dénouement.

At the exact fraction of the nanosecond the sniper's bullet kissed the fabric of his shirt, he was seventeen again and standing in the crowd, devouring the pulsating theatrics of grinning uniforms marching past voluptuous red-lipped nurses, so certain that the world of this Technicolor pill delivered release from his own white-washed suburban acedia.

When the fabric sighed and gave way and the metal murmured against bare skin, he was embracing her in a jungle sweat, whispering "always" even as he knew their worlds were lifetimes and oceans apart and he would forget her name tomorrow, though the fire would remain to scratch and scar with cinder claws in the dead heat of future nights.

As the skin burned and surrendered its first tears, dark and rich as sunset wine, he was holding the child who wore his eyes, the way they had been, blue and bright, before cynicism had dimmed their vibrancy, before the echoing cries of the twitching damned had fettered questions to his faith and fostered a bitter wonder if anyone or anything truly saw each sparrow fall.

Tendon, artery, tissue, and bone made no struggle against the intruder, but not until the cardiac muscle throbbed out its final faithful iteration did he snap vividly back to now, fully present in the last moment of temporal existence, gasping out one searing breath that tore his despondency into jagged strips before the dark.