It is a cold, raining Saturday night, and Tibia finds himself--yet again--in the smoky back corner of the downtown bar.
Idly studying the woodgrain in the spotted and stained countertop, Tibia sees much of what he knows; in the jagged cuts that gouge across the counter he sees himself, alone save for a loyal friend named Interosseous--and may God bless that scrap of connective tissue, for Tibia knows that the break and the separation had hurt the little guy more than he'd ever admit--and in the splotches of red and yellow across the wood he sees his innermost feelings: his nerves completely bared, his periostium ripped away, his vessels free to bleed his love to the only one that made him complete, the only one that allowed him to function.
But then he remembers the split, and he has to look away, sl; he can't go there, he can't, not on a night like tonight when the shadows creep along the walls like so many osteoclasts coming to take him away.
Not on a night like tonight, when Tibia considers letting them eat away at him until only the dust remains.