Lightning from the Dark Cloud; pt. 6: Red, white, green, purple. The Cynic Ashes Gracefully

Back on the street the madman felt the energy of the city had been tinged with a sadness and a falseness. The prostitute with whom he had slept had kept something from him and he felt that it was something important.
The full moon and the sea watch the madman as he walks. The moon sheds light on another man, a man whose life is soon to end. He weaves through the streets. The cynic. Walking like Christ: darting around his own death: which he feels but does not comprehend.
The madman found a bum lying in the street, and helped him up, his face was harsh and he spat in the madman’s eye before collapsing again. People were keeping things from him: first the prostitute with the laughing eyes and now this man who spat in his face, apparently out of gratitude. Gaea’s eyes laughed, but not at him. He had to leave her room because he felt that the mystery of her eyes would consume him if he did not. She would not reveal it to him and the abyss of the mystery had looked into him as he looked into it. Laughing.
A shout in the street. The cynic bundles into a man, who is standing transfixed under a neon light. The madman stumbles as someone bumps into him. He watches the man walk away, his figure changing from pink to black as he leaves the neon glow. His stride glides. Slicing through the night: people turn their heads as he goes by: thinking he will save them. His colour changes every few steps, dictated by the lights: now red, now white, now green, now purple. Fascinated, the madman follows him. Entranced by his fast step that rushes forward like destiny. After a few blocks they come to a hotel called The Autumn Wind.
As he reached his hotel the Cynic felt a cold chill at his back and turned around. A man with soft, burning eyes and stiff clothes stood behind him. 1

-Hello, he said
A song kept sounding in the madman’s ears.
-Hi
"Jesus was a sailor"
-Are you followin’ me?
"When he walked upon the water"
-Sort of…yes.
"And he spent a long time watching"
-Why?
"From a lonely wooden tower"
-You looked like someone, I think.
"And when he knew for certain"
-Someone you know?
"Only drowning men could see him"
- (evasive) Can I come up?
"He said, “All men shall be sailors then"
-What?
"Until the sea shall free them"
-Up to the hotel. You’re going up there, aren’t you?
"But he himself was broken"
-Yes. (Hesitant) you can come up, I suppose. You clean?
"Long before the sky would open"
-I don’t know what you mean.
"Forsaken, almost human"
-You carryin’ anythin’ illegal?
"He sank"
-Oh…no.
"Beneath your wisdom"
-Damn. You want a smoke?
"Like a stone."
-No, thankyou.
The Cynic lights up a cigarette.
-So what’s your name, man?2

The madman stands entranced by the way the Cynic draws smoke into his lungs so deeply and ashes his cigarette so artfully with delicate hands. The cigarette looks like death: so does the man smoking it: his skeletal face. The height of him: his walk: like fate.3

-Hell, I don’t even want to know your fuckin’ name, man. Mine’s Jahnus. Ain’t that a great goddamn name.4

He sounds like he’s from the west, grain in his voice. The madman shake’s Jahnus’ yellow calloused hand and he knows he is from the west. As the cigarette is crushed beneath the Cynic’s boot its smoke rises and smarts in the madman’s eyes, bringing out tears. His name sounds regal: Yaarnus. Long, short. Open, closed. Aaahhh. Uss.5

-I’m just havin’ a party upstairs. You can join us, if you like.
-Okay.
-You don’t say much. It’s a good sign. Come up.6

They walked up the carpeted stairs, a faint scent of tobacco trailed behind the Cynic’s ascent.