Page 51 of Torn

***

The next night, Merry introduces him to live music. “You’ve never been to a concert?” She’s aghast. “Where have you been living? On a mythical planet?”

Anger scoffs, “It’s mortal entertainment.”

It doesn’t deter her from dragging him to a venue. In the lobby, she describes the band’s hybrid style and gushes over their lyrics, that extravagance of emotion, because they’ve lived such lives filled into so abbreviated an existence. It’s courageous and admirable.

“Would deities be as brave, if they were faced with a time limit?” she dares.

“Would humans be as idealistic, if they could live forever?” he counters. “Would they be as nostalgically weepy?”

At the margin of the club’s standing pit, she inhales IPA and the sandalwood of Anger. She explains how the best part is when the lights fade, and the crowd roars, and the instruments collide, percussions and the fibers of guitars hitting their zenith in the rafters. She sings along, and during the applause, she opens her eyes to see Anger watching her.

“It was palatable,” he says after the main act’s encore.

“You liked it,” Merry says, skipping beside him in a lavender skirt and glittering hoodie.

Anger denies it. Yet while heading back to the observatory, he finds her hand, and her flesh turns into infinity. And he broaches the comfortable silence by asking if she has that particular band on vinyl, which they listen to when they get home.

Home. That’s what he absently calls it.

The following evening, he’s enthusiastic when they attend another concert. This time, he stands behind her, and while the bass thuds through her veins, something unprecedented happens. She dares to lean into him, and he dares to settle his palms on her waist. Growing bolder with each song, Anger rests his chin on Merry’s shoulder and intensifies his grip on her, the accumulation causing an earthquake across her body, complete with foreshocks and aftershocks.

By the final song, they’re entangled, packing themselves together. She sways in his arms, nudging him to match the flow. And when he melts into her, relaxes into the locomotion, oh, it’s dynamic.

Later, he points out a courtyard busker, a mortal male strumming a guitar. Anger’s riveted by the lone musician, and they become the only audience. Merry bobs her head and shakes her hips, and Anger grins at her in the midst of his own revelry.

Has he never really listened to human music before, or savored it, or saw the point?

He’d been busy, he tells her. He’d had duties to perform in this realm.

And there’s music in the Peaks, but still. Merry wants to toss records at him like it’s an invasion of flying saucers.

As they leave the busker, she hops onto Anger’s back, her limbs flopping as he grips her thighs. He grouses that he’s not a horse, but he doesn’t let go as she rides piggyback all the way to the observatory.

She even shrieks when he runs down a hill and spins at the bottom, to see how many rotations it takes to make her dizzy. By the end of it, they’re chortling beneath the sky, and he carries her home like that while she chatters in his ears.

***

During the day, they rest on the deck, talking while encased in the hammock or atop the lounge chairs. They play a board game that involves space exploration and search the stratosphere through Merry’s telescope in the planetarium.

To her delight, Anger is routinely compliant. In fact, he’s an eager participant, if a little gruff. It’s a fetching look on him.

Even more to her pleasure, it’s not only Merry who suggests excursions. Anger initiates some of their outings by asking her a stack of questions, then growing annoyed when her answers turn into monologues.

He gathers her responses like seeds. He takes her to a public theater in the park, crowded with checkered blankets and mortals munching on chips while watching a space adventure. Afterward, they discuss the movie until the lawn clears. Again, they disagree about the cinematic themes, the deliberation running longer than the film itself.

Anger asks for an introduction to Merry’s favorite music emporium, and she guides him through the aisles. They select records to sample, then share headphones, listening for hours.

He surprises her, having done his research and discovering a neon art exhibition. At the entrance, Merry is agog, and she notices Anger rubbing the back of his neck. “I thought you’d…that is to say…do you…”

“I love it,” she says.

Anger’s caught between a grin and nothing of the sort. Always, an unseen dilemma pulls that face in opposite directions.

They browse the installations, the variances of light, some classic, some avant-garde. Some are intervention art, working only when she and Anger interact with the beams of color. Others are stagnant, bold, and aggressive in design. There’s even an X-rated display of a neon woman riding a man.

Anger’s expression prevents Merry from swooning. “This is a lonely piece,” he says.

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