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BOMBS HAVE PERSONALITIES.
It’s said in the Force.
Tom loads six of them into the pregnant womb of the screaming flyer.
The plane cuts through the air with the sound of starving babies. The sky bleeds out against his windshield.
He fucks his fingers into the controls. Gliding up. Giving her everything she can take. Until she’s belly up and panting.
The engine chokes hard on his orders. Rubbing herself against the black gash of sky above.
The constellations are his highway til he jerks hard and sets her thick neck to rights.
If there is a prophecy, it’s already come to pass in the metal sheering of her guts. Wings braced to take advantage of the brief weather window.
He groans against the tilt. Atmosphere boxes his ears. But he’s recalcitrant. And with a wet slap of fingers, the bay opens.
Tom’s mad laughter howls out like three a.m. drunks. He has Tiny Heart Syndrome. Diagnosed and papered. Irrelevant to discharge. Honorable or otherwise.
The bay releases.
BOMB’S AWAY.
It’s said in the Force.
She births the first in a mutiny of fuel and ozone and scorching death.
Tom’s drawn on his baby's nose. A golden chalice.
His first child smiled as the black marker coated her in acrid fumes. He kissed her for luck when he finished.
Now she's nose-to-ground.
LET’S FIND YOUR MAMA, KID.
Tom roars, letting the wind rip the words from his throat like a rusted scalpel against skin.
Winter-dead mountains are her mother's tits that his child grips for milk.
CAN’T YOU HEAR HER CALLING?
He cackles.
MOTHER. He can’t stop laughing. MOTHER.
The city lights pop as his second and third-born hit the grid. He’s drawn on one, her locket. The other, a ring.
And the citizens below become the smear of dumped kitchen grease.
She’s underneath somewhere. A sewer rat hiding.
The altimeter spins. He nose-dives into the bloody slit of the city.
The fourth drops. His favorite child.
A diary. His diary. All rattling thoughts about her. Now the yellowed back pages of an obituary.
He painted the journal right on the payload. Like drizzled spend.
MY BAD, YOUR FAULT.
The pressure change is a prayer in his ears. He goes nose-up til the sky parts her dark thighs for him. He’s a snake poised to strike.
The cobra painted on the fifth bomb. A single-venomed fang piercing the fractured shell of her tomb.
SAY NIGHT-NIGHT TO MUMMY, SWEETHEART.
The missile ejects like it hates the sky.
The city shrieks itself hoarse. Though he can’t be sure it’s not coming from him.
Six.
The last one.
The tiara he gave to his darling wife.
Painted pink as her insides on the fine-tipped warhead. Now bathing her in flame.
FOXTROT UNIFORM, BITCH.
The city roads tangle like yarn.
His smile is a tragedy.
—BOOM—
He cuts the engine. Power goes next.
The cockpit...
floats.
And for an infinite moment, he is the night.
______________
Thirteen Years Prior
Tom Riddle is mid-air, floating weightless as the warm arms of the summer sky reach out to embrace him. He’s still on the upward arc, and a rope swing falls free behind him as he releases it.
His feet find the clouds first, and his head careens downward. The lake beneath him is made of solid sunlight trapped on the water’s surface. It glows like the face of god. Everywhere is sky.
Everywhere except her.
Her wet curls pool around her like she's bathed in anointing oil. She shrieks his name, growing hoarse.
TOM. TOM.
COME DOWN.
His smile is as wide as the spread of his arms when he hits the apex of his trajectory. Eyes finding hers, locking together as he begins to fall.
She splashes up at him. The water catching the sun’s rays in a thousand brilliant facets. Each one holding the smallest image of her as they slap against his cheeks, his chest, his open palms.
Until at the last moment, when the water rises up to greet him.
He pierces the gentle surface with his chin tucked and submerges into its hold. Its grip so tight he's sure he's never been held this close. He thinks about his mother.
When he opens his eyes again, he’s suspended. Drifting serenely in the deep water. The lake is a microcosm of bubbles. So many he doesn’t see when she parts them like a silver fish, darting close to press a stolen kiss to his cheek.
He twists, but she's already gone. A green figure in the filtered lake.
Tom watches the way her legs kick as she glides up for air. Away from him like a mischievous child.
In the span of a second, he’s lived a dozen lives there with her under the water. Calling her wife. Sometimes Mother. He wonders if it would always feels this good. If she would always make the earth bow to her whims to accept him. Hold him. Want him.
When he breaks the surface, his fingers trace the spot where the warm touch of her lips still clings. His mouth parts. And he blinks like he’s just been reborn. He’s sure he's never looked more stupid.
Tom wonders what it’s like to love. He wonders if she’d let him learn.
“Hermione.”
She smiles.
And for an infinite moment, he is the sky.