Repose

[Manning T.]
[After Manning's conversation with Louis, she watches as he goes outside and chops wood for over an hour. Going into summer, she doesn't think it's for warmth, and she can just make out the expression on his face (it's not good). So she lets him be. She keeps TJ inside and the two of them make cinnamon muffins together. It's messy (so messy) and not TJ's favorite of blueberry, but eventually she declares cinnamon to be "okay".

When TJ settles down to do something else and Iris starts to clean up, she sends a quick text, not even knowing if Manning has his phone on him.]

We made muffins when you're ready to come in if you'd like one.


[Sam A]
[And, after quite a bit of thought, one to Sam:]

I hope your vacation is going well.

[It's been a few weeks since the last desecration, and now there are several more, all in the span of a few days. The perpetrators are equal opportunity - the first is at a prominent local mosque, the second at a synagogue in a wealthy neighborhood. Again, no one sees the perpetrators get in and out, and that same insignia is spray painted onto floors, walls, and doors. The paint is typically white or gold, and difficult to scrub clean. There is blood at these locations, but less than at the cathedral, no livid pools. Small consolation, though, as the vandals leave bones behind at both. The bones come from a small mammal - most likely a pig - and they've been picked clean and white.

Location number four is yet another church, and the vandals up the ante now, graduating from playfully abominable blasphemies to something more sinister. The police find the minister at the local evangelical protestant church strung to the twenty-foot cross, hanging by his wrists. His arms are dislocated at the shoulders, and he may never regain full motor control in his hands, but he insists, repeatedly, that he wanted it. He will not name those that pulled him up, those that sprayed that same symbol under his feet, on the stone floor. He says he has been saved from madness, and they have a bit of fun interviewing him, wild-eyed and cheerfully proclaiming the glory of his own suffering, on the local news.]