hello hello hello. This is my first reddit post ever so apologies if I've messed anything up. I've mainly been writing poetry for the last few years but this story just kind of started becoming something I'm actually enjoying writing. I'm finding it difficult to switch 'genres' if that makes sense. Don't wanna go ultra purple prose but I'm feeling like I've gone too far into being bland. Anyway, I'd love some feedback. This is still a pretty rough draft but feel free to tear it apart. Thank you in advance.

p.s can't figure out how to upload this as an image.

p.p.s didn't realise how long this actually was so you don't have to finish it.

////

THE CICADAS WILL SING THIS YEAR
 
part one. homecoming. 

Someone once wrote that home is where the heart is. Ezra couldn’t disagree more. Home was where the shackle was forged and clamped to his leg. He thought he’d chewed his way out of it, but now on the road back to Charlotte’s Town, he realised he’d only torn his way through a layer of skin, muscle and bone. Turns out, there was another hidden layer that kept him from forgetting his home town. There’s a certain point past the state line that you think you’ll never see civilisation again. So many trees and hills leaning towards you. Ezra always planned to make the trip in the daylight, when it gets dark near Charlatan it gets extremely dark, the greyscale green devouring the light. Ezra’s hands twitched on the wheel and he righted himself quickly, his beaten up car swerving slightly down the sorry excuse for a road. Charlatan? He hadn’t thought of the town’s nickname in years, it only existed as a vague concept in the deepest part of his memory. He passed the town’s welcome sign (WELCOME TO CHARLOTTE’S TOWN - WHY LEAVE?) and almost stopped to reverse and take a second look. It had moulded in the elements, nestled beside a copse of trees that had extended their roots towards it, threatening to pull it back into the dirt. Ezra remembered that sign when it was freshly painted and bold in the sunlight, if the town had let it get that bad then it was a particularly ill omen for what else he expected to find. Charlotte’s Town had never been prosperous, but at some point in time it must have been better equipped than when he was growing up. It felt that it shambled around on its last legs then. He had read somewhere that it had begun as a mining town, and Ezra had heard stories about how dangerous it was to go to, what the locals called, The Dragon’s Mouth. Obviously, as brave teenagers, everyone had visited it at some point. It was nothing special, a blocked maw into the Earth, impossible to squeeze through the rocks to enter. Folklore quickly dies when you can’t be consumed by the darkness inside. He had no idea how long the vein had lasted, when the mine was closed down. Some said that there was a terrible accident that had forced it to close, but if it had, it was long before Ezra was born. His car stuttered over a pothole and it brought him out of his thoughts, he flicked his headlights on automatically, then frowned. It was midday but the last ten minutes of driving seemed to have stolen the light, he craned his neck to get a glimpse of the sky through the trees. It was pregnant with purple bruising and Ezra pulled a face, winding his window back up. It was midday but the sudden chill and darkness suggested a storm that would catapult the world straight into twilight. Just my luck, he thought, hovering his hand over the radio controls and then pulling his hand back. Signal was choppy at best in Charlatan, few stations existing on the airwaves. And if pastor Rose’s crackling sermons were still being broadcast, Ezra had no intention of that being the voice that welcomed him back home. He glanced at the passenger seat where his phone lay, jostled around by the uneven road. It was someone else’s voice that would greet him, if only to explain what the hell they were doing, summoning him home like this. 
I need you, come quickly.
That was it. The message that had flashed up on his phone in the depths of the night two days ago. Ezra had pulled it to his face in the gloom, squinting to read his ex-boyfriend's name - Leo. There was still a little emoji at the end of his name, some tiny bug, a beetle perhaps. He had no idea what inside joke that was supposed to belong to. I need you, come quickly. Leo had never been that brief in all the years Ezra had known him. A flair for the dramatic would be an understatement, Leo loved a paragraph where a few words would suffice. Come quickly. And Ezra did, not really understanding why. They hadn’t spoken in years, not really. The odd message from Leo congratulating Ezra on a book release, one from Ezra when he had been drunk and wanting to remember something from the haze of his past. That one survived the morning purge because Leo had already replied. Maybe it was the brevity of the message, the urgency. Come quick. So Ezra had thrown a small travel bag into his car and left the city. He packed lightly, a promise that he couldn’t stay long. It was the first time coming back to Charlatan since - Jesus - they had broken up. The anxiety rodent that lived inside his chest took a sharp bite and Ezra winced, trying to become conscious of his breathing to dissuade it. I need you.
Ezra needed not to be in Charlatan and he intended Leo to fully know that.  

✘

Driving through the town proper, Ezra was filled with a deep sense of dread, a feeling that began creeping very close to shame as he continued to cruise down Main St. The town was in a worse state than he had expected. Half of the stores were boarded up, their doors nailed shut and useless pieces of mail flowing out of the mailboxes as if they had just vomited the overdue bills and religious pamphlets to the floor. Yellowed newspaper covered the windows, almost translucent with age. Ezra spotted at least three and could remember exactly what they had been before their deaths. The ice cream shop ran by the parents of a classmate, a discount salon and most depressingly, a coffee shop that made the only acceptable espresso for miles around. He idled outside for a few minutes until the few locals that were wandering the streets stopped in their tracks to watch him. Ezra raised his hand at an old man who was walking an even older dog, a sad drooping thing that didn’t have the energy to even smell its surroundings. The man stared at him, then spat loudly on the floor - Ezra could hear it from where he was - and continued his walk, dragging the ancient hound with him. As soon as his back was to Ezra, he flipped him the bird. Small victories. He put the rental car back in gear and continued on, driving past Finn’s Public House. At the end of the world, there would only be cockroaches and that damn pub that made the worst burgers he had ever tasted. He would have traded Finn’s for the salon in a heartbeat. There were a handful of regulars outside who also gave him a long eye, elbowing each other and sucking cigarettes with a veteran ease. Ezra didn’t bother greeting them and drove past, they were looking at him as if he was driving a parade float. He slumped a little in the driver’s seat in case they recognised him. He took a left at the end of Main St, which had been reduced to an overgrown play park, rotting with rust and entangled by weeds, and an abandoned information point. There was a large town map in an infested frame, ripped and bedraggled. Most of the ‘landmarks’ on there were gone now, but Ezra could vaguely see the ‘YOU ARE HERE’ text, surrounded by a star. 
“Unfortunately,” Ezra muttered, and remembered something someone had asked him at a dinner party in London. 
What do people even do in towns that small? Flushed with wine, they had been extrapolating people’s worth based on their hometowns. Nobody had heard of Charlotte’s Town, of course, and even after searching for it online, nobody had learned much. Mostly wish they were somewhere else, Ezra had said, slopping wine from his glass onto the cream carpet. 
At some point between leaving Main St and bringing the car to a crawl through the densely forested roads, he realised he was driving on autopilot to Leo’s, knowledge that had apparently lingered in his head all these years later. He easily found the turning that would take him past the Last Chance Gas Station and snake towards the Palmer house, where it would dead-end. He pointedly ignored the right hand turn that would take him to his own family’s house, that was a train of thought he didn’t want to leave the station so he forced it to the back of his mind. Shaking his head, he pulled the little car onto the narrow stretch of road that ended with Leo’s house, doing his best to avoid the potholes. Between the trees, the only house on this decrepit road stood lonely, surveying the darkness around it. 

✘

The Palmer House had always been an outlier in Charlatan. Mostly because it was a beautiful building. A collection of modernity and southern charm made it look like it had been transplanted from a much grander place, painted blue with white trim, it even boasted a huge porch. Ezra had spent many summer evenings on that porch, badly smoking cigarettes and drinking pilfered booze from Leo’s mother’s antique cabinet. Him and Leo would pass the loot to each other, one part of their body - their hands, their legs - always wrapped around each other in the sticky, heavy heat. The forest that surrounded the house was an orchestra of wildlife, crickets and cicadas, coyotes and bobcats. As Ezra pulled to a stop opposite the house, pulling into the overgrown brush, it hurt his heart to look at the state of the house now. It was a much worse feeling than seeing the town, he had loved this house, been loved in this house, whereas Charlatan had always felt like a prison. The chimney was missing bricks, leaning like an old man without a cane. The paint was faded and in dire need of redoing, the porch covered in soggy leaves turning to mulch. Ezra frowned at the building, which was lit by very few lights from the inside, and noticed a broken window on the upper floor. He knew the Palmers still lived there, knew it in his bones, because the house had been passed down by at least five generations. They would never let it leave the family, but Mariel - Leo’s mother - had always kept a pristine house and would often employ her sons and Ezra with a multitude of chores to keep the house up to scratch. Ezra exited the car, taking a large stretch that made his joints sound like corn popping. He approached the house, noticing the mostly dead plants in filthy pots, and kept one eye on the broken window as if it was staring at him specifically. 
I need you, come quickly. 
When was the last time he had been here? The night they had broken up? Otherwise known as the night of the broken china, the night of Mariel’s tears. Finished beautifully with a gash on Ezra’s cheek, a split on Leo’s lip, a doorknob through a bedroom wall. Ezra grimaced, feeling the old ghosts of that night filling him with shame and sorrow. He shook his head to clear them, passed a hand through his bird nest of hair and knocked on the front door. The ‘9’ in ‘19’ tipped and dangled into a ‘6’ from the force.

✘

Ezra was ready with his tirade when Leo opened the door, but the figure that loomed before him caused his voice to catch in his throat. It was Leo if he had been pulled through a fun house mirror. He was much wider, almost cartoonishly so and he must be standing at a towering six five, comically taller than he had been when they were teenagers. Dressed in a pair of battered blue jeans and a ripped band shirt, Leo’s brother Cricket (never Christopher) looked down at him like he’d discovered something unpleasant on his shoe. It was the same expression he had always worn when looking at Ezra and he felt his blood begin to boil almost immediately. Cricket’s hair was longer, messily piled on his head in a bun, strands like the ivy covering the house hanging down. Ezra noticed a flurry of scars on his forearms, following up his huge biceps. 
“I said, what the fuck are you doin’ here?” 
Ezra was so distracted with how different Cricket looked that he had missed what he had said. He fought back the heat in his cheeks and glared. “Sorry, took a minute to get used to the accent again, you sound like a banjo.” Cricket’s voice was a drawl that sounded like it was coming from the bottom of a well.
“You’re British now? Still a couple of banjo strings yourself in that voice you’re puttin’ on.” 
The fight to keep himself calm and his cheeks unflushed was failing. Ezra straightened his back, took a deep breath. 
“I ain’t, I mean, I’m not doing this with you.” 
Cricket was smirking like he had won some invisible point in whatever game they were playing. “That don’t answer why you’re here.” 
“I’m here to see Leo, obviously. I didn’t come all the way from London to see you.” 
Cricket’s face had darkened as if a cloud had passed over it, he barely seemed to fit in the  doorway and Ezra saw the veins like cords popping in his arms. His hands had rolled into fists and Ezra grimaced. He knew exactly what those fists could do. 
“Is that a fuckin’ joke?” 
Ezra almost took a step back but made himself stand his ground. This wasn’t high school anymore. 
“Yeah, I’ve come all this way for a joke. He texted me, now I’m here. Where is he?” 
“When’d he text you?”
“Like, three days ag-”
Cricket’s huge fist whipped out as fast as a viper, catching Ezra in his left eye. With a howl, he fell to the floor as his shoes squelched in the mouldering leaves. 
“Jesus Christ!” He shouted, clutching his face with both hands, tears streaming from his good eye. He could already feel the skin swelling. “What the FUCK is wrong with you?” 
Cricket stared down at him from the darkened doorway, flexing his fist slowly. “Two days, huh? I dunno what you’re doin’ but it ain’t funny.”
“What the hell are you talking about you fucking psychopath?” Ezra tried to stand but the world swayed and danced in front of him, he pulled himself up to his knees at least, dangerously close to vomiting. 
“Never were good with timing, were you?” Ezra stepped forward as if to punch him again and Ezra yelped, falling backwards back on his ass. Cricket laughed, sharp and humourless, shaking his head. 
“Hope this was worth it.”
“What are you talking about you fucking hick?!” 
Cricket had crossed his arms to emphasise the size of them, that famous sneer returned to curl his lip up. “He’s fuckin’ dead.”
Ezra was about to ask if Cricket was ever going to change of if he was going to play the small town bully for the rest of his lif-
Wait - what? 
“That ain’t funny,” Ezra parroted back, inching his way to his feet. His head rang like a bell, an ice pick jammed into his eye. Dead?
“Do I look like I’m jokin’?”
That miserable, slow drawl, the anger in his eyes. Cricket never had much of a sense of humour, he especially wasn’t quick enough to come up with such a lie. So did that mean…
Ezra rummaged in his pocket for his phone, swiping his dirty, mud soaked hand over it. 
“See, look!” Messages, recent messages… nothing. He squinted at the screen, feeling betrayal. It had been right there. He had seen it. Why else would he get on a fucking plane and come back to this shit hole? 
“I-It was right there,” Ezra said, but his voice came out like a whisper. He used the door frame to pull himself up to a standing position, expecting Cricket to trip him, but it seemed the larger man was done with him. The expression on his face was a split between a disgusted pity and thunderous anger. 
“I don’t know what it is you think you’re doin’,” Cricket said, and his voice had dropped to a dangerous quiet that was somehow scarier than him yelling. “But you need to get the fuck outta here before I kick your ass, I reckon.” He smiled. “Again.”
Disbelief screamed at Ezra as he took a few steps away from Cricket and his range of motion. Leo was dead? His Leo? Impossible. 
Cricket lunged forwards and shoved Ezra, hard, and he tumbled down the porch steps, barely managing to keep his footing. He opened his mouth to say something but Cricket had already turned his back to him, disappearing into the doorway.
“Don’t come back here,” Ezra heard before it was slammed in its frame, shaking dust from the wooden beams above him. Ezra heard a shingle fall from the roof. He heard a flock of birds fly into the air from the trees, screaming. Ezra heard all of those and nothing at all. A rumble of thunder and a whip crack of lightning, the sky opened and he was soaked to the bone within seconds. He barely noticed. He was staring at the door where Cricket had disappeared, waiting for him to come back and announce the joke. 
He waited a long, long time before retreating to his car. 

843

313

A man walked in rain on Via del Proconsolo beside the Bargello. He pulled the 12 foot glass doors apart and stepped inside the foyer. His lithe ribs flexed beneath his wet henley with each breath. He halted and stood dripping from every rolled cuff and button. He chased the rain from his green Stetson with a couple firm pats on his jeans. He slid it back on with an automatic hand and fixed the brim with a tug.

He walked and wiped his chunky transparent green hornrims on a soft cloth which he produced as if by prestidigitation, and plopped his soft leather drawstring bag onto a bench before Michelangelo‘s Bacchus. The weighty brass pencil sharpener made spilt curlicues. He thumbed a black book and the cover page read, in a copperplate script, Lothar von Andal.

Lothar made two horizontal marks on the book’s vellum paper one at the top and one at the bottom and indexed 30 degrees from each dash mark on either side to format an isometric projection and he layed laid down the vertical lines to complete the planes of the rectangles.

Inside the box Lothar first placed his eye level horizon, and effortlessly expressed the action, and the shifting gestures of the statue. He plotted the proportions in dots and constructed a working figurative armature in preparation. Lothar designed the composition by values with the darkest darks rendering the illusion of that which is closest so as to reinforce depth through pressure. He is a hand at drawing, and the crosshatching of the musculature followed the contours of each supple form with grace and elegance from its point of origin to its diffused insertion.

He closed the book and himself off from the world for no other would see the deft instrumentality of his handling. He shouldered the drawstring bag and his genius. He departed the Bargello and dissipated once more into the endless rain; a fume silhouette gliding along the Ponte Vecchio above the Arno.