trails in the sky

From the guest room window Ari watches a pair of sparkler rockets’ gold and white trails in the sky, their spent sticks falling invisible to the weedy yard, no need here for haptic moss, everything is already alive, the brambled fields, the windbreak line of trees animated by a small storm of birds come to roost as the sun goes down. And the yard is filled with people, talking, laughing, in the mingled smells of blunts and cologne puffs and cigarettes, squashed crabapples and spilled lager: the Mister Minos fans, the Silver Landings veterans and former Factory power users, the local and curious, the Indigo contingent led by Das Augie in pink sunglasses, chatting up London goddess Upsetta; even Dodi showed up in a rusted sleeper van with Katya and Michael and black-caped Placebo, all four of them wearing fantastical horns handmade from wire and fabric and drooping flowers, Did you imagine we would miss out on this! And his phone tings continuously, journos, friends, Meghan’s message from the Outpost, everybody @ this bar knows who you are! before she arrived in an AWIP t-shirt and a neon green orchid boutonniere, just in time to be their official wedding witness—

—because Felix wanted that, Felix said as he dressed in white, all white, to match the horns, The mayor can marry us, I already asked, as Ari sat startled on the bed. We can do it now.

-from DARK FACTORY by KATHE KOJA