Re: [Bathos]
When Brigham first became conscious of the screaming sirens, they sounded like they were practically on top of him. He was fighting a losing battle against sleep, slouched in the back seat of a chauffeured Town Car (given quite generously on loan by a particularly weak-willed patron earlier that night) and gazing out the window with a vacant indifference when the first ambulance flew by. He noticed his own pallid reflection in the glass, noticed his missing tie and rumpled hair and the half-moon shadows under his eyes. He’d played host all night and into the morning to a supply of piteous patrons, wretched people just begging him to captivate and charm them until he’d had his fill. But the fill never came and the last stragglers had gone home, and by the time they neared the Bathos he was crashing hard.
“Bedlam and turmoil,” he said aloud, clambering out of the car before it had come to a complete stop, nearly falling in the process. He made it onto the sidewalk successfully and straightened, then studied the chaos for a moment and decided that he’d spoken appropriate words. He was still half a block from his building, and as he pushed his way through a swarm of people he tried very hard to ignore how plainly their minds called out to him, all of them begging to be nudged into a blissful, soothing calm. He could probably do it; he thought that he could charm some of them into forgetting about their fear for a while. Fix the fear in their minds; fix the ache in his head. “Do I dare disturb the universe?”