"It's official," John immediately said after the door closed behind them both. He was following Claire's figure, which was cold and stiff in the darkness, her heels ticking like clockwork into the cloudless night. "I hate him." Claire said nothing in reply as she pulled to the side of the road, stopping short of the blacktop. She began sucking angrily on the inside of her cheek, hands sitting on her hips. In the darkness, she looked like a stone statue. Athena, before she released a thousand armies.

"Really," John continued, walking out next to her to call for their chauffeur. He squeezed his fingers into his palms, recollecting what had happened in his head over and over again. "Did you see that?" John demanded, pointing back to the illuminated building, "He just embarrassed us, right there, and after, he bloody smiled about it. What a..."

Claire continued to stay silent as their car pulled up from the parking lot. She slid inside easily, her expression cold. John followed her, his anger simmering down to a quiet hum. He gestured as he spoke, coaxing Claire to fill in the blank. "You...?"

Claire was quiet, her voice dangerous and shaky. "Yes," she uttered mechanically. "I'm fine."

"I'm surprised," John stated. "I was aware that your father could be an arse, but I wasn't aware to what extent - 'It's not as if you want to be here, John' - seriously, what utter bloody rubbish."

"Yes, John," she breathed.

"And his arrogant smirk..."

Claire's eyes followed the path of dark flats, silent, chewing the inside of her cheek viciously as the chauffeur drove them through the inner city to the quiet of the suburbs nearby. Soon, they were pulling up to the grandiose form of their large home. It looked pasty in the navy night, the yellow turned into a eery china blue. He thanked the driver quickly before looking over to Claire, whose head was pressed up unmovingly to the glass of their car. John didn't know if she was quiet because she was depressed, or angry. John finally opened the car door and stepped outside onto the grass on their lawn, gazing back into the rancid, yellowing darkness of the car. Claire was slowly stirring, her perfect nails easing open the door and stepping outside, the fur of her scarf falling away from her neck and into the angle of her elbow. "I'm sorry about your dad," he murmured, giving a generous tip to their driver. "I know he's a handful, but I'll learn to deal with him."

Slowly, Claire removed herself from the car with her scarf trailing after her like a pet dog, as if to prolong tension, and when the chauffeur finally thanked them and drove away, Claire hissed, "No." John looked to her in surprise. Her eyes were sharp, shrapnel digging into his sides at the sight. Evading Claire's eyes was like trying to avoid a revolver pointed at your chest. They burned like smoldering charcoal. He pretended he didn't notice.

"What?"

"No, John," she repeated. "It was you."

"Sorry?"

"You embarrassed us."

John shook his head slightly, as if to rid his ears of water. "I don't understand."

"If you had just shut up..." Claire trailed, her voice disintegrating into exacerbated disgust. Alone, there, on the road, she was all harsh lines and anger, stubbornness and hurt filling her like carbon dioxide in a pop bottle - yet watching her explode was nearly as satisfactory as corking open an aged wine.

"He was right, anyway," John persisted, "you don't want to be there, and I don't know why we even bloody go."

"I want to support him," Claire shot back, walking to their empty drive way and making her way to the door as John watched, still yelling. If there was any remnant of pity or self restraint left in him, it had been lost in the sweeping tide of his anger. "You don't want to be there!"

"Bloody brilliant!" John called after her. "You know me too well."

She was halfway inside the house when she spun to look at John, her purple dress reaching into the darkness like navy blue claws. "I can't put up with this," she spat. "Tomorrow, you're going to apologize to my father."

"How on earth did you make this my fault, Claire? It's like a hobby of yours!" John followed after her, his finger up to point in frustration. "How do you even stand him?"

"Maybe I don't 'stand' him, John," Claire muttered, "maybe he's my father and I love him because of it. You can't choose anything in this life, John, surely you would know that." Claire inhaled sharply. "You know that my dad hates disrespect, and you disrespected him so you could selfishly get out of one his parties."

"That's such utter..."

"It's the truth, and you're apologizing," Claire said, opening the door to their home and slipping inside, leaving the door open for John to follow in after her and no doubt be subjected to hours of empty, cavernous silence.

***

The next day, John visited the academy.

It wasn't as if it made the dark recede; in fact, the colors often highlighted how truly dark everything was - but it was something, and John needed that something. Claire had woken up and had not said anything, just made him breakfast and gone back into their room. When he went to eat, he had a headache.

He took the bus, then, riding past his stop to the clinic and waiting until the small form of a tall, concrete building came into view. Children were filing in and out, their classes being held inside. They were tiny toy soldiers, marching on the sidewalk into the doorway.

The building was worn and old, every corner weathered into a blunt point. The architecture itself was actually rather disappointing - it shouted "drab" with every cubic outcropping. Tan and boxy, it was even worse on the inside. The only place that had a sufficient amount of outside light was the art room, which John had to toil over five minutes to get to that wing of the building.

There was a concave hallway that almost looked like it had been dug out instead of added on. Mostly, he passed it without a second glance - but every once in a long while John would hear the soft, ethereal noise of someone trying to coax slow, melodic notes out of an anonymous instrument.

John never went down that hallway.

Instead, he concerned himself with acrylics and tempera and color. Obsessed himself. Too often he would forget himself in the work, painting until paint was grime under his fingers and his hair was composed of pastels and his flesh was animated clay, moving slowly into position, a cannon propped to fire. He would paint until the sirens rang out, and he was alone, and there was no one.

The art room was so quiet at times, and then so loud. Children held classes while John was painting in the back corner, and rarely, a few young boys would drift to the back and ask him relentless questions about art.

("Who's your favorite... painter?"

"Armand Guillaumin."

"What's your favorite drawing?"

"There's a bunch, can't quite choose just one."

"My mum says that I'm gonna be famous like you when I grow up."

"Oh, that's wonderful. I'm not famous, though."

"Yeah, you are."

"No, I'm not."

"Yeah. You are."

"I am?"

"Yeah. What if you dipped your pencil in the paint and then drawed?"

"Drew, and I'm not sure."

"Can I try?"

"I don't think that's a good idea.")

There were frescoes on the far wall that made John think of Raphael - stunning perspective, trailing all the way into the back like that, quite magnificent, really, I wonder who painted it - John often thought thoughts like those, "art thoughts." (Which honestly put Claire a bit off, but then again, John didn't give a fuck what she thought most of the time.) On the right side there were a line of large windows that could be covered with a thick cloth, or adjusted. Most days, light flooded through them unrelentingly, making the art room luminous. The left had smaller windows, looking into the grayed hallway, and the walls were adorned with drawings of various mediums and skill sets.

John described himself as an impressionist. He identified with realism as a baseline - but color - color was unique and necessary. Even John's pitch black nights somehow had some deep, rich tone to them; rolling cobalts and feathery roses occupied his star-lit canvas. Sometimes, he could smell the salt off of the crashing, frothy oceans he painted, dotted with aggressive blues.

He wanted to make people invigorated with the color of his paintings, the thick emotion of it. He illustrated girls in straw hats and men wearing bathing suits and sunsets in Escorial and a beach he'd never been to, his paintbrush almost an extension of his psyche. His paintings were scattered about the large art room, a number of them contemporaries of patients he'd had or coworkers who had asked for a portrait.

Drawing was a mundanity that was utterly welcome. It was the calm before the storm, the plead before the scream. (Edvard Munch, John thought.) He came here when he wanted to stop thinking, when the skies were blood and the ground was blackened grime, growing flowers akin to the color of ashen, dead flesh. John loved it here, even as the warm sunshine slowly turned cold.

Today, Mark was drawing some sort of fruit ensemble, trying to palaver him into coming over to dinner with he and his family. John grimaced, untying his apron. "I don't know, Mark. Claire's still angry about that altercation with her father." Honestly, that was a valid reason, but there was another, as well - he just didn't want to go.

"Why?"

"Apparently, it was my fault, and I should apologize."

John was expecting to hear something comforting. Instead: "Apologize."

John looked over to Mark, who hadn't glanced up from his painting. "No," he sounded out, seemingly indignant. "Why should I?"

"She's your fiancée, John. She loves you. You love her. You love your father-in-law."

"I enjoy sex, too," John added.

"Not what I had in mind, although true. Thus, my point proven. And," he explained, that pleading intonation drizzling into his voice again, "she'll let you come over for dinner." Mark finally looked up at him. John focused on keeping his expression neutral, not sure of what he was going to say next. Mark nodded slowly. "Or not," he said. "I get it."

"Mark, it's not that-"

"I understand."

"Mark."

"John, pal, I ain't mad, just..." He frowned. "You alright?"

John folded his arms across his chest, leaning back into the wall and lifting his foot up to touch the plaster. Mark was emulating this faux innocent face, making like John'd done an injustice to England. He raised his hands up, almost in defense against John's harsh glare, and shrugged. "Seems like you're tired. That's all."

"Tired, hmm?"

"Yeah, bud. Just worried. You spend all your time at work or painting. 'S not healthy."

"There's nothing else to do, Mark. We're in the middle of a war."

"Yeah. All the more reason." He nervously checked his watch before gathering the case he'd been packing, beginning to back away. John contemplated slapping him. And then, he thought about laughing, and then, he thought about walking away. He did neither, just gave Mark the faintest smile, and put a hand against his middle back, giving him a gentle push. "Mark," he said stiffly, "I'm fine," though more to himself. "It's fine."

Mark gave him this look of quiet cynicism before excusing himself out the door. "Hey," John called, just so their conversation didn't end so awkwardly, "Mark, have a safe trip home. Give Ali my love, alright?"

Mark gave John a small nod. Then: "You coming? They'll be calling blackout in a bit."

"Nah, Mark, I have to..." John pointed back to an array of messy paints. "Clean it up for the kids tomorrow."

Mark offered to help, but John shook his head, his lips faintly twisting upwards. "I'm alright. Get home safe."

Mark gave him a look, before agreeing reluctantly and walking away. He just yelled, not facing John, "Don't get stuck here after blackout!"

"I'll be fine!" John shouted down the concrete corridor. I'll be fine.

***

John was going to vomit.

If he had to spend one more bloody second thinking about the war, or his fianceé, or her father, or his job - God. He was getting sick.

His head was oily with sweat, and he was pressing his forehead into the wall, fingertips pushed up so hard that they were starting to become numb from lack of blood flow. He felt like any second, he'd be reminded of something he hadn't done, or a bill he hadn't paid, or the job he hadn't put enough time into, and then the cycle would repeat and he would slide to the floor and not be able to think for two hours.

Blackout would come, and he'd be stuck, uselessly, alone and freezing, in the art room.

Maybe that's better, John thought, but that made the guilt pull at his throat, so he pushed himself off the wall with an unwilling grunt and sat at his desk, head in his hands. He could feel the cold leeching eagerly at his fingertips, infecting him with negative thoughts. He would stay if it kept him from getting home to Claire, and hearing her brash voice going on and on and on about duty and Nazis and bloody everything her tongue could grasp onto.

And he'd have to put it to her gently that he didn't give a royal fuck if the Italians invaded Egypt, and he'd feel horrible about it, yeah - but he was tired of rationing, and watching people fester like gangrene over things that were of no consequence.

Art was his escape from that. He could paint beautiful things; run his brush along golden sunrises and blue skies, watch himself put color into what was previously just canvas.

And then - what if they started rationing paper? And pencils? And paints? And he was stuck in a life that had no color? No imagination? Just yellow journalism, hidden under bleak gray skies and white hot fire. The only colors John would know in a few months would be reds and blacks.

But art... he could paint a palace for himself to hide in. And he wasn't a cowardly person, really, but all he wanted, in that moment, was a small blessing. He just wanted to be able to sit down at an easel, and not be tortured with thoughts that he couldn't affect. He wanted to hide under the golds and the blues and the pinks, and he wanted to be able to see colors as they were meant to be seen.

John ran his fingers over his most recent artwork, grimacing at the anguished brushstrokes. The lack of control. He needed control again. That's what he needed.

Regardless, John almost thought, his mind half hanging on the words. Bloody good painting.

In the distance, a siren began wailing, signaling that blackout was an hour away. He had to go home; at ten they started calling people into their houses, which was always a fix to get in because then you had to wait out in the common room for the entire night with no lights on. And God, if Claire didn't hear from him again, she'd have a bloody conniption.

John packed his paint case gently and wrapped his coat around his sweater, getting ready for the August air to sweep him off his feet and turn his appendages wet with humidity. He could hear the wind buckle against the windows, and a shrill noise ran its way through the loud wailing of the sirens.

A very, very, high pitched noise rang out, that changed tones oh so slighty as the wailing changed pitch and volume: quiet, at first.

It sounded like a soft whistling, yet intense, and theatrical, and John didn't know what it was. He heard it, and it was like going home wasn't important anymore, and the alarms just sounded like accompaniments to the shrill music - was it even music? It had the air of a ghost, and his blood was running cold, but it had no definite pitch; it was musical, but nothing about it was melodious.

And then he heard it.

The violin. It was a violin. Someone - John didn't know who - was playing a violin. Someone was wrapping a tune around their fingers, twisting notes into frightening clarity.

John pulled his coat tighter around his body, treading lightly so his steps wouldn't echo in the darkened hallway. He stepped, and the noise would halt. And John would pause, and the noise would begin again; and so it was, like he and the noise were waltzing in the dark.

Whenever the violin became soft, and hushed, John would step quieter, and whenever it rose to tumultuous heights, almost drowning out the sirens crying outside, John would speed up his gait, and follow the noise. Maybe this was a ghost, singing, waiting for John in one of the empty concrete hallways.

John followed the noise until he came upon the dark, cavernous corridor that he'd never gone down. He closed his eyes for half a second, straightening his back and inhaling deeply before starting off on the march towards the noise. It got louder as John walked closer, and just when he was at the door, almost about to walk in, it stopped altogether.

John pressed his back into the wall behind him, trying to stifle his breathing.

A step. The heels clicked against the concrete, and it sounded hollow.

Like the floor was hollow, like the building was hollow, like the earth was hollow, like John was hollow-

Peculiar, that step. It froze John up. He and the violin were codependent.

And then the melody began again, and it was soft, and eerie, and John could breathe, like the tune had reached inside of him and had forced his airways open recklessly. It whispered to him as the sirens died away, and John's head was telling him to walk away, to go home to Claire, but his heart... well, his heart.

John walked inside the room, bare.

There was a man, tall and lithe and playing a rosewood violin, eyes closed, feet swaying in time with the music. The first thing - the very first thing John noticed about the figure was the way he moved - his body in complete syncopation, as if each note was a gesture, and every gesture was part of the rhythm. His shoulder blades pressed into his dress shirt, making the fabric taut with tension, and all the sinews of his back rippled as he drove the horse-tail bow across the violin.

The song it sung was absolutely haunting. It was like listening to someone die, in the silence, by themselves, alone - a heartbeat slowing to compensate for the weight it had to bear. The song would be violent and angry and stubborn for a while, as if it were struggling to stay alive, and then it would get quiet, very quiet. Every time it decrescendoed it was softer, softer, until the line between song and silence was indiscernible. After a while, the man put the violin to his chest, and cocked his head left. He took another hollow step away from John, and he felt a clenching in his stomach, staring at the tall man's back in the dim light.

"Are you going to stand there like a moron until morning?" the man suddenly murmured, and John tried not to stumble over himself with words, shutting his eyes closed while stuttering out excuses, "I'm - sorry, I just heard it and I wasn't... I didn't... I wasn't stalking you, or anything, I just liked your - you're very good at playing the, um, the... fuck. I mean, bugger, I'm being rather uncouth, I mean, sorry, I..." He was trying to say words while simultaneously thinking about how dark and deep and rugged that voice was, textured with a dryness, like he was bored of himself. His voice was starkly different from the instrument he played.

"I'm aware that you weren't stalking me," the figure said to the walls, but suddenly, with a sudden sweeping turn, he looked around and saw John, standing there, case in hand and short and unassuming and embarrassed, eyes pinned shut in such a way that it was taking a substantial amount of effort to keep them that way.

"Why are your eyes closed?" the man said, not curiously, not inquisitively. It was almost patronizing, the way he spoke, as if he were chastising John for his nervousness, as if he weren't humiliated enough. John's eyes shot open, and he stepped forward a few feet before he got a clear register of the man's face. "They're not closed," he said firmly, clenching his fingers and focusing in on the stranger's features. "They're..."

John's voice died away as he got a clear look at him, not because he ran out of breath, but because it was violently thrown from his lungs.

Cutting eyes. Eyelashes so dark and eyebrows so sharp that within the upper half of his features alone, he could cleave John open with a glance. He looked so beautifully hideous, like a siren in the water, cooing soft melodies and then snatching up sailors with thick, graceful hands and pulling them down to the bottom of the ocean. He was grotesque. Alien.

"Hello?" the man said in a voice so bored that it was almost depressing. "Yes, John, we're having a chat. Please return back to Earth, if you do have the time."

John blinked. "Huh?"

"Earth. We live on Planet Earth. Please, John. Don't be so annoyingly thick. I know you're capable of speech."

John fixed him with a stare, and tried to think up something equally clever to say, but his brain refused to work, so he had to shut his eyes again as to not be distracted. "I don't-" he said, getting his bearings. "I don't know your name, how the hell do you know mine?"

"John," the man said, "it's on your case. Wake up."

John reopened his eyes and looked down at the case full of paints he was holding, and in small letters his name was written like a secret. "Well, then," John replied, "if it isn't too much to ask, who are you?"

"My name is long. You may not be able to handle it."

"Just-" John shuffled a bit. "Tell me."

"Do you have a pathological obsession with cutting out four fifths of a sentence?"

"Here, stranger: If you do not tell me your name, I'm walking away," John shot back, ignoring the man.

"You're intimidating." The person smirked at John, twisting his bow between his pale fingers.

"Really, now?"

"No."

"You're incredibly hilarious," John hissed. "Tell me your name."

"George."

"That's not your name."

"How do you know?"

"Because, I do. Tell me your actual name. And why the hell are you playing your bloody violin here?"

He gestured to the room, which was covered with violins and tubas and cellos and flute cases, posters of musical instruments and vocabulary lining the walls, sheet music haphazardly strewn around; "I am playing in the music room. Where music is played."

"You know what I mean, don't try to be difficult."

"Oh, John, I'm not trying." The man shrugged his shoulders indifferently, twiddling his bow between long, lithe fingers.

What was John even supposed to say...? He sort of chuckled, then, but his face was deadpan; he had squinted eyes, saying nothing, huddling his coat closer to him. The man took a hollow step in John's direction, placing his hands behind his back and leaning forward so they were four feet away. He seemed to be inspecting him. As if John were a frog, ready to be dissected and labeled, the man's scalpel poised to drive itself through John's brain stem.

They stood, silent, staring at each other. The way he stood, like a whisper of wind, a brushstroke...

Something clicked in his mind. John was, surprisingly, the one who broke the silence: "I remember you." John sounded the words out, his finger coming up to point at the man's face. "I remember you... you..." John glanced away, sticking his tongue out between his teeth, the memory slowly clarifying itself. "You were at Mr. Tabbot's party. You were that boy who left. The one that got me in trouble."

John involuntarily stepped back a bit, eyes wide. The man gave John a half-conciliatory gesture before sniping, "I didn't know you cared so much. Next time, I'll be more wary." He rolled on the balls of his feet, and looked away, almost disinterested, putting his violin back to his shoulder. "Curfew is being called soon," he stated, "You should be with your wife, John. You know how she gets." The person began to play again, pulling his bow firmly across the strings.

John waited a startled second, gathering himself, gauging the man's movements, and then he wrapped his coat tightly around his shoulders. Bothering to contemplate how this man he'd never seen in his life knew so much about him was useless. He turned the opposite direction of the man, starting to walk away without a word, despite the thudding in his chest, making him feel vulnerable and humiliated. He could feel the man hear the tremor in his heart, despite the fact that his voice was steady and not amused in the least.

His footsteps were followed by a overly joyous yell from the latter party to the point of being sarcastic: "It was a pleasure, Mr. Watson!"

"I wish I could say the same," he muttered to himself, walking more briskly.

As John left, he could hear the faint sound of a violin, playing a tune that mocked every lie his heartbeat told.