Ye Then
They returned to the game, where Maple the duck had just laid an egg.
“You said it’s a gift,” Liko said.
“A poached egg on anything is a gift. Especially when fed to a Greenman.”
Liko clicked on the egg and brought it to the Green Man’s mouth, but nothing happened.
“Don’t feed it,” Dane said. “Just offer it.”
Liko put it in the foliate god’s hand. The Green Man tossed it from one palm to the other, then like a food network chef, rapped it on the stone beneath him and separated the two halves of shell with a flourish.
A showy cloud of gold, sparkling dust cascaded down the front of the altar, covering the inscription.
When it cleared, ten random letters within And ye then deign to know me were lit up.
On the floor, ten square slots opened: a group of four, a single, and a group of five, ready to receive.
“I know you’re so excited,” Dane said.
“Well I’m learning what kind of sexual favors you like, so I don’t think this’ll be too difficult.” Liko picked out Scrabble tiles and started playing around.
After a minute, Dane asked, “Would you like to phone a FILF?”
“Silence, please.”
“That’s Saskia’s line.”
“She gave me permission. Okay, I got it.”
“It was on a plate.”
“Don’t harsh my vibe.” Liko dragged the letters down, feeling his smile widen as each clicked into place, spelling Nomi and Ethan with a single letter N between:
“Yeah, it’s on a plate,” he admitted, “but let the record show I did it on my own.”
Dane was slowly shaking his head. “Of all the things in the chamber, Nomi and I found this first line the weirdest. Not weird, just puzzling.”
“Why?”
“It’s so… Ethan was romantic as fuck but he wasn’t cutesy or precious.
He was a chisel-in-stone kind of guy. Ethan ’ n Nomi is like something you’d draw on your notebook in middle school.
I remember lying in bed with her and talking about it.
Was it a nod to her and Ethan having met first?
To them being married? Is the N just and abbreviated or does it mean something else? ”
“You didn’t ask him?”
“No, because after we solved the other two lines, we realized Ethan must’ve been getting tired.
He was under huge pressure to launch the game and the developers couldn’t wait around for him to finish his Easter eggs much longer.
He put the most thought into the other lines and just did what he could with the leftover letters.
It probably bugged the fuck out of him, having to use a cute little N between names. So Nomi and I never mentioned it.”
“N for never.”
“N for not everything needs to be said out loud.”
As they’d been talking, another golden, sparkly swirl revealed more letters illuminated in the inscription. A lot of them. Liko’s eyes widened and he sighed darkly as he counted twenty-two letters to rearrange in a six-word sentence.
“This one’s gonna be hard,” he said.
“That’s my line,” Dane said.
“Ha ha.”
“No, literally. This next line is about me. I cried my face off when I solved it. I’ll probably cry it off when you solve it. Or we solve it. Fuck a duck, I’m crying already. God dammit…”
Liko almost laughed before he realized Dane was genuinely upset. He shut his mouth and watched as Dane got up abruptly, collected plates and cups and went into the kitchen. Liko stared after, at a loss.
So much loss to be at, and Liko knew only too well how deep the reservoir ran.
How it bubbled up between the cracks of your daily life.
Grief was sneaky and devious. It hid around corners and under couches, stifling giggles as it waited for you to settle into a peaceful moment.
Then it pounced on you. It staked out your house.
It laid an ambush. It waited. A perpetually packed rolling suitcase by the door.
The last thing you collected on your way out: Spectacles, testicles, wallet, watch, grief.
Then you drove off with grief riding shotgun and your coffee cup on the roof of the car. Life went on somehow.
“Grief is a bandit,” Liko said under his breath, as if trying out an opening line for a story. “Time is a thief. Grief is a bandit. Love is…”
He sighed, gaze fixed on the open laptop, letting the beautiful, pathologically perfect artwork of Three Hares blur in and out of focus. Staring at the N between Nomi and Ethan.
Not everything needs to be said out loud.
He sat up.
He got up.
He went into the kitchen, where Dane was washing dishes.
And he said out loud: “I love you.”
The water went on running but Dane’s hands went still in the sink and his head bowed.
“Come here,” Liko said, going to him. “If you’re going to cry your face off, cry it onto me. Because I love your face. I love your crying. I love all of you. Come here.”
He turned the faucet off and turned Dane toward him. Dane didn’t cry. He put his face against Liko’s chest and exhaled, his wet hands holding onto Liko’s shirttails.
Time is a thief, Liko thought. Grief is a bandit.
Love is a creator.
Love did things. Love was a noun and it took action.
Love crunched and crushed. It dripped butter and sugar then it glinted bare-boned, stripped down and ready to fight.
Love reclined on a chaise. Love ran marathons.
Love planted a garden, love devoured like locusts or reaped the harvest. Love took your breath and gave you life.
Love pushed. Love pulled. Love coaxed you in and turned you out.
Love fucked with your head and love told you the truth.
Love is an artist, Liko thought. Its medium is the truth. Just tell Dane the truth. This is the friend of your life. Your life is right now. Tell him the truth. Truth or silence.
“I love you,” he said against Dane’s hair. “You gave my life back to me. You gave time back to me. I don’t want to waste or kill it anymore. I want to spend it.”
Dane’s arms tightened around Liko’s waist and he sighed. “Lee, my man, this is a lot.”
“I know. There’s precious little I give a fuck about, and this lot is in the little.”
Dane lifted up his head. “What?”
“I don’t know. It sounded good until I said it out loud.”
“Oh my God, who are you?” Dane was laughing as he pretended, sort of, to bash his forehead against the wall of Liko’s chest.