Flashes Of Light

Present Day

Percie blushes. "I really, really hope Ane isn't watching."

"Well," Logar says, wiggling his eyebrows. "You must make your first move with her sooner or later."

"You're the one talking, Mr-Virgin-at-26," Percie replies.

"Well, I couldn't exactly get laid in prison," Logar bites back. "Though some guys must have certainly thought I could be their next prey. A guy like me goes to prison and well... he must think of where he drops the bar of soap, if you get the meaning."

"I do," Sveta says. "And I don't like it."

"Don't worry, Sveta, I already know you didn't want this for me,"  Logar reassures her.

"We didn't either!" Percie yells. "And we have already explained it to you, you paranoid prick!"

"I like alliterations," Logar says. "Oops, I'm sorry, you probably don't know what those are."

"Please," the presenter chimes in. "Do not fight."

"We can't help it," Percie explains. "Maybe because fighting was our job, in a way."

"Well, I believe you believe my innocence," Logar comments after a while. "But you don't know how it happened. There was no trial."

The others are too shocked to reply.

"And by the way," Logar says, blinking back tears. "I know we've been over all the name calling, but I actually found a tape, the other day, Sveta, where you called me petty and insecure."

Knowing how much Logar loves synonyms and contraries, Sveta replies, "I don't know why I did. Do you really want to be described as generous and confident?"

"Well, maybe," Logar smiles.

"Hell no," Sveta says. "But it's not your fault. You had a difficult childhood," she starts to say. "You know, your father..."

"I don't want you, or Percie, to talk ill about my father," Logar adds. "He tried his best, and his best might not have been enough for some, but it was for me. I was a lot to handle growing up. And I admit, now. Sometimes things between us didn't go for the best. He beat me, that is true. Well, I was a kid you wanted to beat."

Logar laughs, and he's the only one.

"Either way, he did a lot of wrong things, but when it comes down to it, it was the way he was brought up as well, and he didn't do anything out of a particular spite," Logar says, more seriously. "He was a person, fucked up like each one of us, and he was my dad, you know? So yes. Over time I've resented my childhood. I had not a Disney movie type of family. But at the end of the day... my dad is my dad, and only I talk shit about him."

Sveta gives him an encouraging smile. She can't help but wonder who her own father is.

"You're right," Sveta says. "I feel that way about my mother."

"You feel that way about her?" Logar is surprised. "At least my dad was around. Kind of."

"She was too, in her own way," Sveta replies, and Logar knows what she's hinting at.

Sveta's mother had been around for some time, but her father hadn't.

But from the way the sentences had remained stuck in Logar's brain, Sveta understands one thing. Logar was born the insufferable shit he was.

But his father had helped making him that way too. 

She can't help but think that if her friend will never admit it, she'll keep her new discovery close to her chest, and won't add anything.

"I wonder," the presenter says. "If one of you has ever thought that Logar didn't look like a Messiah."

"Well, damn," Sveta comments. "I think this could be the only thing all of us agreed on."

"It depends," Percie says. "Maybe your brain was trying to process it, but I've never even asked myself the question. I just figured he wouldn't be prophetic material, you know?"

But he had kind of been, Sveta thinks. Whether a martyr or a messiah, now she can't tell anymore.