Dradin Outtake

I found a deleted scene from City of Saints & Madmen's "Dradin, In Love" while cleaning out my electronic file folders...it's a bit bathotic, to say the least.In his dreams, the room he sleeps in expands until it is infinite and contracts until it is smaller than the head of a pin. There is a fireplace, with a roaring fire that makes no sound. The air is chill, but by the fire it is nicely warm. A sofa stands in front of the fireplace, orange and licked by soundless flames, and on the sofa sits a woman, facing the fireplace. Dradin stands behind the sofa, so that all he can see is the soft white of the back of her neck, and her long, sleek, black hair, backlit by the flames. The hair is beautiful, catching colors like the scales of a rainbow trout. The woman does not turn to face him and the image reminds Dradin of a still-life, a photograph, a frozen moment. Nothing moves, not even, after awhile, the flames. As Dradin watches, he is overcome by a sadness that reaches so deeply into him that every nerve is hollow and weeping, and simultaneous with the breaking of his heart, the woman says, in time to his own thoughts, in time to the shadows cast by the flames, You will never have me.When the woman turned to face him, Dradin can see now that it is the woman from the jungle, her gaze accusing him, and then, she changes once more until her hair disappears and her face broadens and it is the face of Dvorak, with the tattoo, which seems alive, the River Moth flowing across his features and out, into the room.Then the woman is gone, the dwarf is gone, and he is back in the religious institute, surrounded by the sleeping forms of boys training to be priests, missionaries. Anthony Toliver lies in a bunk bed above him. Together they watch the single window as the moon does strange things to the light, sends it glancing off the blanched walls here, but creating shadows there, bedsheets white then black. Outside, they can just see the steeple of the church and the bare, bleak branches of the trees in the courtyard below. The gargoyles on the roof of the building opposite leer, their cracked stone faces defiant. There is a taste of dust, of thick centuries, on the dark wood furniture."Do you have nightmares?" Tony asks."Yeah.""I dream about the gargoyles on the seminary building," Tony says. "I dream they come alive at night and fly over to our window and look inside at us." Tony shifts his weight uneasily and wood creaks, sheets rustle."Is that your worst nightmare?" Dradin asks."Yes. Because if I wake up in the middle of the night from that nightmare, I always think I see something moving at the window, and it frightens me so much I almost wet my pants.""Don't.""Don't what?""Piss your pants."Silence."I'm sorry," Dradin says. "I didn't mean it."Silence. Then: "Okay, but tell me your worst nightmare."Dradin tells Tony his worst nightmare. After Dradin tells this story, Tony does not speak for a long time and Dradin supposes that he has gone to sleep or does not understand and he tries catch the hush of the branches in the window outside to lull himself into sleep.At communion the next morning, they do not speak of it at all, so that Dradin feels sadder still, and vulnerable, and gawky, like something newly made and ill-formed.