I did live with Gabriel for a time, in the hallow'd Apartment 26 which so often made its appearance in the early days, and for the most part it was pretty good. There were some instances of roommate terrorism, but I would say these were universally oriented toward my compatriot, because I've never really understood how to be a person. That said, when he did finally move out - and Brenna moved in, because our formerly tawdry union had been sanctified by marriage - his bathroom was in a fucking haunted state. He neglected to inform me that this sink did not drain, as is traditional for sinks. In fact, even a flush of the toilet would result in a black, rank, presumably sentient ichor rising to fill it a third of the way up. It would then take its own sweet time going down, thick bubbles rising, speaking in a wet voice.
But it was also a seismic, erotic circus back in his wanton corner there. For all I know, these heinous acts and this reeking, mostly hidden creature are connected in some way. I had already figured all this out: growing up not merely Christian but Evangelical, I had to encounter an incredible amount of programming and essentially say, is sex worth hell? There's a period of time before you form an identity outside of the church where your coordinate, cosmologically speaking, is a complete grab bag. You don't really know why you believe some parts of it, and eventually you get down to some really fundamental shit that you don't "believe" so much as you "are, literally, that thing."
They hadn't undergone any of that yet. It wasn't an intellectual or rhetorical project for them. I was a mess for months when I started dating Brenna. I told her if she wanted into these jeans, she was gonna have to go through basic training because it's a lethal zone. She was gonna have to belly crawl under barbed wire and watch out for snipers. But these two… uh, no. They were achieving escape velocity from religion via a startling and ancient technology.
Anyway, Gabriel and Noah, that's why you don't go to church.
(CW)TB out.
