With the setting sun glaring through his upstairs bedroom, Damien stared out across his small portion of Aurora without seeing anything but the thoughts sweeping through his mind. The fading

Damien’s mind was burning. They had been friends. More than friends. Not more than friends but definitely more than friends.

brown of the subdivision’s standardized homes ignited with the fiery colors of the setting sun. Because of the bright refraction of sunlight, his red hair appeared long and oily without being either.

   He scratched his nose and adjusted the headphones he was wearing. The cord from the bulky pair of hemispheres twisted its way across the bed down along the floor like a resting serpent to a wall of stereo equipment into a sterile Sony receiver which ultimately connected to a turntable slowly purring its way through the Rolling Stones’ Beggar’s Banquet-— a record Damien had found in a stack of old country records in the garage.

   "Pleased to meet you, hope you guess my name..." sang an effervescent Mick Jagger.

   "Pleased to meet you," she repeated in his memory.

   Yeah, he thought.

   "Pleased to meet you," her lips pursed and crept into a smile.

   "Pleased to meet you," her eyes glimmered.

   The record was skipping, but it wasn’t bothering Damien who was entranced by the girl he had met earlier that day. Blond, curly hair that messily cropped three inches above her shoulders. Cunning lips. And eyes that… Eyes that set against her pale white skin like stained glass windows on a country church. But it was as if the light was coming from inside, a choir of blue luminosity purifying the world with its melody.

   "Pleased to meet you," he responded, "Hope you guess my name."

   She let out a breath of air half humored and half in disgust.

   That’s not the way it happened. That’s not the way it happened at all, he thought. He looked at the record. It was skipping. It bothered him.

   No, he thought, he hadn’t met her that day. It had been a long time ago. Well, not so long. A few weeks, maybe. He was having trouble connecting his thoughts. Nothing was forming the way it should have been. Damien was a clairvoyant thinker; he could mentally process anything. Why was this so different? Sevens, sevens, all he could see was sevens. It was seventh period. He met her in seventh period. Seventh period. No, sixth period. Seven days ago, a week, in sixth period. English. First day of class, six days... Seven days, six nights. Six. Six. Seven.

   Why were there so many scratches on the record? As if his father had grown claws and used them to play the records.

   As the sun touched the horizon and its orange eye began to close, Damien remembered the "him" in the story. Although, on second thought, he was irrelevant to what had proceeded. It had been her decision, and her spirit, which had turned. If time had been more functional in Damien’s favor, the tables might have switched. She might have led him down a road of complete adoration, she might have stretched his organs and played his body like a harp, and then burned the entire thing at the sight of Damien. If time had worked in Damien’s favor, many things would have been different and would ultimately be different. But as close as Damien had ever come to reaching everything, he would always be a shard of eternity away. That tiny bit of distance would explode on him. Explode and then explode again.

   Damien’s mind was burning. They had been friends. More than friends. Not more than friends but definitely more than friends. If time was longer, if time could turn from left to right for a matter of seconds and existence could continue moving forward, they would have been more. He remembered a time they had sat at the 7-11 by her house for hours one night. More of a morning. They were there until 6 a.m. Maybe, 7. 7:06, he remembered the burning glow of the clock in his grandmother’s car reading when he finally dropped her off at home. They could have sat in the car... 66 minutes in the car? Didn’t seem right. There was a sign on the side of the building that said, "No Loitering." They had talked, thrown empty bottles into the street, chased some raccoons from the dumpster. They had loitered until the sun opened its bright orange eye.

   It was dark now. The record was over.

   He sat cross-legged on his bed with the headphones on looking at his own reflection in the window, created by a lamp on his desk now shifting the balance of light from outside to within. His face had subtle features, nothing proportionately out of place,

When God sees the brewing tumult, He must feel some fear. Only because what is Him, is no longer under His control.

but everything with character. His was a face to remember, one that would haunt and enchant at the same time. If time had treated Damien differently, he might have won, he might never have lost like this, he might have fallen in love, he might have never been what he was. He could see the storm in his eyes. The storm is that which even God has no control over, it moves and sweeps by a will determined in the chance of time. The damage it will do in the end will certainly have been predestined, but how it gets there is entirely up to chaos. When God sees the brewing tumult, He must feel some fear. Only because what is Him, is no longer under His control. Damien knew this and knew himself, in the image of God, with the storm in his eyes.

   He sat cross-legged in black, muffled silence.

   There was no redemption for her. No redemption for her for Damien. Her body had begun to nourish the aforementioned him’s seed. Her name written on the belly of a stone which Damien could never read, only know. To Damien, it was not his fault. He had been taken captive by her hair, her lips, her skin, the stained-glass windows of her eyes. Those windows, to Damien, had shattered, their cold bindings shuddering from the stirring air within and without. And, as if a prodigal son, Damien walked to a torn hole in the white sided structure and peered inside. There was no light, no choir, no lampstand. The light had all been something of his own creation. Looking at the empty pews of the church, Damien realized he had an intense want to torch them all. To burn the entire building. And there were seven angels, and seven trumpets, and seven lampstands all burning brightly, falsely. And there was a sea that bubbled and steamed. And there was Damien, on a throne, with the salt sewn earth around him, on fire.