There is nobody around at this time of night. The past week had the occasional couple strolling past or the lone drunk rambling but tonight was still. The dark meant you could not see the end of the street, save for the regular pools of light from street lamps guiding you down. Unlike the black box I was just in, these pools were golden. And I approach a single silhouette bathing in one of these pools.

“Still waiting for your ride?”

“Oh! Hello! Yes, yes I am. What are you still doing here?”

“He kept me past 10. I left just now.”

“Oh he’s evil sometimes. He knows there aren’t any trains past 11. How are you getting home?”

“Not sure. An old girlfriend lives nearby, it’s about an hour and a half by walk at most. I could spend the night there.”

“An hour and a half? It’ll be morning by then. Are you hungry?”

“No.”

“I’ll give you something to eat. Come with me.”

“I’ll be ok.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, I think.”

“Ok. Only if you’re sure. See you tomorrow?”

“See you.”

I dial her number twice to the sound of voicemails. I could camp out on the street until the trains start up. As opposed to staying warm inside someone’s apartment with a meal to boot.

“Hey - I think I am a bit hungry.”

“Oh that’s no worries. So you’re coming? He’s around the corner now.” We clamber inside; I let her go in first. She begins babbling.

“I don’t mind him. I really don’t, I don’t! I just had the worst time, it was the worst with my last director. He made me feel so- so small! He would tell me I wasn’t listening to him and accused me of defying his authority! Authority! He probably wanted me to heil!”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“And he badmouthed me, you know? He went behind my back in chats, and I don’t know who he’s saying this to and for what. And that affects my reputation. He was talking to Rosalind and telling her that I’m giving him issues!”

“Very unprofessional.”

“Right? So petty. All he wants is control. He wants to control me. Have you seen his Instagram?”

“No.”

She pulls out her phone and shows me his Instagram. A fit, half-naked man straddles the chair in black-and-white.

“Do you know what I mean? He’s an egoist. Thinks he’s going to make it big, and he really, really wants to make it big. He’s rubbing shoulders with everyone and licking their asses, really, really licking their asses. And I’m not just saying that because he’s gay. He’s horrible. So pretentious. You know what I mean?”

“I understand.”

Each minute is dragged into something that feels twice as long. Conversation usually makes time fly, but Julie clips its wings and secures a ball and chain to it. The car pulls up outside a dingy brownstone complex. She thanks the driver, whose request for a tip isn’t loud enough. She jostles with her keys and drops her bag in the process.

“You know, you’re really good at listening. You’re a good listener.” I don’t say anything. The great fallacy of communication is that when you don’t talk, you’re presumed to be listening.

Her apartment is warm. It softly glows with an amber wash from scattered lamps, with no overhead lights. The furniture basks in this and blends into the wall with muddy shades of ochre and brown. The ambience makes me drowsy already. She lets out a performatively loud exhale.

“Drop your stuff by the door. You can sit on the couch, or- no, yes, sit on the couch. I’ll get your food. Shouldn’t be long!” She flicks off her sandals and skips to the kitchen. I sink into her couch to greet my matte and dulled reflection in the TV. Above it hangs an empty frame. With the cement of the past twelve hours resting on my eyelids, I start to drift. The frame in front begins to stretch vertically, while the TV widens and runs across the walls. I’m too tired to turn my neck and see how far it stretches. A hand ruffles the hair on my head.

“Hey! Someone’s made themselves at home!”

Julie dances into the room and back to the kitchen. She beckons me over.

“Carbonara. No pork - or meat. I know you don’t eat meat. But I don’t have any tomatoes either, and I know some people say it destroys Italian culture when you add tomatoes, but I feel they’re just sad, sad, elitists”

“That’s frustrating.”

“I don’t think they’ve felt the acidic sweetness of a cherry tomato in carbonara, a sweet cherry tomato. They think that there’s this… heritage? Heritage. A heritage about Italian dishes, that goes back to the ancient Romans. And they hang onto that, they really do, they CLING and claw, because they’re insufficient.”

“Probably.”

“There’s two ways to look at it, two. I did a bit of research, I did, and turns out carbonara firstly came about in the fifties, so its ‘heritage’ is only like what - fifty years old, so it’s not heresy to add a silly little tomato to it. Secondly, even if it did come from that long ago, what’s wrong with adding a tomato? They didn’t have tomatoes then in that era so the fact that I’m adding a tomato makes me a bit of a time traveller. You know? It’s fun.”

“That does sound fun.”

“So what’s the fun in being a complete puritan?” A booming voice answers this.

“You mean purist - a complete purist. Not puritan.”

“Oh yes - purist. Sorry Father.”

“You’d do good not to mention puritans. You can add every tomato in South America to your carbonara and you’d still be less of a heretic than those claiming to ‘purify’ our faith.”

I walk over to the kitchen and peer around the corner to see a large man seated at a dining table. His sausage fingers envelope the fork completely as his belly folds over the edge of the dining table. Little oval spectacles decorate his otherwise plain face. A tiny card of shiny, flat hair balances on his head. The black cassock he sports means he is almost indistinguishable among the shadows, lit only by the tiny lamp on the dining table. I do a double take and notice something else; on either side of his shoulder are two faces each. Four faces in total, all identically pale and without any crease. Steely eyes like marbles, trying their best not to blink in front of the light, with lips so thin you’d think they were sewn shut. Julie sets a pot down on the table, before chiming back in.

“Purify? So I didn’t use it exactly wrong?”

“It was inoffensive, I’d just rather you be careful with how you choose to use that phrase specifically. To compare someone who disrespects pasta to the type of person who disrespects the basis of the Christian faith would be to promote the latter’s delinquencies. It’s less about putting someone down, than unjustly pulling someone up.”

“Disrespect pasta?”

“You know what I mean.”

“Father, with all due respect, you’re not any better.”

“I mean to say you disrespected the purity of the original recipe.”

“See? With that disrespect thing, it’s always disrespect. Never ‘invention’ or ‘remix.’ I invite you to my apartment, I do - my home - to treat you to a meal, keep you warm. The least you could do is not bring your politics into my personal choices.”

“I’m a priest. The essence of my being is built on bringing politics into one’s personal choices. When you subscribe to an institution, you cannot then repudiate the rules of that institution by empowering some or all of your personal choices. It’s antithetical. You’re either in, or you’re not. So when you invite me over, and listen to my lectures and choose to open yourself up - you implicitly consent to recognising that some of your ‘personal choices’ are going to be called into question. Like that godforsaken dress.”

“This is about pasta! I’ve already spent the last five months made to feel like shit for my art and how I express myself, and now I’m being crucified over pasta? Tell him, tell him what I told you. Elitists, egoists.”

“It’s true,” I add.

“Language” steers the father. “Do not say you’re being crucified.”

“It’s my apartment, and my life, I’ll say what I like thanks.”

“Then consider unsubscribing. And if you do, you’ll be damned, but I assume you already know that. It’s what they call a catch-22.”

“Do you want a catch-22? That necklace of women around you, what is that, huh? Hey ladies, do you - do you really like this man? Being around this man?”

“You do NOT address the harem.”

“Tell me, tell me please. Does he also tell you that your ankles are sending you to hell, first-class? Making you wear that silly… tunic.”

“It’s called a habit, and you are not to speak with them further.”

“That’s a catch-22, having those ladies follow you around, around everywhere, and yet there’s this - invisible chastity belt, yes it’s invisible, because you’re just so unattractive and repulsive. And ugly.”

“Julie, I’ve known you for twelve months now. This vitriol; it’s uncharacteristic. I feel the devil has slipped his whispers into your coffee this morning.”

“Then let him! He could’ve pissed in it for all I care, if that’s what it takes to finally feel like I’m somewhat in control.”

All of a sudden, one of the silent faces begins to speak.

“I need to go.” She breaks away from the enclave.

“I need to go, too.” She breaks away from the enclave.

“I need to go, too.” She breaks away from the enclave.

“I want to go.” The final woman breaks off. The four come together at the shoulder and the edges begin to rub and overlap. Dents appear as the habit turns into a gooey liquid, intertwining the four of them and pulling them in closer to one another. With the first woman facing forward, the two other women on her right and left side sink into her so that their profiles align with the side of her head. The one at the back sinks face-first towards the centre so that the back of her head matches that of the one in front. What was once four was now one. She contorts her face into an impossible shape as a bony protrusion pierces the back of her habit; it elongates, and from it unfurls more bony spindles, tethered together with a thin, veiny fabric of skin. The protrusion almost hits the ceiling, and the spindles xpand to reveal a wingspan. The resulting gust of wind takes out one of the candles.

She makes her way to the window, perches on the edge and screams. My ears almost bleed. She adjusts her footing while crouched and leans forward, like a diver, and pushes off of the sill before unfurling her wings and flying into the darkness in front. I watch her silhouette shrink, occasionally lit by the street lights below her. Every single building outside remains empty, with not a single light on and all curtains drawn; it is only the three of us bearing witness to this.

“I must go too.” resigns the Father. He walks over to the open window, looking outside.

“No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This charge I have received from my Father.”

He then clambers out of the window, or at least what can make it through. He stays suspended, half his torso outside and the other half stuck inside. Julie and I gather behind him and push his rear. He remains stubbornly splintered through the window.

“I’ll just leave him here, I’m too tired to push, too tired.” At that moment, a shriek announces itself from outside as the winged woman returns, this time with talons piercing through her loafers. We see her come towards the window, feet first, and grab whatever part of the Father was stuck outside the window, dragging his lower half through once and for all. He does not make a noise, either because his skull was crushed instantly inside the talons, or because he had made peace with his demise ten minutes prior. In either case, he didn’t - couldn’t, fight.

“Sorry about that. Let’s watch something.” Julie looks at me as my smile fades.

“You must be exhausted. You didn’t even touch your food! I’m so sorry. I’ll prepare the couch for you - I hope you’re ok with sleeping there.”

“I’m more than ok.” I manage to stutter, almost blacking out. She leaves the kitchen and returns from her room with a blanket and a few pillows. I nestle into the couch. A massive slumber draws the blinds on my eyes. I fuse into whatever’s beneath me and become one with the black inside my head. She sits on the couch opposite and begins a yarn about the Father’s distaste of gold on women. The voices fade as the night takes me hostage and lends me to something brighter in the morning.

Written by Rayyan Khan.

I think a lot of work is polluted by meaning. We find an end-point ‘B’; and create solely to trace a path to there from ‘A’ and then applaud the cleverness of it. Not a fan of that reverse-engineering and I could care less for the ‘exploded view’ of a piece of media. I long for ‘experience’ which to me has been lost these days in favour of ‘result.’ I want to pull that continuous thread of ideas from the spool of someone’s mind, completely unfettered in its original form. So whenever I do music or write or act or draw, I do it with the intention of doing first, and any such meaning to be found will be communicated subconsciously, bound by the impulse that guides my hand. Things will let themselves be known.