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"Tonight, you're going to witness two friends attempt improv comedy." The Host, cross-legged in his chair, lifts his foot like a weary dame. "They've never done it before, and it's a very basic art form."
Two women have staggered onto the stage this time. For now, they're too busy whisper-shouting at each other behind him.
"I've still got my gun."
"Leave it- leave it alone!"
"I've got my gun."
"Well, what can you-"
"I can shoot, uh- him?"
"You've done enough of that!"
"I can-"
"Leave! It! Alone!"
The Host reclines. "Shush."
And the guests shush indeed. Such a mercy when they listen.
He doesn't feel like doing all the work today — though there probably are no days, he's decided a while ago, when you don't sleep between them — so he beckons lazily. "One of you, come."
And one of them does come. She's a bit ruffled, like a cat that's picked a fight with its own reflection, but hardly shellshocked. Far from it. It's as if she was born with that gun on her, as if she'd look better with steel-black fingers. "What's your name?"
Lights.
"Um, Liz."
The audience already knows to applaud. Sweethearts, the lot of them.
"And you?" the Host creaks and looks to the other lady, who's as bad at containing her shakes as her friend is at feigning reluctance. Her ponytail is so straight, tight and glossy that it resembles a parasite eating at her face from behind.
"I don't have to tell you."
"Ah, it seems we have a nameless Fräulein[1] on our hands." He puts his leg down and swings the other over it, which wins him a rogue whistle. "A big round of applause for the nameless Fräulein, give it up!"
Cheers, applause, the works.
"Now, for this game…" The Host gets up, repelling his guests every which way, and sets off on a prowl. "I'll have the powers of time in my hands." He reaches out and forms a half-hearted fist, finger by knotty finger. "I can move time backwards, I can move it forwards, I can move it however I like."
"What?"
"Figuratively, of course." He coughs up a laugh. "Even I have limits, darling. Now, start the scene, say… at the exact point in time one of you realised that she could truly, genuinely hate."
"Wha-"
"And when I shout freeze, you'll know what to do."
"We're not-"
"Now."
The Host slides off into solid shadow, leaving his subjects to it. He wouldn't mind pulling in on himself and resting his eyes in the darkness, but he probably needs to be watching for this one, even if the two are making it quite hard. Must've never danced for an audience of more than five, the fortunate souls.
He grabs another chair and makes himself comfortable.
"Oh, I, uh-" the calm one goes sputtering, arms limp at her sides, not even a picture-perfect gun helping her case, "I'm at a, well, um-"
"Don't listen to him, Christ! We're going, Liz. Liz, come on. Put that down. We're going."
"Oh," the Host caws, cupping his cheek, "I don't remember you saying that back then, du schlauer Fuchs."[2]
Liz looks at him, then at her friend, then back. She's deciding, deciding. Decided. "I don't remember that, either."
A silence like countless others drapes between them.
"Are you being serious?"
There's an exchange of glances, a sort of I'm scared, I'm really scared, Oh, you're really scared, you're actually really scared, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry — and Liz sheepishly puts down her weapon.
"Wow, I'm so, like, happy," she starts instead and faces the fascinated crowd, "that you've invited me here."
"Where? To this party? Having fun, are you?"
"No!" Liz pouts — earnestly, by the looks of it. "To your first signing. When I was late. Remember?"
"Jesus- Okay, sure. Fine. Yes." The nameless one rubs the bridge of her nose. "Yes, I remember."
"And you're all the way over- come on, like, a few steps back, no, more than that."
She lets herself be moved with mute indifference.
"Come on! You were signing books. Be signing books."
She acquiesces, gets out an invisible pen, and begins signing what barely suggests even a book that's invisible.
"Now, I'm in line."
"Yes, for some reason, you were queuing with all the readers."
Liz lets that settle. She stands around, swaying on her heels. Takes a small step forward.
"Ugh, freeze!" the Host yells out as he remembers he's there. "Ten minutes from now."
Liz waits and takes one more step, as minute as before. Then, in a few uneasy beats, another.
"What? It was a really slow line."
"Freeze! Thirty minutes from now."
Content with herself, Liz closes the rest of the distance. In her walk, there's apprehension, even a hint of caution. It seems that out there, where there's pens and books and days, she's not the scary one.
Her friend looks up and stops the awful mime. Something changes in both their faces, jumps between them like a flea.
"Do you-" Liz asks, "do you remember what you said?"
"Not really."
She snaps her head towards the Host in a silent appeal to whatever's human of him.
"Up-up-up, I wasn't there. Don't look at me, it's bad theater."
Abandoned, she stiffens some more, a full-body cast of a woman. "Well, I remember. When I walked into the room, and I saw you at the center of that whirlpool, I couldn't come up to you, couldn't sit next to you. Couldn't make myself. You were a mountain."
"Sorry?"
"A mountain. I just couldn't. But I also couldn't leave, you know? And it was really busy there. So I panicked. I just stepped in line with all the others to buy myself some time, to calm down, to-"
"But you never did?"
"I mean, I did eventually. But the line beached me to you before that could happen."
"I still don't get it. That makes no sense. I thought you were- you were just being weird, Liz. You'd been weird for a while."
"Freeze! To when our ordinary Liz first started acting weird."
The nameless one takes a moment. "Oh. Um…"
Then, a switch, the lightning strike of a thought. In her eyes, a zeal flickers on, so keen it's almost devious. "Liz. Liz!"
Maybe, permission was all she needed.
"Liz! Liz! Look. Look."
"At what?"
She's suddenly all up in her face, holding some air in the shape of a cellphone. "An email. And I don't normally cheer over those."
"Oh." Liz is seeing it now, whatever it's meant to be — the ghost of something dreadful in the palm of her friend. "Oh."
"That's right!" the nameless one goads with foul cheer. "You seem to be into this whole thing! Want to act out what happened?"
It's only now that Liz is petrified. "No. I, uh- I don't."
"Come on! Indulge me. That you'll do, but not this?"
"Look, we've been over this, I said I was-"
A clap from the sidelines. A jagged echo. When the Host speaks, just this once, there’s something pitch-black bubbling in his throat like tar. "Show, lady. Don't tell."
Which, at last, seems to do it.
Liz squints, covers her face, and shrivels. That's the posture of someone who really needs to wail on command, or at least pretend to wail, but can't do either. She wobbles there, hunched, face in her wide hands, neck pulled far, far into the shoulders; she looks like she's bracing to be whacked more than anything, but it's the thought that counts.
"I'm so- I’m sorry. I should go."
"Oh! Oh! What's wrong, Liz?"
"Nothing. Really. It's not important."
"Seems to me like it is!"
"Freeze! To when we skip past the blather and know what's happening."
The two jolt and scramble to rearrange themselves into a hug. They blend into one pallid mushroom, with a cap of huddled bodies and a stem woven from identical legs.
"…I just hate myself when I'm like this," Liz picks up in a long whine, as if she’s been at it for some time. "I'm sorry, I'm-”
“No, no, it’s okay. It’s whatever. I’m emotional too.”
“Such a big moment. Let me- I should go.”
“No, no, forget it. I wouldn’t want it without you, anyway.”
An erratic shiver rocks Liz’s shoulders, which could decently pass for a sob. “Don’t be nice to me. I'm such a shit friend, and a shitter writer. I mean, it all comes to you so easily, you're getting published already, look at you, look at you, and I'm nowhere, I'm no one, go celebrate without me, go-"
"Freeze! Ten minutes from now."
"…and Jake fucking hates me, and my mum keeps saying I should go back to teaching, and they banned me on-"
"Freeze! Twenty minutes from now."
"…and I'll do it one day, I swear I'll do it, you know I'll do it, this is just like, like, you know, in school-"
"Freeze! Back to school."
The nameless one tears away from the hug, strikes a stance, and swings a pretend kick. "I win! I win! This town is mine!"
"Fuck! Ow." Liz mimes belated recoil and, sparing her joints, descends to her knees instead of falling. "Yes, yes, the town and the medal. I'll never show my face in seven-and-up taekwondo again."
"Freeze! To actual school."
The nameless one flaunts an invisible something. "I win! I win! They picked mine for the student paper."
Liz jumps back to her feet. "Yeah, 'cause Anne's the editor."
"It's okay if you're jealous. I get it. I'd be jealous, too."
"Tongue her extra for this after English, or whatever it is you guys do."
“Freeze! Five years later.”
Liz gathers her own hair into fists, which makes for something like pigtails. Her voice goes up, her posture straightens. “Liz,” she proclaims, “this is shit.”
Her friend lets out a baffled chuckle. “I never said that to you.”
“You know you fucking did.”
“So, it’s my fault you can’t take feedback? And you’re shocked I’m a better writer?”
“No, Liz, I’m the better writer. Keep up.”
“Okay, okay, you are! Clearly! And if I want what you have so badly, maybe, just maybe, I should listen to your advice.”
“But you’ve listened, Liz. So many times.” Liz drops the pigtails and stretches her tired wrists. “That’s why no one but me and your miserable mum has seen your stories. You’ve been doing the world quite the favor.”
“I’ve never- Come on. I’m not like that.”
Some sore, hungry feeling paints Liz's face momentarily, but she quickly chokes it down. “No-no, trust me, Liz. Trust your eyes and your ears for once. I’m exactly like this. Because, you see, I want everything you have, too.”
“Alright, then.” The nameless one turns up her head: so be it, I'll play. “How could you ever want what I have? As we seem to agree, I don’t have shit.”
Liz steps in and taps her on the nose. “And that’s exactly how I like you.”
"Freeze!” The Host cuts them off with a snap of the fingers. “Meine Güte.[3] Back to the present with you two."
The women are locked in a stare and a stalemate, stars gearing up for collapse.
"So?"
"So."
"So, what?" The nameless one adjusts her ponytail, which should’ve been painful, by all accounts — apparently, not to her. "What did I say when I saw you? Then- now? Enlighten me."
Liz grows back into her age. She jams up all over again as she remembers who, when, and where she is. "Nothing."
The viewers, in their boundless grace, concede the moment to her: they know exactly when to fall this quiet.
"When you caught me over that little table, with the rest of the suckers who piss adoration at your every word without ever truly knowing you, you didn't say a thing."
Dust meanders in the spotlight, the closest this stage will come to snow.
"Freeze!"
Even as they’re already frozen.
“To what you’d rather happen, really.”
It's hard to tell who grabs whose face first.
What commences, it feels, is a very conflicted kiss. Squashed noses, snarled appendages, sweat in sweat and chest on chest. Not the first time the guests paint themselves into this corner, and it won't be the last. The Host doesn't keep a tally, but, past a certain point, every single one of these looks and sounds — and sometimes smells — like every other.
They'll figure it out in the next part, they always do.
He sways his leg absently. The tip of his loafer shines with reflected light: its leather never retains the creases. The moon doesn't shine on its own, either, no? He knows this from someone, he's pretty sure. Or, maybe, he faintly remembers it.
His eyes wander over the parquetry, the ever-still sea of polished oak, browsing for something forgotten.
"And scene! Hey, hey, hey, I said scene."
***
His blond hair pools on the floor like the hem of a skirt in a puddle. It's so much lighter than the red, and by the crook of his neck, by his ears, by his temples, the lovely shade is lost completely.
There's a polite little pinprick near his Adam's apple. That's where it entered. In the back, where it left, there's only rubble — tremendous, sprawling, soft. A smothering smell, metallic and slightly sour, is wafting out from some decompressed part of him. It's wrong, this smell. And it's fresh.
He's staring up. A doll-pink mess of bubbles is wandering down from his mouth, from both corners, as if it's crying.
The Host takes out a handkerchief, always clean, crumpled and stuffed far down his pocket. It's somehow a kiddie's one, patterned with ridiculous cartoons he's not sure they draw anymore; won't stain as badly, for whatever that's worth. He must've burnt through every conceivable thought and agony on why it's there, he can tell, not by his own conclusions — they've been forgotten a few times over — but by the way he no longer cares.
He wipes down the bubbles. Wilhelm is lukewarm by now, and through the cloth, on the fingertips, he doesn't feel like anything at all.
"Today has ended, Schatz."[4] The Host slides a gentle palm over Wilhelm's eyelids, his caked-together eyelashes. "Here's to a better tomorrow."
"Tonight, you're going to witness two… what are you, exactly?"
"She's my daughter."
"A mother and daughter! Attempt improv comedy." The Host stretches, his arms a pyre over the heads of his visitors. He feels like one of those spikes on a sundial, minus the sun. "They've never done it before, and I'm willing to bet, meine Damen und Herren,[5] that they'll never do it again."
"We won't be doing anything of the sort. Not now, not ever. You can't make us. This is illegal, all of this." The woman pauses, perhaps to consider Germany as a land and a concept. "It has to be."
"Oh, but what does she think?"
Her daughter, a rattled young thing, is holding with all her might onto the grip of a zweihänder. Its nose is digging into the floor, having etched its path from all the way backstage, where the Host's never managed to peep.
"She thinks what you're doing is inappropriate and illegal."
The daughter stares with an expression so potent that it loops back around to blank.
"She's terrified, she has no trust in your little business, and she's leaving."
Her hair clings and glistens in streaks of arterial red.
"Oh, I've got just the game for you two. You, young lady, can say whatever you like. And you, you get… how many? Three? Three words at a time."
"Step- step away from us. Please. Where'd the tunnel go? Let's go, dear, we're going-"
"Let's make that two."
"Where is it? Where's the tunnel? Can you see it, dear?"
"One word."
"This can't be all-"
"Go."
The Host doesn't do them the kindness of slipping away. He makes for the girl in sweeping strides, kneels, and reaches out; his branch of an arm ends in a microphone. She doesn't look.
"We-" the mother starts.
Then, a sound escapes her, one you could certainly try to make on purpose. It's hard to tell if the air in her windpipe is shoving its way in or out.
The Host meets her ambushed glare and shrugs: I'm not in control of this, madam.
As she flaps her mouth, breathing but voiceless, close to springing a pair of gills with the effort, her daughter doesn't speak, move, or blink.
"Komm schon,[6] darling. You have to say something before she's allowed her word."
The daughter furrows slightly. She scratches the floor with the tip of her sword. "Fine."
"Why-"
And — silence.
"What, mom?"
The woman points at the sword. "This."
"Oh, I don't know." The girl lifts it up just a notch, surveying the blade, making reflections dance with preoccupied interest. Her mother inches back on a very fresh reflex.
"Me?" She points at the sword again, then at herself.
The girl weighs something in her head. "Yes."
"What…"
"What?"
"Have."
"I can't understand you, mom."
"I-"
The stage clamps her shut again. Ah, yes. No cheating.
"I think she wants to know what she's done, darling."
The daughter's grasp tightens. She stares at the white tips of her sneakers so intensely that it's impressive they aren't yellowing in fear. "You know."
The woman shakes her head fervently, her hairdo tussles — a loose nest of ashy-brown, just beginning to grey.
"You know what you've done, mom."
She bites her lip as an unsightly tremble pinches her chin. "Deserve?"
"Who? You?" Her daughter crumples the hem of her own baggy shirt. "Me? Did I deserve it? Do you deserve it? I don't know. I don't know. Do you?"
"Love."
"What a stupid game."
The woman hides her face in a fence of ringed wrinkled fingers. She hiccups and, wrenched by the spasm of her hamstrung body, begins to cry.
"Love."
The girl turns her head. Slowly. She's still, still and grave as an antique statue, and the drying blood pulls on her cheeks in reverent strokes of paint. She looks into the eyes of the Host, longer than anyone recent has looked, decreeing: you've done your part. This game is over.
"Love," her mother babbles on, not there enough to notice that the spell has broken. "Love."
***
"So, what'd you think, Willi?"
The Host is lounging on the floor, twirling an unlit cigarette. He has a slender metal case with exactly three cigs, but never a lighter. Every so often, he searches Wilhelm for one — when he can't be sure anymore if he's done it already.
"Don't give me that look." The look Wilhelm is giving him tonight is a tried and true classic. "I hate it when they bring their kids in here. It's never funny."
Wilhelm's eyes are beach glass of washed-out green.
"So what? They're not exactly paying me for it."
His lips are faintly slack, giving him an unusual air of surprise.
"Ah, everyone's a critic. Do I ever tell you how to do your job?" The Host extends his leg; his heel drags across the wood with a tortured squeal. He could rest his sole on Wilhelm's cheek if he wanted. "So stay out of mine."
A strand, dislodged by its own weight, starts creeping down Wilhelm's forehead.
"Says the one that gets to sleep."
It creeps, and it creeps, and it falls. Great, now it's hiding his eyes. Great.
"Come on," the Host sighs as he snaps his cigarette and picks himself up, "let's get you ready."
He bends, grabs Wilhelm by the hair, and lifts the head like it's a kitten. Quite a ways away from the rest of him this time: that girl's got some swing.
"Now, where were- Ah."
He strolls up to Wilhelm and reunites him, taking care to squash the neck bits as tightly as their terrain allows. Wilhelm hates waking up to being pulled together.
And the further apart he is, the more he hates it, by the ear-splitting sound of it.
"...okay. Sure, sure. I'm so-o sorry, if that's what you want to hear. Is it? All good? Now, if you'll let me, I'm going to go knock back the first thing I find that's over thirty percent until I wake up somewhere better."
"Change!"
"I'm going to go fuck Mike for more weed."
"Change!"
"I'm going to go read that forum for a good few hours to remind myself I'm better than someone."
"Change!"
"Smoke on an empty stomach and precision-vomit at your door."
"Change!"
"Educate a psychonaut off Tinder on every way you've ever wronged me."
"Change!"
"Light a match and drop it into a public trash bin."
"Change!"
"Lie to my psychiatrist."
"Change!"
"Goad you into another slap."
"Change!"
"Goad someone else into a harder, more competent slap."
"Change!"
"Give myself a burn and never tell you."
"Change!"
"Give myself a burn and send you pictures."
"Change!"
"Look my reflection in the eye long enough to see a stranger."
"Change!"
"Attempt to attempt to attempt to kill myself."
"Cha-"
"Shut up!"
He finally whips his head around to throw the Host a scowl.
"Pick something already, Jesus Christ! Shut up, shut the fuck up!"
"Change."
"I can't-"
"Change."
He glowers with depletion and contempt.
"How long do you think I can do this? Fucking Munich, man. What do I have to do to get all of you to leave me alone?" He breaks for a tinny, brittle chuckle. "Or, better yet, to get fucking anyone to stay?"
Nobody — not the Host, not his scene partner — goes to answer.
"I'm out of ideas. Alright? You've pinned me. Mark this whole escape room as a great success."
He flicks some sweat off his brow, flashing the ruins of his nail polish, the chipped blackish smithereens. This only smears the blood splatter — though admittedly, when the stage went up in lights, the first thing he did was check himself out in his phone screen, and he clearly liked what he saw.
"I'm sorry. I am. I am, okay? I'm so fucking sorry, and I'll hate myself into the end of the universe. Isn't that enough? Do you have to keep doing this- whatever? Science experiment, public hanging? Let me out. Let us out. I've said that I'm sorry. What else? What else does it want? What else do I have to do to make it-"
"Change."
***
The Host slips the buttons of Wilhelm's vest through their loops, bit by bit, and flaps it open to rummage the breast pocket. Pats down the one on the shirt, gets his hand wet — ugh — and wipes it on the nearest part of Wilhelm that isn't thoroughly clammy. Prods his arms out of the way to feel the satin insides of the pockets in his trousers.
"Come on, come on."
With some strain, turns him over to search in the back.
"You're useless, Willi."
And sets him face-up again. "What’s it like in there, hm?" Swats the floor muck off his cheek, squishes his princess chin, jerks it about. "This is all you seem to do."
Beside the Host, there's his colorful handkerchief neatly unfolded, and his case, and all three cigarettes lined up like soldiers next to it. His flawless loafers, off his feet.
"Can't walk. Can't talk. Can't even spare me a light."
He threads his fingers, long, through the hair of his friend — longer.
"And still, it's you who gets to skip through those riveting halfwits failing to follow one-word instructions. You smug, pointless thing." He fixes a strand out of Wilhelm's eye: that looked like it hurt. "You know what's funny? I'm fairly certain they're all new people, and yet, I don't ever remember seeing anything new."
"What is… that?"
The Host sighs and makes one of those faces. "How crass of my guest. Please, excuse his tone." He gestures proudly with his mic. "This, of course, is a member of our lovely audience."
The guest in question appears shrunken and pale, growing paler. That knot in his chest must be seizing, whipping his ribs like a dying butterfly, too lost to know where to send the blood.
He's locked in a timid desk-worker stance, slouch and all, a wax mold of himself. There's only the twitch in the tips of his fingers. His eyes are blisters, wet and vacant — something in there is retreating, even when he himself cannot.
"Please, don't let it- Please."
"Tut mir leid, Schatzi,[7] but that's the game!"
"Don't let it touch me."
One more thing that never changes is the power they all hope the Host to have.
The man gags on the current of his own wait's and please's as he's lowered to his knees by the lovely audience.
The lovely audience pats under his chin, makes him look up.
It's sat him at the feet of a worn-down woman. She's poised in a chair, watching carefully. They must've mentioned they're married.
The tender audience nudges his left hand up.
The kindly audience nudges his right hand up.
His face is a blotch of tears and snot he can't wipe, he's far gone, all but absent; he looks, strung into place by the warm, patient, clever audience, as if he's praying.
The woman measures him squeamishly.
"This is nice," she says. "You know what it's like."
And thinks.
"But I can't forgive you."
Her husband groans, struggling to cry, as the audience strokes his back in consolation.
The stage likes to tear and rebuild. Sometimes, however, it deems that only one part's enough to help a guest to freedom.
The Host turns away and squints blearily into the red curtain, he covers his mouth, contains a sharp breath and a heave.
He hates this game.
***
So he sits and squeezes Wilhelm in his arms without the fear of breaking.
"You should've seen that, Willi."
Farmers don't hold newborn calves this tightly. Dock workers don't hold the sacks they haul this tightly. But there's a painting, god knows by whom, of a Russian tsar cradling his son, limp in the wake of some intrafamilial blunt-force trauma — now, that feels about right.
"But you never have to, do you?"
The moon has no light of its own; you can tell time by the sun; cigarettes come in cases; there's a place called Russia somewhere, and sometimes, they paint it. Things to keep, that's good, that's precious. He'd gladly strangle a guest for a pen and a piece of paper. He's probably already tried.
"Why you? Dorn-röschen.[8] Dornröschen. Phe, what a mouthful."
And they both have a mother tongue they're losing.
"It thinks you're prettier dead than I'd be, hm?"
But only one gets to close his eyes.
Wilhelm's head isn't lolling only thanks to the steady hand of the Host. As for his other hand, he's lost track of it: it's been fiddling with cotton creases, cupping the bends of a heavy human back, scanning for warmth.
"I do all the work. I put on the show. I'm the one they're all watching." A delighted whistle sounds from the seats: they are, always are. The hand in Wilhelm's hair becomes a fist. "But o-oh, look at me-e, I'm ze pretty one." It shakes him extravagantly. "I do ze same shit-t every time, and zen I die, and zen I leave my best friend to it. I get-t a name and everysing."
The Host clears his throat and shifts.
"Don't debase yourself, Willi. You don't sound like that."
"O-oh, but-t I do! Zat's why zey all have to shut me up!"
He laughs with abandon. "You certainly have a point! Thank god you don't talk to me. I'd get sick of this very quickly."
"Joa,[9] zis is for ze best! But oh, you look so sad sometimes. I so wish to help-ph. If only I knew what-t you're feeling."
The Host beams a paternal smile. "You don't want to, silly."
"But I do!"
"You really don't."
"I do!"
"Honest?"
He nods Wilhelm's head. "Honest."
For this, he pulls him in with a frantic force, nearly collapsing the both of them. He buries Wilhelm's face in his own shoulder, presses a cheek to the man's head, hooks an arm around him, mumbling: thank you, thank you.
His other arm, free from all the weight, finds Wilhelm's stomach, the marshy part, with a tear in the shirt as tall and frayed as the wound itself.
"Thank you. That's kind of you. Let me show you." He doesn't let himself think as his fingers slide over, then in. "Thank you."
An abhorrent texture. Old blood times ten.
"Thank you, Willi."
He grabs onto something.
"Thank you for asking."
And pulls.
Quick, so his brain has no time to piece the shape together.
"What I'm feeling… Well, uh-"
He fumbles, starts yanking the thing out in spurts, it takes appallingly long: he keeps expecting this piece of Wilhelm to untether, but it feels like it never will. He leaves it alone and rummages, finds something firmer and smaller.
Plucks it.
Chucks it behind himself as far as he can without turning.
"Hate? I don't know."
He picks and picks, and scoops, and tosses, and voids, and plops to the floor, into his own lap, tries his hardest not to hear it, but he can't, of course, hasn't earned the honor, unlike a particular someone.
"Wouldn't know what to call it. But… You'll feel it in a bit."
He puts his lips to Wilhelm's temple in a hurry. It's rare for him to want things to last, but he does, for now. They'll meet the morning together, the dim placid morning.
His arm, the one that's strewn a quarter of Wilhelm into a soggy marigold across the stage, gives out and falls lank.
"Thank you for asking," he breathes. "You're about to feel it."
But it's the Host who feels it first — the pulse in a dearly familiar neck fluttering awake.