Spiels and Confusion 
chapter I. Raven
Page 1 of 5
I think I’m beginning to hate her…
This thought first occurs to me, as all my thoughts seem to do these days, purely at random. We’re sitting at our regular table in the Moondance hotel; me tasting clove smoke, she sipping pretentiously from a glass of champagne, feedback ringing around our ears as the roadie fiddles with the knobs on the mixing console like a pudgy two-year-old playing with blocks, trying to tune up for our set later this evening.
She doesn’t look at me. Good—a small reprieve. The only time she ever takes notice of me nowadays is to ask those inevitable questions.
Why don’t you cut your hair?
Why do you always have to wear black? It’s so morbid.
Why can’t you turn that goddamn guitar down?
Why don’t you get a real job?
I think the feedback is more melodic than her voice, these days. Because I know, with the same certainty of a knife drawing blood from tender flesh, that these questions are only an alias for the real one, the big one, the one she really wants to ask.
Why don’t you just leave?
Why don’t I just leave? I ask my half-empty scotch and coke. There’s only one reason, of course. A three-year-old reason. My son, the only thing that keeps me alive, my precious Damien. Not her son, though she did give birth to him. I won’t bear the thought of her having him; for I know, the minute I leave, the minute I push it, she will take him from me. To her he’s just a ransom note, to me he’s my angel, my saviour. Funny thing, perspectives.
