[K. R. Jakes] This, then -
"Israel. Kage calling." Brief pause; a caesura; the natural ebb and flow of conversation: Kage, on the phone, sounded: washed-out, to the perceptive; a little flatter than usual, not quite discordant: calm, cool, composed, even over the phone, like the devil might make faces at her while she was trying to master a difficult phrase, like the voice is an instrument, but fuck the devil, she wouldn't be blinking any time soon. "Are you okay? I'm figuring you know why I'm asking at least; I'm hoping that you are. Give me a ring back when you get this."
- that was at 1:12 in the morning.
[Israel Cohen] At 1:12 in the morning, she was occupied. Multilayer, multifaceted, multiplied -- that kind of occupied. An hour for preparation and two ours to cast out her perceptions [without sight; but full of viewing because this is the inherent paradox she lives with day in and day out] over the greater whole of Chicago, searching layers upon layers of perceptions; locations filing through her mind; places without names and places familiar. Sliding out the little tidbits of interest that require greater scrutiny like carefully deconstructing a game of Jenga from the inside out.
It is only when all is done; when the scape of her mind return to a normal semblance of its working, that she belatedly acknowledges the tears that slide down her cheeks, that have formed patches of wet along the collar of her blouse where it stick to the flesh just so.
It's about 2:29 in the morning when she realizes she has a message, when she's walking out the front door of the huge, quiet [loved. warm. loss. remembered] home, her cousin just ahead of her, ready to drive her to the Chantry. It's 2:32 when she dials back the number. It is not usually an hour for phone calls. But it's not a usual night.
Ring, ring--
--she is only half conscious that she is holding her breath.
[K. R. Jakes] Ring, ring. The phone: and, again. Ring, ring. Usually, cellphones -- people are so impatient; they don't need time to get from one point on the map to the other, not to answer a cellphone, so voicemail comes up almost at once to swallow a message, to lick a word out've another's mouth, keep it safe for one's ear. Not Kage's cell: it rings one more time beyond when voicemail would usually pick-up, and then, well.
The other side of the city, somewhere quiet: somewhere with an echo, like a tunnel, like a bridge, like the hollow inside a (ballad-boy's) bone: "Kage speaking." Her tone makes it a question.
[Israel Cohen] Sigh. Amazing how simple a sound, like the release of air, up from the lungs, over the ridges of the throat, the length of the tongue, beneath and around the uvula; past soft pallet and 'twixt lips or out through the sinuses... simply breathing out and yet its inflection can mean so many things. Impatience. Frustration. Pleasure. Release.
Here it is relief. Muted; subtle, but present.
Her voice is slightly thick: She needs to clear it after starting her greeting, "Hi Kay--" cleared, a gruffness lessened from the natural airiness of it. Tired. Tense. "Kage. It's Israel. I'm sorry for the wait I was... busy... when you called. But I'm fine.. are you holding up alright?" Concern that is soft-spoken, but laced with importance.
[K. R. Jakes] It's difficult to get a nuance across the telephone. It's especially difficult when one is used to relying on sight (on vision [that clarity]) for tells. Israel isn't. Israel doesn't have the same difficulty another might with nuance across the telephone lines (there are no lines [there is just distance and then no distance at all]). Relief, then: relief, too. Relief, which replaces wariness; caution: a cautionary tale; don't step over the railroad tracks.
"I'm glad to hear it." That Israel is fine. "When you didn't pick up, I thought: oh, Hell; she's in the middle of it." Brief pause: "Were you?" Kage's voice is still composed, steady, steadying, steadied -- but it's tarnished, too; burnished, stains-of-smoke, rememberance, husk, silk-weed and water: there's a half-chuckle that doesn't quite get to the halfwaypoint. There's not much humor to be squezed out've it: may as well squeeze water out've a stone when there's no cheese around.
"I'm holding up. Being held up," she says, "By a whole mess of questions, really."
[Israel Cohen] Nuances are different over the lines [invisible lines; invisible signals; invisible but not quiet. trackable, traceable - we all believe that much in the illusion] even for her. She can catch on a word; on a tone; on a breath what others so used to relying on their optical nerves might miss; but there are a plethora of nuances she taps into by bent of feeling; by persuasion of awareness both mystical and mundane. Seeing, she realized some five years ago, does not reality make; does not believing compel. Even in darkness she can hear-smell-taste-feel a presence and that, here, is missing.
But it can - and will - suffice.
"No," she wasn't in the middle of it, not the way she takes Kage's meaning. "I was soaking in the tub when the... Shock... hit me. I did nearly drown though." The last; that little add-on, is her own attempt at dry humour, at some form of levity. Here, too, it dwindles and flickers; falters and fails. She is the sort of person who would immediate realize the insensitivity of the response.
Her voice tightens, her voice constricts. [she is six again; six and the water fills the car so fast; six and the bridge rail had seemed so solid; six and mama isn't moving; six and papa's arms are so strong and 'Zaiah is kicking so fierce through the water. six and papa's head disappears beneath the water again; the jet black mass of it wet and briefly floating before it's gone... gone.. gone... ]
She clears it again; feels the shift of the car as it makes a left turn; feel's Caleb's hand briefly on her knee.
"I don't have too many answers... but Sol and I are sure it's tied to the Demon. Have..." A pause; shifting through the memories, the facts, the interconnections of the Awakened in her life, "Have you heard about any of that?"
[K. R. Jakes] There is a moment of introspection; a second of thought. Has she heard about the Demon. The, as if it were a specific problem: The, as if it were a specific Demon; The. Kage combs, thorn from wool, wool from thorn, silk from twig, twig from silk, in her head -- the reports she's had. None of them have mentioned the Demon. Things that seem Demonic, certainly; but no: The Demon. So, after that moment of rather deliberate thought, her breath is a ghost across the mouthpiece before it shapes itself into: "No. I don't believe so."
[Israel Cohen] "Mmm." The sound is contemplative; it is weighing. Not whether or not the information should be given: That is decided with ease. But, ah, logistics. The when, the where. There is a muffled sound, a baritone voice; Caleb informs his cousin that they are about fifteen minutes or so away from the chantry. Her response is visual and tactile - a nod, a light squeeze of his bicep after her fingers seek out the target, sensitive as whiskers twitch on a cool night breeze. Then, "I'm on my way to the Chantry. Solomon is there and he was calling Ashley and others as he went.. that was... almost three hours ago. So I don't know who is there now, but do you want to meet me there? Or we can swing by wherever you are and pick you up..."
[K. R. Jakes] There is a brief pause. Brief. When the bough breaks the cradle will. "I'm actually on Ashley's doorstep now," Kage says. "Which also means I've got to go, but don't worry about picking me up." Something weary, something old, it touches her voice; it has less to do with Kage, and more to do with the influences Kage is under [the stars, the moon (the constellations, the darkness)]. "I'll see you." A beat. And, "Hey, Israel? I'm glad you're not drowned."
[Israel Cohen] There is no car. There never was a car. Or, rather, the car exists, but it will be a good two hours or so before it pulls out of the parking space in front of the home to chauffeur the tiny woman to the Chantry. [ah, the faulty temporal, synaptic and cognitive factoring capabilities of the average homosapien mind -- as Atlas Mason may turn the phrase] All the while she's been sitting in the attic library suite, amidst the trappings of the rite yet to be implemented...
..."Ask Ashley about it." Again, relief. She assumes if Kage is at the Hermetic's place, then it stands to reason that Ashley is well. A beat then [I'm glad you're not drowned. layers upon layers; such sorrows are never impersonal; such pains are universal] and the touch of a tired but precious smile upon her lips, "I'm glad you're in Chicago." Again, a breath, "You and Ashley watch out for each other, alright?..." The pause for the affirmative response and, "Go well, Kage."
[K. R. Jakes] The affirmative response sounds more noncommittal than Israel might like: but Kage isn't so quick to commit. Kage isn't so quick to say yes, this is why I'm doing this; yes, I will ___________. But it isn't a disavowal. Kage and Ashley are friends: as unlikely as that is. As strange. They're even good friends. Give them a few years [Won't you, Fate?]. Then: "You too."
And click, a disconnect.
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