Star bright towering rays, the ticking fingers, a clock counting days. Glimmering before cracks and crumbles and then collapse. And then worse. Second-rate workmen who brought calamity and vice. Money that froze time and fucked by the pool. Forever.

"Thing like that... you felt you was up against the power of God."

Flames lick and pop warm, red and black, caressing the dual duelling dualities, the hidden wounds, the secret faces that tumble and twirl and whip or rumble through the streets alone.

"Don't hurt us, lady. Our take-home's less than three-hundred."

Skeletal steel crushes skull, a powdered plume, marching forward, dreams of immortality swapped in a midnight rendezvous. World lost in fear. World lost until, rising from the ashes, a new warrior born.

"All the armies of the world under one voice."

World turned toward dawn denied the sun, handed over instead to lightning and blitz. A forever war of sinew and splatter, bodies branching and melting in sick tribute of some dark storm. Senseless, deadly serious, and--sadly--unfinished.

"Get a move on, girl. We haven't got all day."

In war, the thunder distant voice always asks a question: whom shall I send and who will go for us? Among the muddy bodies, who will harvest flesh? Stand tall upon horror divine? In the darkness without choice, there is an answer: here am I, send me.

"Hey, you want to talk Mexican? Join another tank, a Mexican tank. This is an American tank, we talk American."

There's still blood in that old dog, red and thick, pumping black upon the earth. still faith beneath the warding snarl. still devotion. coal black in the sunken snow, soon to find rest in the soil.

"No, the hotel I keep for Agatha. We were happy here, for a little while."

Left behind and much maligned, a tangled mess they wove, an action comedy tale too hastily told. Catch the excitement, catch the laughter, catch the lead into gold.

"Looks like you won't be attending that hat convention in July."

In the sky, a groove twisted panic, bloody bloody panic;

On land, love and bloody bloody panic;

In mind, crooked timber panic, bloody bloody panic.

"La Guerre. Strange that it should be feminine, do you not think?"

Overwatch eyes centre-mass; chest burst, strings cut, while green and white lightless soldiers hunch down in the dark. Dead or alive, the mission will be complete.

"Zondi, send it."

Black-circle sunken red-webbed sclera, eyes of hang dog priest begging for a slim chance at peace. To walk away from bleeding streets, plastic-bagged men who reek the wretched stench of milk, the dying, and the dead.

"What the hell kind of name is I.B. Bangin'?"