Nelson Omnumbra held his metal airsoft magnum to his head, pointed it toward the ceiling, clicked the trigger and did not flinch when the pellet bounced off the ceiling and then his head. Hunkering down on his water bed, the wave he made bobbled him as he watched what he had videotaped the night before: Sheer and Ducrocq concluding their Matrix-inspired circle-cam kung-fu battle, the original audio muted, and this time Limp Bizkit's "Break Stuff" playing on his stereo. The right intensity, this fight was over a girl, but it didn't change anything about our expectations of the ending, no. Omnumbra switched to the next track on the CD-R, Deftones' "Change (In The House Of Flies)," rewound the tape, fell into the current of the water bed and let it all play out. He had recorded Ducrocq and Sheer at the Mills' old loading docks just before sunset. Sheer jumped on a trampoline offscreen and front-flipped into the frame, his blond hair covering his face, the Deftones chorus "I watched a change in you" adding purpose to Sheer's anger: Ducrocq always seemed like the stifling presence barring passage to any good times, on-screen or not. Omnumbra closed his eyes and listened to the rest of the song. He would dub it over the video later. He could hear her enter the room before the song was over, second time this week he noted to himself, he thought he heard her belt hit the floor but he couldn't tell exactly, she was taking off his shoes, he kept his eyes closed and looked at her only when she was on top of him, the contrast between the tautness of her stomach and the markedness of her ribs should have turned him on. This is what riding a sea cow must feel like. And I am that sea cow, but this is not the sea.
