what a wonderful thing

Distant shores

2008-02-07T00:39:55Z

Another all_unwritten prompt, since that's more or less all I'm writing lately.

She liked to think that one day she would head off for distant shores. She would learn about the world -- not the way tourists do, although of course she'd see the Louvre and the Pyramids and maybe make a silent, solemn visit to Buchenwald -- but by living there, in that elsewhere, for a month or a year or however long it took to understand something.

She would go to South Africa and see if Apartheid had ever really been lifted. She would go to Germany and see the difference between a little farming village and the bustle of Cologne, where she would have to guard her pockets against thieves even in the cathedral. She would work backstage in the West End.

Not today. Today she sat on the couch with a bowl of macaroni and cheese and a geography textbook studying maps. Someday, though, she thought, and drew a red circle around Pretoria.

"Look at us lying here, dreaming, pretending"

2008-02-05T02:19:46Z

Another from all_unwritten.

They've been over for a while, but on bad days she still calls and asks to come over. They watch bad movies and eat frozen cookie dough out of the tube. She still lays her head in his lap, and he runs his fingers through her hair, which is frizzy lately from the wet winter but still feels soft.

Every so often she'll admit that she still misses him, and he says he misses her too. Then they hurry to agree that even so, it's better this way, that going back now wouldn't change anything. They are quiet a while, and then he starts making fun of the movie's dialogue to distract them both from thinking about it, and she laughs even though her eyes are wet and her throat is trying to close up. He doesn't say anything when he notices, but makes her sit up so he can massage her back, as if the hurting could be rubbed out like the tension she always carries in her neck and shoulders.

She still spends the night, although now she sleeps in the guest bedroom downstairs. He kisses her goodnight -- on the forehead instead of the lips now.

Maybe the boundaries aren't drawn as thick and solid as they should be (pencil instead of ink.) Maybe they're too close. Maybe if she saw them his girlfriend wouldn't like it, even though they're so, so careful not to let their touches stray anywhere they oughtn't, even though at parties when she is not there they are careful not to drink too much for fear they will forget and crawl into bed together.

Maybe they are still a little bit in love.

But it's okay.

No one needs to know.

. . . The subject matter of my writing is all a wee bit too similar lately. :/ Oh well. They say to write what you know, right?

Yet more from all_unwritten

2008-01-31T23:25:15Z

Today's prompt:

Take an emotion, any emotion (ex: anger, sadness, happiness, lust, jealousy), and turn it into a fictional character. What you do with that character is up to you.

She liked him sincerely, even the bad things about him, because they were him. Said it didn't matter that he was stupid sometimes because it was a kind of stupid she understood. Mostly, though, she saw the good. She believed in it. When he stopped teasing and spoke seriously, she would smile even wider, glad to hear what was in his head.

When she got angry, which was rarely, it was almost frightening -- the sort of bright, flashing anger that didn't know quite where it had come from or where it was going and was furious because of it. But later she would apologize even if it was his fault, not hers. She would try to understand, and then she'd say, "You're still wrong, but I get why you think so. I'm sorry I yelled. That wasn't fair."

She would come over even if she didn't want to see him and twine her body with his, trying to close the distance which hurt them both so much. She would press her face into his shoulder and when she was done crying she would laugh at his stupid jokes and kiss him, glad to be close again. She was always glad to see him, even when she was angry. Even when she was hurt.

When she was pleased to see him she would kiss him without reason. She would let him touch her face and she'd like it, even though she said a thousand times hands on her face make her skin crawl. She would fall asleep holding his hand.

Every time he sees her he remembers.

He's a little afraid of not being loved like that again.

more from all_unwritten

2008-01-26T22:12:52Z

- I was too afraid to speak up. All I could do was curl close and take your hand in mine and hope you understood.

- I couldn't stop laughing. "What's so funny?" you asked. It isn't funny, I was thinking. It's just wonderful. But I couldn't stop laughing, and if I could have the words would have scrambled out of reach. All I could do was laugh some more and kiss you.

- Winter chill and anger and hurt made my breath catch in my throat. "No, I'm fine," I said, and it was all I could do to keep my voice steady. "Cold and drunk and tired, that's all."

- "Oh. Well, if that's what you want, I guess that's -- that's what you should do." It was all I could do to keep from arguing.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it is. Are we okay?"

"Yeah. Yeah, sure, of course we are."

And I hung up the phone before it slipped from my shaking fingers.

- It was all I could do to keep from twining myself into your arms, burying my face in your chest and staying there until the ache faded away. I propped my head on my knees instead, wrapped my arms tight around my legs and thanked god my eyes were dry. Then you hugged me and I dissolved, love and laughter and anger and pain all uncontained.

There was nothing I could do, and I was glad.

She went North seeking silence.

In the city she fell asleep to traffic sounds. She woke in the odd hours of the morning to hear college students stumbling home drunk, dropping their keys in the hallway outside their apartments. She lay in a haze until her alarm went off, insisting it was time to force herself out of bed and get to work.

In the city her days were filled with traffic sounds and shouting and laughter from the street below. She scribbled down snatches of conversation, but they never looked as interesting on paper, so she threw them away. The phone rang, again and again -- old friends wanting to catch up mother wanting her to find a boyfriend father wanting her to find a real job publisher wanting her to finish the book.

She drove away heading North one day, adding hers to all the traffic sounds. It would be quiet in the wilderness. There would be silence, and she could write.

The first night she fell asleep to the sounds of owls. She woke in the odd hours of the morning to a banging crashing fearsome noise, and lay in bed with her eyes shut tight hoping it was nothing horrible. When the squabbling of birds made it clear she would never fall back asleep, she went outside to find her trash can overturned, probably by some animal in the night.

There was no such thing as silence. That night she packed to the sounds of owls. In the odd hours of the morning, she drove back South towards the city. The traffic sounds made her feel welcome.

a prompt from all_unwritten

2008-01-21T23:57:59Z

A look, a laugh, a smile that lingered. A hug (held on too long.)

A drink, a drink, a drink, a kiss -- a drink, a drink, a drink, that's how it happened it was not supposed to happen it will not again happen, no need to tell.

A summer away, no more of you and her. I wonder, did you tell her? Did you tell her? Did you tell?

A couch, a smile (shy,) a hand on a thigh, sliding skirt high and then -- oh, your hand holding my hand pinned up over my head and a kiss bruising-sweet, your whisper of stay -- that's how it happened, I was glad that it happened, would it happen again?

And again?

And again?

"So what's your secret? The secret of unconditional love?"

2007-04-26T18:24:05Z

Title: Unconditional Love
Fandom: Love! Valour! Compassion!
Characters: James Jeckyll, John Jeckyll, Catherine Jeckyll.
Summary: Two very different coming-out stories. I don't know where the characterization of their mother came from, honestly. She's not meant to be passive-aggressive, though I'm afraid she comes off that way in the second. She just doesn't know how to respond to John, I think. XD These were originally going to be longer, and there were going to be other Incidents, but I've decided to leave them as is.

James
1970

"Mum," he said, watching the white linen billow out as she lay it on the bed of the spare room. She'd always had difficulty with that. Catherine Jeckyll was a small woman, and he could see the strain as her arms stretched wide and she held on to the corners with her fingertips.

"Mm?" She reached for a pillowcase.

He took it from her, hoping to put his nervous hands to work. There were twining ivy vines at the edge of each case, and he remembered watching her stitch them, years ago. "I think it's time I told you something."

She looked up at that, one neat eyebrow raised. He looked down at the ivy again. "What I mean to say is that I -- that is, I'm --"

A pause, and then she laughed. She laughed for quite some time, and then, at last -- "Oh, darling, I know that."

"You do?"

"Of course I do." She shook her head and reached for the quilt. "You simply can't fit actors for costumes at the Vic as long as I did without learning what an old-fashioned nancy looks like, luv."

"And you don't mind?"

"You're my son," she said simply.

John
1973

She listened, a pin from her sewing still poking out the corner of her mouth, as he said what he had wanted to say for so long -- what, he was aware, somewhere in the back of his mind, his brother hadn't had to say. When he'd finished, she took the pin out out and neatly stuck it through the fabric, checking to make certain the line was straight.

"Well?" he said, impatient.

She glanced up, shrugged, stuck in another pin. Her smile was wistful, her voice soft. "I suppose I won't be having grandchildren after all."

endofastring @ 2006-05-04T22:15:00

2006-05-05T03:15:42Z

Because I'm too much of a wuss to post it on contrelamontre. It's based off of this challenge, but I'm just going to post it here.

Characters: Dorian Gray, Adrian Singleton
Words: 317, because I'm lazy

It was torture, Adrian thought, this game of smirk-smiles and sly touches over drinks and after dinner in Darlington's ornate dining room, the men around the table yet while the women had adjourned, chat turning to politics, then scandal, and then the absent females. Dorian Gray poured himself another glass of wine, and it was impossible to keep eyes focused on the face of their host, or even on the elegant hand on the delicate stem of the glass, not with wine reddening already scarlet lips.

“--don't you think, Singleton?” Darlington, by the clipped extra emphasis and the arch of his brow, had apparently been talking for some time. ('Not that it's unusual,' Gray would say later. 'He does go on.')

“Who?”

“Eleanor Markby.”

Singleton downed the rest of his own glass quickly, mouth suddenly dry. “Oh. Yes, she's-- quite lovely, isn't she?”

Darlington laughed. “Lovely? A girl like Eleanor Markby, Singleton, ought to be enough to make even you think about marriage.”

His face was burning, and he could only hope it would be attributed to too much wine.

“I daresay it isn't marriage Eleanor Markby makes most men think of,” said Dorian, lightly, and the murmur of agreement proved an effective distraction for their host, who found it a delightful segue for a ribald joke.

Dorian smiled faintly, and it was impossible not to think of-- “Cigarette?”

“Thank you.” The smile broadened. ('Sometimes,' Adrian had once told him, 'I think you like my company simply because you know you could ruin me with the right glance in the wrong place.')

Dorian's lips, still wet with wine, left a faint rose-colored stain on the white paper. Adrian lit another match, watching the flame burn nearly to the tips of his fingers in hopes of distracting himself. It didn't work. Later, in the dark of the hansom, he said, “You're dreadful,” and pulled Dorian close.

Lingering, Disappearing

2005-12-29T03:04:20Z

Fandom: The Picture of Dorian Gray
Characters: Alan Campbell, Dorian Gray, Basil Hallward (corpse of)
Notes: It's in dire need of editing. Also, apparently I can't write about him without writing about his suicide. :/

“The dead linger sometimes. The man upstairs will not go away.”

In Alan Campbell's experience, there were few things that could not be gotten rid of. The man upstairs had, after several hours of work, quite vanished. The only remnants were the sharp smell of nitric acid and a small burn on the back of Alan's hand.

The burn had occurred after two hours of work. Two hours of careful composure interrupted suddenly by the dead man's hand, shifted somehow, sliding off the edge of the table. At the sight, his own hands shook and, fearful of spilling the beaker of acid he held, he moved to set it on the table. A splash hit his hand, and he stared for a moment, wondering if the dead man's flesh would burn as his, if he would feel the chemicals working on his skin. He took a handkerchief from his pocket, pressed it to his hand. The dead, of course, could not feel.

He had seen the dead man about town before. Had seen him with Dorian-- with Gray, once or twice. Had seen Gray's casual cruelty at work (the smiles and the light touches, meaningful, meaningless.) He wondered, watching the terrible process, checking the destructive progress of the chemicals, had the dead man ever felt a hand on his shoulder as he sat at a piano, lips too close to his ear-- (“You are such a very dear friend to me, you know. You and I are quite alike. There is no one in the world so much alike.”)

When it was done, he sat for a long time, back against the wall, waiting for his hands to steady and his mind to be clear. Then he gathered his materials, and left.

It was quietly done. The dead man was gone. The letter was gone, never to be sent unless Dorian someday entangled himself in another matter of life and death. (“Oh!”-- warm breath, too close, the hand now at the back of his neck-- “anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often.”)

A week passed, and then two, and the burn healed to a small, red scar at the juncture of the hand and index finger. To visitors, he was out. Invitations were met with excuses-- he was not well. He was not himself. He spent days cleaning his laboratory. The housekeeper had long ago learned to leave it alone-- there was a particular order that had to be kept, one that was simply known, and could not be taught. Halfway through the second week there was nothing left to clean and he took to pacing the house. He stared at the pictures on the walls, examining the beauty he had never cared for. He liked them even less these days. He ran his hands over the keys of the piano in the music room-- it had been kept covered these past five years, untouched. He played a few notes, hearing them come clumsy and out-of-tune, remembered his fingers, startled, slipping on the keys five years before.

His most brilliant scientific achievement had not taken place in a laboratory, and it would never appear in any of the scientific journals that had noted his name previously. He had made a man disappear, a feat more magic than science.

He was not the sort of man to create magic. That was the province of smiling young men-- boys, really-- with blue eyes and red lips that preferred words that had to be whispered. He remembered the promise of magic from lips too close to his own. (“I feel, Alan, that we were destined to know each other.”)

Dorian Gray would not disappear. The scar on the back of his hand, small and red, would not disappear. He felt the memory of lips forming a smile against his own. He felt the memory of acid burning his skin.

The dead, of course, could not feel.

endofastring @ 2005-11-07T19:23:00

2005-11-08T01:25:37Z

Still no NaNo idea, but here's a bit of random writing from a couple of days ago. It probably can't be expanded, and it ends rather abrubtly, but we'll see.

He looks relaxed even driving eighty miles an hour, his seat leaned so far back he is practically lying down. A bandanna hides all but a few strands of pale blond hair, and an herbal cigarette dangles from one corner of his mouth.

He takes it in hand, releasing a long breath, and lets the thick smoke trail out the window. Cold air blows in, tangling Eva's hair and making her breath come haltingly, shallowly. She slouches down in her seat a little, pulling her coat close around her. Her gloves are the cheap kind your parents buy you as a kid because you'd lose the good ones, thin knit things that do nothing at all to warm your hands. She's seventeen now, andshe still loses all the good ones, and in a day or two she'll probably lose these, too.

It hasn't snowed yet, but the leaves are all gone, leaving trees with silhouettes like scarecrows. The grass is green yet, but faded, drab, sharp with frost.

There is a feeling all through autumn and winter like you can't quite catch your breath. There is a wetness in your lungs, though your lips grow dry, and crack, and bleed. The shortening days fill you with dread, like before the month is out you'll have only an instant of sunlight-- a light like a wink-- and then not even that.

endofastring @ 2005-10-17T18:54:00

2005-10-17T23:54:21Z

The serving girl is wide eyed as she ties the noose and knots the rope to the rafter. The queen would send her away, do it herself, seeing the girl tremble so, but she cannot because there is blood on her hands and they are too slippery to manage the rope. The girl washes them for her, gently, with a cloth and perfumed water. The queen watches and seems placated and even smiles. She has been scrubbing them for so long, clawing at caked-on blood, and with no result. It stains the water, dark and foul-smelling, but at least she can see her own skin now. When the blood is gone, the girl dries her hands for her, gently, gently, hands shaking still, and curtsies, and hovers waiting to be dismissed. The queen looks at her own white hands. She rubs them together, loving the new cleanness, and tells the girl to go.

She stands then, and climbs onto the stool, and is satisfied when the rope doesn't slip in her hands anymore. She's already killed a king. Now she will kill a queen, and this time there will be no blood.

endofastring @ 2005-10-10T16:03:00

2005-10-10T21:16:19Z

I've decided to try to write at least a little every day in preparation for NaNo-ing, and to hopefully write things that will contribute to my actually having some idea of what I'm doing, come November, so here's the result of today's efforts. Actually, I wrote three pages, but 2 1/2 of them sucked. And this . . . I don't know what this is, but it sucks marginally less, anyhow. These characters probably are getting tossed, and I probably don't want to write about theatrical people (I have enough trouble being one, I don't need to have new fictional ones living in my head) but at least I wrote something.

Actors, Emily thinks, live in a heightened reality.

Ilse is sprawled dramatically across the overstuffed chair, skirt creeping up above her argyle knee-highs. Her hair is carefully tousled, and she observes the world from beneath lowered lashes, head cocked at just the right angle to shadow her eyes. She looks like a photograph, a head shot of herself.

It isn't that they aren't themselves, Emily thinks. They're more themselves than real people. This is Ilse, all the fluttering-hands indecision and "ums" and "wells" cut away to make a defined characterization. Directors, Emily thinks, are always pushing actors further. "It's down here-- it needs to be up here." Actors get used to living up here.

Even now, Ilse's exhaustion is exaggerated. It's not quite real, or it's realer-than-real, and despite all her lazy glamour her lips are bitten beneath her glossy red lipstick, and her sleepy eyes keep sparking with some bright thought she can't quite hide. Still, her legs are stretched further out on the footrest than seems natural, although of course it always seems natural with her. People aren't clean-cut like Ilse, Emily thinks. They aren't precise even in their ambiguities, decisively indecisive, or firmly meek, like Ilse is-- if Ilse is ever meek.

It must be exhausting, living like that. Emily thinks of the loveliness of listlessness, of how purely wonderful it is to be diffused, unsure, unimportant and undecided from time to time. To not know how it is you feel. She is relieved not to be constantly the essence of a person. She is relieved that when she crosses her arms and legs she is not sitting in a "closed" posture, only sitting, and that she is not wearing black to match her state of mind-- her mood today is, if anything, tangerine. She likes wearing her long hair neatly tied back, and not having it fall strategically over one eye. It must be so tiring being as intensely mellow as Ilse.

When Ilse drifts off into a sleep that does not look at all restful, Emily opens a book and is glad to have no audience.

... aaand, the little bits of repetition in there I was attempting to use didn't really work. Oops.

endofastring @ 2005-10-09T20:50:00

2005-10-10T01:49:25Z

Yes, folks, I've given in and created a NaNo journal. "I" being jiasachan .

Expect lackofwriting. I'm terribly unproductive.