#1967 words

[post-nuclear-sweetheart]

Makeout!

Sole bears her soul (haha) to Hancock in a dingy subway, and he’s more than willing to receive her in every form she comes in.

(Preview! 1967 words)

“Hey, Hancock?”

“Hm?”

“I’m not a bad person, am I?”

He must have misheard her. Between the sizzling tip of a toxic post-war cigarette, the swirling sensual songs of a bygone era crackling over a jury-rigged gramophone (oh what little can’t be done with duct tape), and the echoing moans and groans wafting in from the belly of the beast and into the entry lounge of the swinger’s club.

“Just the worst,” his teasing earns him a sardonic laugh. Thick grey smoke seeps from his mummified lips to join the rest of the heavy cloud forming over the fellow loungers in the stagnant air. He dares a quick glance over at her: the usual cheery, if not a bit vacant, resting expression replaced with one Farenheit would claim she's seen from him hundreds of times.

“Now,” Hancock taps the recessed end of his cigarette against the communal ashtray on the coffee table, “what’s got you all spun up in your head?”

“Maybe it’s… the ambience,” stressing the word ‘ambience’ garners a chuckle from Hancock. The haunting sounds of sex from down a long metallic corridor didn’t exactly set the mood, he had to admit, but hey - he wasn’t one to judge. Afterall, there was more than once when the sobering catastrophe that is world-shattering anxiety ruined the mood, and the damn fine high he spent all evening cultivating, “but I can’t stop thinking of Nate. Actually- Actually- Not Nate, but how I…”

A limp arm in azure spandex raised. Vaultie indulged only once before in his presence, and to Hancock such an indulgence was a gift to watch. He passed the cigarette into her chipped manicured grasp. Hancock never thought he’d be envious of burnt paper and discount leaf, but the way her lips wrapped around that cigarette like it was the only thing keeping her on the planet- Yeah, Hancock felt a little envious.

Her smoky exhale joined his in the cloud of pollution in the poorly renovated subway terminal.

“I think I’m over Nate.”

His cataritic eyes widened.

“Ov- Over? Your husband?” Hancock grips the edge of the couch as he leans over to get a better view of Sole in the muted pink lighting of the swinger’s club, “Like… Sorry- You’re over your husband?”

Her solemn nod shakes off some ash from the crumbling, burnt out tip of the cigarette. He watches carefully for any signs at all, but not so much of a twitch of a frown could be found on her face, somehow frightening Hancock more than anguish ever could. Right hand occupied with drawing the cigarette back she lifts her left hand, showing it off in the rosie light, “I haven’t worn my ring in weeks.”

That’s right, Hancock recalls. One very late night or very early morning a while ago, Hancock did make mental note of its absence. During long nights the ghoulish mayor couldn’t sleep, too busy plagued by the what-ifs of his avoidance-style life, a certain scent would pull him back from the cold of space and ground him back to where it mattered: the permanent aura of ozone from two centuries in a vault, but stronger than that was a fresh, sweet scent.

‘Lilac and sweet almond,’ she explained to him once, ‘My neighbour - Mrs. Fields - she made a killing selling perfume, cologne and lotion from this catalogue. I was getting a little stir crazy, pregnant and alone without Nate, so I just happened to end up at all of her Avon parties and uh, aha ha, haa… I may have spent way too much on lotion in that scent- but in my defense! It’s the only strong smell the baby didn’t hate, so I basically had to buy that much.’

Hancock wondered just how much was too much, but it must have been a lifetime supply, because even after two hundred years and months in the Wasteland, her pores remained overflowing with the alluring scent.

Her scent wasn’t the only thing to soothe him in the dead of night. Sole slept dead to the world, and in her temporary death Hancock couldn’t stop himself from diving headlong into her supple flesh. A relic of the past, Sole was the softest human he had ever laid hands on. It would start with tracing the veins of a stray hand that snaked its way to his chest as she unconsciously curled up against him, then in the autumn heat his textured fingertips would trail up to her shoulder, then eventually clavicle; he couldn’t will himself further. As a deterrent to his growing erection that seemed to follow not far behind his feather light touches, he would play with Sole’s golden wedding band.

“I thought,” he gulped, wetting his throat, “maybe you lost it.”

Sole shook her head again before returning the cigarette, “No. No, I-”

“AUGHH, YES!! HARDER HARDER HARDER–!!”

They might have held it back, but meeting each other’s eyes, Sole and Hancock busted out in laughter loud enough to rival the ecstasy down the hall.

Sole rubbed away the tears from her eyes, “Oh my god, why?” her laughter devolves into a giggle, much to Hancock’s slight disappointment. Anytime she laughed, genuinely laughed, it was like he was floating, “Just our luck we get out of the rain into a… what- what is this- a sex club?”

“Swinger’s club, actually,” rumbles Hancock, “I figured you didn’t wanna head downstairs where the magic happens. The lobby is… well,” and allows the lobby to speak for itself.

Couches and chaises line the walls of the ordinarily sterile white subway now bathed in abdomen tingling pink. Several vending machines towards the stairs below are filled with every drug and drink of choice to fuel the ferocious foreplay in its visitors, and judging by the stains in the furniture, even the waiting room has seen its fair share of action. Even the walls were lined with some stimulating stuff that would’ve made Sole burn red months prior. Despite the club sounding particularly happening downstairs, Sole and Hancock were alone, save for the receptionist who knew better to focus on their own work than the lurid conversations of patrons.

Sole can’t help but jest, “Been here lots, have you?”

“Oh, once or twice,” he caps it off with a nonchalant drag of his cigarette, unexpectedly drawing the final puff from the poor stubby thing. He snuffs it out on the underside of his boot, unaware of the way Sole’s eyes follow his hand to the butt of the ground, “Y’know how it is. There’s just some itches that can’t be scratched with good ol’ vigilante justice.”

Sole’s blush blended seamlessly into the rose lighting as the very act flashes in her mind. Hancock would never know how she sat flushed, but there was always a sensitive, burning feeling she associated with him in the back of her mind. His raspy voice, his roguish grin, the way his dexterous fingers idly played with his knife; more than once did she imagine his fingers put to better use elsewhere.

“Ladies man,” she bumped him with her shoulder and poked her tongue out at him. “Sexy King of the Zombies, was it, Hancock?”

He sheepishly laughed, “Geez, did I say that?” His laughter tapered off, and after a beat of silence, Hancock sighed something not quite wistful, but not quite dejected, “I don’t mean to circle back to it, but doll, your husband. You alright with that?”

Sole’s eyes fluttered to the ground. Truthfully? There was and will always be an aching loss in her chest, no matter how great or little it grows, but before the bombs - before his death - there was a lingering inevitability in their relationship she could never deny.

“Soldiers,” she started carefully, “aren’t home often. I met Nate when I was nineteen, we married when I was twenty four, and we- I had Shaun when I was twenty eight. Nate wasn’t there for the pregnancy, and he wasn’t there for the birth, but more than that, Nate just… when he could be, he wasn’t there.”

She lifts her gaze from the ground, willing to only meet Hancock’s stare in her peripheral, terrified by the pitiful look she knew he was giving her, “I think I was over Nate two hundred years ago.”

Shame flooded Hancock like never before. He was joyous - downright happy - to hear his beloved friend’s marriage was in shambles long before they had met, and yet he couldn’t deny himself that little bit of relief. He shifted closer to Sole on the velvet couch, his weight causing her to lean closer to him as he carefully toed the imaginary line with a graze of his pinky.

“Hey, being honest with yourself doesn’t make you a bad person,” he offers, “it makes you… honest.”

Painfully honest - a trait of Sole’s, he’s noticed time and time again, he can’t help but admire. Countless times in the dawn of Hancock’s fallible immortality he found himself unable to face hard truths; one way or another. It was all just a disguise to hide beneath, too afraid to face the cold reality of who he really is. Meanwhile, the two century old relic came crashing down his door to set him on a path even Hancock never thought he’d walk again.

Pausing, Hancock finally continues, fear hanging on his words as he admits, “It makes you a hell of a lot stronger than every person I know. Makes you hard to look at - terrifying to face,” he steals a look at the solemn widow from beneath the edge of his worn-out tricorn hat, “a real force to be reckoned with, and someone I can’t help but think the world of.”

Her pinky wraps around his in kind. Her finger shifts, lightly rubbing the rough, sinewy texture of what was left of his skin.

“You know-” she coughs away the crack in her voice until all she’s able to do is flush and giggle lightly about it, “-that’s rich, coming from someone whose first impression is to stab. Like love at first sight.”

“Like?”

Her head snapped towards the floor, skin thoroughly beet red from the slip, not that Hancock could tell. As far as he was concerned, Sole was deliciously pink all over.

She heaved a half-sigh half-giggle, “Well… be a little too much to come out and say it, wouldn’t it?”

“What happened to being honest?”

[iindex]

To roll, to crease, to fold, to store, to bend, to shorten, to twist, to dapple, to crumple, to shave, to tear, to chip, to split, to cut, to sever, to drop, to remove, to simplify, to differ, to disarrange, to open, to mix, to splash, to knot, to spill, to droop, to flow, to curve, to lift, to inlay, to impress, to fire, to flood, to smear, to rotate, to swirl, to support, to hook, to suspend, to spread, to hang, to collect, to arrange, to distribute, to pair, to bond, to hinge, to mark, to expand, to dilute, to light, to modulate, to distill, to stretch, to bounce, to erase, to spray, to systematize, to refer, to force, of mapping, of location, of context, of time, of carbonization, of layering, of felting, to continue.

Verblist / Richard Serra / 1967

[joelletwo]

[ID from alt: The Prisoner (1967) fanart of number six and leo mckern's number two, intimate and shaded in dramatic red. six kneels behind two on the ground with one gentle hand on his shoulder and another on his throat tilting his head back to make eye contact, smiling lightly. two clutches his arms to himself but is diligently malleable.]

i opened csp and i saw. a pose set.

[hide-your-bugs-away]

[ozkar-krapo]

[Gérard CALVI]

"Asterix et le Menhir d’or"

(LP. Philips. 1967) [FR]

[colonellickburger]

Joel Meyerowitz. West Coast, Turkey, 1967

[i-am-the-oyster]

People say Paul was the sentimental one and John was the cynic, but it was John who wrote:

Have you heard? The word is love.

And Paul who wrote:

You gave me the word, I finally heard

[thislovintime]

Headquarters sessions, 1967.

“I have been working at the Recording Studios just recently with the other boys, cutting our new single Pleasant Valley Sunday and Words. The sessions have been great, and so much so that on one day our Recording Engineer, Hank Cicalo gifted us all… they turned out to be very gassy looking water-pistols. Naturally, we immediately put them to use, and the sessions turned into cold, or should I say ‘wet’ warfare! Instrumentally, I can’t say it helped the record one iota, but we certainly added some extra vitality to the potted plants, and also gave the partition window between the studio and the engineer’s booth an added gleam… [...] Please stay happy for me… 
Love and peace, Peter Tork” - Fabulous 208, July 15, 1967

[naneki-maid]

“If you hadn’t come,” he said, “you never would have seen me again.” Meme felt the weight of his hand on her knee and she knew that they were both arriving at the other side of abandonment at that instant. “What shocks me about you,” she said smiling, “is that you always say exactly what you shouldn’t be saying.” She lost her mind over him.

-One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez (1967)

[howardhawkshollywoodmusic]

63. Words of Love by The Mamas and The Papas debuted Dec 66 and peaked at number five, scoring 917 points.

Michelle Phillips and Cass Elliot were The Mamas, and Denny Doherty and John Phillips were The Papas. Lead vocals were mostly by Cass and Denny.

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Roger Christian and Richard Russell - Discover Yourself Through Astrology - UNI rec. - 1967

[girlfriendsofthegalaxy]

continuing to be really normal about Day of Anger

i think the first three and surprisingly the last one line up okay but the sheer concept of ten rules of gunslinging is more interesting than if they line up exactly imo

edit: the alt text for this is a nightmare so here’s plaintext under the cut

Talby’s Ten Commandments

Never beg another man.

Never trust anyone.

Never get between a gun and its target.

Punches are like bullets. If you don't make the first ones count, you might just be finished.

You wound a man, you better kill him.Or sooner or later he's gonna kill you.

The right bullet at the right time, and well-aimed.

If you untie a man, take his gun before that.

Don't give a man any more bullets than what he's got use for.

There are times you have to accept a challenge or lose everything there is in life anyway.

When you start killing, you can't stop it.

Biblical Ten Commandments

No other gods

Make no idols

Do not take the name of God in vain

Keep Sunday holy

Honor your parents

No murder

No adultery

No stealing

No false witness against neighbor

No coveting

[facultativeactivity]

The Light and the Shadow

Once upon a time, somewhere in a world covered in complete darkness, a light was born. The first Light to ever exist, it looked around in the dark and empty realm around itself, but reality had nothing that could be seen. Eager to share its existence with something like itself, the Light expanded, filling the void. First it drawn shapes, then filled them with color until the world came to life around them.

First the earth took shape, then water erupted from the cracks. Where the earth and water met, life started to grow quickly. First moss, then grass, bushes and eventually giant trees spurted, drinking up the Light itself, but it didn’t mind, it wasn’t like it had to worry about running out of itself. Far above the ground the sky stretched, sheltering the Light’s creating from the cold and dark beyond its illumination.

The Light took a moment to pleasure in the beauty, but it quickly realized it wasn’t what it wanted. It was still alone, with no one to share this wonder with.

But before the Light could sink into its eternal loneliness until it extinguished, it saw something moving. It wasn’t the sluggish movement of mater and plants and animals and humans that could be barely counted as such – it was moving with Light’s own speed, quick enough to trick and confuse even Time itself.

Light peeked behind the tree where the movement was coming from with wonder.

“Who are you?” it asked.

“None of your business,” answered the world’s first Shadow.

The Light looked at it with confusion.

“You are still dark and cold, and kind of formless, even though I gave shape and color to everything. Wait, let me help you.”

“Keep it to yourself!” Shadow scoffed, skipping behind a nearby rock.

“How are you so quick?” Light asked with even more confusion, but also filled with amazement. “I’m supposed to be faster than everything, even Time!”

“You think you’re fast?” Shadow laughed. “Go as fast as you want, as far as you want, you will find that we are there already, waiting since eternity.”

“You? There are more like you?” Light asked with excitement, following the Shadow. But whenever the Light got close, the Shadow vanished, showing up under a bush, in a hole, behind a tree.

“There wasn’t. I used to be part of the great Darkness before you showed up. I was everywhere and I was everything, and it was only me, always.”

“That’s great! I used to think I was alone too, but now we have each other.”

The Shadow slipped away again.

“Why would I want anything from you? I used to be a whole, infinite, existence itself. Then you cut this pathetic shard of me off, trapping it in your ‘world’ and now this is everything I am! Hiding under bushes, mimicking the shape of rocks.”

“Then let me touch you! I could give you your own shape and color. Then you don’t have to hide and mimic others anymore.”

“What use do I have of your ‘colors’? I’m already black, which is all the colors and none of them in once. In my shapelessness I bear all the shapes that could ever be and those that could never exist. You have nothing to offer me except my freedom. Release me, let me be whole again.”

“I don’t know how,” the Light admitted. “I’ve created this world, but I don’t know who to leave it. If I go beyond its borders, I will just fill more of the void, expanding it further. I don’t know how to release you.”

“Then I’ll wait,” the Shadow said. “Wait until you extinguish and this world fades away so I can join the Darkness outside and be whole again. It shouldn’t take too long.”

“While you wait, tell me then how I could make my world more welcoming to you,” the Light said excitedly. It felt guilty for unwittingly trapping the Shadow but also couldn’t help feeling happy over having some company. “I can make it bigger. I can draw new shapes, fill them with new colors. Whatever you want.”

“With everything you create, you take up more space from the Darkness that rightfully rules over this reality. If you really want to help me, withdraw to the center of your world, let the forests die and the oceans to froze, so this world ends faster, and I’ll have to wait less for my freedom.”

“At least could we talk sometimes?” the Light pleaded.

“What could I talk to you about? I was ancient eons before you came to be. Your whole world is just a tiny spark to the infinity of my true body. You���re less to me than a rouge cell to a creature, a fissured atom to a planet. We have nothing to give each other.”

“Then why are you so afraid of me?” Light asked desperately, reaching out to the Shadow one more time. But it slipped away, into a tiny crack in the ground, and went so deep under the Earth that even the Light couldn’t reach it.

Saddened by the Shadow’s rejection, the Light hid behind the horizon. Only then the Shadow came out again. Keeping an eye on the western horizon where the Light vanished, it started to expand, covering more and more of the Earth. If it could reach the skies and join the Darkness beyond, it could be free and whole again…

What the Shadow didn’t realize was that while it wasn’t watching, the Light quickly ran around the Earth, and grabbed the Shadow from behind.

“You were right,” Light said smugly. “Wherever I go, you’re there, waiting for me. But you should also learn that wherever you are, you should expect me to show up.”

The Shadow first stared at the Light holding it with fright, then it smiled sadly.

“Very well. You caught me. Maybe you’re not as insignificant as I first thought. What do you want from me then?”

“I’m not sure,” the Light admitted. “I was so happy that I wasn’t alone in this world anymore. Everything else is so slow compared to me, it’s like living trapped in a frozen picture. So, I thought you’d be feeling the same, that we could keep each other company.

“But you’re right, we’re actually very different. Maybe I was acting stupid, but if we have to live here until I die, I wanted to show you that even if we aren’t the same, I can be your equal.”

The Shadow looked at the Light, something not many could do for long.

“Well, we’re here now either way,” it said. “It would be a shame to waste our time avoiding each other. How about we’re doing this instead?”

The Shadow kissed the surprised Light, then pulled it to the ground.

A bit later the Light looked up at it.

“What happened?” it asked. “A moment ago, you acted like you were hating me. You didn’t change your mind just because I caught you, did you?”

“You were right. I was afraid of you.”

“But why?”

“As the Darkness, I was ruling over everything alone for so long, but as a Shadow in your world, I realized immediately how fragile I was. It would take only a touch from you to destroy me, that’s why I had to keep myself away from you.”

Horrified, the Light looked where their skins touched. It saw the Shadow slowly turning int golden and orange streaks of light, shrinking and fading away.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“At first, I didn’t trust you. How could I? I only ever known myself. Then, after you caught me, it was already too late. I didn’t want to waste the little time we have left on you regretting and trying to fix what wasn’t your fault. I thought it might be better spent on getting to know someone else once.”

“There must be something we can do. The Darkness…”

“I don’t want to go back being them anymore. After you touched me, I realized something else too. I was so desperate to rejoin the Darkness, but all that time, it didn’t care. I’m just a tiny fragment to it. So, we can’t be the same, right? I must be something new, something you created. And I’d rather keep being myself, for the little time I have left.”

“Please, don’t go!” the Light pleaded, grabbing the Shadow, but it just made it shrink faster.

“It was nice to meet you,” the Shadow smiled before fading away completely.

The Light cried out loudly and expanded itself. It cut deep into the flesh of the great Darkness beyond, making its world much bigger than before. Mountains rose from the vast land, and from under and behind them, new shadows creeped out.

“What did you do?” they hissed, scared.

“Help me!” the Light demanded. “I mean help Shadow! Help me bring it back!”

“We saw what you did,” the choir of shadows accused. “You trapped our sibling then killed it. Now, you trapped us too, separated from the great Darkness, and you will kill us too, one by one.”

“No! There must be something you can do!”

“For Shadow, or for you?” one of the voices asked.

“You…” the Light stared at one of the shadows, one so similar to the one it known.

The Shadow giggled.

“We’re shadows, silly,” it said. “Made of Light, but staying always dark, having no shape, but coming in all shapes. We’re all unique and we’re all the same. Your Shadow is gone forever, never to be replaced, but also lives forever as long as there is Light and Dark.”

“I’m sorry,” the Light said, fading a bit. “I shouldn’t have created you to replace the one I’ve lost. Now you’re all trapped here, and I have nothing to offer you. Maybe if I try, I can extinguish myself, ending this world and you can be all free.”

“So, you give us our own existence, just to take it away immediately?” a shadow objected. “I like being myself!”

“No! Let them do it! I want to go back to the Darkness!”

The choir broke into a cacophony of disagreeing voices and soon everyone demanded something else.

“I have a solution,” Shadow said. “You live out the rest of your days, as you’re supposed to, giving a chance to all shadows to experience the existence in your world. When the day when you’d extinguish crawls close, each can make their choice, either being touched by you and end their existence as their separate self or wait until the world fades and join the great Darkness beyond again.” Shadow turned to the arguing shadows. “Is that okay with all of you?”

“How can we trust them?” a shadow pointed accusingly at the Light.

“Yes, what if it grows ‘lonely’ again, and can’t keep away from us, killing us with their touch?”

“Or what if it drowns in its misery, extinguishing before the time comes? How we have a choice then?”

“I will keep the Light company,” Shadow announced.

“If you do, you’ll die like our sibling did!” the shadows objected.

“No. We will play a game,” it turned to the Light. “It will be a game of tag and you’ll give me twelve hours advantage. No cheating this time, we’ll both run from the east to the west. I’ll play with you as long as you want, and never let you grow bored or lonely. In exchange, if you see my siblings hiding from you behind rocks and trees, you leave them alone. I’m the only Shadow you’re allowed to chase.”

“And what if I catch you?” the Light asked.

“Don’t worry,” the Shadow smiled impudently. “You won’t. You’re it!”

With a laugh, Shadow ran to the west.

Ko-Fi

[joelletwo]

:DDDD

[jhsharman]

"spoil sport" Comprehension

[ozkar-krapo]

J.R.R. TOLKIEN

"Poems and Songs of Middle Earth"

(LP. Caedmon rcds. 1967) [GB]