-- perchance to dream.

[our decadency]

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Cullen MacCarthaigh
``Of course he's into the occult -- wouldn't you be if you've been around since the third century and didn't know what the hell for?``</center>

[our decadency]

Hunched over for hours across the back of a young man, tattooing needle in his hand, concentration etched on his face, it was time Cullen had a break.

"I can sit for as long as you can tattoo." There was something different about the boy, Cullen felt it the second they locked eyes, the second he walked into the shop. There was always something about a particular person that he could feel in his bones, he supposed it was as close to a gut feeling as he would ever get. With this young man, his name was Carlos, it was something that he couldn't quite pinpoint until he produced his Vaticano passport as ID and suddenly they were brethren.

Only seven people in the history of the Catholic church had ever been issued Identificazione di Vaticano and it was by no mistake that two of them ended up in the same tattoo parlor at twelve noon on this particular day. Words and small talk ceased to be exchanged between the two men, the banter of the rest of the parlor lost on deaf ears. The tattoo, a large version of a very sacred cross that expanded the entire area of Carlos' back, matched Cullen's to perfection. It was their symbol, their sign, though neither one of them knew why -- and both knew that though this crucifix bound them, after they parted their ways they may never have laid eyes on eachother again until both set foot in front of the Pearly Gates.

Eight hours of silence passed between the two of them, Carlos's back was bleeding somewhat profusely but he didn't complain and Cullen did not hesitate. To the amazement of his apprentice, he finished the back piece in one sitting. No payment was exchanged, no words, just a brief hug and a nod.

"That was so bizarre..." His apprentice was frowning after the man, whose rosary was dangling from his neck as he sauntered out of the parlor. Cullen snapped from his reverie with a start, clearing his throat and standing.

"Oi--need me a smoke." His Irish accent was so thick that if he didn't keep it in check, people thought he was speaking a different language. He may have been too, his gaelic was perfect and lost to most ears, which had caused him sorrow at first but the loss of Latin had as well and he'd gotten over that. "Takin' mae leave t'day, fellas." Digging in his pockets for his rosary, Cullen looped it around his hand and pushed out of the shop.

His mood was not dampened, of course, but his demeanor was different. The impact that he had on the world wasn't as optimistic as it usually was, he wasn't in the mood to brighten anyone's day as he passed and he certainly was in no mood to hear the complaints of the homeless as he passed them. He didn't feel like doing any favors today, his eight hours of tedious work without compensation had been enough for the day. It had been enough for the week in his opinion and getting out of the city as quickly as he could seemed like the best option.

It wasn't hard to escape his life, it wasn't hard to get away whenever he felt that he had offered all that he had. Today, he knew that he had, he knew it was time to go... but why? He had no other options, but to turn to the heavens and wonder if relief would ever come.

[our decadency]

It was a rainy Sunday morning, all of the people in town were mumbling and grumbling about it as church let out. This was going to ruin the block party and destroy the picnic, this was going to drown out the fireworks and put a damper on the young men playing shirtless tag football for the girls. It was always a complaint with people, always something that was going wrong, something that wasn't right.

The young man sitting in the front pew of the church had nothing to complain about, not even when old Father Priscipi started to nod off during his homily and the children in the crowd snickered and fidgetted uncomfortably in their suits and dresses. No, he was of a different breed, clad in low slung jeans and a white Oxford that was rolled up at the sleeves. The many chains that dangled from his neck drew only slightly from the large rosary wound around his hands as he silently prayed it. The older folks weren't sure what to make of him -- they had never seen him in their church before, but then had they ever looked? He could have been Suzanne's son, the one who'd grown up and wandered out west to Los Angeles, but surely Suzanne would have noticed that he was back in New York if that were the case and she was nowhere to be seen near him. No, he was a new anomaly, one that the congregation as a whole decided not to question, not even after the service let out and he knelt at the alter, praying silently over his rosary. Father Priscipi didn't seem to mind, he had disrobed and remained in his black priest's garb, white starched collar in place.

Clapping his hand on the shoulder of the young man, he whispered something in Latin to which Cullen responded with a simple nod. It was Sunday, the day of worship, the day that he was meant to beg God to take him back -- but God didn't hear him, or it wasn't his time. He couldn't yet decide.

Tucking his rosary back into his pocket, he smiled at the withered old priest, shook his hand and pushed out through the large doors and into the bright sunlight. It wasn't raining anymore, so maybe God did listen, but not always to him.

...or maybe only to him. He couldn't yet decide.

[our decadency]

"Are you an angel or a devil?" The old woman was called Bag Lady by the more precocious youth, who knew that she was only semi-lucid for most of her days. Today though, she had been shouting nothingness from the moment she awoke on her park bench and when the tall young man took a seat beside her, the locals just shook their heads. Obviously he didn't know any better, the poor lad, he'd be caught up in her harrassments for hours now.

"Me?" Dipping his long fingers into his pocket, he leaned to one side to better wrench the cigarette pack out.

"Angel or devil? Angel or devil?" She must have chanted it a thousand times a second, her wide crystalline eyes trained so intently on him. He didn't seem to mind, didn't seem to take notice of her oddities even a bit.

"Neither, m'lady. I am but a humble sacrifice." Pressing his palm flat against his chest, one long leg met the other at the knee and he was spanning his arms the backlength of the bench. His fluidity and grace were impeccable, perhaps he was a dancer? Though dancers would have known better than to smoke, which seemed to be his favorite vice, judging by the color of his teeth. Those whitening strips were only doing their job at a minimal level, which displeased him greatly. And made his teeth sensitive on top of it all, which displeased him even more.

"Stuck between heaven and hell, pulled down by Lucifer for being too pretty?" Stroking his hand, she was a fan of sudden movements and suddenly their noses were pressed together and she was studying his eyeballs with one of her own while the other stayed squinted for concentration purposes. "He must have been jealous then, he sucked you down here in between, how petty -- though he always was the petty one, wasn't he? So jealous and then that Jesus, slandering his name by saying he was so ugly, the most beautiful angel of all! Imagine, wouldn't you be upset too? He took such pride in his vanity and now they depict him so crudely, with the red horns. What fools, what silly games they play." She slumped back into her seat, though her body was tense with anticipation, Cullen was afraid she would spontaneously combust. "Rather like grade school. Because it didn't work out with Lucifer and God, now nobody can like Lucifer. God must have been the popular girl in class..." Drifting again, Cullen's fingers worked the spent cigarette into a tiny ball and he flicked it toward a trash can.

"Yes, something like that." Admiring his fingernails, black as they were (that was the trouble with slamming your hand in a door). "Jealousy does ruin a person, I suppose, why not an angel?"

"It ruined you too, you see. Because now you are stuck here in between and who wants that, to be stuck anywhere? Does it bother you much, how do you pass the time?" Wrapping herself so tightly in her shawl, her focus was drifting toward the pigeons milling about their feet. "Dirty birds." Muttering under her breath, a scowl etching onto her old face. "I suppose they both try to get you, don't they? God's misplaced you and Lucifer can't figure out how to make you join him -- so you just wait?" Brushing a brittle chunk of yellowing hair from her face, she was focusing on one pigeon in particular with red eyes. It was the most digusting of the pigeons, she decided.

"Something like that." Cullen was non-commital in his responses because anyone could have been listening at any time, he knew.

When his eyes followed the Bag Lady's to the red eyed pigeon with the white wing feathers, he frowned. She had her "killing stick" at the ready, it was whittled from a branch that had fallen off of the large oak tree some days earlier in the storm just before Cullen arrived in town. She used it to keep the pigeons and chipmunks out of her food, though she had only ever killed a squirrel once for leering at her. Mostly she just hit things with it and threatened the rowdy youth drinking and drugging around the park benches at night. She was worse than the police with insisting on keeping the peace because she could sneak in her well known park -- and hell, the police? They didn't mind her help! Shortstaffed and a crystal meth addiction running rampant were not easy things to keep up with.

"Perhaps he could figure it out if he had more tact." Leering at the pigeon just a moment before she struck, spearing it with her killing stick. "Idiot."

[our decadency]

"Maybe this is the first stage of death?" Marty, her name was Marty, he had to repeat it to himself over and over because he didn't want to forget.

She was short and had pretty black hair that smelled like wildflowers, he liked to touch it, tangle his fingers in it. She could bench press more than he could and had climbed Mt. Everest twice before reaching the summit. Before meeting him in a temple in Tibet, she had toyed with the notion of becoming a guide on the mountain, but Cullen changed all that.

Now he was laying flatbacked on the pavement, shaking like a leaf, after a particularly hard blow to the face from a man who apparently wanted the two rubber bands and one dollar bill in his wallet.

"No, I can't die." But this must have been what it felt like.
"Yes, you can, everyone can." She was so flippant about it then, brushing his hair away from his face. Maybe because she knew he really couldn't.
"Marty." His tone was irritated more than anything else and before long he felt warmth tingling his icy limbs and the blood flow at the base of his skull slowed.
"Can you get up?" Marty sounded irritable, because it had started to snow and the flakes were sticking to her eyelashes.

It must have been a sight, at least there wasn't anyone around to see it aside from the two of them. Blood soaked and hobbling, it was a wonder the two of them were together in the first place.

Especially after that time Marty dropped four thousand vertical kilometers off the side of Mt. Everest.