temple-hushed karmatic apathy

Faro wasn't from around here and it showed. It showed in the cigarette tucked behind his ear and the double socks he wore and the way he ate digestives, all borrowed and kept habits from her. Maybe the kicker was how the townspeople still kept the slightest distance, as if there was a forcefield surrounding everything which did not belong.

Faro doubted they knew what a forcefield was.

He'd come here with a smiling girl who was all legs and sunshine hair and who'd eventually learned how to put those legs to use and walk out. He didn't take it personally, he expected it. It stopped hurting and Faro didn't know what was worse, an open wound or the scar left behind. 

Empty empty, focus.

It was difficult with these people who kept tight packs and never looked beyond them. For the first few months, he joked it was like filming a nature documentary. She hated those jokes, said it made him sound like the typical blundering tourist jerk. He should’ve mentioned then, instead of snorting like a fool, how at the end of the day they were always the ones who made him feel like the skirting, curious prey. Their unimpressed silence embarrassed him to no end. Hers inspired him to wait for things.

They were a tough crowd but he'd managed. That was something no one could trump him in, he thought. Sure, it took a few years, sure he was set back when he accidentally fell into one of their spindling tributaries and was hung by his thumbs for the ignorant sacrilege. It all worked out in the end, though, and resentment between them faded to an ignorable greying nag.

They even started to come to him, instead of the other way around. It had everything to do with his new job at the bank.

The most that could be said about the building was that it was modest and stable. No floor-to-ceiling glass panes, no fashionable pillars and engraved scales of justice. Just brick and more brick and a whirling, overexcited ceiling fan and the omnipresent petrichor. A vagabond scent in a place that was never touched by rain: Faro added to the notes he kept neglecting. 

When he first started, they gave him an open office stationed in the middle of a carpeted corridor, kept him where they could see him. To thank them for their generosity, he did all he could to become such a nuisance that they eventually strong-armed him into a private room. FFF from down the hall had even gifted him a small carnivorous plant that he named Pete just for the sake of having a familiar name around here.

He surprisingly got some decent traffic, which maybe had to do with the fact that the bank was sort of a hot spot and was always busy. They were proud of their bank. Faro considered it the one thing that saved the townspeople from being tribespeople.

"Ah, such an asshole," she hissed into his ear, even now, even far away.

Faro dealt with all sorts, and mostly talked through complaints that had nothing to do with accounting and should've been forwarded to people with free time like those at Town Hall. But no one liked that old thing which was broken-backed and slouching in comparison. Besides, in Faro’s business card of bailiwicks Therapist is stark against the bullet point(above Good Kisser and just below Magician), so he sits in his chair and listens. 

Sometimes it was dreary and he drowned his boredom in his tea, sometimes it's all he has to not fall off his seat. A memorable moment was when he was pressing through the midday heat and had to deal with the disguised investigator who went around telling people to not tell other people that he was a disguised investigator.

"Listen, boy, you're the only one here who knows I'm from the investigation unit, but don't go around telling people that. It's imperative that no one knows I'm from the investigation unit," they’d told him, voice muffled from behind the collar of the tan coat that they'd buried their face in. And oh, this was brilliant. "I'm currently carrying out a top-secret investigation, someone's been messing around with Miahkawther," they paused waiting for Faro to give the obligatory gasp, Faro followed through, they continued. "Now, I'm on the lookout for any suspicious persons-"

Then someone knocked on his door, sharp. "Damn!" The investigator cursed and forced themselves under Faro's desk.

"Come in!" Faro answered after the investigator's body was suitably hidden.

FFF appeared, face flushed. "I heard you talking to someone," Faro confirmed that he was. “Where are they?” Faro lied. “They jumped out the window! Well, who were they?” Faro described them. “Completely covered! Would you say they were suspicious?” Faro shrugged. “Alright… I'm not supposed to tell anyone this, because it's top-secret and I'm the only one who knows but circumstances demand it. Just earlier an officer from the investigation unit dropped by, said they were on the lookout for suspicious persons, said someone's been messing around with Miahkawther.” Faro obligatorily gasped. “Yeah! But I’ve got a hunch this guy’s the perp. If they come back, give me a ring, we’ll stage an ambush.” Faro agreed and they shook hands on it.

After FFF left, the investigator jumped out from beneath the desk, cursing. "Why wasn't I informed about this suspicious person?" The investigator demanded, lifting their collar further up their face.

"If they come back, I'll make sure to give you a ring, we'll stage an ambush," Faro promised and it seemed like that was the fun over until the investigator slammed their hands on Faro's desk, rattling the picture frame of her that Faro had set up for sentiment's sake.

"And what about you, Faro, what's your endgame?" The air dropped leaden with the loaded question and all levity fled away. Faro straightened up, not able to look away from the honest gleam that came from the open sliver allowed for the investigator's eyes. They stayed like that for a while, silent, until the investigator abruptly turned on their heel and bathetically walked out, suspicious. 

Faro melted in his chair and knocked the frame down, hating her face just then and the hiraeth that pulsed from her lips.

Through the looseness of his chest, he managed a sigh. Through the perpetual sound of footloose rivers, he thought about why he'd come, and why he'd stayed.

It was a little time after they allowed him an apartment in the town and stopped shunning him that a religious beard knocked on his door and allowed him to visit their pride and joy.

They followed the skinny trails of water, blue veins stamped onto the earthy flesh. They walked and walked and Faro refused to believe through the aching exhaustion that the town was ever this big. Maybe he was being led outside of the town so it wouldn't be considered murder if they killed him on the unrecognized land between borders where the laws of the world couldn’t reach. Maybe they really did hate him that much.

Maybe maybe, paranoid.

But they had made it eventually, to the pumping heart that everything led to. Miahkawther was at an alcove nuzzled into the flank of a cliff with scattered flora and unfamiliar birdsong; a stocky woman with animal-like, selcouth features stood still in front of an opening. She seemed like an ill-chosen aperitif at most, Faro had mused. At that point his wayward thoughts were scattered like light through a prism, trying to hit every surface of the place. But then the religiously hunched back waved through the hanging overgrowth and Faro’s mind narrowed into laser focus.

It was his senses first, he’d write down in the notes he’d eventually torch, cotton bloomed in his ears and his tongue lay down to sleep and blood sprinted down his nose and coated his lips. Faro licked at it, eyes burning and insides feeling like nothing and everything, the world felt like it would fall out of his guts with the impact of a pearl. It was temple-quiet and the moon and sun both gave their light generously, desperately, through the pockmarked ceiling to wallpaper the earthen walls. 

Faro stood there, despite his backhanded religious upbringing buzzing at him to get away from their false gods. Her voice rang in on cue, even though this wasn’t about her, her Southern inflection slipping in with the hums of worship. He wondered if he succumbed to the inherent pull to drop to his knees like Lady Ursula, like Patroclus, falling in awe, horror, supplication, as if underneath him were the snow of a Valley Forge, he wondered who he’d pray to. Faro knew it’d be appreciated by the bystanders if he left his tears to fall freely, anticipated the points he’d win with the locals.

Instead, he turned to the praying lips next to him. “You should’ve never brought an outsider here, I could’ve easily slipped a hint to some wandering colonialists.” He walked out, managing not to stare at the woman as much, hoping these people who were smart enough to keep tight packs and never look beyond them would never come to realize that there was never a shortage of colonialists.

His attempt at inscribing it in his notes was ill-advised, he wasn’t a very good writer- that was her job. It felt blasphemous to even try, felt like a slight mortal delinquency on his part. It felt phony to think about it now in his corner office with rivulets of sunlight warming the tiles at his feet. He righted the frame because she deserved that, he pet Pete because Pete always deserved it. He pressed his fingertips together and pretended it was quiet, that the softly burbling ripples were just her in the bathroom getting ready for dinner and FFF selling him out to the investigator was just the drone of a kakistocratic politician inside a heated TV.