Phainon, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Fa-i-non: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at two, on the teeth. Fa. I. Non.
He was Non, plain Non, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. He was Snowy in Aedes Elysiae. He was the Deliverer of Amphoreus. He was Neikos496 in the Scepter. But in my arms he was always Phainon.
Did he have a precursor? He did, indeed he did. In point of fact, there might have been no Phainon at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial boy-child. In a village by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Phainon was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns.