Smokescreen

Animosity lingered between the two of them; the only two in that room that had never met—they still didn't even know each other's names, for Christs' sake—but a tingling on the neck and quiver of the upper lip meant something was amiss. Alas, all of this was unnoticed by the other five people within the room.

Surrounded by free-flowing conversation, chatters rising above natterings and titters of laughter, the initial stand offish impression of each other man was put aside and laid to rest. Of course, it could all be put down to not knowing each other, thrown into the depths of ice cold water, as it were (not to be dramatic) and after a few drinks and the genuine introduction that they were both awaiting, ease would come and smooth out the evening with the aide of several drinks and good company. Mutual friends are, after all, a great way to get to know one another.

*

The night passed by and within the first of the two hours that had elapsed, the two men had finally been introduced—after slight embarrassment of having to prod the unfazed host of the most fatal faux pas that could have occurred at this prestigious event—and had laughed together over awkwardness and the shared distaste of alcohol.

Alas, the thoughts lingered and stirred in the dark depths of their mind, careless regarded by one soul and even unbeknown to the other.

The thoughts, in fact the very same thought, that these men were not strangers. They were known.

And known.

And known again, across all the stars and the moons, and this was their first time meeting.

*

In a life or two previous, names had been shared—different names, of course, but the same soul. Whispers and caterwauling spanning lifetimes, a hatred full of no respect, just rumour and anger. Yet, as the two men of this lifetime (or, as we know it to be, a lifetime) whiled away their fruitless hours, a bond was formed.Weak, yes, all it was was a handshake and a laugh but it was a connection and that was enough.

Further and further along went the night, the streetlights had been alight for a few hours and the spattering of couples and single-goers alike departed the residence, the host neigh growing weary; he let the two men talk, replenishing their drinks (that they do not seem to remember drinking) and clearing away the scraps and remnants of a party well-lived, slinking behind their conversations, creeping around their words, at each and every pause for breath he would. Stop. And then continue.

He did not want to be seen, recalled. He wanted the men to play out their charade, losing themselves in sentences, shying away from where they stood. For, obviously, the host knew them both.Knew their strengths, their weaknesses, and - hypothetically - how to bring the two men together; how to allow them to meet each other despite them not knowing of the other's existence until that very night, until hours, moments before.

It would take one person to set up and knock down a spiral of dominoes, and whilst they stood back and embraced the glory of their achievement, they wouldn't know when the final domino would fall. Would it be the second, the middle, the final? Or, maybe the spiral would not end. The penultimate domino lingering, teetering, unsure if it should fall.

Waiting for that final command.

This man (their host) was teetering.

Led to believe, like the others before him, that he was the final domino but unlike the others, the words, the whispers—the things that were not physical beings—he did not succumb. He did not listen to them, he did not fall.

He brought them together, he made them friends.

He broke the spiral, the chain:

A domino so focused on standing tall that he didn't hear the door click.

They had gone, escaped his clutches, just as he began to fall.

Slowly.

The host felt a tap on his shoulder,

No. Wait. He felt his shoulder tap into something.

A tremble, the slightest shift, as if he stood upon the tablecloth the magician whipped away in slow motion.

A yell.

He had fallen. A man was dead.

The spiral complete.