Dustin McTavish (a.k.a. Median) has the worst hangover of his entire life, which is saying something, considering the sort of crowd he hangs with. It might have been all right if he'd been able to sleep in this morning, but they'd agreed to get on the road by 9:00 in order to make the most of the day. And did the sun have to be so godawful bright and... sunny? He aims a reproachful look at Inri, lounging across most of the other side of the booth in the full sunlight like a big hippie cat. Not that she's to blame for the sunshine, or his hangover. That's entirely his fault, so he puts on his darkest shades, knocks back a couple of ibuprofen with the biggest glass of OJ the pancake house can provide, and decides to be a man and suck it up. Chalk it up to a "learning experience" - the lesson being to avoid volunteering for the first driving shift if he planned to get ripped the day before a road trip.
After a couple of hours on the road, the thumping in his head has relocated to the stereo, where it blends nicely into Phenex's Underworld remix he's been working on all week. Reptile boy's joined Inri in the back of the Machina Mysterium where, by the sound of things, they're both cheerfully sleeping off the aftereffects of the party. Damned if he knows how a skinny-ass guy like Phenex can snore like that.
He's just thinking how fragging dull most of Texas outside of Austin is when he narrowly misses running down the girl standing halfway off the shoulder. She doesn't stick out her thumb or anything, but he stops about 50 feet ahead of her and backs up anyway. She's still standing there when Dustin walks up to her. She doesn't look injured, but she doesn't react until he's standing right in front of her, his shadow falling across her vacant, unseeing eyes.
* * * * * * * *
I started walking. Managed to make the coffee last until it started to get light, then started in on the donuts, stopping briefly at another gas station to use the bathroom, buy a bottle of water, and wash up. By the time the sun was completely up, I had blisters on both feet and was wishing I'd bought two bottles. Or maybe some sunscreen.
I thought about trying to hitch a ride, but Mom had told me to be careful. I'd heard just enough urban legends and cautionary tales to know that girls who hitchhiked were just asking for whatever horrible fate ended up befalling them in the stories. There were all kinds of godless perverts and murderers out there, and...
About then it finally sunk in that my father and his deacons had probably killed Wayne. My dad was a murderer. And I didn't even know how or why he did it. It was starting to get hazy - I just remembered him reading the Bible and blood dripping down Wayne's face, but the rest of it... I started to wonder if I'd just had a bad dream, sleeping in front of the TV at Vivian's house. Maybe I was still dreaming.
And suddenly, it got dark, and I felt hands on my shoulders, shaking me slightly.
"Hey... hey kid, are you okay?"
He didn't look much like a godless pervert or serial killer, especially not once he took off the dark sunglasses. As soon as I looked up at him he let go of my shoulders and stepped back carefully, giving me a small, unthreatening smile.
"You look like you could do with a bit of shade and a more efficient means of transport. Want a lift? We can take you as far as Frisco if you don't mind spending a couple of weeks in Nevada first. Swear to gods we're not freaky UFO hunters..."
And for a moment everything got really quiet, like the whole world was holding its breath, waiting to see what I'd do. It was kind of scary, and when I opened my mouth to take a deep breath I breathed in some road dust and started coughing so hard I nearly fell over. His pale grey eyes narrowed in concern and he started thumping my back until I finally recovered.
"That sounds like a better idea than anything I've come up with all night," I finally wheezed out, and he grinned and helped me into the back of the van.
26.2.07
They Were All in Love With Dying (Mage)
I saw flames without heat, and animals that swirled and passed through each other like smoke, and blood creeping along the concrete floor towards the door. I heard howls and snarls and above it my father's voice, chanting passages from the Bible and something else in a language I didn't recognize, in a voice that shook the ground under my feet like thunder. There was the smell of smoke, and dead skunk, and something sharp like air scorched by lightning. The hair stood up on the back of my neck and along my arms, prickling through my t-shirt.
I think he saw me. Not my dad - Wayne. He looked up and sort of smiled, even with the blood running down his face from his nose and the corners of his mouth.
That's when I started running. Ran to the car and turned the key and drove off without the faintest idea where I was going other than away. Drove until fatigue started edging into the fear, pulled into a truck stop, bought coffee and food and a packet of caffeine pills, and was about to leave again when I realized that if I had his car, he could find me. That, and I still didn't know where I was going, but I couldn't go back after that. I still don't know if anyone in town found out what had happened. Even the Coombes. Maybe Vivian and her parents woke up the next morning and forgot they even had a brother or a son. Or if they did, maybe Dad would have just said that the demon left Wayne, but the process of driving it out killed him. I really didn't know.
I think he saw me. Not my dad - Wayne. He looked up and sort of smiled, even with the blood running down his face from his nose and the corners of his mouth.
That's when I started running. Ran to the car and turned the key and drove off without the faintest idea where I was going other than away. Drove until fatigue started edging into the fear, pulled into a truck stop, bought coffee and food and a packet of caffeine pills, and was about to leave again when I realized that if I had his car, he could find me. That, and I still didn't know where I was going, but I couldn't go back after that. I still don't know if anyone in town found out what had happened. Even the Coombes. Maybe Vivian and her parents woke up the next morning and forgot they even had a brother or a son. Or if they did, maybe Dad would have just said that the demon left Wayne, but the process of driving it out killed him. I really didn't know.
21.2.07
Black, White, Red
I think I had someone else's dreams last night. Nobody I recognized was in them, and the general thematic content, while sharing a few features with my usual fare, (there's almost always a war or revolution going on, for example) was sufficiently different that it just felt like I was along for the ride instead of being an active participant.
1. Setting: The dream starts run-down loft apartment in a large, anonymous city, or possibly The City, near some elevated train tracks. The main room is long, but not particularly wide, with floor-to-ceiling windows along the longest wall, streaked with grime, soot, and a fair amount of pigeon shit. There are pizza boxes and half-empty pop bottles littering the floor and the dumpster-grade furniture. There is a table in the middle of the room consisting of a door laid across stacked-up milk crates - on the table are a couple of overflowing ashtrays, a ziploc baggie full of dried mushrooms, and, incongruously, an opened velvet pouch with rubies spilling out onto the table.
Features: The reason I know they're rubies is that everything else is in black and white, but the stones are blood red. I don't know what I look like, as there are no mirrors and the windows aren't reflecting enough light to see myself in them. I seem to be a fair bit taller though. As this is not a lucid dream, it doesn't occur to me to look at my hands.
Events: There is a young man here. I don't recognize him. At first he's got darkish skin and a severe buzz-cut, but then he sort of reaches up to peel off his face and it's a guy with blond hair and trendy sunglasses. He gives me this knowing smirk and says something, but I can't hear him over the train and the rising sound of shouting, gunfire, and breaking glass from the street below. I get the impression that we need to leave relatively quickly though. His sister is in the other room, so I go to get her.
This is where it gets significantly creepier. The room's a lot bigger than you'd expect from the layout of the apartment, but what really ices the cake is the fact that the room is full of dead, dying, or panicked livestock of various species. The sister is sitting on the back of a large cow that she's just stabbed in the neck with a scalpel. She's covered in blood (again, the only colour in the scene) and so is the floor. She's wearing a long, old-fashioned white nightgown and her hair is all frizzy and wild like she just got out of bed. She looks crazy, and I don't know how I'm going to get her out of here without her taking a swipe at me with the scalpel. That, and I think I'm going to be sick from the noise and the smell, not to mention the sight of all these animals. She hasn't been doing a particularly good job killing them, so they're mostly just slowly bleeding to death.
[CUTS TO]
2. Setting: It's late at night in the countryside - fields and a windbreak of trees on the other side of a ditch. There's a wrecked car in the ditch with an emergency crew clustered around it. I'm approaching another car which looks relatively unharmed. There's a girl huddled in the back seat (not the sister in the first scene).
Features: I appear to be a cop in this one, or at least I just got out of a police car and have on a uniform and an assortment of standard police accoutrements hanging from my belt. I have no idea what the hell is going on or why I'm here though.
Events: When I open the back door of the car, the girl screams that she's been abducted. For a second the point of view changes so that I'm her, and I know I'm lying, but not why. Then the perspective switches back and I help her out of the car and over to an ambulance, where the paramedics are waiting with a blanket and a styrofoam cup of coffee. She's wearing a baggy blue jumpsuit, which almost looks like standard convict wear. She doesn't have any shoes, and that and the fact that the jumpsuit is way too big for her makes me think she's probably telling the truth.
[CUT TO]
Damn it. I've forgotten most of the rest. I remember the third part took place in an old-fashioned prison, almost like what I suspect the inside of the Tower of London probably looked like when it was still being used as a prison. I was locked up with a bunch of other people, apparently indefinitely as we were considered some manner of threat to society. The girl from the second part was supposed to be helping to break us out, but I'm not sure what the plan was. Damn.
1. Setting: The dream starts run-down loft apartment in a large, anonymous city, or possibly The City, near some elevated train tracks. The main room is long, but not particularly wide, with floor-to-ceiling windows along the longest wall, streaked with grime, soot, and a fair amount of pigeon shit. There are pizza boxes and half-empty pop bottles littering the floor and the dumpster-grade furniture. There is a table in the middle of the room consisting of a door laid across stacked-up milk crates - on the table are a couple of overflowing ashtrays, a ziploc baggie full of dried mushrooms, and, incongruously, an opened velvet pouch with rubies spilling out onto the table.
Features: The reason I know they're rubies is that everything else is in black and white, but the stones are blood red. I don't know what I look like, as there are no mirrors and the windows aren't reflecting enough light to see myself in them. I seem to be a fair bit taller though. As this is not a lucid dream, it doesn't occur to me to look at my hands.
Events: There is a young man here. I don't recognize him. At first he's got darkish skin and a severe buzz-cut, but then he sort of reaches up to peel off his face and it's a guy with blond hair and trendy sunglasses. He gives me this knowing smirk and says something, but I can't hear him over the train and the rising sound of shouting, gunfire, and breaking glass from the street below. I get the impression that we need to leave relatively quickly though. His sister is in the other room, so I go to get her.
This is where it gets significantly creepier. The room's a lot bigger than you'd expect from the layout of the apartment, but what really ices the cake is the fact that the room is full of dead, dying, or panicked livestock of various species. The sister is sitting on the back of a large cow that she's just stabbed in the neck with a scalpel. She's covered in blood (again, the only colour in the scene) and so is the floor. She's wearing a long, old-fashioned white nightgown and her hair is all frizzy and wild like she just got out of bed. She looks crazy, and I don't know how I'm going to get her out of here without her taking a swipe at me with the scalpel. That, and I think I'm going to be sick from the noise and the smell, not to mention the sight of all these animals. She hasn't been doing a particularly good job killing them, so they're mostly just slowly bleeding to death.
[CUTS TO]
2. Setting: It's late at night in the countryside - fields and a windbreak of trees on the other side of a ditch. There's a wrecked car in the ditch with an emergency crew clustered around it. I'm approaching another car which looks relatively unharmed. There's a girl huddled in the back seat (not the sister in the first scene).
Features: I appear to be a cop in this one, or at least I just got out of a police car and have on a uniform and an assortment of standard police accoutrements hanging from my belt. I have no idea what the hell is going on or why I'm here though.
Events: When I open the back door of the car, the girl screams that she's been abducted. For a second the point of view changes so that I'm her, and I know I'm lying, but not why. Then the perspective switches back and I help her out of the car and over to an ambulance, where the paramedics are waiting with a blanket and a styrofoam cup of coffee. She's wearing a baggy blue jumpsuit, which almost looks like standard convict wear. She doesn't have any shoes, and that and the fact that the jumpsuit is way too big for her makes me think she's probably telling the truth.
[CUT TO]
Damn it. I've forgotten most of the rest. I remember the third part took place in an old-fashioned prison, almost like what I suspect the inside of the Tower of London probably looked like when it was still being used as a prison. I was locked up with a bunch of other people, apparently indefinitely as we were considered some manner of threat to society. The girl from the second part was supposed to be helping to break us out, but I'm not sure what the plan was. Damn.
20.2.07
Sad Eyes, Crooked Crosses (Mage)
The summer I turned 16, we moved to a no-account little town called Gerberville about an hour outside of Lubbock. Dad had been offered a job with an evangelical Christian show which broadcast out of a surprisingly sophisticated studio in an even more lavishly-appointed church which was the dominant feature (and primary employer) of the town. The steeple was visible from 30 miles away on a clear day, and at sunrise the glass roof shone like a sheet of holy fire, which I'm sure was the intended effect. Gold Key Ministries also ran Gerberville's only school and the town library, which effectively meant that my junior year science class was a complete waste of time.
Honestly, it was comfortable, and because GKM was focused on encouraging donations as well as saving souls, Dad had to tone down the threats of hell a fair bit for his live sermons. I could have easily just let the 24/7 indoctrination wash over me, gone to a community college to acquire the skills I'd need to be a suitable "helpmeet" for the nice Aryan seminary student I'd end up marrying and having a pile of children for. You think I'm being facetious, but I assure you that had the seriously bad shit not happened, that's exactly what I'd have done, and probably been completely content doing it, in a not-thinking-about-it-much, cowlike sort of way.
A few weeks before I was due to start senior year, one of the local parishoners called and asked Dad to come out to do a "healing". Mr. Coombe was a well-regarded member of the community and a generous contributor to the ministry, so of course Dad agreed to pay a visit. I went along because I was friends (in that superficial way that high-school kids in a Stepford-esque community are friends) with their daughter, Vivian. When we arrived, though, it was pretty obvious that this wasn't just Mrs. Coombe's arthritis acting up. Mr. Coombe looked like he hadn't slept, and Mrs. Coombe and Viv both had red, puffy eyes like they'd been crying for a long time.
I didn't even know Viv had a brother, but I guess Wayne was going to school at U of T in Austin and had just come home for the weekend. He was acting really weird and scary when he came back, so Mr. Coombe thought he had a demon. Honestly, I don't believe in demons - I figured he was probably on drugs or something. But when Dad went into Wayne's bedroom, he was making these weird animal noises, and it smelled like the time we went on vacation to Yellowstone and Dad accidentally hit a skunk with the camper. He was only in there for a few minutes with Wayne, and when he came out he wouldn't say anything to the Coombes; he just went downstairs and made a few calls, and about half an hour later a bunch of the deacons from Gold Key showed up, looking all grim and severe. Dad asked Mr. Coombe if they could use the garage because he didn't know how long the healing would take, and he didn't want to keep people awake.
The Coombes invited me to stay with them for dinner, and I don't think anyone said more than a dozen words for the next couple of hours. Mrs. Coombe took some sleeping pills and went to bed, and Viv and I stayed up watching TV while her dad pretended to read the Bible, even though he never turned a page from the time he opened it until he went to bed. Then Vivian said she was going to bed, and I was left just sitting by myself in front of the TV. I thought it was kind of strange that none of them acted like they even wanted to go out to the garage to see how things were going, but then maybe they figured that Dad needed privacy to do the Lord's work. Curiosity was just eating me up though, so I turned off all the lights and snuck over to the garage to look in the window.
Honestly, it was comfortable, and because GKM was focused on encouraging donations as well as saving souls, Dad had to tone down the threats of hell a fair bit for his live sermons. I could have easily just let the 24/7 indoctrination wash over me, gone to a community college to acquire the skills I'd need to be a suitable "helpmeet" for the nice Aryan seminary student I'd end up marrying and having a pile of children for. You think I'm being facetious, but I assure you that had the seriously bad shit not happened, that's exactly what I'd have done, and probably been completely content doing it, in a not-thinking-about-it-much, cowlike sort of way.
A few weeks before I was due to start senior year, one of the local parishoners called and asked Dad to come out to do a "healing". Mr. Coombe was a well-regarded member of the community and a generous contributor to the ministry, so of course Dad agreed to pay a visit. I went along because I was friends (in that superficial way that high-school kids in a Stepford-esque community are friends) with their daughter, Vivian. When we arrived, though, it was pretty obvious that this wasn't just Mrs. Coombe's arthritis acting up. Mr. Coombe looked like he hadn't slept, and Mrs. Coombe and Viv both had red, puffy eyes like they'd been crying for a long time.
I didn't even know Viv had a brother, but I guess Wayne was going to school at U of T in Austin and had just come home for the weekend. He was acting really weird and scary when he came back, so Mr. Coombe thought he had a demon. Honestly, I don't believe in demons - I figured he was probably on drugs or something. But when Dad went into Wayne's bedroom, he was making these weird animal noises, and it smelled like the time we went on vacation to Yellowstone and Dad accidentally hit a skunk with the camper. He was only in there for a few minutes with Wayne, and when he came out he wouldn't say anything to the Coombes; he just went downstairs and made a few calls, and about half an hour later a bunch of the deacons from Gold Key showed up, looking all grim and severe. Dad asked Mr. Coombe if they could use the garage because he didn't know how long the healing would take, and he didn't want to keep people awake.
The Coombes invited me to stay with them for dinner, and I don't think anyone said more than a dozen words for the next couple of hours. Mrs. Coombe took some sleeping pills and went to bed, and Viv and I stayed up watching TV while her dad pretended to read the Bible, even though he never turned a page from the time he opened it until he went to bed. Then Vivian said she was going to bed, and I was left just sitting by myself in front of the TV. I thought it was kind of strange that none of them acted like they even wanted to go out to the garage to see how things were going, but then maybe they figured that Dad needed privacy to do the Lord's work. Curiosity was just eating me up though, so I turned off all the lights and snuck over to the garage to look in the window.
7.2.07
Sleeping is Giving In (Mage)
Dear Diary,
I've decided to dispense with the fiction that I'm talking to anyone other than myself. If I'm going crazy anyway, I'm not going to sweat the minor detail of pretending that this is of interest or concern to anyone else, but... honestly, this shit is affecting my work. And I've got to think that's bad, because it's not like this job really requires much in the way of brainpower or even really paying attention. Hell, I've been smiling and pretending everything is just... swell for as long as I can remember, so it's almost second nature by now. Or you'd think so.
The last thing she said to me as I left for school that day was, "Be careful." Maybe I took it a little too much to heart. Maybe I think too much. He always said, "Idle hands are the Devil's playground," and with the smile I always thought it was another homily for the straying members of the flock. But he could have been serious, and maybe the problem isn't the idle hands, but the active mind that tends to start spinning its wheels when it isn't focused on the hands.
After she left... Matt became a caricature of himself. He lettered in three sports, maintained a respectable B average, became one of the high-school elite. He got into trouble, but it was appropriate trouble, like cruising around with his football buddies and knocking over mailboxes, or stealing a chunk of sodium from the chemistry lab and dropping it into one of the toilets in the boys' washroom. Boys-will-be-boys sort of shit. We barely spoke, and when we did it was about trivial things - small talk and gossip.
Dad just started acting... freaky. Like, he didn't get upset or seem to miss her, but sometimes I'd see him in his car after I got off school, watching me and my friends when we were at the mall or hanging around Starbucks. At home it would be this bizarre Norman Rockwell scene for a couple of hours, but late at night I'd come downstairs for a snack if I was studying for a test and he'd be standing in the kitchen with the lights off, staring out the window at something in the yard. And his sermons at church started to get really weird - he'd talk about angels hunting down sinners and evildoers. He started getting obsessed with witches and "devil worshippers", and he got arrested for getting out of his car at a red light one time and beating the hell out of some poor clueless yuppie walking down the sidewalk because he said he could see "the mark of the Iron Tower" on him.
I've decided to dispense with the fiction that I'm talking to anyone other than myself. If I'm going crazy anyway, I'm not going to sweat the minor detail of pretending that this is of interest or concern to anyone else, but... honestly, this shit is affecting my work. And I've got to think that's bad, because it's not like this job really requires much in the way of brainpower or even really paying attention. Hell, I've been smiling and pretending everything is just... swell for as long as I can remember, so it's almost second nature by now. Or you'd think so.
The last thing she said to me as I left for school that day was, "Be careful." Maybe I took it a little too much to heart. Maybe I think too much. He always said, "Idle hands are the Devil's playground," and with the smile I always thought it was another homily for the straying members of the flock. But he could have been serious, and maybe the problem isn't the idle hands, but the active mind that tends to start spinning its wheels when it isn't focused on the hands.
After she left... Matt became a caricature of himself. He lettered in three sports, maintained a respectable B average, became one of the high-school elite. He got into trouble, but it was appropriate trouble, like cruising around with his football buddies and knocking over mailboxes, or stealing a chunk of sodium from the chemistry lab and dropping it into one of the toilets in the boys' washroom. Boys-will-be-boys sort of shit. We barely spoke, and when we did it was about trivial things - small talk and gossip.
Dad just started acting... freaky. Like, he didn't get upset or seem to miss her, but sometimes I'd see him in his car after I got off school, watching me and my friends when we were at the mall or hanging around Starbucks. At home it would be this bizarre Norman Rockwell scene for a couple of hours, but late at night I'd come downstairs for a snack if I was studying for a test and he'd be standing in the kitchen with the lights off, staring out the window at something in the yard. And his sermons at church started to get really weird - he'd talk about angels hunting down sinners and evildoers. He started getting obsessed with witches and "devil worshippers", and he got arrested for getting out of his car at a red light one time and beating the hell out of some poor clueless yuppie walking down the sidewalk because he said he could see "the mark of the Iron Tower" on him.
5.2.07
In God's Country (Mage)
Dear Diary,
The one question I know you're dying to ask, because it's the same question most people ask me within five minutes of meeting me, is what a nice girl like me is doing in a place like this. "This" referring to Japan in general, or the bar or this shitty little closet of an apartment in particular. So I'm going to tell you, because whatever answer I formulate for the idly curious or the fatuously flirtatious is generally nothing more than the first glib response that pops into my head. Can't tell people the truth here, after all. That's the first thing I learned, and I'm eternally grateful to the person who told me that, because if I hadn't learned that one thing, I'd be in a damn sight more trouble than I already might be. If I'm not just crazy, anyways.
Since I bought you at a stationery shop here, you've never been to Lubbock. You aren't missing much - it's (if you'll forgive my crudeness) kind of the asshole of Texas. Too small to be interesting, too big to be picturesque, and home to Lubbock Christian University. That's where my father works, and that's why I'm here (Japan, that is), which is about as far away as you can get physically and culturally and still get pizza delivered.
I'm not saying I had a bad childhood or anything, but... Okay. No - you know what? It was pretty bad; I just didn't realize it until after the fact. My dad was a preacher. When I tell people that, a lot of them assume that I'm a total slut, but I was the stereotypical "good little girl". Until I was fourteen, I really believed that my dad talked to God on a regular basis, and he always told me that his sermons full of brimstone and the wages of sin were for the people in the congregation - the sinful ones who would not serve a God they didn't fear. People like us - our family - were already in a state of grace and needed no goad of hellfire or promise of reward to do the Lord's work.
My mother left when I was fourteen. We - my father and brother and I - never discussed it. She was there, quiet and patient and deferential, and then... gone. At first I thought she'd just had enough of always putting his wishes, his life, before hers. And maybe she had, but with what I know now I'm not sure she just up and left. Anyway, that was when things started to get weird.
The one question I know you're dying to ask, because it's the same question most people ask me within five minutes of meeting me, is what a nice girl like me is doing in a place like this. "This" referring to Japan in general, or the bar or this shitty little closet of an apartment in particular. So I'm going to tell you, because whatever answer I formulate for the idly curious or the fatuously flirtatious is generally nothing more than the first glib response that pops into my head. Can't tell people the truth here, after all. That's the first thing I learned, and I'm eternally grateful to the person who told me that, because if I hadn't learned that one thing, I'd be in a damn sight more trouble than I already might be. If I'm not just crazy, anyways.
Since I bought you at a stationery shop here, you've never been to Lubbock. You aren't missing much - it's (if you'll forgive my crudeness) kind of the asshole of Texas. Too small to be interesting, too big to be picturesque, and home to Lubbock Christian University. That's where my father works, and that's why I'm here (Japan, that is), which is about as far away as you can get physically and culturally and still get pizza delivered.
I'm not saying I had a bad childhood or anything, but... Okay. No - you know what? It was pretty bad; I just didn't realize it until after the fact. My dad was a preacher. When I tell people that, a lot of them assume that I'm a total slut, but I was the stereotypical "good little girl". Until I was fourteen, I really believed that my dad talked to God on a regular basis, and he always told me that his sermons full of brimstone and the wages of sin were for the people in the congregation - the sinful ones who would not serve a God they didn't fear. People like us - our family - were already in a state of grace and needed no goad of hellfire or promise of reward to do the Lord's work.
My mother left when I was fourteen. We - my father and brother and I - never discussed it. She was there, quiet and patient and deferential, and then... gone. At first I thought she'd just had enough of always putting his wishes, his life, before hers. And maybe she had, but with what I know now I'm not sure she just up and left. Anyway, that was when things started to get weird.
1.2.07
And Her Hallway Moves (Felicity)
She spends a lot of time motionless. It creeps most people out - even elders, who eat atrocities for what passes for breakfast at their age, are a little... bothered by the girl who sits behind and slightly to the right of the prince, supported by the yellowing lace confection of an ancient wedding dress, staring at them with kryptonite eyes. She really could not care less what they think though, because she's brushed across the same thoughts too many times to count in the last hundred-odd years.
It's just that every time she moves the susurration of a million sleepwalking minds abrades her own consciousness to the point where the more she moves, the less she can think. She feels like the wall of a sea-cliff, slowly wearing away under the constant thoughtless pressure of inside voices. And sometimes a chunk of the wall just collapses. The results, while spectacular, are never pleasant for anyone in the immediate vicinity when it happens.
Far easier to let Richard command her movements, shuddering with marionette gracelessness as she follows him from the hushed oak-panelled chamber. Never mind that she can feel his own walls crumbling under a different kind of force when he speaks to her. It's not really her place to mention it, and Richard has a nasty habit of confusing the message with the messenger.
Sometimes, when she's looking at a petitioner or a new arrival or a possible spy, she'll let a little of what she's experiencing through. Sometimes people look into her eyes and drop to their knees, gasping for air they no longer breathe. It feels as though they're drowning.
It's just that every time she moves the susurration of a million sleepwalking minds abrades her own consciousness to the point where the more she moves, the less she can think. She feels like the wall of a sea-cliff, slowly wearing away under the constant thoughtless pressure of inside voices. And sometimes a chunk of the wall just collapses. The results, while spectacular, are never pleasant for anyone in the immediate vicinity when it happens.
Far easier to let Richard command her movements, shuddering with marionette gracelessness as she follows him from the hushed oak-panelled chamber. Never mind that she can feel his own walls crumbling under a different kind of force when he speaks to her. It's not really her place to mention it, and Richard has a nasty habit of confusing the message with the messenger.
Sometimes, when she's looking at a petitioner or a new arrival or a possible spy, she'll let a little of what she's experiencing through. Sometimes people look into her eyes and drop to their knees, gasping for air they no longer breathe. It feels as though they're drowning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)