Page 76 of Rat Park
“Maybe later,” Dominic hedged. Flor grinned, pressing closer for a moment.
They walked around each stall, taking in the glazed pots and jewelled pendants, the stuffed toy reindeer and intricate needlepoint designs. When they reached the section selling food, Flor dragged them to what he claimed was the ‘best hot chocolate in the world’.
“Wow,” Dominic said after taking a sip. It was warm and rich, spiced with chilli powder, cinnamon, and vanilla.
“See? Good stuff, right? One time they were selling a white chocolate version. It was gross.”
“I like white chocolate.”
“Of course you do. It’s like, milk and sugar.”
“What’s not to like about that?”
Flor laughed, shaking his head fondly. Dominic returned his smile.
They walked around when they had finished their drinks, Flor pressed close to Dominic again.
“What were your Christmases like when you were a kid?” Flor asked, his voice soft in the hubbub of people.
“We didn’t really celebrate Christmas much. Some were all right, especially when I was little, like six or so. We didn’t have a lot of money for presents, but Mom would cook and we’d make a tent in the living room with the sheets, pretend we were living in an igloo.”
“That sounds fun.”
“Yeah, it was.” Dominic fell quiet for a moment. He had almost forgotten that memory in the mix of what his home life had become.
Flor squeezed his arm before sliding his gloved hand in Dominic’s.
“We’d have people over all the time after that, though.” Dominic went on, caught up by the stuttering film reel of his own life. “I’d hide away in my room. I think I might have been seven or something, I saw a documentary about how penguin parents, I can’t remember what kind of penguins they were, take turns to travel to the sea to hunt fish so they have something to bring back. It takes them ages, days or weeks or something, I can’t remember now. That Christmas I draped a sheet over my desk and imagined I was a baby penguin and that Mom was out hunting, that she’d bring me back some regurgitated fish soon.” Dominic laughed, although the noise sounded odd to his own ears. “It was just another day of the year after that.”
Dominic was so lost in the unearthed memory that he startled slightly when Flor pulled them to a stop. Dominic looked at him, wary of what he would see, but Flor’s eyes weren’t pitying. They were sad and soft and almost fierce all at once, but his fingers were gentle when his hands cupped Dominic’s face.
“I want to give you Christmas,” Flor said. His voice was not naïve, not even earnest. It was determined. A promise he’d fight to keep.
Dominic smiled slightly, kissing the top of Flor’s head before they continued walking side by side.
They ended up in front of a choir that was just setting up, adding to the growing crowd around them. Dominic didn’t think it would be something he would enjoy, but Flor looked excited as they waited for them to start.
“They’re really good. Trust me,” Flor said. Dominic did.
The conductor tapped the stand before him, and an odd hush fell over the crowd.
“Agnus Dei, based onAdagio for Strings,” the conductor said.
There was a moment of silence and then, as if the sound were being dragged out of the air itself, a thin string of soprano voices started climbing in volume, the sound high and delicate. The sound undulated around long vowels that did not need to be comprehended in order to be felt.
The low rumble of alto voices joined them, filling the air underneath the wings of the soprano sounds. Dominic stood there, paralyzed. The voices wound around each other, building and dipping and then building again. Up, up, creating a momentum that dragged Dominic forward, filling him with such an overwhelming amount of emotion, it threatened to choke out of him. It was the expanse of a starry sky, the sight of the blue sea for the first time, the moment you dip under the waves and everything is enormous and weightless around you.
The song went on, and he only realised he was crushing Flor’s hand in his when Flor gripped back. Dominic couldn’t unclench his fingers, but Flor didn’t seem to mind, his fingers just as tight, anchoring Dominic in the swell of the music around him.
There was a moment, when all the voices swelled together, when the air seemed about to burst with the force of the emotion behind the sound, when Dominic thought he wouldn’t be able to take it. It was like love, the way it pierces you through, the way it’s wonderful and terrifying all at once. He thought about how easy it would have been not to be there, not to have reached that moment if he had given up. If the people around him hadn’t welcomed him in. If Flor hadn’t appeared in his life like this song, manifesting itself unexpectedly, beautiful in the thin air.
When the voices finally threaded into nothingness, replaced by applause, Dominic turned to Flor and hoped his eyes could say what his mouth could not.
He was done running. If the world wanted him here, he would want it back.
*****
The reverberation of the music was still buzzing underneath Dominic’s skin when he and Flor reached Dominic’s apartment. They discarded their coats, moving to the light of the living room before Flor turned to Dominic with an almost shy smile on his face.
