Light breaks

Two brothers shared a tenement in a city unnamed by a Transitional Mayor.  Abandoned and destitute, the buildings had grown varicose from tired lightning.  Depriving both of use for heat and air, grains of light fell in rings down the rafters, usually after a truck filled with asbestos stopped by.  Learning at different times to negotiate with shadows, stressing their limbs into suitable reclining quarters for the other, toes and fingers linked with such regularity that each felt to be the whistle of another’s bone.  In time lasting a decade’s month, a millenia’s day, one sought after the grained deliveries which became more seldom.  He grew pale, swallowing white pulses of pimpled hope, waiting always in pitch black with mouth agape.  The other, to gain his attention, spilled into contortions of every sort, soft places of landing in sweaty puddles.  "You’re growing sick," he said, watching him climb in sooty metal.  "I know", he called down.   "But this is our light".