My brother's stolen my tablet so
Jul. 30th, 2011 04:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
keykI'm writing a lot instead. I'm thinking about starting False Cycle--maybe.
FALSE CYCLE
======================================
"Kieden: Breaking shoes in"
Once I found myself at a submerged city. The stone brick buildings towered over the water, but only about one story over its surface. It was inhabited for quite some time, judging by the sheer height of the buildings, but it seemed the city had finally given up its fight against the rising sea. That, or, the city had succumbed to the war, any gruesome remnants washed clean away by the waves. Not that it mattered. I only thought that this would be a good place to rest. It was empty, uninteresting, free of dangers.
But I was wrong. There was one remaining resident: A little girl, about my age. I found her in a moldy room underwater, miraculously, not yet flooded, but it only barely withstood the weight and force of the water that beleaguered it. She wore a thin slip of a dress, and her wet black hair lay in twisting clumps about her tiny porcelain white shoulders. Her eyes gleamed from the little slit of sunlight that fell in from above. A broken staircase led up to the sunlight, but the girl remained fixed to her spot.
She asked for my name and thanked me for my presence. I gave it to her if only as a parting gift. Her name was Ophelia. She told me that she felt safest here, and refused to leave, and also that it was best that I left her there. I gestured toward the cracks and leaks in the wall, and warned her, half reprimanding. She nodded to me. Soon, yes, soon, she said to me. She squinted upward through the staircase and into the sun bright skies. Somewhere nearby, something cracked loudly. Quickly, she looked back down at me and muttered a goodbye, beckoning me to leave, smiling, hugging her knees close to her thin chest. And so I left.
The next day, the building had flooded and collapsed, its damaged walls having crumbled at last. I saw no signs of the girl. Well. Perhaps that was her corpse in the distance--or perhaps it was of another resident or not a corpse at all--but I'll never know. And I don't want to.
As I rolled my way out of the town, I felt something odd on the surface of my bike. My bike had begun to rust.
======================================
"Rustel: Sometimes, I fancy stories reach you also"
They happened to be posted near a city at the time. They rested and walked about, goofing off now and then, for a good while--crude and informal, of course, but that was not so unusual, save that they had no lieutenant among their ranks, no idea where the enemy and battle lay and were simply meandering the country's expanse. Connections to the rest of the troops had since been lost and all they knew was that there was hostility, war, death, and screaming somewhere in the distance, somewhere in this unmapped country. None had the courage to abandon their brothers or defect. They retained their tattered blue uniforms in hopes of joining with another group of soldiers and furthering the war effort, or perhaps in childish hopes of dying heroes, or perhaps, however unlikely it was, in hopes of returning home one day. But at the moment, such thoughts were but a distant echo, far out of mind.
Except for me. And she, that Sera, wherever she was, perhaps. The city folk had welcomed us in fear of our unloaded weapons. They fed us with heavy, angry hearts, housed us wearing faces distorted by disdain. This badly fabricated pretense of home may have been enough for some of the most desperate soldiers, but not me. The air here was clean and the sky blue, unlike my home, where everything in sight was heavily dusted with ashes of coal from the factories and of the dead, the air gray and thick, our ears inundated with the hoarse grisly coughing of the sick and dying. My older sister among them. But while my home was far from favorable, this was considerably worse.
I sat at a fountain in the middle of the city, scarfing down a loaf of bread that the baker had just about thrown at my face. (When the baker had retreated indoors, I threw curses at his door and spat on his front steps before running off.) I dipped my muddy hand into the fountain and cupped myself a drink. The fountain was mere ornamentation and certainly not built for consumption, and the taste of old coins was sharp on my tongue. The town was small and rural, its community close, and gossip spread like wildfire. I watched on, here in the middle of the city, as they spoke.
Has the war finally reached us? Shhh, be quiet--and don't look at them. They're bad men. Just look at those dead eyes. Must be stoned. Damn soldiers--all they think about is alcohol. I should poison the food and throw it to them. That'll drive them out. Get the hell out of our town you bloodthirsty bastards!
Et cetera.
I've noticed that the true reason, that we are searching for food because we're hungry, is an unpopular explanation among townsfolk. I'll admit we invaded this country perhaps too violently. We didn't know that the country had stripped itself of its military, and the people here may have given us what we needed if we had only politely asked. Of course, it was far too late to do so now. They had begun to fight back. Force was the only option available. So we used force.
As nighttime neared, I drew out my harmonica. My sister had given it to me before I left and instructed me to play it when the skies were clear and blue, that she'd find her way here through its melody to watch it with me. She was such a romantic. But I had to admit it was a nice story, and I fancied it was true from time to time, like how I sometimes fancy her recovering from her tuberculosis. So I played.
When night came, I felt a small hand tug at my trousers. "What is that? Do it again!" a little girl--no more than five years--asked me as spit flew from the gap in her front teeth.
I dropped my harmonica from my lips and chided her a bit. "Isn't it time for bed, little one?" Her grip grew tighter, and I feared that she would tear the worn fabric. I wasn't skilled at needlework. "Ah, I remember you. Your mother said I was a bad man, didn't she? Go away--go on home before your mother gets mad." It wasn't so much her I was worried about being scolded.
She sat herself next to me with all the childish pride of shameless disobedience. "Mom says that about everyone with clothes like yours. But no one's been mean to me. And they play with me!" Her voice sang to higher pitches with each word. "And my teachers say not to judge people by their clothes! Right?" I nodded absently, not actually sure what she was asking. "But now they're saying that's not true. Why?" She looked close to tears, and I couldn't comprehend why.
"Come on now, you're a big girl, so don't cry." I still didn't know what there was to cry over.
"I'm not crying!" she shrieked.
Ach. I didn't know how to do deal with crying children. That was something my sister did. I took my hat off and plopped it over her head, her curly red hair pulling up against the brim, and I handed her my harmonica. "Of course not. Here," I said, holding the harmonica to her lips, "try it for yourself. Hold it like this, and blow though here. There we go. You can change the sounds by folding your hand over--yes, just like that." I smiled at her as she played her whimsical cacophonic song. As the minutes slipped by, I began to worry. "Don't forget, it's not yours!" I reminded her. "I'll need this back later, ok?"
When she had grown bored of it, she pressed the harmonica into the palm of my hand. She stood up on the fountain's rim and clumsily reached to put my hat back on as well. As I adjusted it, she began to speak. "A lot of you bucket hat people have important things. Do you all walk around just carrying important things? Is that all you do? Is that your job? To carry important things?" She leaned forward, nearly stumbling into the fountain, pushing her weight into my sore shoulder (she was using it for balance) and just about yelling into my ear. I was wincing. "Mister? Who are you all anyway?"
I adjusted my hat and massaged my assaulted ear before I answered her. "A bunch of homeless travelers, I suppose." I had thought myself sagely for a moment, but then I called to mind one of the townsmen's superior words. "Or liquor hungry fiends, if you prefer. Your mother at least would appreciate that one more." I had to admit, it was mostly true.
FALSE CYCLE
======================================
"Kieden: Breaking shoes in"
Once I found myself at a submerged city. The stone brick buildings towered over the water, but only about one story over its surface. It was inhabited for quite some time, judging by the sheer height of the buildings, but it seemed the city had finally given up its fight against the rising sea. That, or, the city had succumbed to the war, any gruesome remnants washed clean away by the waves. Not that it mattered. I only thought that this would be a good place to rest. It was empty, uninteresting, free of dangers.
But I was wrong. There was one remaining resident: A little girl, about my age. I found her in a moldy room underwater, miraculously, not yet flooded, but it only barely withstood the weight and force of the water that beleaguered it. She wore a thin slip of a dress, and her wet black hair lay in twisting clumps about her tiny porcelain white shoulders. Her eyes gleamed from the little slit of sunlight that fell in from above. A broken staircase led up to the sunlight, but the girl remained fixed to her spot.
She asked for my name and thanked me for my presence. I gave it to her if only as a parting gift. Her name was Ophelia. She told me that she felt safest here, and refused to leave, and also that it was best that I left her there. I gestured toward the cracks and leaks in the wall, and warned her, half reprimanding. She nodded to me. Soon, yes, soon, she said to me. She squinted upward through the staircase and into the sun bright skies. Somewhere nearby, something cracked loudly. Quickly, she looked back down at me and muttered a goodbye, beckoning me to leave, smiling, hugging her knees close to her thin chest. And so I left.
The next day, the building had flooded and collapsed, its damaged walls having crumbled at last. I saw no signs of the girl. Well. Perhaps that was her corpse in the distance--or perhaps it was of another resident or not a corpse at all--but I'll never know. And I don't want to.
As I rolled my way out of the town, I felt something odd on the surface of my bike. My bike had begun to rust.
======================================
"Rustel: Sometimes, I fancy stories reach you also"
They happened to be posted near a city at the time. They rested and walked about, goofing off now and then, for a good while--crude and informal, of course, but that was not so unusual, save that they had no lieutenant among their ranks, no idea where the enemy and battle lay and were simply meandering the country's expanse. Connections to the rest of the troops had since been lost and all they knew was that there was hostility, war, death, and screaming somewhere in the distance, somewhere in this unmapped country. None had the courage to abandon their brothers or defect. They retained their tattered blue uniforms in hopes of joining with another group of soldiers and furthering the war effort, or perhaps in childish hopes of dying heroes, or perhaps, however unlikely it was, in hopes of returning home one day. But at the moment, such thoughts were but a distant echo, far out of mind.
Except for me. And she, that Sera, wherever she was, perhaps. The city folk had welcomed us in fear of our unloaded weapons. They fed us with heavy, angry hearts, housed us wearing faces distorted by disdain. This badly fabricated pretense of home may have been enough for some of the most desperate soldiers, but not me. The air here was clean and the sky blue, unlike my home, where everything in sight was heavily dusted with ashes of coal from the factories and of the dead, the air gray and thick, our ears inundated with the hoarse grisly coughing of the sick and dying. My older sister among them. But while my home was far from favorable, this was considerably worse.
I sat at a fountain in the middle of the city, scarfing down a loaf of bread that the baker had just about thrown at my face. (When the baker had retreated indoors, I threw curses at his door and spat on his front steps before running off.) I dipped my muddy hand into the fountain and cupped myself a drink. The fountain was mere ornamentation and certainly not built for consumption, and the taste of old coins was sharp on my tongue. The town was small and rural, its community close, and gossip spread like wildfire. I watched on, here in the middle of the city, as they spoke.
Has the war finally reached us? Shhh, be quiet--and don't look at them. They're bad men. Just look at those dead eyes. Must be stoned. Damn soldiers--all they think about is alcohol. I should poison the food and throw it to them. That'll drive them out. Get the hell out of our town you bloodthirsty bastards!
Et cetera.
I've noticed that the true reason, that we are searching for food because we're hungry, is an unpopular explanation among townsfolk. I'll admit we invaded this country perhaps too violently. We didn't know that the country had stripped itself of its military, and the people here may have given us what we needed if we had only politely asked. Of course, it was far too late to do so now. They had begun to fight back. Force was the only option available. So we used force.
As nighttime neared, I drew out my harmonica. My sister had given it to me before I left and instructed me to play it when the skies were clear and blue, that she'd find her way here through its melody to watch it with me. She was such a romantic. But I had to admit it was a nice story, and I fancied it was true from time to time, like how I sometimes fancy her recovering from her tuberculosis. So I played.
When night came, I felt a small hand tug at my trousers. "What is that? Do it again!" a little girl--no more than five years--asked me as spit flew from the gap in her front teeth.
I dropped my harmonica from my lips and chided her a bit. "Isn't it time for bed, little one?" Her grip grew tighter, and I feared that she would tear the worn fabric. I wasn't skilled at needlework. "Ah, I remember you. Your mother said I was a bad man, didn't she? Go away--go on home before your mother gets mad." It wasn't so much her I was worried about being scolded.
She sat herself next to me with all the childish pride of shameless disobedience. "Mom says that about everyone with clothes like yours. But no one's been mean to me. And they play with me!" Her voice sang to higher pitches with each word. "And my teachers say not to judge people by their clothes! Right?" I nodded absently, not actually sure what she was asking. "But now they're saying that's not true. Why?" She looked close to tears, and I couldn't comprehend why.
"Come on now, you're a big girl, so don't cry." I still didn't know what there was to cry over.
"I'm not crying!" she shrieked.
Ach. I didn't know how to do deal with crying children. That was something my sister did. I took my hat off and plopped it over her head, her curly red hair pulling up against the brim, and I handed her my harmonica. "Of course not. Here," I said, holding the harmonica to her lips, "try it for yourself. Hold it like this, and blow though here. There we go. You can change the sounds by folding your hand over--yes, just like that." I smiled at her as she played her whimsical cacophonic song. As the minutes slipped by, I began to worry. "Don't forget, it's not yours!" I reminded her. "I'll need this back later, ok?"
When she had grown bored of it, she pressed the harmonica into the palm of my hand. She stood up on the fountain's rim and clumsily reached to put my hat back on as well. As I adjusted it, she began to speak. "A lot of you bucket hat people have important things. Do you all walk around just carrying important things? Is that all you do? Is that your job? To carry important things?" She leaned forward, nearly stumbling into the fountain, pushing her weight into my sore shoulder (she was using it for balance) and just about yelling into my ear. I was wincing. "Mister? Who are you all anyway?"
I adjusted my hat and massaged my assaulted ear before I answered her. "A bunch of homeless travelers, I suppose." I had thought myself sagely for a moment, but then I called to mind one of the townsmen's superior words. "Or liquor hungry fiends, if you prefer. Your mother at least would appreciate that one more." I had to admit, it was mostly true.
