Lightning Sketch - That's Not What You Said

The oily salesman had his look at the old, decrepit face and laughed.
“This is not the work of my fathers, of my lineage. This is the work of carrion crows come to steal just the slightest flesh from the maddening ways of one so vile as he. But look, the work is shoddy, it’s amateurish. The carrion crows forgot to pick the soul from these bones when they picked the flesh. My work would have been artistic and left no trace of the soul or moment of life left. These crows though. Amateurs.”

Lies. Lies begin and end with the rubbish of the fallen and ill soiled. Lies begin with the very need to be lied to and the very lack of will it takes to shine light on the shadow of a lie. But where this light shines, there shines the ignominy of confrontation, the graceless back-peddling of the accused and rejected. A lie is known when a lie is heard, and here Bertrand Russell knew a lie too and so was content to let it lay. But, the Carnival Master needed to be heard and believed, as all liars need.

“Look boy, look at these bones! My work is better than this. You are a fool of a boy. Be gone with you, trash. I have real customers coming with real coin and real taste. I did your job. I told you I would leave some remnants of the old soul’s quickening on the bones if something went wrong..”

“That’s not what you said. Challenge me not Carnival Master. The very fabric of your transient soul lay as finely untwining threads in my fingers. I see what you wish to hide and I will have what you promised, with or without your assistance or knowledge.”

Context

This segment comes from an old story that I started about 7 years ago, in Boston. There may be more of this, or not. I haven't decided.

Lightning Sketch - Fleeting Feelings

Fleeting Feelings

I have been awake now for four days. That’s four days of waking up, working, laying down at night and pretending to close my eyes as the sun reclines beyond the horizon and the sky dons the moon as the watcher of sleeping souls. So then would the moon be sorely cross with me for these days gone by, four of which drifted down the canal of lost time into a remoteness so vast as to render all deposits forever gone.
When I am awake, and not pretending to close my eyes and therein placating the very moon that sours her face at my wan, dull and lifeless expression – the implacable void of an ancient hollow stamped upon my rubbery face, I work. I work well. I feed those who need it and have a little left over for myself. I even dream. I dream of sleep and have waking visions of nightmares that should have happened as the moon tended to my restless soul in the waking nights.

Sometimes, when spare moments arise between the vague traditions of caloric intake and work, I remember what it is to feel, to thrive and know that zest for the sun, the moon and all the world that acts in consort with itself and acts as clock that tells the periodic time of the universe and life itself. Of this vast, magical and inspiringly calculated clock came a single universal second wherein I knew her feelings were fleeting and that what was left, was all that was left and more than the lowliest could hope for.
In time, the universal time measured by the dances of stars and planets, the times between food and work will open up and in that gap, like grass in a sidewalk, new life will grow.