

Val in the other room, at her computer. In the dark. A paper on Judas; a paper on Evan; a paper on the play Patrick ran props. Built some of the set; don't know whether he worked on the cross. She's typing and he's gluing and I pace between the rooms helping to stitch and to move prepositions. At last I settle in the doorway, keeping vigil.

Yesterday was my half birthday.