#if there is a poem about tuesday in there I think I might cry | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

imalwaystiredzzz · 3 years ago

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Hi~ May I please ask for platonic headcannons for Amber, Jean and Lisa visiting their friend's hometown and finding out they have Nymphs who are very kind to children and vulnerable but will cannibalize those who have ill-intentions

WARNING: Slight blood/gore Note: Ahh I hope that you like it, I’m not very good with writing for the Genshin impact girls and this is my first time writing for them (⌒_⌒;)

𝒜 𝓂 𝒷 𝑒 𝓇

> Amber the outrider! Always on the run and ready to help others especially children, needles to say despite having no siblings she’s better at handling them more than some of them who do have.

> Her friendship with you began when she was a child herself, often she ran around crying for her missing grandfather and hoping to find him behind a bush or up on a tree the way they used to when playing hide and seek.

> What she hadn’t meant to do was come across treasure hoarders with less than good intentions when they come across a young girl, by herself wandering the forest. Sure, she’s brought her trusty bow and arrow, she’d practiced everyday but when it came down to it, Amber was just a child barely even ready to shoot at live, breathing humans. So she does what her mind told her to do, run.

> Amber ran and ran and ran, through the trees and thick bushes with all her might and as far as she could, but it’s never enough. Not far enough because she can still hear their heavy footsteps, their deep voice and maniacal laugh. The red girl finds herself hiding in the hollow trunk of a tree, hands in her ears and praying to the archcons that they don’t find her.

> Which to you was a good thing, the trees, winds, and vines howl to you of a child in danger. With your command, they keep her safe in the trees. She doesn’t even notice how the bushes thicken and the shadow of the trees grow to hide her in their shadows, while you swiftly dispose of these people with a smile on your face like it’s just another Tuesday.

> “Do you need help?” You offer her a hand and a warm smile, hoping to entice the little red rabbit out of her hiding. She looks at you with brown eyes, lighting up with so much wonder that the first words she says to you were; “Are you a fairy?” You chuckle and wipe the unshed tears in the corner of her eyes.

> You’ve guided many lost children to Mondstadt before, knowing that they would not disappoint in offering a helping hand. Especially to children, minor as you may be in the hierarchy of elemental beings you trust that even the sleeping Barbatos would wake to the cries of injustice.

> Which is why you’re confused, as to why this little red bunny is back in your abode. Knees scratched and face with a band aid, she smiles goofily and you fix her up once more, bag of snacks and herbs in her pouch before setting her back to Mondstadt. But she does it again, and again and again, until the earth has memorized her steps and winds would simply lead her to your little cot., prepared with snacks and Jean’s famous coffee (not that you asked Jean how she makes them just for this energetic girl.)

> The odd afternoons when Amber finds time to visit is just lively nowadays, sometimes you miss when she would do it everyday but you’re so proud when she finally told you that she’s finally part of the knights like her grandfather. Just do be careful of the arrows as they may accidentally burn the forest and your cot,

> She’d talk your ears off from what's currently happening to Mondstadt to about how the other knights are. Sometimes when you go about to help another lost child wailing on the top of their lungs, you’d find yourself thinking “What would Amber do?”

Certainly it is easier with her around, she’d play with them until all their worries are forgotten and it’s time for them to go home to Mondstadt with her.

𝐿 𝒾 𝓈 𝒶

> ‘Really, parents need to keep a better eye on their children or at least stop them from wandering a bit too far’ is what you thought, looking up the thundering skies and dark clouds, as you trudged to the path that the grass had made for you, until you came upon a wolf? A boy? You’re not exactly sure, but definitely the nature tells you it is both and not at the same time, as confusing as that might be.

> He looks like a puppy ready to bite off anyone's hand with his small teeth dare they come too close for comfort, but that electric wound from his vision needs to be tended sooner than later. So you take him in for a few hours despite his vocal protest at first, and nurse him with herbs from your garden.

> It’s a few hours later when a purple witch trespasses your abode, the hair on the back of your neck rises and you are reminded of another one wearing a hat like so, just of scarlet color and leaving chaos in her wake. “I’m simply looking for my student,” is what she told you with a tight smile and a tremble in her hand that she tries to hide.

“Oh so he is your charge.” You lead her to your cot, where the sleeping wolf boy is and you watch her shoulder relax as she looks at him.

> She apologizes for the intrusion and thanks you for helping Razor, but what catches you is that she apologizes for the thunders and dark sky like she knew. Knew from the way you hold yourself and the way your energy is different from a mortal, “I’ve read about your kind from the books.” Oddly enough her air of danger and knowledge entices you, so you open your door to her and Razor when they need a place away and secluded lest the boy have accidents while mastering the use of his vision.

> Afternoon tea with Lisa is relaxing as she talks about the books and her friends while you talk about plants and things that have piqued your interest over the week which she then supplies more information about. You don’t tell her how sometimes you get bored and lonely being in the forest, but she picks on it and leaves books around your house. There’s a new shelf for mundane things - love stories, poems and epics. And she doesn’t tell you her favorite food but you always give her a bag of fresh vegetables before they leave. The flowers in her window are blooming a bit more livelier lately.

𝒥 𝑒 𝒶 𝓃

> What you didn’t expect was for Lisa to invite the acting grandmaster of Mondstadt, Jean Gunnhildr herself, and that fiery woman’s child, Klee. You could only hope that she doesn’t set the whole place on fire; or that Razor and her would make the whole place explode.

>Jean, Lisa and you would have weekends booked for tea parties and when they could come in the afternoon, rather than night, because Jean’s job has always been taxing, you’d welcome the children too. Some kids that you’ve helped in the past would wander about looking for you so they’d be playing with the two, like a playdate.

Just hope they don’t pass out from exhaustion as Klee and Razor’s energy are boundless and Jean would have to carry the kid back to Mondstadt.

>You’d make it a point to make Jean a small serving of her favorite pizza and tea. Something that would help her relax, as you notice her tight shoulders, and the bags under her eyes, when her hands trembled from exhaustion or her skin too pale. You make her candles, gift her bags filled with snacks, leaves and herbs to help her with the stress that she goes through on a daily basis.

> You didn’t mean to show her this side, you have an inkling that Lisa knows about the darkness in you without even truly showing it. It’s not that you’re insecure or scared, but there is something about Jean that makes you want to hide the ruthless blood lust that boils in your veins when you come across cruelty to the weak.

And for the first time in a while, you’re scared to turn your back and look at her. Is she horrified? Does she hate me? These thoughts run in your head, as blood drips from your hand and face, the bodies of these vile people scattered in the field. In your defense, they do deserve it, to be left to rot, to scream until their throats are bleeding and the light in their eyes gone with the singular thought of there’s no help coming here.

They deserved it, for what they did to the poor teen with red hair and dead eyes, skin as pale as ice and arms much too thin for her age with a cryo vision in hand. (Rosaria)

> Albedo may be the best alchemist in Mondstadt, but he is no doctor and even the church couldn’t guarantee her full recovery. “With all that has happened only a miracle could do such a thing,” the sisters tell the blonde with sadness in their eyes, so where did that lead her? Back to you.

> Jean only embraced you, she couldn’t approve of what you did but she also couldn’t thank you. Only that she accepted you, because in the dark corner of her mind, she had the same thought but her morality hindered her from doing the same.

> Jean was all the light and good, the embodiment of righteousness in the world and you wouldn’t mind jumping head first to commit the deepest atrocities if it meant protecting the weak.

In the end nothing much has changed, only that there are no more masks, formalities and silent walls are broken between the two of you.

Jean could come to you for things that she wouldn’t never do and you would be more than happy to help protect the city and the people that she loves so much.

#jean x reader #lisa x reader #amber x reader #genshin imagines #geshin impact #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #genshin x you #lisa genshin impact #amber genshin impact #jean gunnhildr

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herinsectreflection · 4 years ago

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Top 5 buffy quotes?

Assuming this is Buffy the show, not the character, and not in order:

1) A joint venture of two related Spike quotes:

“Love isn't brains, children, it's blood... blood screaming inside you to work its will.” (3x08 Lover’s Walk)

“Blood is life, lackbrain. Why do you think we eat it? It's what keeps you going. Makes you warm. Makes you hard. Makes you other than dead. Course it's her blood.” (5x22 The Gift)

On top if these just being nicely rythmic, well-delivered lines, they expose so much about Spike and how he thinks. Blood is life, and sex, and warmth/love. The multitudes of blood are the multitudes of Spike - affection and murder and hunger and sex all rolled up together.

2) “Every single person down there is ignoring your pain because they're too busy with their own. The beautiful ones. The popular ones. The guys that pick on you. Everyone. If you could hear what they were feeling. The loneliness. The confusion. It looks quiet down there. It's not. It's deafening.” (3x18 Earshot)

I cannot state enough how important this was to hear as a suicidal and lonely teenager, this sentiment of not downplaying Jonathan’s pain, but bringing it into this larger perspective, this shared human experience, this gestalt trauma. It’s still something I turn to a decade later, when I need reminding that every single person is their own main character, with their own unique story and perspective. And it’s so important that Buffy, so isolated herself, recognises that and appreciates that her struggles and trauma might be unique, but they’re not singular. We are all united in suffering, and that is both tragic and consoling.

3) “I don't understand how this all happens. How we go through this. I mean, I knew her, and then she's, there's just a body, and I don't understand why she just can't get back in it and not be dead anymore. It's stupid. It's mortal and stupid. And, and Xander's crying and not talking, and, and I was having fruit punch, and I thought, well, Joyce will never have any more fruit punch ever, and she'll never have eggs, or yawn or brush her hair, not ever, and no one will explain to me why." (5x16 The Body)

I just talked about this scene in another ask, but it’s worth reiterating how perfectly devastating this monologue is. There’s no grandiosity, no flowery prose, just blunt frustration. It’s about the absurd mundanity of existence, and how death is not different. The Body is very much an episode about the mundanity of death - how it is so small and everyday and universal. It feels completely overwhelming and cataclysmic when it happens to us, but to the world, it’s just Tuesday. It’s expressed throughout the episode with little details, like Buffy using too much kitchen roll to mop up her vomit, struggling to dial a number, going out and hearing children playing, Willow fretting over her outfit, Xander getting a parking ticket. This speech expresses all of that and more, expressing how stupid and absurd it it that death is so common, almost dull, and yet we cannot overcome it. Every part of Joyce’ body, her physical existence, is there, and how stupid and absurd is it that she can’t just not be dead any more. We as humans are certain to know death, and yet we know nothing about death - we cannot tell Anya why this happens because we don’t know.

4) “I know I should go / But I follow you like a man possessed / There's a traitor here beneath my breast / And it hurts me more than you've ever guessed / If my heart could beat, it would break my chest”

"I touch the fire and it freezes me / I look into it and it's black / Why can't I feel? /My skin should crack and peel / I want the fire back" (6x07 Once More With Feeling)

I had to have a lyric from OMWF and couldn't choose between these two. They're both such powerful expressions of pure yearning. You can feel the pain and want viscerally when you hear them. They're great inverse echoes of each other too. Spike is a dead creature, cursed with feelings of love, a mimicry of life with his unbeating yet unignorable heart. Buffy is now living, but cursed with feeling dead, her body responding to stimuli as a living body does, but her emotional state being so totally deadened that she is unable to feel it.

5) "I walk. I talk. I shop, I sneeze. I'm gonna be a fireman when the floods roll back. There's trees in the desert since you moved out. And I don't sleep on a bed of bones." (4x22 Restless)

This is my number one quote. It's everything about the show, a perfect summation of how Buffy forges out her own identity in a harsh world, captured in this surreal little poem. Like the Anya quote above, it describes life by noting it's bizarre mundanities ("I shop. I sneeze."). It expresses Buffy's heroism and adaptability, how she's constantly facing and dealing with new challenges. And it faces down her greatest fear at this moment - that she is a creature of death and loneliness. The "bed of bones" is such an evocative image, the inverse of this ideal that Buffy wants - to be able to go home at the end of the day to her friends, her family, her lover. To be able to live and experience lives comforts A bed of bones means a monotonous, everyday, repeated return to death and decay. That's the paradigm she is rejecting.

#Anonymous #ask #spike #lovers walk #the gift #Buffy Summers #earshot #restless #once more with feeling #anya jenkins #the body

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cultureisdarkbeer · 4 years ago

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We Will Remember; From Out of the Ashes

From my Rooted in Friendship series, this is Mulder on 9/11/2001

It was September. Mulder had spent the summer wandering aimlessly. Using the identities The Lone Gunman had given him he roamed from one menial job to the other in one town to the next. Every day was spent looking over his shoulder and every night dreaming of Scully and William. Hesitant to make contact, he hadn’t even checked his email for fear of a trace. It didn’t even matter. There was nothing for him to say that wasn’t already said. He wanted to come home. To be with them again. The only positive, if there was any, was that he was meeting different people from all kinds of backgrounds and philosophies. There were more people out there that believed than he had realized. Some circles had even mentioned him by name as a crusader. If they only knew. If he was on a crusade it was to return to his family. The only way to do that would be to discover what destroyed human replacements and stop them before it was too late.

Mulder opened one eye and squinted at the time. He thought it read 10:37. He was thinking that it must be A.M. as there was sunlight shining into the window. Sometimes it was an arduous task to simply discern one day to the next. Today was Tuesday. He knew this since his last day at the mill had been yesterday and the guys had gathered at the local bar for a going away bash. The last thing he remembered was being dropped onto the couch by Randy after having too many drinks to maintain the ability to walk let alone drive a car. His head was still buzzing, but he did recall crying into a beer or two over Scully. He slowly rolled into a sitting position on the most recent couch he called home. Rubbing his neck, the stiffness reminded him that he needed to buy a pillow. Thinking of stiffness, he stared down at ol’ reliable standing at his usual attention. Not that he had much use for it. The times he did partake he usually ended up in a worse depression than before and he wasn’t in the mood for tears today. He rubbed his face and the scruff that had formed cut into his calloused hands. Blindly, he turned on the small picture tube in the room and went to the bathroom to empty his bladder. When he returned he had a toothbrush hanging from his mouth and disbelief in his eyes. The news showed smoke rising from where the World Trade Center once stood. There had been an attack on the Pentagon as well and in Pennsylvania. The next couple hours he spent glued to the television absorbing everything in front of him. His first instinct was to contact Scully, but he knew he couldn’t. The FBI had to be heavily involved at this point. Thoughts of human replacement involvement crossed his mind although most evil didn’t land from the sky, but that from within. It was then he decided his next destination would be east to NYC. If nothing else, they could use his help.

As he got dressed he accidentally glanced at himself in the mirror. He usually avoided mirrors as they reflected his heartache. Today he looked at himself as if from afar. It was the first time in a while he felt he might have a purpose again. Tanned from working in the sun, his skin glowed golden and his abs had a harder cut to them than usual. The muscles in his arms and chest were wider. Scully would be impressed he thought as he ran his hand over his chest. The pain of her absence began to culminate in his heart and he quickly resumed getting dressed frantically trying to push his mind onto another track. Any thoughts of Scully resulted with tears, anger and unending sadness. He walked outside and flung his bags into the back of an old Buick sedan he had purchased for a couple hundred dollars. The plates and registration were phonies Skinner had retrieved from FBI storage, but they got him wheels. He sat the picture Scully had given him in the corner of the instrument panel wishing he had one of William as well. Straightening his rear view mirror he gave the rural landscape one last look, put on his shades, and headed out.

A few days had passed before he had reached New York traveling from Kansas. He had stopped to visit Sheila and Holman. At least there he got to share good memories, eat some home cooking, and be the proud papa as he told them about William. He had given Holman a package to mail to Scully so she knew he was still alive and took off for New York.

As he entered NJ, he took heed of the solemn atmosphere. There was an eerie quiet looming. When he finally pulled the car into a parking spot he was near Liberty State Park. The air was cold, a frigid day with no wind, the only breeze being from the echoing of voices from the dead and the screaming hearts of the living. He came upon a spot with candles burning. Pictures and cards hung everywhere. There were notebooks too. He picked them up and read them. Poems and prayers, wishes and requests, all to missing loved ones. They were beautiful and he felt his anger rise up with the sadness. The monster inside him was winning. He spun around when he felt a tap on his arm. It was a woman with tears in her eyes. She hugged him without words. A total stranger holding him, greeting him like family. They cried in each other’s arms for each of their losses without sharing words. Others came to pray, share hugs and photos, and leave messages. Everyone was leaning on the other. Mulder had witnessed many things in his life, but such a beautiful reflection of humanity he never would have guessed to find in the vicinity of so much that was corrupt.

“Hi. My name is Lauren.” A tall slender woman dressed in what might be considered hippy attire held out her hand for Mulder to shake. “Do you have missing loved ones?”

“No… I, uh. I came to help.”

“Yes. It seems there are people from all over the country some from other parts of the world that have traveled to help. I’m from Long Island myself. There’s a group of us meeting here in a while to make the trek over into the city. From there we will meet up with the firefighters.”

“What will we be doing?”

“You’ll see.” She replied with a warm smile.

For lack of any ideas, Mulder wandered into the city with them. The streets were covered in ash. What looked like snow was more ash falling from the sky. A post-apocalyptic feel gripped at his fears. This was not cruelty from an alien force, but only that capable of man. They walked the streets. Lit candles covered every street corner accompanied by flowers, cards, letters, and poems. The walls of every business and billboard filled with pictures of loved ones.

Children, mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends, wandered the streets searching. Some came as he did. From a pull that they did not know. From a pull to be together, for comfort from the sadness. To mourn the loss, embrace each other. When they finally settled on a street corner they waited. The firefighters were changing shifts. The truck stopped at the corner and the firemen got out as others piled in. They carried with them shovels and masks. The news stated it was an attempt at a recovery mission, but Mulder knew better. It was to dig up the dead. To find evidence of who had died, to attempt proper funerals. Most would remain where they died, their tombstone a memorial and another skyscraper to once again reach out to the heavens on the backs of their souls. The returning firefighters had it all in their faces. The people cheered them like superheroes upon their return. Those people were there for one purpose. To hug those men, to give them their strength back through their love. Total strangers giving the only thing they had to give to the men that had lost so many of their brothers. The firefighters in turn cried into the embrace. Falling apart in their arms. Real giants did exist and they walked the streets that day. It was the men in red and those in blue that ran towards their impending doom as others ran away. To now be represented by those from all over sifting through the ashes, not giving up on a chance of resurrection. If there was a place Mulder felt at home since leaving D.C. it was there among the mourning. They gave him strength to go on. To know that he was blessed to have Scully and William still alive waiting.

After sharing handshakes, more prayers and kind words, he left as soft music played bouncing off the resilience of the tall standing buildings of downtown. The Empire State Building glowed red, white, and blue for all to see that we still stood tall. People had brought their instruments, boom boxes and whatever they had, playing the music throughout the night to let everyone know they were not alone. The spotlights boomed into the sky like a signal to batman calling for a savior when the only one to answer was from inside. Mulder continued to wander the streets, like he was searching, but for what he had yet to know. He got to a large rock near central park and sat down. His heart started to race as butterflies beat furiously in his stomach. “Scully.” He said to himself out loud.

“Mulder” Scully said as butterflies grew in her stomach at that familiar feeling.

“What is it Dana?” Monica asked concerned at the upset look on her face.

“Nothing. I… I just got a strange feeling like Mulder was here.”

“Maybe he was.”

“Maybe. I miss him Monica. Not a second goes by….”

“You have to stay positive.”

“I know.”

Scully and Monica were two blocks from Mulder’s rock in Central Park. They had come to see the tragedy with their own eyes and unknowingly came within steps of Mulder. Monica waved down a cab and got in. Scully paused for a second longer, the butterflies still beating in her stomach. “I know you’re out there Mulder. I hope you feel me too.” She whispered more to herself than anything else. She joined Monica in the cab and they headed to the airport to return to D.C.

Mulder got up from the rock looking for the subway to take him back to his motel room. A kid in his twenties in a gray hoodie came up behind Mulder and tapped him on the shoulder startling him.

“Excuse me. You’re Fox Mulder!”

“What? No, I’m sorry you have the wrong person.” Mulder picked up his pace taking longer strides to get away from the attention this guy was bestowing upon him. The kid only ran to keep up.

“No, I know you’re him. You were friends with Max from NICAP. I’m from NICAP too.” The kid said extending his hand to Mulder as they walked. Mulder kept his hand in his pockets and didn’t slow his pace.

“Look I’m kind of undercover. I’m not really able to talk right now it could compromise my position.”

The kid nodded, but didn’t back away. “My name is Josh. We’re having a meeting tomorrow if you’re interested. The topic… alien hybrid kryptonite.”

This stopped Mulder in his tracks. “You’ve figured out how to stop them?”

Josh looked hesitant. “Well that’s what the meeting is about. We have reports that some of the members have seen them turn into one of those magnetic desk sculptures. You know what I’m talking about?”

“Not exactly. They might have thought they killed them, but these things rejuvenate. I’ve seen them crushed into a tiny cube and come back to full capacity.” Mulder countered.

“According to our latest reports, this destroys them. If you come to the meeting, you can speak with these men yourself. Ask all the questions you want. It would be quite an honor to have you there. You’re kind of a celebrity in our neck of the woods.”

Josh handed him a small NICAP business card with an address and time. “See you then”

As Josh walked away, Mulder looked around nervously. If I guy from NICAP could locate him, anyone could. He wouldn’t be able to stay much longer.

After a restless night’s sleep in a rundown motel, Mulder went back over to ground zero and put in some hours helping with the recovery. At a little after 7 he headed over to 8th avenue where he found a building with windows nailed shut by wooden planks covered in Broadway posters. He went down a dark alley, down a flight of stairs to a locked door. He knocked on the door and a 400 lb. man with a Spiderman t-shirt answered. “It’s the second star to the right” He said to Mulder. “And straight on ‘til morning” Mulder answered.

“Please turn around and expose your neck.” The heavy set man answered. Mulder turned around and lowered his jacket so the man could observe the top of his spine. He then handed Mulder an alcohol swab and a disposable blood lancet. Mulder punctured his finger so the man could witness that his blood was red. Lastly he ran a wand over him for evidence of weapons, tracking devices, or taps. When he was satisfied that Mulder was clean he let him proceed. The man opened the door to let Mulder in. “It’s an honor to meet you Fox Mulder” the man winked and smiled. As Mulder looked around he realized he had found the greatest collection of outcasts the planet earth may have ever known. Once everyone was checked in, the meeting commenced. There was a lot of formalities, new business, old business until finally they got to eyewitness accounts. Each person would go up front and speak of their experience. It was nothing new and all things Mulder had heard several times before.

“And now the moment we’ve been waiting for.” Said the meeting head. “Eric will be reviewing his latest information on Hybrids.”

He started his speech telling of first accounts of hybrids being birthed from human mothers using mutated eggs. He told of stories of embryo implants through abductions and contaminated water supplies. Most of it Mulder was aware and some seemed skewed or misguided. Finally, he got to what Mulder really wanted to hear. “We have some exciting news today. It’s been confirmed. We have dead hybrids. They were turned into a metallic dust. It happened at ground zero. What we believe is that when the twin towers fell, they exposed the Manhattan bedrock which is millions of years old. Folded into that bedrock is an iron ore, remnants of an old meteor. We believe that if we could mine meteors that contain this same iron, we may be able to build a weapon to combat these hybrids.”

“So where do you find this iron and how are you going to test it?” Asked one of the members.

Eric turned on the projector. “This is a Map of all the meteor dustings in the past two million years. As you can see the largest concentration is in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Nevada. This is where we should concentrate our efforts.”

“But how do you know this iron stuff will kill them?” Asked another member.

“Because we have it on video and we have the dust sample.”

The room became silent as he hooked up his video camera.

The video took place after the first tower fell. There was a considerable amount of smoke and it was apparent the video had been taken by someone in law enforcement. Two men with FBI jackets were running into the smoke and the camera was shaking widly. You could see them enter the building and go down steps where the mall once stood. Ash was everywhere and smoke filled the hallways. It appeared they were in search of something inside the mall. Then one of the FBI agents froze like he was magnetized to the floor. With tremendous force the two men crumbled as if from the inside out like a huge magnet drew them downward. You see the man holding the camera yell and pick up their clothing which now contained only dust. He let out a few expletives and the camera shut off.

Even this made Mulder miss Scully. He wished she was there to witness the tape. He wanted her opinion. He also wanted some of that dust. She would be able to dissect it in the lab and find the answer. Not this time. This time he would have to prove it on his own.

“What happened? It was like terminator was struck with a light saber.” Shouted Josh, the kid he had met in the street.

“We don’t know. This is all we have, but the rock that was scraped up from the site had a high concentration of a form of magnetite. If we could fashion a weapon, we may be able to use if against them.”

Walking back to the motel Mulder didn’t know what to make of any of it. Was there a way to stop them? There had to be. Nothing was invincible. Except maybe Scully. He went to put the key in the door and it creaked open with a push. Someone had already been there. The place had been ransacked, but from what he saw nothing was taken. His first instinct was to ensure the intruders had left, but they were gone. His suitcase full of cash was still intact. He searched his luggage finding a tracer. He also found a bug inside the lamp on the nightstand. They had located him. His time in NY had run out. He grabbed his stuff, packed it into the car, placed the picture back on the instrument panel, and headed west in search of magnetite and an old friend.

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starstruck-xavier · 4 years ago

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felt like doing a slightly longer update on me cause a lot happened today lol

today was quite bad for my mental health and so i’m declaring my one and only achievement today is making progress on creating a fully complete and consistent collection of palettes for my sanders sides art

and that included drawing all the logos yay!!

oh and i also got the highest marks on my spanish grammar test fhghfgdfhd ig that makes 2

i mentally couldn’t focus on my spanish homework this morning and i wanted to cry but at least it’s not due til tuesday and so i have the weekend and monday to do it? i keep not being able to hold focus on things today and i don’t know whyyy

i think i have to read the great gatsby before spring for my english class?? that’s fun

i also have to pick a post-2000s literary text to compare it to and i can’t think of anything that’d be literary enough cuz my first thought was “winnie the pooh” and then i thought hmm wait a minute

however it seems my brain saved up all the focus i couldn’t put into my homework and instead used it to actually participate in the class discussion when talking about another sylvia plath poem. i really love her poetry!! she talks about mental health and stuff so i read poems like miss drake proceeds to supper and i’m like oh yeah that me

the one we looked at today was the munich mannequins and i vibed

i might go play ukulele for a lil while n then sleep because hhhhhhhhsleep

#xavier rambles #not ts #i guess? mostly lol #xavier’s school stuff

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kkintle · 4 years ago

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Map: Collected and Last Poems by Wisława Szymborska; Quotes

Dreams flickered on white canvas.

The future—who can guess it. The past—who’s got it right.

Trite Rhymes A great joy: flower upon flower, the branches stretch in pristine blue, but there’s a greater: today’s Tuesday, tomorrow will bring mail from you, and still greater: the letter trembles, strange reading it in spots of sun, and still greater: just a week now, now just four days, now it’s begun, and still greater: I kneel on top and make the suitcase lid shut tight, and still greater: the train at seven, just one ticket, thanks, that’s right, and still greater: rushing windows, with view on view on view on view, and still greater: dark and darker, by nighttime I will be with you, and still greater: the door opens, and still greater: past the door, and still greater: flower on flower. —Ohhh, who are all these roses for?

Do you open each human fate like a book, seeking feelings not in fonts or formats? Are you sure you decipher people completely?

Are people really so simple as far as people go?

Lovers In this quiet we can still hear what they were singing yesterday about the high road and the low road . . . We hear—but we don’t believe it. Our smile doesn’t mask our sorrow, and goodness needs no sacrifice. The pity we give to nonlovers is even more than they deserve. We’re so astonished at ourselves, what’s left to astonish us? Not a rainbow in the night. Not a butterfly in snow. And when we sleep we dream of parting. But it’s a good dream, it’s a good dream, since we wake up from it.

Nothing can ever happen twice. In consequence, the sorry fact is that we arrive here improvised and leave without the chance to practice.

One day, perhaps, some idle tongue mentions your name by accident: I feel as if a rose were flung into the room, all hue and scent.

Why do we treat the fleeting day with so much needless fear and sorrow? It’s in its nature not to stay: today is always gone tomorrow. With smiles and kisses, we prefer to seek accord beneath our star, although we’re different (we concur) just as two drops of water are.

If we haven’t had enough of despair, grief, all that stuff, lofty words will kill us off. Then we’ll stand up, take our bows: hope that you’ve enjoyed our show. Every patron with his spouse will applaud, get up, and go. They’ll reenter their lives’ cages, where love’s tiger sometimes rages, but the beast’s too tame to bite.

I TEACH silence in all languages

FOR PROMISES made by my spouse, who’s tricked so many with his sweet colors and fragrances and sounds— dogs barking, guitars in the street— into believing that they still might conquer loneliness and fright, I cannot be responsible. Mr. Day’s widow, Mrs. Night.

We know ourselves only as far as we’ve been tested. I tell you this from my unknown heart

An Effort Alack and woe, oh song: you’re mocking me; try as I may, I’ll never be your red, red rose. A rose is a rose is a rose. And you know it. I worked to sprout leaves. I tried to take root. I held my breath to speed things up, and waited for the petals to enclose me. Merciless song, you leave me with my lone, nonconvertible, unmetamorphic body: I’m one-time-only to the marrow of my bones.

Leave me, leave, but not by land. Swim off, swim, but not by sea. Fly off, fly away, my dear, but don’t go near the air. Let’s see each other through closed eyes. Let’s talk together through closed mouths. Let’s hold each other through a thick wall.

Since eternity was out of stock, ten thousand aging things have been amassed instead.

Everything’s mine but just on loan, nothing for the memory to hold, though mine as long as I look.

One day the answer came before the question. Another night they guessed their eyes’ expression by the type of silence in the dark. Gender fades, mysteries molder, distinctions meet in all-resemblance just as all colors coincide in white.

Sunny. Green. A forest close at hand, with wood to chew on, drops beneath the bark to drink— a view served round the clock, until you go blind.

Parable Some fishermen pulled a bottle from the deep. It held a piece of paper, with these words: “Somebody save me! I’m here. The ocean cast me on this desert island. I am standing on the shore waiting for help. Hurry! I’m here!” “There’s no date. I bet it’s already too late anyway. It could have been floating for years,” the first fisherman said. “And he doesn’t say where. It’s not even clear which ocean,” the second fisherman said. “It’s not too late, or too far. The island Here is everywhere,” the third fisherman said. They all felt awkward. No one spoke. That’s how it goes with universal truths

Ballad Hear the ballad “Murdered Woman Suddenly Gets Up from Chair.” It’s an honest ballad, penned neither to shock nor to offend. The thing happened fair and square, with curtains open, lamps all lit: passersby could stop and stare. When the door had shut behind him and the killer ran downstairs, she stood up, just like the living startled by the sudden silence. She gets up, she moves her head, and she looks around with eyes harder than they were before. No, she doesn’t float through air: she steps on the ordinary, wooden, slightly creaky floor. In the oven she burns traces that the killer’s left behind: here a picture, there shoelaces, everything that she can find. It’s obvious that she’s not strangled. It’s obvious that she’s not shot. She’s been killed invisibly. She may still show signs of life, cry for sundry silly reasons, shriek in horror at the sight of a mouse. Ridiculous traits are so predictable that they aren’t hard to fake. She got up like you and me. She walks just as people do. And she sings and combs her hair, which still grows.

I let myself be invented, modeled on my own reflection in his eyes. I dance, dance, dance in the stir of sudden wings.

Exiled by style. Only their ribs stood out. With birdlike feet and palms, they strove to take wing on their jutting shoulder blades. The thirteenth century would have given them golden halos. The twentieth, silver screens. The seventeenth, alas, holds nothing for the unvoluptuous. For even the sky bulges here with pudgy angels and a chubby god— thick-whiskered Phoebus, on a sweaty steed, riding straight into the seething bedchamber

He grew rozes with a “z.

(...) the rest of your life? Old age is a precipice, (...)

I am too close for him to dream of me.

Silence—this word also rustles across the page and parts the boughs that have sprouted from the word “woods.”

Funny little thing How could she know that even despair can work for you if you’re lucky enough to outlive it.

The Railroad Station My nonarrival in the city of N. took place on the dot. You’d been alerted in my unmailed letter. You were able not to be there at the agreed-upon time. The train pulled up at Platform 3. A lot of people got out. My absence joined the throng as it made its way toward the exit. Several women rushed to take my place in all that rush. Somebody ran up to one of them. I didn’t know him, but she recognized him immediately. While they kissed with not our lips, a suitcase disappeared, not mine. The railroad station in the city of N. passed its exam in objective existence with flying colors. The whole remained in place. Particulars scurried along the designated tracks. Even a rendezvous took place as planned. Beyond the reach of our presence. In the paradise lost of probability. Somewhere else. Somewhere else. How these little words ring. Alive These days we just hold him

But this is ancient history. I can’t dwell on it forever or keep asking endlessly, what’s next, what’s next. Day to day I trust in permanence, in history’s prospects. I can’t gnaw apples in a constant state of terror.

Arduous ease, watchful agility, and calculated inspiration.

Old Folks’ Home Here comes Her Highness—well, you know who I mean, our Helen the snooty—now who made her queen! With her lipstick and wig on, as if we could care, like her three sons in heaven can see her from there! “I wouldn’t be here if they’d lived through the war. I’d spend winter with one son, summer with another.” What makes her so sure? I’d be dead too now, with her for a mother. And she keeps on asking (“I don’t mean to pry”) why from your sons and daughters there’s never a word even though they weren’t killed. “If my boys were alive, I’d spend all my holidays home with the third.” Right, and in his gold carriage he’d come and get her, drawn by a swan or a lily-white dove, to show all of us that he’ll never forget her and how much he owes to her motherly love. Even Jane herself, the nurse, can’t help but grin when our Helen starts singing this old song again— even though Jane’s job is commiseration Monday through Friday, with two weeks’ vacation.

Sell me your soul. There are no other takers. There is no other devil anymore.

I’m bound to pass by all these poppies and pansies. What a loss when you think how much effort was spent perfecting this petal, this pistil, this scent for the one-time appearance, which is all they’re allowed, so aloofly precise and so fragilely proud.

The abyss doesn’t divide us. The abyss surrounds us.

In Praise of Dreams In my dreams I paint like Vermeer van Delft. I speak fluent Greek and not just with the living. I drive a car that does what I want it to. I am gifted and write mighty epics. I hear voices as clearly as any venerable saint. My brilliance as a pianist would stun you. I fly the way we ought to, i.e., on my own. Falling from the roof, I tumble gently to the grass. I’ve got no problem breathing under water. I can’t complain: I’ve been able to locate Atlantis. It’s gratifying that I can always wake up before dying. As soon as war breaks out, I roll over on my other side. I’m a child of my age, but I don’t have to be. A few years ago I saw two suns. And the night before last a penguin, clear as day.

True love. Is it normal, is it serious, is it practical? What does the world get from two people who exist in a world of their own?

Let the people who never find true love keep saying that there’s no such thing. Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

And it so happened that I’m here with you. And I really see nothing usual in that.

Under One Small Star My apologies to chance for calling it necessity. My apologies to necessity if I’m mistaken, after all. Please, don’t be angry, happiness, that I take you as my due. May my dead be patient with the way my memories fade. My apologies to time for all the world I overlook each second. My apologies to past loves for thinking that the latest is the first. Forgive me, distant wars, for bringing flowers home. Forgive me, open wounds, for pricking my finger. I apologize for my record of minuets to those who cry from the depths. I apologize to those who wait in railway stations for being asleep today at five A.M. Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing from time to time. Pardon me, deserts, that I don’t rush to you bearing a spoonful of water. And you, falcon, unchanging year after year, always in the same cage, your gaze always fixed on the same point in space, forgive me, even if it turns out you were stuffed. My apologies to the felled tree for the table’s four legs. My apologies to great questions for small answers. Truth, please don’t pay me much attention. Dignity, please be magnanimous. Bear with me, O mystery of existence, as I pluck the occasional thread from your train. Soul, don’t take offense that I’ve only got you now and then. My apologies to everything that I can’t be everywhere at once. My apologies to everyone that I can’t be each woman and each man. I know I won’t be justified as long as I live, since I myself stand in my own way. Don’t bear me ill will, speech, that I borrow weighty words, then labor heavily so that they may seem light.

Non omnis moriar—a premature worry.

Thank-You Note I owe so much to those I don’t love. The relief as I agree that someone else needs them more. The happiness that I’m not the wolf to their sheep. The peace I feel with them, the freedom— love can neither give nor take that. I don’t wait for them, as in window-to-door-and-back. Almost as patient as a sundial, I understand what love can’t, and forgive as love never would. From a rendezvous to a letter is just a few days or weeks, not an eternity. Trips with them always go smoothly, concerts are heard, cathedrals visited, scenery is seen. And when seven hills and rivers come between us, the hills and rivers can be found on any map. They deserve the credit if I live in three dimensions, in nonlyrical and nonrhetorical space with a genuine, shifting horizon. They themselves don’t realize how much they hold in their empty hands. “I don’t owe them a thing” would be love’s answer to this open question.

Dentistry turned to diplomatic skill promises us a Golden Age tomorrow. The going’s rough, and so we need the laugh of bright incisors, molars of goodwill. Our times are still not safe and sane enough for faces to show ordinary sorrow.

Our solitary existence exacerbates our sense of obligation, and raises the inevitable question, How are we to live et cetera? since “we can’t avoid the void.

No way out? But what about the door? No prospects? The window had other views.

You think at least the note must tell us something. But what if I say there was no note— and he had so many friends, but all of us fit neatly inside the empty envelope propped up against a cup.

(...) to linger longer, not to go home again. Since only prisoners want to go home.

In Praise of Feeling Bad about Yourself The buzzard never says it is to blame. The panther wouldn’t know what scruples mean. When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame. If snakes had hands, they’d claim their hands were clean. A jackal doesn’t understand remorse. Lions and lice don’t waver in their course. Why should they, when they know they’re right? Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton, in every other way they’re light. On this third planet of the sun among the signs of bestiality a clear conscience is number one.

I know nothing of the role I play. I only know it’s mine, I can’t exchange it. I have to guess on the spot just what this play’s all about

The star is large and distant, so distant that it’s small, even smaller than others much smaller than it.

Small wonder, then, if we were struck with wonder; as we would be if only we had the time.

God was finally going to believe in a man both good and strong, but good and strong are still two different men.

“How should we live?” someone asked me in a letter. I had meant to ask him the same question. Again, and as ever, as may be seen above, the most pressing questions are naïve ones.

Whatever you say reverberates, whatever you don’t say speaks for itself. So either way you’re talking politics.

Who knows you matters more than whom you know. Trips only if taken abroad. Memberships in what but without why. Honors, but not how they were earned. (...) Price, not worth, and title, not what’s inside. His shoe size, not where he’s off to, that one you pass off as yourself.

Nothing’s sacred for those who think. Calling things brazenly by name, risqué analyses, salacious syntheses, frenzied, rakish chases after the bare facts, the filthy fingering of touchy subjects, discussion in heat—it’s music to their ears.

During these trysts of theirs, the only thing that’s steamy is the tea.

May delivery be easy, may our child grow and be well. Let him be happy from time to time and leap over abysses. Let his heart have strength to endure and his mind be awake and reach far. But not so far that it sees into the future. Spare him that one gift, O heavenly powers.

For the sake of the children that we still are, fairy tales have happy endings. That’s the only finale that will do here, too. The rain will stop, the waves will subside, the clouds will part in the cleared-up sky, and they’ll be once more what clouds overhead ought to be: lofty and rather lighthearted in their likeness to things drying in the sun— isles of bliss, lambs, cauliflowers, diapers.

I prefer, where love’s concerned, nonspecific anniversaries that can be celebrated every day.

A miracle, just take a look around: the inescapable earth. An extra miracle, extra and ordinary: the unthinkable can be thought.

When I see such things, I’m no longer sure that what’s important is more important than what’s not.

Hatred is a master of contrast— between explosions and dead quiet, red blood and white snow.

Perhaps all fields are battlefields, those we remember and those that are forgotten: (...)

Without us dreams couldn’t exist. The one on whom the real world depends is still unknown, and the products of his insomnia are available to anyone who wakes up.

Every beginning is only a sequel, after all, and the book of events is always open halfway through.

We agreed to death, but not to every kind. Love attracted us, of course, but only love that keeps its word.

We were besieged by doubts. Does knowing everything beforehand really mean knowing everything. Is a decision made in advance really any kind of choice.

We’re extremely fortunate not to know precisely the kind of world we live in.

I am who I am. A coincidence no less unthinkable than any other.

They aren’t obliged to vanish when we’re gone. They don’t have to be seen while sailing on.

The Three Oddest Words When I pronounce the word Future, the first syllable already belongs to the past. When I pronounce the word Silence, I destroy it. When I pronounce the word Nothing, I make something no nonbeing can hold.

But how to answer unasked questions, while being furthermore a being so totally a nobody to you.

Talking with you is essential and impossible. Urgent in this hurried life and postponed to never.

Understanding came only later: not all misadventures fit within the world’s laws and even if they wanted to, they couldn’t happen.

And what can you say about one day of life, a minute, a second: darkness, a lightbulb’s flash, then dark again? KOSMOS MAKROS CHRONOS PARADOKSOS Only stony Greek has words for that.

There must be an exit somewhere, that’s more than certain. But you don’t look for it, it looks for you, it’s been stalking you from the start, and this labyrinth is none other than than your, for the duration, your, until not your, flight, flight— (...)

Life on Earth is quite a bargain. Dreams, for one, don’t charge admission. Illusions are costly only when lost. The body has its own installment plan. And as an extra, added feature, you spin on the planets’ carousel for free, and with it you hitch a ride on the intergalactic blizzard, with times so dizzying that nothing here on Earth can even tremble.

At times I get fed up with her. I suggest a separation. From now to eternity. Then she smiles at me with pity, since she knows it would be the end of me too.

Assassins They think for days on end, how to kill so as to kill, and how many killed will be many. Apart from this they eat their meals with gusto, pray, wash their feet, feed the birds, make phone calls while scratching their armpits, stanch blood when they cut a finger, if they’re women they buy sanitary napkins, eye shadow, flowers for vases, they make jokes on their good days, drink citrus juice from the fridge, watch the moon and stars at night, place headphones with soft music on their ears and sleep sweetly till the crack of dawn —unless what they’re thinking needs doing at night.

It’s good you came. Sit here beside me. He really was supposed to get back Thursday. But we’ve got so many Thursdays left this year.

Page after page at a snail’s pace. But we’re still going in fifth gear and, knock on wood, never better.

We eat another life so as to live. A corpse of pork with departed cabbage. Every menu is an obituary. Even the kindest of souls must consume, digest something killed so that their warm hearts won’t stop beating.

In the end I stopped knowing what I’d been looking for so long. I woke up. Looked at my watch. The dream took not quite two and a half minutes. Such are the tricks to which time resorts ever since it started stumbling on sleeping heads.

#poems #poetry #Wislawa Szymborska #literature #quotes

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whats-the-story-tc · 5 years ago

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26th-28th of April, 2020

"The Ones with the Series of Unfortunate Events"

[LONG AS FUCK SORRY]

After what happened on Saturday, I could barely fall asleep at night. I had a splitting headache from all the crying and genuinely felt like shit. Morning came, and I immediately reached for my phone. Nothing from her. It still being quite early, I tried to go back to sleep, and spent a full hour tossing and turning, a head full of thoughts, until I couldn't take it anymore. I turned my phone on and checked the notification bar, only to see a very familiar name and face.

I submitted my essay to her already, way before it was due, so when she actually assigned it in Google Classroom, I just pressed 'Mark as done' and thought I was good to go. V has obviously seen it (two links here). And, even though I didn't submit jackshit this time, she still felt the need to send me a "Thank you :)". I was overjoyed. FINALLY. So, as I explained here already, I had an impulse thought and decided to respond. "And thank YOU for the "task". I had a lot of fun with it. (I mean, the [poet's name] one.) If you're ever curious about anything of this sort, don't keep it to yourself :)" Of course, I regretted it as soon as I sent it. And, of course, I knew I wouldn't get an answer.

I promptly took a full day of rest after that, like I was trying to recover from a bad break-up. I didn't expect to hear from her again the next day.

Monday morning. New notification. Same old love of my life. She assigned us a project we'd already spoken about last week — to reinterpret a monologue from the play I read, the one V really likes, in any shape or form. Painting, video, prose, or, to quote V: "tiktok (not that I know how that works, but it's your choice)". She also said that she wants to keep what we make, maybe even share them with our Geo/Art teacher. I got even mote excited than when she first announced this. I knew I wanted to draw something, to show her a side of me she'd never seen before. I'm starting it on Friday. Doing a bit of painting, too. Wish me luck.

At around 2 PM that same day, Pocketwatch Friend noticed V's reply to her essay and asked me how she should respond to her. Found it quite funny, not gonna lie, knowing my history with replies. And as my friends told me about the responses they got, I realised a fundamental difference. All of them were skimmed over going into detail. They noted them fine, but didn't take the time to explain why they were noteworthy. So basically, they lacked content. Meanwhile the only things she spent paragraphs pointing out about my essay were miniscule stylistic mistakes. This gave me a fair bit of reassurance about what I do. I did enough. I was enough.

Come Tuesday, I was a nervous wreck to say the least. I always am, when it comes to online classes, but especially so when I have class with V. I walked up-and-down in the room, listening to her talk, not daring to say a word. God, I wish I kept to that.

Before I get to the part where y'all laugh at my misery, a teensy bit of prelude. Here I mentioned that the first time I had spoken to V after class, the 11th of October, 2018, we spoke about Hamlet. In short, I was a bit oblivious, and didn't really know how to recognise the Oedipus complex I've seen associated with the play. We were covering the story of Oedipus anyway, so I trotted up to her after class to talk. I remember the afternoon Sun shining really bright that day, and V being very relaxed and fully in her element as she spoke, leaning against my desk (that I wasn't sitting at by then). I went home smiling, unable to get her out of my head after that. It should've been clear from that day.

Now, on to class. There were a lot of good bits, a lot of interesting bits... but I don't want to talk about those now.

Last ten minutes, V asks if there are any questions. "I might just have one." I said, and immediately regretted it, even though I could hear the smile in V's voice as she said "Off you go". Theatre/Literature buffs, I'm sure you'll know the line "Frailty, thy name is woman!" from, you guessed it, Hamlet. Now, in the poem we were talking about, there was a line with the exact same structure, only with different words in the place of frailty and woman. I tried to twist it and see if V made that same association, but luck didn't favour me that day. V had no last clue what I meant when I said the quote was familiar. I tried to explain it to the best of my abilities, though I didn't remember the exact Hamlet quote. Neither did V. "I don't really know Hamlet by heart." "Neither do I!" I tried to counter, but just made it more awkward. Bless her soul, V googled it there and then, but just by me saying it was said to Gertrude, it brought up another play with another Gertrude — coincidentally, the one V stroke up a conversation about with me on the very last day of actual school. Those being the results made V laugh, so at least that's a win from my part. I ended up looking it up myself, trying to remember the quote, and ended up answering my own damn question. "So it was the grammatical structure, then?" V asked, with that very same peace in her voice as last year, and I excitedly replied "Yes!". Conversation over. And even though she genuinely sounded interested, I hated myself for bringing up a totally unnecessary thing. Though I hope that I made V "pull [Hamlet] off the top shelf" after class, as she said she might, were it not for me finding the answer.

I was already feeling horrible. Then, V brought up the assignments mentioned earlier and sounded really excited about it, starting to list what she imagined us doing. "A rewrite of the scene in the play..." and as she was saying my name, I grinned and asked her "Was this an indirect reference?". I needed no further convincing that she, indeed, read what I texted her. But here comes the part I laugh at now, but right then it was horrible. She actually chuckled at my teasing question, and God I wish I remembered what she said. Then I said: "I was actually planning on something else, but..." because I found it an interesting idea, and I have been meaning to do that, too. And that's where it got awkward. V, the usually unfaltering and confident V, was startled. Proper startled that she might have accidentally changed my mind. She started saying "oh, no, I didn't mean it like that, I was just trying to predict things..." and that made me worried, so after the oh no, I immediately started rambling "no, no, of course, I know what you meant, I understand". So there we were, talking over each other, both of us a nervous mess that we may have said something wrong we didn't mean. Right now, I find it absolutely hilarious, because how on Earth did we manage that?? But there and then?

I started crying. Silently, of course, not to worry her even further. (I didn't want to turn my mic off because I was scared it would malfunction again.) But I was so tense, that all my gasoline pool of nerves needed was this little spark of awkward, and it caught flame. I stood there, tears streaming down my cheeks, blaming myself for speaking and thinking I should've just shut up.

Soon after, V told us not to stress about the assignment, because "it's just homework". Everybody's favourite Cynical Twat, who is even worse at social situations than I am, tried to express he was glad to hear that, but did so in a very confusing and sarcastic way that V didn't really understand. "It would be pretty shitty of me" to make us stress, she said. So I dried my tears and jumped in, because she deserved to hear the compliment. "I don't mean to speak for [Cynical Twat], but I think he meant that we're all glad you said that. Not many people do it like that." I told her something along the lines of that. "Oh, okay." she said, disbelief thick in her voice. Hey, V. We bloody love you. It's time you start believing it.

Class ended soon after, and I spent about twenty minutes sobbing and cursing myself. The message from Pocketwatch Friend saying "I can't believe [V] replies to everything" as they were talking about her essay, only made it worse.

That night, I had a conversation with one of my underclassmen I talk to every once in a blue moon. We were discussing school and teachers, and I intentionally didn't bring up V. I waited for her to. Though, okay, I did provoke it a teensy bit, but just slightly. So, we talk about her, and through the things the girl says, I find out that... heh, of course, I'm not the only one she strikes up convos with. Turns out, after a joke, V even winked at her! (Okay, she did that to me once, too, when I stood up for her in class, but that's not the point.) After that, I was carrying the convo on just fine, but inwards, I was spiralling into a great big void of 'You ain't special to her, bitch, the fuck were you thinking'. The girl ended the conversation with "the woman's weird (...) but that's how we love her". Right. Yeah.

Now, two days later at current, I'm back in the room where all the crying went down. Bit surreal, thinking back. I'm sure I won't forget this for quite a while. Will my unlucky strike stop anytime soon? I don't know. We'll see. But I don't think anything could surprise me anymore.

You may take that as a challenge, V.

~ S ♡

[Every story I share here, no matter how specific I get with my wording, depicts actual events from my own life.]

#tc #tcc #teacher crush community #female tc #female teacher crush

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alexandrasavior · 5 years ago

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Alexandra Savior AMA !!

COMING IN HOT BITCHES!!!!

Hi Alex! How much of the instrumentation was figured out before heading into the studio? Did you just bring in bare minimum demos and then fleshed them out in the studio? Or did you have most of it prepared and just recorded it? I really loved the album by the way!

Thank you! It was different for each track. A lot of the songs I had full fleshed demos that my band and I had recorded in Portland, and Sam Cohen and I worked around those. Some of the tracks like "But You" I had some Garage band demos I made on my own that we worked around, and some of the tracks like "Soft Currents" were just raw iPhone recordings of me playing and singing, and Sam and I worked out together in the studio.

Your music has some really interesting chord progressions and melodic phrases. To what extent do you consciously apply music theory to your songwriting, and how much just comes naturally from ear and instinct?

To no extent :/ I am not super skilled in music theory, I just play around until it seems like it makes sense to me

You described your desire for Belladonna of Sadness to sound "murderous", and I thought that darkness and dangerous feeling really shone through. What adjectives would you powerfully ascribe to your sophomore album? What tonal differences were important to you while recording?

I like this question! hmmmmmm. “honest"

I'm pretty new to your music, but, everyday I can't stop myself from liking it more. My two current favorite songs are “The Phantom” and “Bad Disease”. I've seen that many people prefer other songs from the album, so that made me think. What is your personal favorite song from your new album? Thanks!

“But You”!

Hypothetical: You’re making a new album and need to assemble your dream band. Anyone dead/alive. Who are you choosing?

My best friend Emma, my boyfriend, Mel, and like my therapist

Is there anything that you do in terms of practice when it comes to vocals/guitar/songwriting to improve yourself? Interested to hear

Try to play everyday

I'd love to know if you've got any cool, hidden talents that you haven't shown in public. Also I badly want to know who's done the cover for both “Saving Grace” and “Crying All the Time”.

ME! I painted them

What are your tips for marketing your music and getting more people to stream/buy your music?

I am lucky because I have a team that guides me through social posts, and a publicist. But don't post pics of your butt

Your music and music videos have so many cinematic elements to them. Does an affinity for film influence your music? If so, do you have some favorite films you can mention?

yes! Bonnie and Clyde, Rosemary's Baby, Don't Look Now, Fargo, Daisies

I've seen a few people comparing your latest work with Lana del Rey's. Do you listen to her? Was she really an inspiration for the record?

I like Lana she's talented, I understand the comparison in some ways , people tend to compare things naturally. But, no she wasn't my personal inspiration in any conscious way

Did you make a conscious effort to distance yourself from the sound of Belladonna of Sadness with this new album?

No, I have gotten mixed feedback some people say its the exact same sound, some say it is different, I just created what came naturally to me and used sounds that I am personally drawn to.

If you were to try to make someone a fan of your music, but could only show them three of your songs, what songs would you show them?

oooooh! hmmmmm. “But You”, “Audeline”, “Crying All The Time”.

Excuse me Ms. Savior - I fell in love with your duet "We're Just Making It Worse" many moons ago. What can you tell us about that song?

Thanks! Well my homie Cameron Avery wrote that tune, he just asked me to sing on it and I was glad to!

What do you think was the biggest difference between writing The Archer and Belladonna of Sadness?

i was alone

What advice would you give to up and coming musicians in the LA scene? Any Dos or Don’ts? Thank you :)

Don’t be gross and creepy! Don't worry about that hipsta shit. Do be nice and make your own shit!

What is the most unusual thing that you do to help you write or to help you get some inspiration?

Stalk all my exes’ new gfs on insta and then eat an entire chocolate cake

Will we ever get to hear your version of “Miracle Aligner”?

probs not

When does the vinyl for The Archer ship? I am hoping to get one of you drawings with mine!

First batch tomorrow 1/17/2020. Second batch Tuesday 1/21/2020. Thank You!

I saw a clip from a concert you gave recently. It was you with a couple of bandmates singing something acapella. What's that song? Is it yours? It was gooorgeous. Any chance you're coming to Barcelona?

"The Oak and The Ash", an old celtic song. I will be playing Sala Nau May 13th!!!!!!!!

Can you talk about the differences in recording your first album while signed to a major label and this album while signed to a indie label? I know you’ve spoken about why you left Columbia, but I was wondering how your personal process differed this time around, especially with different resources and personnel?

Yeah it was a lot less pressure making this record, I had more say and more freedom of expression.

You said in an interview that you wrote the songs for The Archer on piano or guitar and brought them to the studio recorded on your phone. Would you ever consider releasing these as bonus tracks?

I might ya! They’re probably a lot less interesting than you think

Do you have any tips on how to overcome writers block/find new ways to approach writing ? I've been struggling a bit lately... Have you been reading lately? If so, what books would you recommend ? :)

Just be kind to yourself, do what is natural, don't beat yourself up. I just re-read "My Year of Rest and Relaxation" by Otessa Moshfegh, now I am ready " Conversations With Friends" by Sally Rooney. I would recommend any Joan Didion, also I enjoy Salingers "Nine Stories"

This album feels a lot more personal than the first one. How would you say it compares in relation to how you expressed yourself as an artist?

I was very insecure while writing my first record, and I was co-writing so I used a lot of techniques to shelter my own opinions and feelings, in The Archer it was just me, so it was more of a journal entry than a big fancy record

Which artists did you grow up admiring, and inspired your style? Also, do you have any poetry recommendations, seeing how all your lyrics are poems in their own right?

hmmmm. ok Hilary Duff, Elvis, The White Stripes, Billie Holiday. Poetry: I don’t read much poetry but I like Rimbaud and Sylvia Plath

How did you feel when you found out “Risk” played on True Detective?

I cried

On Belladonna, what inspired the lyrics and melody for “Till You're Mine”? That song is always on repeat in my household.

Thanks! I would say my own insecurities and jealousy towards a specific woman in my life

Do you write the melodies as well as the lyrics or is it a collaborative effort?

For this record I wrote the melodies, lyrics, and chords for every song aside from "The Phantom" which was a collaboration with Sam Cohen.

What inspired you to make this new album?

I just make songs, and each song was inspired by something different, but mostly I needed to show people I WRITE MY SONGS

Do you have plans to sell more merch? I would really love to get my hands on signed stuff or one of your drawings/crafts.

yes workin' on merch now! <3

As a budding songwriter and musician myself is there any advice or wisdom you could pass on when it comes to making a career out of it?

I think writing as much as you can and trying to write honestly is important. I was lucky in a strange string of events that started my career, and every dream is different, but I suppose just keep writing and releasing your songs wherever you can

Often when I listen to music I tend to relate the song to places I've been to or places I'm at while listening. Is it the same for you when you write your songs? Do you think about a specific place for each song?

Yeah totally!

Would you ever be interested in collaborating with another artist on their record?

Yeah! Depends on who, I have always wanted to sing on a rap song.

Collab with Weyes Blood coming anytime soon?

i wish brah

Any tips on staying sane with dating apps?

don’t do dating apps

Romance is a topic which you touch upon in both of your albums. Do you have any words or phrases that have helped you through a difficult time, both in dealing with or exploring relationships past or present, if so what are they? What is your favorite set of lyrics ever, i.e. phrases etc.

"fuck hem he's a deck", "Kathy's Song" Simon and Garfunkel, "I Remember" Molly Drake

Do you use more real life experience or do you use more imagination/creativity when writing lyrics?

Depends how boring my personal life is at the time haha

What's your favorite Beatle, favorite Beatle album and favorite Beatle song?

Georgie boy <333333333

Are there any plans to record/release that “political song” with the violin that you played at Homiefest last year? For a third album maybe? Thanks, loved you since 2015 when I first heard that “Risk” demo for True Detective. The Archer is a masterpiece no bullshit.

maybe! lol

Where is the love for Chicago? How come we haven't had any shows yet?

Give me a break homie I don't plan this stuff! Would love to come to Chicago! It all depends on timing and $$$$

What was the most challenging song to write on this record?

maybe bad disease

Will there be more music videos?

I dont think so :/

I noticed for both of your releases, theres been a decent amount of time.. between when they were recorded and released. Have you found this frustrating more than anything or is it nice to have time to sit with the album?

Well, sometimes it is hard to move on and write more, with so much time between the final touches of the record and the actual release.... But, it ebs and flows and its out now so its no difference to me now

Who are some artists/bands that you personally enjoy listening to?

Jessica Pratt, The Jhamels, Molly Drake

You also seem like a prolific painter, who would you point to as inspiration/muse? My best guess would be Picasso.

Alice Neel 100%

When you feel like you’re stuck when you’re writing a song, what do you do to get around it?

I stop writing for a while, don't force it. Everyone's process is different so I try not to beat myself up too much about it

When Kevin Parker hit reddit someone asked him about if he can upload a new song and he did so... Can we hear a new song ?

If Kevin Parker jumped off a bridge WOULD YOU ?!

Who's your dream musical collab? If you were to make a soundtrack what director would you work with?

dream collab: Snoop Dogg, director: Quentin

Can you say a little bit about the creation of the album art? It's understated but there is definitely a mood there!

my dear friend Dana Trippe took the photos, and my dear friend Aaron Mitchell did the fonts

Noticed your music has a very “old horror movie/spaghetti western” vibe to them. Any films/soundtracks that inform your sound you’d recommend?

ooooh Anything Coen Brothers or Wes Anderson

How much was growing up in Portland an influence on your music?

I would say the rain had a lot to do with my melancholy, but also the music scene in Portland has always been very DIY and rock-based so “ guess that influenced me in some way.

What’s your favorite song of your’s lyrically and your favorite song to perform?

fave lyrically: Bad Disease, fave to perform: But You or Mystery Girl

The whole record was amazing but “Soft Currents” keyboards are really something else, are you planning to write more on the piano?

thank you! yes been writing a lot on the ole ivories

I love how a lot of your songs sound very cinematic - would you like to get into movie music in some capacity? Either scoring or soundtrack?

Awh hell yeuh

Is there a particular song that you're most proud of?

But YOu!

What would you say is your favorite guitar that you own and what is your dream guitar to own?

I am not much of a gear-head though I would love and old nylon string

Do you think that “Risk” will ever be made available on Spotify and Apple Music?

Unfortunately, because it was released on T-Bone Brunette's label, there was a legal situation that made me unable to release it separately. :/

Will you be making more of those amazingly weird embroidered underwear for your new tour? Obvs need some Savior swag on this tush.

I wish! I don’t have a sewing machine anymore but I will be selling my lil boxes online soon

Any chance for a show in Toronto? I'm a big fan, and I introduced my mom to your music and she absolutely loves you (her words) so I'd love to take her to one of your shows

hahah awh <3 None planned at the moment :(

What song on The Archer was a struggle to finish? Or were they all easy?

easy peasy lemon squeezy

Don't want to take away from your latest release (because it is an amazing album) but was there a reason you decided to not work with Alex Turner or James Ford for any of the new songs, writing or producing?

-__-

Since both your albums have been about relationships mostly, would you ever consider making a political song/album? What is your stance on that old debate?

I write what comes naturally to me

What should I name my snail stuffed animal?

gail

Why didn’t you get a proper promotional run from Columbia for Belladonna? It’s an amazing album but I just found out about you through The Archer (which is equally amazing).

I can't really say, but I don’t think I was ever gonna make the kind of $$$ Columbia wanted

Would you like to tour South America at some point in your career?

awh hell yeuh!

Is there any particular era/motive which inspires your music visuals (album covers, music videos)? All the best from Split, Croatia!

70s!

Based on your Spotify stats, what are the countries that listen to you the most?

IDK! France seems to be very supportive

Any artist that you like that you could recommend?

Jessica Pratt, Sudan Archives, Vagabon

What's your favorite thing to draw/paint?

women

Who is your favorite artist / what is your favorite album at the moment, and how would you say this impacted on how The Archer sounds? Also please come to the North of England 😂

I AM!!! CHECK MY TOUR SCHEDULE AND COME BB!! favorite album rn "The Colour Green" by Sibylle Baier

What’s playing in your head now?

the click clacking of a mac keyboard

How do you like your coffee?

a lil bit of almond milk

Will The Archer be getting a cd release?

no :(

That's all folks! Thank for all of the questions, and most of all thank you so much for listening to my songs, it is a dream come true <3 Come see me play at my upcoming shows ! Can't wait to see you there <33333 amour my homies

#alexandra savior #interview #(in a way)#reddit ama #2020 #*

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booksalves · 5 years ago

Text

The Sound of Murakami

Try reading an excerpt from The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle to my curated playlist!

June and July 1984

Tuesday's Wind-Up Bird

Six Fingers and Four Breasts

When the phone rang I was in the kitchen, boiling a potful of spaghetti and whistling along with an FM broadcast of the overture to Rossini's The Thieving Magpie, which has to be the perfect music for cooking pasta.

I wanted to ignore the phone, not only because the spaghetti was nearly done, but because Claudio Abbado was bringing the London Symphony to its musical climax. Finally, though, I had to give in. It could have been somebody with news of a job opening. I lowered the flame, went to the living room, and picked up the receiver.

"Ten minutes, please," said a woman on the other end.

I'm good at recognizing people's voices, but this was not one I knew.

"Excuse me? To whom did you wish to speak?"

"To you, of course. Ten minutes, please. That's all we need to understand each other." Her voice was low and soft but otherwise nondescript.

"Understand each other?"

"Each other's feelings."

I leaned over and peeked through the kitchen door. The spaghetti pot was steaming nicely, and Claudio Abbado was still conducting The Thieving Magpie.

"Sorry, but you caught me in the middle of making spaghetti. Can I ask you to call back later?"

"Spaghetti!? What are you doing cooking spaghetti at ten-thirty in the morning?"

"That's none of your business," I said. "I decide what I eat and when I eat it."

"True enough. I'll call back," she said, her voice now flat and expressionless. A little change in mood can do amazing things to the tone of a person's voice.

"Hold on a minute," I said before she could hang up. "If this is some new sales gimmick, you can forget it. I'm out of work. I'm not in the market for anything."

"Don't worry. I know."

"You know? You know what?"

"That you're out of work. I know about that. So go cook your precious spaghetti."

"Who the hell-"

She cut the connection.

With no outlet for my feelings, I stared at the phone in my hand until I remembered the spaghetti. Back in the kitchen, I turned off the gas and poured the contents of the pot into a colander. Thanks to the phone call, the spaghetti was a little softer than al dente, but it had not been dealt a mortal blow. I started eating - and thinking.

Understand each other? Understand each other's feelings in ten minutes? What was she talking about? Maybe it was just a prank call. Or some new sales pitch. In any case, it had nothing to do with me.

After lunch, I went back to my library novel on the living room sofa, glancing every now and then at the telephone. What were we supposed to understand about each other in ten minutes? What can two people understand about each other in ten minutes? Come to think of it, she seemed awfully sure about those ten minutes: it was the first thing out of her mouth. As if nine minutes would be too short or eleven minutes too long. Like cooking spaghetti al dente.

I couldn't read anymore. I decided to iron shirts instead. Which is what I always do when I'm upset. It's an old habit. I divide the job into twelve precise stages, beginning with the collar (outer surface) and ending with the left-hand cuff. The order is always the same, and I count off each stage to myself. Otherwise, it won't come out right.

I ironed three shirts, checking them over for wrinkles and putting them on hangers. Once I had switched off the iron and put it away with the ironing board in the hall closet, my mind felt a good deal clearer.

I was on my way to the kitchen for a glass of water when the phone rang again. I hesitated for a second but decided to answer it. If it was the same woman, I'd tell her I was ironing and hang up.

This time it was Kumiko. The wall clock said eleven-thirty. "How are you?" she asked.

"Fine," I said, relieved to hear my wife's voice.

"What are you doing?"

"Just finished ironing."

"What's wrong?" There was a note of tension in her voice. She knew what it meant for me to be ironing.

"Nothing. I was just ironing some shirts." I sat down and shifted the receiver from my left hand to my right. "What's up?"

"Can you write poetry?" she asked.

"Poetry!?" Poetry? Did she mean . . . poetry?

"I know the publisher of a story magazine for girls. They're looking for somebody to pick and revise poems submitted by readers. And they want the person to write a short poem every month for the frontispiece. Pay's not bad for an easy job. Of course, it's part-time. But they might add some editorial work if the person-"

"Easy work?" I broke in. "Hey, wait a minute. I'm looking for something in law, not poetry."

"I thought you did some writing in high school."

"Yeah, sure, for the school newspaper: which team won the soccer championship or how the physics teacher fell down the stairs and ended up in the hospital - that kind of stuff. Not poetry. I can't write poetry."

"Sure, but I'm not talking about great poetry, just something for high school girls. It doesn't have to find a place in literary history. You could do it with your eyes closed. Don't you see?"

"Look, I just can't write poetry - eyes open or closed. I've never done it, and I'm not going to start now."

"All right," said Kumiko, with a hint of regret. "But it's hard to find legal work."

"I know. That's why I've got so many feelers out. I should be hearing something this week. If it's no go, I'll think about doing something else."

"Well, I suppose that's that. By the way, what's today? What day of the week?"

I thought a moment and said, "Tuesday."

"Then will you go to the bank and pay the gas and telephone?"

"Sure. I was just about to go shopping for dinner anyway."

"What are you planning to make?"

"I don't know yet. I'll decide when I'm shopping."

She paused. "Come to think of it," she said, with a new seriousness, "there's no great hurry about your finding a job."

This took me off guard. "Why's that?" I asked. Had the women of the world chosen today to surprise me on the telephone? "My unemployment's going to run out sooner or later. I can't keep hanging around forever."

"True, but with my raise and occasional side jobs and our savings, we can get by OK if we're careful. There's no real emergency. Do you hate staying at home like this and doing housework? I mean, is this life so wrong for you?"

"I don't know," I answered honestly. I really didn't know.

"Well, take your time and give it some thought," she said. "Anyhow, has the cat come back?"

The cat. I hadn't thought about the cat all morning. "No," I said.

"Not yet."

"Can you please have a look around the neighborhood? It's been gone over a week now."

I gave a noncommittal grunt and shifted the receiver back to my left hand. She went on:

"I'm almost certain it's hanging around the empty house at the other end of the alley. The one with the bird statue in the yard. I've seen it in there several times."

"The alley? Since when have you been going to the alley? You've never said anything-"

"Oops! Got to run. Lots of work to do. Don't forget about the cat."

She hung up. I found myself staring at the receiver again. Then I set it down in its cradle.

I wondered what had brought Kumiko to the alley. To get there from our house, you had to climb over the cinder-block wall. And once you'd made the effort, there was no point in being there.

I went to the kitchen for a glass of water, then out to the veranda to look at the cat's dish. The mound of sardines was untouched from last night. No, the cat had not come back. I stood there looking at our small garden, with the early-summer sunshine streaming into it. Not that ours was the kind of garden that gives you spiritual solace to look at. The sun managed to find its way in there for the smallest fraction of each day, so the earth was always black and moist, and all we had by way of garden plants were a few drab hydrangeas in one corner - and I don't like hydrangeas. There was a small stand of trees nearby, and from it you could hear the mechanical cry of a bird that sounded as if it were winding a spring. We called it the wind-up bird. Kumiko gave it the name. We didn't know what it was really called or what it looked like, but that didn't bother the wind-up bird. Every day it would come to the stand of trees in our neighborhood and wind the spring of our quiet little world.

So now I had to go cat hunting. I had always liked cats. And I liked this particular cat. But cats have their own way of living. They're not stupid. If a cat stopped living where you happened to be, that meant it had decided to go somewhere else. If it got tired and hungry, it would come back. Finally, though, to keep Kumiko happy, I would have to go looking for our cat. I had nothing better to do.

I had quit my job at the beginning of April - the law job I had had since graduation. Not that I had quit for any special reason. I didn't dislike the work. It wasn't thrilling, but the pay was all right and the office atmosphere was friendly.

My role at the firm was - not to put too fine a point on it - that of professional gofer. And I was good at it. I might say I have a real talent for the execution of such practical duties. I'm a quick study, efficient, I never complain, and I'm realistic. Which is why, when I said I wanted to quit, the senior partner (the father in this father-and-son law firm) went so far as to offer me a small raise.

But I quit just the same. Not that quitting would help me realize any particular hopes or prospects. The last thing I wanted to do, for example, was shut myself up in the house and study for the bar exam. I was surer than ever that I didn't want to become a lawyer. I knew, too, that I didn't want to stay where I was and continue with the job I had. If I was going to quit, now was the time to do it. If I stayed with the firm any longer, I'd be there for the rest of my life. I was thirty years old, after all.

I had told Kumiko at the dinner table that I was thinking of quitting my job. Her only response had been, "I see." I didn't know what she meant by that, but for a while she said nothing more.

I kept silent too, until she added, "If you want to quit, you should quit. It's your life, and you should live it the way you want to." Having said this much, she then became involved in picking out fish bones with her chopsticks and moving them to the edge of her plate.

Kumiko earned pretty good pay as editor of a health food magazine, and she would occasionally take on illustration assignments from editor friends at other magazines to earn substantial additional income. (She had studied design in college and had hoped to be a freelance illustrator.) In addition, if I quit I would have my own income for a while from unemployment insurance. Which meant that even if I stayed home and took care of the house, we would still have enough for extras such as eating out and paying the cleaning bill, and our lifestyle would hardly change.

And so I had quit my job.

I was loading groceries into the refrigerator when the phone rang. The ringing seemed to have an impatient edge to it this time. I had just ripped open a plastic pack of tofu, which I set down carefully on the kitchen table to keep the water from spilling out. I went to the living room and picked up the phone.

"You must have finished your spaghetti by now," said the woman.

"You're right. But now I have to go look for the cat."

"That can wait for ten minutes, I'm sure. It's not like cooking spaghetti."

For some reason, I couldn't just hang up on her. There was something about her voice that commanded my attention. "OK, but no more than ten minutes."

"Now we'll be able to understand each other," she said with quiet certainty. I sensed her settling comfortably into a chair and crossing her legs.

"I wonder," I said. "What can you understand in ten minutes?"

"Ten minutes may be longer than you think," she said.

"Are you sure you know me?"

"Of course I do. We've met hundreds of times."

"Where? When?"

"Somewhere, sometime," she said. "But if I went into that, ten minutes would never be enough. What's important is the time we have now. The present. Don't you agree?"

"Maybe. But I'd like some proof that you know me."

"What kind of proof?"

"My age, say?"

"Thirty," she answered instantaneously. "Thirty and two months. Good enough?"

That shut me up. She obviously did know me, but I had absolutely no memory of her voice.

"Now it's your turn," she said, her voice seductive. "Try picturing me. From my voice. Imagine what I'm like. My age. Where I am. How I'm dressed. Go ahead."

"I have no idea," I said.

"Oh, come on," she said. "Try."

I looked at my watch. Only a minute and five seconds had gone by. "I have no idea," I said again.

"Then let me help you," she said. "I'm in bed. I just got out of the shower, and I'm not wearing a thing."

Oh, great. Telephone sex.

"Or would you prefer me with something on? Something lacy. Or stockings. Would that work better for you?"

"I don't give a damn. Do what you like," I said. "Put something on if you want to. Stay naked if you want to. Sorry, but I'm not interested in telephone games like this. I've got a lot of things I have to-"

"Ten minutes," she said. "Ten minutes won't kill you. It won't put a hole in your life. Just answer my question. Do you want me naked or with something on? I've got all kinds of things I could put on. Black lace panties . . ."

"Naked is fine."

"Well, good. You want me naked."

"Yes. Naked. Good."

Four minutes.

"My pubic hair is still wet," she said. "I didn't dry myself very well. Oh, I'm so wet! Warm and moist. And soft. Wonderfully soft and black. Touch me."

"Look, I'm sorry, but-"

"And down below too. All the way down. It's so warm down there, like butter cream. So warm. Mmm. And my legs. What position do you think my legs are in? My right knee is up, and my left leg is open just enough. Say, ten-oh-five on the clock."

I could tell from her voice that she was not faking it. She really did have her legs open to ten-oh-five, her sex warm and moist.

"Touch the lips," she said. "Slooowly. Now open them. That's it. Slowly, slowly. Let your fingers caress them. Oh so slowly. Now, with your other hand, touch my left breast. Play with it. Caress it. Upward. And give the nipple a little squeeze. Do it again. And again. And again. Until I'm just about to come."

Without a word, I put the receiver down. Stretching out on the sofa, I stared at the clock and released a long, deep sigh. I had spoken with her for close to six minutes.

The phone rang again ten minutes later, but I left it on the hook. It rang fifteen times. And when it stopped, a deep, cold silence descended upon the room.

Just before two, I climbed over the cinder-block wall and down into the alley - or what we called the alley. It was not an "alley" in the proper sense of the word, but then, there was probably no word for what it was. It wasn't a "road" or a "path" or even a "way." Properly speaking, a "way" should be a pathway or channel with an entrance and an exit, which takes you somewhere if you follow it. But our "alley" had neither entrance nor exit. You couldn't call it a cul-de-sac, either: a cul-de-sac has at least one open end. The alley had not one dead end but two. The people of the neighborhood called it "the alley" strictly as an expedient. It was some two hundred yards in length and threaded its way between the back gardens of the houses that lined either side. Barely over three feet in width, it had several spots at which you had to edge through sideways because of fences sticking out into the path or things that people had left in the way.

About this alley, the story was - the story I heard from my uncle, who rented us our house for next to nothing - that it used to have both an entrance and an exit and actually served the purpose of providing a shortcut between two streets. But with the rapid economic growth of the mid-fifties, rows of new houses came to fill the empty lots on either side of the road, squeezing it down until it was little more than a narrow path. People didn't like strangers passing so close to their houses and yards, so before long, one end of the path was blocked off - or, rather, screened off - with an unassertive fence. Then one local citizen decided to enlarge his yard and completely sealed off his end of the alley with a cinder-block wall. As if in response, a barbed-wire barrier went up at the other end, preventing even dogs from getting through. None of the neighbors complained, because none of them used the alley as a passageway, and they were just as happy to have this extra protection against crime. As a result, the alley remained like some kind of abandoned canal, unused, serving as little more than a buffer zone between two rows of houses. Spiders spread their sticky webs in the overgrowth.

Why had Kumiko been frequenting such a place? I myself had walked down that "alley" no more than twice, and Kumiko was afraid of spiders at the best of times. Oh, what the hell - if Kumiko said I should go to the alley and look for the cat, I'd go to the alley and look for the cat. What came later I could think about later. Walking outside like this was far better than sitting in the house waiting for the phone to ring.

The sharp sunshine of early summer dappled the surface of the alley with the hard shadows of the branches that stretched overhead. Without wind to move the branches, the shadows looked like permanent stains, destined to remain imprinted on the pavement forever. No sounds of any kind seemed to penetrate this place. I could almost hear the blades of grass breathing in the sunlight. A few small clouds floated in the sky, their shapes clear and precise, like the clouds in medieval engravings. I saw everything with such terrific clarity that my own body felt vague and boundless and flowing . . . and hot!

I wore a T-shirt, thin cotton pants, and tennis shoes, but walking in the summer sun, I could feel a light film of sweat forming under my arms and in the hollow of my chest. The T-shirt and pants had been packed away in a box crammed with summer clothing until I pulled them out that morning, the sharp smell of mothballs penetrating my nostrils.

The houses that lined the alley fell into two distinct categories: older houses and those built more recently. As a group, the newer ones were smaller, with smaller yards to match. Their clothes-drying poles often protruded into the alley, making it necessary for me to thread my way through the occasional screen of towels and sheets and undershirts. Over some back walls came the clear sound of television sets and flushing toilets, and the smell of curry cooking.

The older houses, by contrast, gave hardly any sense of life. These were screened off by well-placed shrubs and hedges, between which I caught glimpses of manicured gardens.

An old, brown, withered Christmas tree stood in the corner of one garden. Another had become the dumping ground for every toy known to man, the apparent leavings of several childhoods. There were tricycles and toss rings and plastic swords and rubber balls and tortoise dolls and little baseball bats. One garden had a basketball hoop, and another had fine lawn chairs surrounding a ceramic table. The white chairs were caked in dirt, as if they had not been used for some months or even years. The tabletop was coated with lavender magnolia petals, beaten down by the rain.

I had a clear view of one living room through an aluminum storm door. It had a matching leather sofa and chairs, a large TV, a sideboard (atop which sat a tropical-fish tank and two trophies of some kind), and a decorative floor lamp. The room looked like the set of a TV drama. A huge doghouse occupied a large part of another garden, but there was no sign of the dog itself, and the house's door stood open. The screen of the doghouse door bulged outward, as if someone had been leaning against it for months at a time.

The vacant house that Kumiko had told me about lay just beyond the place with the huge doghouse. One glance was all I needed to see that it was empty - and had been for some time. It was a fairly new two-story house, yet its wooden storm shutters showed signs of severe aging, and the railings outside the second-story windows were caked with rust. The house had a cozy little garden, in which, to be sure, a stone statue of a bird stood. The statue rested on a base that came to chest height and was surrounded by a thick growth of weeds. Tall fronds of goldenrod were almost touching the bird's feet. The bird - I had no idea what kind of bird it was supposed to be - had its wings open as if it wanted to escape from this unpleasant place as soon as possible. Aside from the statue, the garden had no decorative features. A pile of aging plastic lawn chairs stood against the house, and beside them an azalea bush displayed its bright-red blossoms, their color strangely unreal. Weeds made up the rest.

I leaned against the chest-high chain-link fence for a while, contemplating the garden. It should have been a paradise for cats, but there was no sign of cats here now. Perched on the roof's TV antenna, a single pigeon lent its monotonous cries to the scene. The stone bird's shadow fell on the surrounding undergrowth, breaking apart.

I took a lemon drop from my pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it into my mouth. I had taken my resignation from the firm as an opportunity to quit smoking, but now I was never without a pack of lemon drops. Kumiko said I was addicted to them and warned me that I'd soon have a mouthful of cavities, but I had to have my lemon drops. While I stood there looking at the garden, the pigeon on the TV antenna kept up its regular cooing, like some clerk stamping numbers on a sheaf of bills. I don't know how long I stayed there, leaning against the fence, but I remember spitting my lemon drop on the ground when, half melted, it filled my mouth with its sticky sweetness. I had just shifted my gaze to the shadow of the stone bird when I sensed that someone was calling to me from behind.

I turned, to see a girl standing in the garden on the other side of the alley. She was small and had her hair in a ponytail. She wore dark sunglasses with amber frames, and a light-blue sleeveless T-shirt. The rainy season had barely ended, and yet she had already managed to give her slender arms a nice, smooth tan. She had one hand jammed into the pocket of her short pants. The other rested on a waist-high bamboo gate, which could not have been providing much support. Only three feet - maybe four - separated us.

"Hot," she said to me.

"Yeah, right," I answered.

After this brief exchange of views, she stood there looking at me. Then she took a box of Hope regulars from her pants pocket, drew out a cigarette, and put it between her lips. She had a small mouth, the upper lip turned slightly upward. She struck a match and lit her cigarette. When she inclined her head to one side, her hair swung away to reveal a beautifully shaped ear, smooth as if freshly made, its edge aglow with a downy fringe.

She flicked her match away and exhaled smoke through pursed lips. Then she looked up at me as if she had forgotten that I was there. I couldn't see her eyes through the dark, reflective lenses of her sunglasses.

"You live around here?" she asked.

"Uh-huh." I wanted to motion toward our house, but I had turned so many odd angles to get here that I no longer knew exactly where it was. I ended up pointing at random.

"I'm looking for my cat," I explained, wiping a sweaty palm on my pants. "It's been gone for a week. Somebody saw it around here somewhere."

"What kind of cat?"

"A big tom. Brown stripes. Tip of the tail a little bent."

"Name?"

"Noboru. Noboru Wataya."

"No, not your name. The cat's."

"That is my cat's name."

"Oh! Very impressive!"

"Well, actually, it's my brother-in-law's name. The cat sort of reminds us of him. We gave the cat his name, just for fun."

"How does the cat remind you of him?"

"I don't know. Just in general. The way it walks. And it has this blank stare."

She smiled now for the first time, which made her look a lot more childlike than she had seemed at first. She couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen. With its slight curl, her upper lip pointed up at a strange angle. I seemed to hear a voice saying "Touch me" - the voice of the woman on the phone. I wiped the sweat from my forehead with the back of my hand.

"A brown-striped cat with a bent tail," said the girl. "Hmm. Does it have a collar or something?"

"A black flea collar."

She stood there thinking for ten or fifteen seconds, her hand still resting on the gate. Then she dropped what was left of her cigarette and crushed it under her sandal.

"Maybe I did see a cat like that," she said. "I don't know about the bent tail, but it was a brown tiger cat, big, and I think it had a collar."

"When did you see it?"

"When did I see it? Hmm. No more than three or four days ago. Our yard is a kind of highway for the neighborhood cats. They all cut across here from the Takitanis' to the Miyawakis'."

She pointed toward the vacant house, where the stone bird still spread its wings, the tall goldenrod still caught the early-summer sun, and the pigeon went on with its monotonous cooing atop the TV antenna.

"I've got an idea," she said. "Why don't you wait here? All the cats eventually pass through our place on their way to the Miyawakis'. And somebody's bound to call the cops if they see you hanging around like that. It wouldn't be the first time."

I hesitated.

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm the only one here. The two of us can sit in the sun and wait for the cat to show up. I'll help. I've got twenty-twenty vision."

I looked at my watch. Two twenty-six. All I had to do today before it got dark was take in the laundry and fix dinner.

I went in through the gate and followed the girl across the lawn. She dragged her right leg slightly. She took a few steps, stopped, and turned to face me.

"I got thrown from the back of a motorcycle," she said, as if it hardly mattered.

A large oak tree stood at the point where the yard's lawn gave out. Under the tree sat two canvas deck chairs, one draped with a blue beach towel. Scattered on the other were a new box of Hope regulars, an ashtray and lighter, a magazine, and an oversize boom box. The boom box was playing hard-rock music at low volume. She turned the music off and took all the stuff out of the chair for me, dropping it on the grass. From the chair, I could see into the yard of the vacant house - the stone bird, the goldenrod, the chain-link fence. The girl had probably been watching me the whole time I was there.

The yard of this house was very large. It had a broad, sloping lawn dotted with clumps of trees. To the left of the deck chairs was a rather large concrete-lined pond, its empty bottom exposed to the sun. Judging from its greenish tinge, it had been without water for some time. We sat with our backs to the house, which was visible through a screen of trees. The house was neither large nor lavish in its construction. Only the yard gave an impression of large size, and it was well manicured.

"What a big yard," I said, looking around. "It must be a pain to take care of."

"Must be."

"I used to work for a lawn-mowing company when I was a kid."

"Oh?" She was obviously not interested in lawns.

"Are you always here alone?" I asked.

"Yeah. Always. Except a maid comes mornings and evenings. During the day it's just me. Alone. Want a cold drink? We've got beer."

"No, thanks."

"Really? Don't be shy."

I shook my head. "Don't you go to school?"

"Don't you go to work?"

"No work to go to."

"Lost your job?"

"Sort of. I quit a few weeks ago."

"What kind of job?"

"I was a lawyer's gofer. I'd go to different government offices to pick up documents, put materials in order, check on legal precedents, handle court procedures - that kind of stuff."

"But you quit."

"Yeah."

"Does your wife have a job?"

"She does."

The pigeon across the way must have stopped its cooing and gone off somewhere. I suddenly realized that a deep silence lay all around me.

"Right over there is where the cats go through," she said, pointing toward the far side of the lawn. "See the incinerator in the Takitanis' yard? They come under the fence at that point, cut across the grass, and go out under the gate to the yard across the way. They always follow exactly the same route."

She perched her sunglasses on her forehead, squinted at the yard, and lowered her glasses again, exhaling a cloud of smoke. In the interval, I saw that she had a two-inch cut next to her left eye - the kind of cut that would probably leave a scar the rest of her life. The dark sunglasses were probably meant to hide the wound. The girl's face was not a particularly beautiful one, but there was something attractive about it, probably the lively eyes or the unusual shape of the lips.

"Do you know about the Miyawakis?" she asked.

"Not a thing," I said.

"They're the ones who lived in the vacant house. A very proper family. They had two daughters, both in a private girls' school. Mr. Miyawaki owned a few family restaurants."

"Why'd they leave?"

"Maybe he was in debt. It was like they ran away - just cleared out one night. About a year ago, I think. Left the place to rot and breed cats. My mother's always complaining."

"Are there so many cats in there?"

Cigarette in her lips, the girl looked up at the sky.

"All kinds of cats. Some losing their fur, some with one eye . . . and where the other eye used to be, a lump of raw flesh. Yuck!"

I nodded.

"I've got a relative with six fingers on each hand. She's just a little older than me. Next to her pinkie she's got this extra finger, like a baby's finger. She knows how to keep it folded up so most people don't notice. She's really pretty."

I nodded again.

"You think it's in the family? What do you call it . . . part of the bloodline?"

"I don't know much about heredity."

She stopped talking. I sucked on my lemon drop and looked hard at the cat path. Not one cat had shown itself so far.

"Sure you don't want something to drink?" she asked. "I'm going to have a Coke."

I said I didn't need a drink.

She left her deck chair and disappeared through the trees, dragging her bad leg slightly. I picked up her magazine from the grass and leafed through it. Much to my surprise, it turned out to be a men's magazine, one of the glossy monthlies. The woman in the foldout wore thin panties that showed her slit and pubic hair. She sat on a stool with her legs spread out at weird angles. With a sigh, I put the magazine back, folded my hands on my chest, and focused on the cat path again.

A very long time went by before the girl came back, with a Coke in her hand. The heat was getting to me. Sitting under the sun, I felt my brain fogging over. The last thing I wanted to do was think.

"Tell me," she said, picking up her earlier conversation. "If you were in love with a girl and she turned out to have six fingers, what would you do?"

"Sell her to the circus," I answered.

"Really?"

"No, of course not," I said. "I'm kidding. I don't think it would bother me."

"Even if your kids might inherit it?"

I took a moment to think about that.

"No, I really don't think it would bother me. What harm would an extra finger do?"

"What if she had four breasts?"

I thought about that too.

"I don't know."

Four breasts? This kind of thing could go on forever. I decided to change the subject.

"How old are you?" I asked.

"Sixteen," she said. "Just had my birthday. First year in high school."

"Have you been out of school long?"

"My leg hurts if I walk too much. And I've got this scar near my eye. My school's very strict. They'd probably start bugging me if they found out I hurt myself falling off a motorcycle. So I'm out 'sick.' I could take a year off. I'm not in any hurry to go up a grade."

"No, I guess not," I said.

"Anyhow, what you were saying before, that you wouldn't mind marrying a girl with six fingers but not four breasts . . ."

"I didn't say that. I said I didn't know."

"Why don't you know?"

"I don't know - it's hard to imagine such a thing."

"Can you imagine someone with six fingers?"

"Sure, I guess so."

"So why not four breasts? What's the difference?"

I took another moment to think it over, but I couldn't find an answer.

"Do I ask too many questions?"

"Do people tell you that?"

"Yeah, sometimes."

I turned toward the cat path again. What the hell was I doing here? Not one cat had showed itself the whole time. Hands still folded on my chest, I closed my eyes for maybe thirty seconds. I could feel the sweat forming on different parts of my body. The sun poured into me with a strange heaviness. Whenever the girl moved her glass, the ice clinked inside it like a cowbell.

"Go to sleep if you want," she whispered. "I'll wake you if a cat shows up."

Eyes closed, I nodded in silence.

The air was still. There were no sounds of any kind. The pigeon had long since disappeared. I kept thinking about the woman on the telephone. Did I really know her? There had been nothing remotely familiar about her voice or her manner of speaking. But she definitely knew me. I could have been looking at a De Chirico scene: the woman's long shadow cutting across an empty street and stretching toward me, but she herself in a place far removed from the bounds of my consciousness. A bell went on ringing and ringing next to my ear.

"Are you asleep?" the girl asked, in a voice so tiny I could not be sure I was hearing it.

"No, I'm not sleeping," I said.

"Can I get closer? It'll be . . . easier if I keep my voice low."

"Fine with me," I said, eyes still closed.

She moved her chair until it struck mine with a dry, wooden clack.

Strange, the girl's voice sounded completely different, depending on whether my eyes were open or closed.

"Can I talk? I'll keep real quiet, and you don't have to answer. You can even fall asleep. I don't mind."

"OK," I said.

"When people die, it's so neat."

Her mouth was next to my ear now, so the words worked their way inside me along with her warm, moist breath.

"Why's that?" I asked.

She put a finger on my lips as if to seal them.

"No questions," she said. "And don't open your eyes. OK?"

My nod was as small as her voice.

She took her finger from my lips and placed it on my wrist.

"I wish I had a scalpel. I'd cut it open and look inside. Not the corpse . . . the lump of death. I'm sure there must be something like that. Something round and squishy, like a softball, with a hard little core of dead nerves. I want to take it out of a dead person and cut it open and look inside. I always wonder what it's like. Maybe it's all hard, like toothpaste dried up inside the tube. That's it, don't you think? No, don't answer. It's squishy on the outside, and the deeper you go inside, the harder it gets. I want to cut open the skin and take out the squishy stuff, use a scalpel and some kind of spatula to get through it, and the closer you get to the center, the harder the squishy stuff gets, until you reach this tiny core. It's sooo tiny, like a tiny ball bearing, and really hard. It must be like that, don't you think?"

She cleared her throat a few times.

"That's all I think about these days. Must be because I have so much time to kill every day. When you don't have anything to do, your thoughts get really, really far out - so far out you can't follow them all the way to the end."

She took the finger from my wrist and drank down the rest of her cola. I knew the glass was empty from the sound of the ice.

"Don't worry about the cat - I'm watching for it. I'll let you know if Noboru Wataya shows up. Keep your eyes closed. I'm sure Noboru Wataya is walking around here someplace. He'll be here any minute now. He's coming. I know he's coming-through the grass, under the fence, stopping to sniff the flowers along the way, little by little Noboru Wataya is coming closer. Picture him that way, get his image in mind."

I tried to picture the image of the cat, but the best I could do was a blurry, backlighted photo. The sunlight penetrating my eyelids destabilized and diffused my inner darkness, making it impossible for me to bring up a precise image of the cat. Instead, what I imagined was a failed portrait, a strange, distorted picture, certain distinguishing features bearing some resemblance to the original but the most important parts missing. I couldn't even recall how the cat looked when it walked.

The girl put her finger on my wrist again, using the tip to draw an odd diagram of uncertain shape. As if in response, a new kind of darkness - different in quality from the darkness I had been experiencing until that moment - began to burrow into my consciousness. I was probably falling asleep. I didn't want this to happen, but there was no way I could resist it. My body felt like a corpse - someone else's corpse - sinking into the canvas deck chair.

In the darkness, I saw the four legs of Noboru Wataya, four silent brown legs atop four soft paws with swelling, rubberlike pads, legs that were soundlessly treading the earth somewhere.

But where?

"Ten minutes is all it will take," said the woman on the phone. No, she had to be wrong. Sometimes ten minutes is not ten minutes. It can stretch and shrink. That was something I did know for sure.

When I woke up, I was alone. The girl had disappeared from the deck chair, which was still touching mine. The towel and cigarettes and magazine were there, but not the glass or the boom box.

The sun had begun to sink in the west, and the shadow of an oak branch had crept across my knees. My watch said it was four-fifteen. I sat up and looked around. Broad lawn, dry pond, fence, stone bird, goldenrod, TV antenna. Still no sign of the cat. Or of the girl.

I glanced at the cat path and waited for the girl to come back. Ten minutes went by, and neither cat nor girl showed up. Nothing moved. I felt as if I had aged tremendously while I slept.

I stood and glanced toward the house, where there was no sign of a human presence. The bay window reflected the glare of the western sun. I gave up waiting and crossed the lawn to the alley, returning home. I hadn't found the cat, but I had tried my best.

At home, I took in the wash and made preparations for a simple dinner. The phone rang twelve times at five-thirty, but I didn't answer it. Even after the ringing stopped, the sound of the bell lingered in the indoor evening gloom like dust floating in the air. With the tips of its hard claws, the table clock tapped at a transparent board floating in space.

Why not write a poem about the wind-up bird? The idea struck me, but the first line would not come. How could high school girls possibly enjoy a poem about a wind-up bird?

Kumiko came home at seven-thirty. She had been arriving later and later over the past month. It was not unusual for her to return after eight, and sometimes even after ten. Now that I was at home preparing dinner, she no longer had to hurry back. They were understaffed, in any case, and lately one of her colleagues had been out sick.

"Sorry," she said. "The work just wouldn't end, and that part-time girl is useless."

I went to the kitchen and cooked: fish sautéed in butter, salad, and miso soup. Kumiko sat at the kitchen table and vegged out.

"Where were you at five-thirty?" she asked. "I tried to call to say I'd be late."

"The butter ran out. I went to the store," I lied.

"Did you go to the bank?"

"Sure."

"And the cat?"

"Couldn't find it. I went to the vacant house, like you said, but there was no trace of it. I bet it went farther away than that."

She said nothing.

When I finished bathing after dinner, Kumiko was sitting in the living room with the lights out. Hunched down in the dark with her gray shirt on, she looked like a piece of luggage that had been left in the wrong place.

Drying my hair with a bath towel, I sat on the sofa opposite Kumiko.

In a voice I could barely catch, she said, "I'm sure the cat's dead."

"Don't be silly," I replied. "I'm sure it's having a grand old time somewhere. It'll get hungry and come home soon. The same thing happened once before, remember? When we lived in Koenji . . ."

"This time's different," she said. "This time you're wrong. I know it. The cat's dead. It's rotting in a clump of grass. Did you look in the grass in the vacant house?"

"No, I didn't. The house may be vacant, but it does belong to somebody. I can't just go barging in there."

"Then where did you look for the cat? I'll bet you didn't even try. That's why you didn't find it."

I sighed and wiped my hair again with the towel. I started to speak but gave up when I realized that Kumiko was crying. It was understandable: Kumiko loved the cat. It had been with us since shortly after our wedding. I threw my towel in the bathroom hamper and went to the kitchen for a cold beer. What a stupid day it had been: a stupid day of a stupid month of a stupid year.

Noboru Wataya, where are you? Did the wind-up bird forget to wind your spring?

The words came to me like lines of poetry.

Noboru Wataya, Where are you? Did the wind-up bird Forget to wind your spring?

When I was halfway through my beer, the phone started to ring.

"Get it, will you?" I shouted into the darkness of the living room.

"Not me," she said. "You get it."

"I don't want to."

The phone kept on ringing, stirring up the dust that floated in the darkness. Neither of us said a word. I drank my beer, and Kumiko went on crying soundlessly. I counted twenty rings and gave up. There was no point in counting forever.

#haruki murakami #books #book music

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catherinequeenie-benstridge · 5 years ago

Text

What if - Chapter 4

SO CHAPTER 4 IS HERE! Well, we are having a HUGE surprise in this chapter. Steve didn't show up, the memeber of the BRF who will visit the museum is revealed AND maybe we find out something else about the so-called Steve...😏

Enjoy yourselves!

💙👑

17th June 2005

Two weeks had passed since that day. Steve hadn’t shown up at the museum and Kate had an awful amount of work to do so at least she had her mind occupied. With the upcoming visit of a royal family member, the museum had to be at its finest and bests moments. The brunette didn’t know who was the visiting member yet, for some reason, her boss didn’t want to tell her.

Kate just carried on with work. It was Friday so she had lots of school groups. When she lead a group of teenagers in one of the biggest rooms, she instantly froze, recognizing a leather jacket walking to the following room.

-Miss?-One of the students called for her.- Excuse me, miss?

She came back from her shock to attend the young man who had a question about a painting. After going through the most important things in the exposition she let them wonder around.

-Now you can be on your own, this and the next room. I'll be there if you need anything.-She then let them walk alone through the rooms.

Kate went straight to the next one, trying to find him, she needed some answers. Once she got there the room was empty, no one was in there. She checked all over, stopping her eyes on the two pieces of Queen Victoria and Queen Alexandra, when she first met Steve. She got closer, looking at of the benches that were in the middle of the room, finding a white envelope. Catherine frowned her eyebrows, picking it up. It had her name on it. <<Steve…>>, was her first thought. A feeling of anger ran her body from head to toes, she was about to open the envelope but she was stopped by some voices.

-Mummy, mummy come see this, hurry.-A little girl.

-Dad, here, come on, look.-A little boy.

-Mo...Da…-A baby, trying to babble.

She immediately turned around, putting the envelope in a pocked, trying to find the source of the voices, not finding anyone. They were very familiar, like she had heard those children before but she wasn’t able to figure out when. Shaking her mind, she got back to the group, finishing the tour for the day.

Steve was hidden behind a door frame watching all her movements. God, he made a huge mistake. The young man also heard the voices, and moved his head around also trying to find where they came from but having the same result as Catherine. A hand touched his shoulder.

-Sorry Your Royal Highness, but I was informed to take you home.-His bodyguard informed him.

-Yes, of course Jack.-They started walking out when he realized.-You were behind me all the time, right?

-Yes, sir, I never left your side.

-Did you hear the voices?

-Voices? What voices?-Jack asked.

-I heard three voices: a little boy, a little girl and a baby.

-I’m sorry sir, I didn’t hear anything. There were just the lady from the museum, you and me in the room.-He opened the door for him, heading to the car.

-Oh...Well, maybe it was all in my mind…-But he had heard them so clearly, like they were even talking to them, to Kate and him. All the way home, he couldn’t stop thinking about the brunette and the voices. It had been such a strange moment.

He didn’t know what to do. On one hand he wanted to go back to the museum and talk to Catherine again, on the other hand he wanted to wait four more days to tell her the hole truth. Steve closed his bedroom door and screamed, how on earth did he get to this point.

------

-Miss Middleton, do you have a minute?-The head of her department asked Kate when she had already finished.

-Yes, of course.-The brunette followed him to his office, closing the door after her and sitting on one of the chairs.

-Well, as you may remember, next Tuesday a member of the Royal Family will be visiting the Gallery and will be given the patronage. I never told you the name, only that you would be giving the tour through the exposition.-He smiled, the young woman was a very hard worker and proved she was very intelligent and resourceful. He could tell she wanted to know who was going to come.-Okay, I’m not going to delay it anymore, Prince William will be visiting us on his 23rd birthday next Tuesday.

-Wow…-Catherine face was a poem. She got up.-You won’t regret choosing me to tour him through the exposition.

-I know I won’t. You can go now, I know you don’t work this weekend so try not to tell too many people.-He laugh when she was leaving the office.

Kate got home that night with a big blur on her head, she could still hear the voices in her head tho she didn’t found any source. When she entered her room, she dropped dead on her bed mentally exhausted.

-Prince William...Wow...

Pippa had a birthday party that night so she wasn’t expecting her anytime soon. When the brunette started changing her clothes, she found the envelope she never got to open. Holding it between her hands was doubting whether to open it or not. She finally did.

“I feel I have not apologized enough, not for the awfully way I have treated you. I know you will not understand but I cross my heart when I say I did it to keep you safe. I am really sorry, Catherine. Yours, Steve.”

A tear ran down Kate’s cheek. She didn't want to think about him, about that rose she still had on her night table, about his scent. She shook her head, left the note in her jacket’s pocket and turned on the TV, trying to set her mind into something else.

------

Pippa was drunk, very drunk. She said goodbye to her friends in front of Buckingham Palace once the party was over and all of them took different ways to go back home. The young Middleton was walking down the Mall to Trafalgar Square thinking whether to go home by taxi or underground. She was so drunk she didn’t see the young man she crashed into. They both ended up nearly falling, but he managed to grab Pippa by the waist to avoid the rough landing.

-Oh, god, I’m so, so, so, so sorry.-The brunette tried to talk and looked up, finding a leather jacket, a cap and a pair of sunglasses. <<Sunglasses at night…? How weird…>> She didn’t gave it too much importance, thinking he could be someone famous and didn’t want to be recognized.-Thank you, I...I was tying...trying to get hommmm.-Pippa started laughing due to the alcohol and stretched her arm to shook his hand.-I’m Pippa..

-Don’t worry, I’m W...I’m Steve. Are you okay to get home safely? Isn’t there anyone you could call to pick you up?-Steve had decided to go for a walk alone, without guards, and was already heading home. But after Pippa crashed into him, he wanted to make sure she got home safely.

-Well, I may call my s-sister she might be home…-She grabbed her phone from her purse and dialed Kate’s number, grabbing Steve’s arm trying not to fall.

Catherine was watching some random movie when her phone rang, strangely, it was her sister.

-Pips? Is everything okay?-She was worried because when her sister went out, she only called her when something was wrong.

-Everying is okaaaaay, I’m jssst a little drunk….-Pippa started laughing and could sense Kate’s eyes rolling.-Could you come pick me up, please? Or I can take a taxi If it’s too much bother…

-No, where are you? Are you alone?

-Uhm…-Pippa turned around with Steve’s help.-Right in front of Clarence Hus...Hose...h-o-u-s-e. Yep. And no, I’m with this night knight I crashed into some minutes ago. He’s staying until you arrive.

-Okay, I’ll be there in ten.

-Thank you Squeak…-She hang up and looked at Steve.-She will be here in about ten or fifteen minutes.-Pippa tried to relieve the pain her heels were causing her but it made her lose balance, falling again to the ground. Steve tried to grab her but this time they made more of a fuss. No one or nothing fell to the ground except for Steve’s sunglasses and cap.-God, I’m sorry really, gosh I’m embarrassing myself.

Pippa grabbed the glasses and the cap from the ground and went to give them to Steve who forgot to turn around. Pippa gasped realizing who he really was, still with the young man’s arm around her, feeling incredibly sleepy.

-You...You’re…-She fell asleep on Steve’s shoulder, not being able to finish the sentence. Steve put back his cap and sunglasses right before a car stopped in front of them and the woman who had been in his mind for weeks appeared.

-Catherine…?

-Steve...What..-Her heart skipped a bit and then she saw Pippa.-Is she okay?

-Yes, yes she just fell asleep. She is pretty drunk.-Kate got close with the intention to get her sister into the car.-Don’t worry, I’ll do it.

-Okay, I will open the door.

Neither of them said a thing about the previous weeks, using the situation to avoid the subject. Steve managed to put Pippa inside, leaving her head resting on the copilot’s seat. Once Kate closed the door and turned around she faced Steve, too close. They hadn’t realized how close they were until they both stared in each other’s eyes. Quickly, Kate managed to find some strength to move and walk away from him, just a little distance because all she wanted to do was pull his body closer. The same sensation that Steve was feeling, wanting to just close the air between them.

-Catherine, I…

-No, please, I have too much in my head right now.- She noticed the envelope in her jacked and pulled it out.-I...I can’t do this Steve…-Kate closed the distance between them and put the paper in his hands, taking them.

-I…-The young man looked through his sunglasses into the brunette’s eyes, realizing she was about to cry. She was beyond beautiful. They both had the feeling as if they had already hold their hands, maybe in a past life.-Kate, please…

She had no idea how but when she started to feel the urge to kiss him, she walked back and got into the car, driving away and letting her tears fell free. The man stood there, looking at the envelope. When he entered his home and got up the stairs, someone called for him.

-Hey you.-His little brother, with his pyjamas and a cup of tea.

-Hi you. What are you doing still awake? Babies and gingers need at least 9 hours of sleep.-The younger man laughed sarcastically, always teasing each other. They started to walk to their rooms.

-You know, at first I thought it was weird that you got out wearing a cap and sunglasses but…after witnessing what I just saw...there was quite a big tension between you and that woman, wasn’t it?.-The stood in their own doors, facing each other.

-Yes...Yes there were.

-Does she know your name?

-Yes.-His brother opened his eyes.

-What?!

-No, not my real name, I told her...I said my name is Steve.-Laugh, that was the response of the other man.-Of course I couldn’t tell her my real name.

-I know, I know. Look..-He leaned on the door frame.-all I’m saying is that there is something there, worth looking into.-The so-called Steve rose an eyebrow.- And no, it is NOT a sexual reference.

-It may be too late...Good night.-With that he turned around.

-Good night William.

------

Pippa woke up the next morning feeling her worse self. With a groan she stepped into the kitchen just to find her sister making breakfast. She had the tv on, watching the news.

-God, the light is killing me. And the noise. And life.

-Well, you were pretty drunk last night sweetie.-Kate placed an orange juice in front of her.

-I don’t remember anything.

-Not...not a single thing?-Pippa looked at her after listening the tone in which she was speaking.

-Don’t tell me I did something really stupid. I just remember walking down the Mall and nothing else.

-Well you crashed into Steve actually, the guy from the museum I talked about and the one who didn’t showed up to our date, so I…-Kate was interrupted by the the tone of breaking news from the TV. Both sisters centered their attention to the screen.

-Next Tuesday, Prince William will visit the National Portrait Gallery and will be named patron for his 23rd birthday.- Kate smiled at Pippa.

-I found out yesterday. And guess who will be giving the tour that day.

-No way! Way to go Squeak!-The news then showed some footage of the last speech the Prince made and Kate’s smile fade away. PIppa looked at her.-Hey, something’s wrong?

-That’s…-The elder sister realized as soon as she heard the Prince speak, that voice had been stuck in her days for weeks now.-Steve…-Kate pointed the TV.-That’s Steve.

-What do you mean…?

-Steve, the man you crashed into yesterday, very, very drunk? The guy with the cap and the sunglasses from the museum? The jerk that didn't show up to our date?

-But...That is not Steve, that is…-Pippa opened her mouth in surprise, remembering the previous night and...-Prince…

-William.

👑💙👑💙

Chapter 3 | Chapter 5

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gavincastleton · 5 years ago

Quote

My children like to play an age-old game with me called, “Why?” I’ll tell them, for instance, that I need them to finish breakfast, and they’ll say why, and I’ll say so that you receive adequate nutrition and hydration, and they’ll say why, and I’ll say because as your parent I feel obligated to protect your health, and they’ll say why, and I’ll say partly because I love you and partly because of evolutionary imperatives baked into my biology, and they’ll say why, and I’ll say because the species wants to go on, and they’ll say why, and I’ll pause for a long time before saying, “I don’t know. I guess I believe in spite of it all the human enterprise has value.” And then there will be a silence. A blessed and beautiful silence will spread across the breakfast table. I might even see a kid pick up a fork. And then, just as the silence seems ready to take off its coat and stay awhile, one of my kids will say, 'Why?' My brain likes to play a somewhat similar game. That game is called, 'What’s even the point?' There’s an Edna St. Vincent Millay poem I’ve quoted in two of my novels and will now quote again, because I’ve never come across anything that describes my depressive blizzards so perfectly. 'The chill is in the air,' the poem begins, 'which the wise know well and have even learned to bear. This joy, I know, will soon be under snow.' I’m in an airport when suddenly I feel the chill in the air. What’s even the point? I’m about to fly to Milwaukee on a Tuesday afternoon, about to herd with other moderately intelligent apes into a tube that will spew a truly astonishing amount of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in order to transport us from one population center to a different one. Nothing that anyone has to do in Milwaukee really matters, because nothing really matters. There’s no point to the human endeavor in the largest sense. We will leave no permanent legacy in this impermanent universe, and our central lasting contribution to Earth will be that we were the first species to grow powerful enough to muck up the planet. When my mind starts playing What’s Even the Point, I can’t find a point to making art—which is just using the finite resources of our planet to decorate, and I can’t find a point to planting gardens, which is just inefficiently creating food that will sustain our useless vessels for a little while longer, and I can’t find a point to falling in love—which is just a desperate attempt to stave off the loneliness that you can never really solve for, because you are always alone in what Robert Penn Warren called, 'the darkness, which is you.' Except it’s not really a darkness. It’s much worse than that. The writer Jacqueline Woodson has said that we need to consider carefully what we construct as dark, and she’s right. When my brain plays What’s Even the Point, what really descends upon me is a blizzard of blinding, frozen white light. Being in the dark doesn’t hurt, but this does, like staring at the sun. That Millay poem refers to 'the eye’s bright trouble.' It seems to me that bright trouble is the light you see the first time you open your eyes after birth, the light that makes you cry your first tears, the light that is your first and greatest fear. What’s even the point? All this trial and travail for what will become nothing, and soon. Sitting in this airport, I’m disgusted by my excesses, my failures, my pathetic attempts to forge some meaning or hope from the materials of this meaningless world. I’ve been tricking myself, thinking there was some reason for all of it, thinking that consciousness was a miracle when it’s really a burden, thinking that to be alive was wondrous when it’s really a terror. The plain fact, my brain tells me when it plays this game, is that the universe doesn’t care if I’m here. Night falls fast, Millay wrote. Today is in the past. The thing about this game is that once my brain starts playing it, I can’t seem to find a way to stop. Any defense I try to mount is destroyed instantaneously by the blinding light. It feels like the only way to survive life is to cultivate an ironic detachment from it. If I can’t be happy, I at least want to be cool. When my brain is playing What’s Even the Point, hope feels so flimsy and naïve—especially in the face of the endless outrages and horrors of human life. What kind of mouth-breathing jackass looks at the state of human experience and responds with anything other than nihilistic despair? But of course the problem with despair is that it isn’t very productive. Like a replicating virus, all despair makes is more of itself. If playing What’s Even the Point made me a more committed advocate for justice or environmental protection, I’d be all for it. But the white light of despair instead renders me inert and apathetic. I struggle to do anything. I often can’t find a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Philosophical questions—what’s the point of being alive, what should we seek from life, how can we know what we know, how and where should we seek meaning—are often dismissed as pointless. What’s the difference between a philosophy degree and a pepperoni pizza? The pepperoni pizza can feed a family of four. And so on. But I think those questions are genuinely important, because I need to be able to survive my mind playing What’s Even the Point. I don’t want to give it to despair; I don’t want to take refuge in detached ridicule of unironized emotion. I don’t want to be cool if cool means being cold to or distant from the reality of experience. I want to feel what there is to feel while I am here. You don’t choose when your kids play the Why game, and you don’t choose when your brain plays What’s Even the Point. It’s exhausting. It gets old so fast, listening to the elaborate prose of your brain tell you that you’re an idiot for even trying. When the game is being played, it feels like it will never end, like you will be in active combat with your brain for what remains of your wretched life. But no. No. Now always feels infinite and never is. You keep going. You go to therapy. You try a different medication. You meditate, even though you dislike meditation. You exercise. You wait. Your mind keeps playing What’s Even the Point, and you keep refusing to give in to it, battling it with philosophy and self-help books and religion and whatever else that works. And then one day, the air is a bit warmer, and the sky is not so blindingly bright. It’s overcast, and you’re walking through a forested park with your children. Your nine-year-old points out two squirrels racing up an immense American Sycamore tree, its white bark peeling in patches, its leaves bigger than dinner plates. You think, my God that’s a beautiful tree. It must be a hundred years old, maybe more. Later, you’ll go home and read up on sycamores and learn that there are sycamore trees alive today that date back more than three hundred years, trees that are older than your nation. You’ll learn that George Washington once measured a sycamore tree that was over thirteen meters in circumference. You’ll read that Herodotus wrote 2,400 years ago that the Persian emperor Xerxes was marching his army through a grove of sycamore trees when he came across one of 'such beauty that he was moved to decorate it with golden ornaments and to leave behind one of his soldiers to guard it.' But for now you’re just looking up at that tree, thinking about how it turned dirt and water and sunshine into wood and bark and leaves, how it turned nothing into a place where squirrels play, and you realize you are in the vast dark shade of this giant tree, and that’s the point.

John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed (ep. “Air Conditioning and Sycamore Trees“)

#John Green #nihlism #anthropocene reviewed

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dawnpil · 6 years ago

Text

first draft

summary: you were raised to be careful with your heart around witches, but one pretty word witch is determined to change that. pairing: young k x reader genre: fluff bc honestly what else do i write notes: a continuation to a series i started literally a year and a half ago, oops (stone witch!wonpil)

you know about the day house boys, of course

you’re starting your junior year and they’re the most popular people on campus, after all

hell, you’ve got one of wonpil’s hematite rings for focus

your favorite scarf is one dowoon knitted warmth into the fabric of

you’ve seen brian around the house, but you’ve never gone to him for his magic

out of the witches his magic can do the widest variety of things, which means he charges the steepest price, and you’re just a broke college kid

your friend, who goes to brian every full moon, tries to explain how his prices work

but you’re not having it; you need your voice too much to lose it for three days, and you’re not sure you have anything else he’d want

here’s the thing: word magic evolves constantly, and word witches always need to know what phrases are going in or out of style

so from what you’ve gathered, brian’s price for his magic is to take a customer’s words for varying durations of time

and you can’t have that, not with your three a.m. spot on the campus radio

besides, you don’t really have a need for his magic: you’re never in enough trouble that dowoon’s woven charms don’t work, or wonpil doesn’t have some sort of stone for your problems

you avoid his magic successfully for two and a half years, but you don’t avoid him

he’s in your fundamentals of linguistics course your second semester, soft black hair falling in his face as he takes diligent notes

when you go to pick up dowoon’s charms at the start of fall sophomore year brian’s curled up untangling thread with nimble fingers, and he throws a soft little smile your way

you’re not sure what makes you proceed to drop your wallet and dowoon’s charm four times before you make it back out the door, but your friend is convinced it was brian’s smile and won’t accept any other answer

you shove their arm, tell them that they shouldn’t be projecting their own infatuation onto you

but it happens again near winter break, when you’re selecting a few pieces of onyx and rose quartz for your friends back home

brian’s wandering wonpil’s shop, inspecting the little baskets of crystals, and when you turn to head to wonpil’s register you nearly run into brian

startled, you start to take a step back, eyes wide, but he reaches out to stop you

it’s a good thing he does, or you’d have knocked over the table of crystals, and you really don’t have the money for that

his hands are warm on your shoulders, his dark eyes apologetic, and this close his chest is a whole lot broader than you’d thought from a distance

“sorry,” he says, and his voice is more musical than you’d remembered from linguistics. “i should have been more careful.”

this time you don’t lose your fine motor skills, but you do forget how to speak

he’s just. beautiful, this close up

so you stare at him and try to remember how to form words and after a moment he laughs gently, the sound honey-sweet

“i didn’t even have to cast seen and not heard to enchant you. interesting.”

is he flirting? you think maybe so. your friend thinks definitely so.

that really kind of terrifies you; it’s not that you don’t trust the day house witches, just that you were raised with tales of enchantments and love potions and falsities, and that kind of cautionary bedtime story is hard to forget

so you take to avoiding him as much as possible; you send your friend to get your hematite and carnelian recharged, and even as the warmth charm in dowoon’s scarf starts to fray you refuse to go get a replacement

if you could never set foot in day house again you’d be perfectly content

despite this you still think about him, about the silk in his voice when you go to karaoke night, about the way you always seem to find him in the library hunched over his textbooks at odd hours with coffee cups littering the table, about the way sometimes you daydream about holding his hand on the way to the coffee shop just off campus

you try to ignore these thoughts, try to ignore him, and bury yourself in your work for the rest of sophomore year

but the thing about junior year is that your classes are getting more serious, and as a creative writing major you’re expected to have new work for two different classes almost every week, and it’s draining

your carnelian is losing its charge quicker than ever, because this far into the semester you’re struggling to find creativity this constantly and on top of all your other work

it completely loses charge a day before a ten-page story is due for workshop and you’re stuck with a blinking cursor and a blank page

your roommate looks over when you slam your head onto your desk and understands immediately

“go to brian,” they say. “he’s got a spell for writer’s block, according to momo.”

if you weren’t so tired, so frustrated, so desperate you would never have considered it

but it only takes a few minutes’ persuasion for you to be lacing your boots and shoving your laptop into your bag and heading for the familiar little house

jae’s the one to open the door for you, feathers in his blond hair, and he grins

“please tell me you’re here for younghyun. he won’t shut up about you, not after the open mic last tuesday.”

you consider turning around and leaving—the poem you’d read at the open mic was much more personal than you’re usually comfortable sharing, and to think brian was so focused on it terrifies you a little

but then you think about how close you were to crying out of frustration, about the days of staring at that blank page and ticking cursor, and you nod at jae

“he’s upstairs,” jae says, “third door on the left.”

brian’s playing guitar when you find his room, sitting on his bed plucking at chords with his black hair falling over his face as he bends over the instrument

you freeze, in the doorway: you had no idea the room jae was sending you to was brian’s bedroom, since wonpil has the shop set up downstairs and sungjin works out of the kitchen. this is oddly intimate, and you almost turn tail and run

before you can brian looks up, his fingers stilling, and he smiles, and your resolve melts

he beckons you in to sit at his desk chair, and he sets the guitar aside to look seriously at you. “what are you here for?”

“writer’s block.” you run your hand through your hair with a sigh of frustration, and he smiles sympathetically

“writer’s block like you don’t have any ideas or writer’s block like you don’t know how to start putting them into words?”

there’s no magic in his voice, not yet, but there might as well be, with the enchanting lilt in every syllable. you could listen to his voice forever, you think

“the—um, the second one,” you say, fidgeting under his dark eyes, and again he nods

“my price is your words for a period of time.” it’s your turn to nod. “with this spell it’s usually a day, but i know you’ve got the radio show in a few hours and i wouldn’t want you to not be able to do your job.”

he pauses, considering, and you tug at your sleeves as you try to find a way around having your words taken away

“why...why do you take people’s words? like, what about them is the reason they’re your price, when you could be making money or something?”

“it’s how my magic works,�� brian explains. “the more people use a certain phrase, the more power it’s imbued with, so i take people’s words to see if they can give me new spells.”

this fascinates you—your parents had never let you learn about magic, and as a result hearing the littlest bit about it is making you think of questions you never knew you had, and you want to learn everything about this

it’ll be good for stories, anyway, you think, good world-building and maybe an opportunity for new types of characters and stories

and you might have a way out of this, a way to pay brian fairly while keeping your words

“what about languages other than english?”

he pauses at this. “i have a few korean spells i got from my mom, but i hadn't thought about other languages. which one were you thinking?”

you’ve taken spanish courses for a few years, and you speak it with your roommate and their friend, enough to be reasonably conversational, and when you explain this to brian he nods and you spend another five minutes hashing out a schedule for you to come over and teach him

finally the business has been arranged and you set up your laptop at the little table he keeps in his room for this purpose, and he sets a mug of coffee and a bagel next to your things

“odds are you’ll be writing for a while, and the spell makes it hard to take breaks. if you need anything else let me know and i’ll grab it for you.”

his eyes are soft obsidian, and despite your overall hesitation about magic you wonder if there isn’t some sort of enchantment that’s making your heart beat like this

but a second later he sets his hand on your shoulder and murmurs “use your words”

it’s like a dam bursts: suddenly your fingers are flying over the keys, your mind racing sentences ahead faster than your hands can manage, and the story you’ve had rattling around in your head is taking shape on the formerly blank page

when you resurface a few hours later, a completed draft sitting in front of you, brian smiles as you take a bite of the bagel

“got something finished?” you nod, and return the smile

“it’ll need editing, but i got the draft done for workshop, and that’s what’s important.”

a glance at the clock says you barely have enough time to rush to the dorm basement the radio uses as its studio, so you gather up your things and down the last of the coffee and clamp the bagel between your teeth as you tie your boots

you’ve got one foot out the door when he calls your name and you turn, a question in your eyes since there’s bread in your mouth

“call me younghyun,” he says. “younghyun’s for friends.”

is that what you are now? you debate this with yourself for a week; you’ve only gone to him for one spell, though the first of your spanish sessions goes well

he’s got plans for de nada and de tal palo tal astilla freaked you out a little bit when he used it to perfectly replicate the origami rose you got from a girl in one of your workshops last semester

you think if you aren’t friends yet you’d like to be, now that you’re losing your fear of his magic

on the nights you lie awake staring at the fairy lights strung above your bed thinking of obsidian eyes and nimble fingers and lilting words you let yourself admit maybe you want to be more than friends

it takes another two weeks for anything to happen

it’s the last of your spanish sessions, the last of your payment for the spell, the last of your excuses to spend time with brian

he seems nervous the whole time, too distracted to remember en boca cerrada no entran moscas and as a result he has yet to make the silencing charm work

no matter how much you coach him through the syllables slowly, his attention is elsewhere

to be fair, yours is as well: trying to figure out where his mispronunciations are is giving you an excuse to stare at his lips, and regardless of whether he works magic into his words his voice is ridiculously easy to lose yourself in

before you know it the time is over, and you sigh and remind him of the list of phrases you’ve given him so he can strengthen the spells without your help, and he hesitates with his backpack slung over one shoulder but can’t seem to bring himself to say anything

as you study his now-familiar features you give in, and this time you’re the one to stop him halfway out the door

“one more phrase,” you say, and he turns and you square your shoulders

“tú me gustas.” i like you.

he’s like a deer in headlights, eyes wide, but he recovers fairly quickly and crosses back to you

“i thought you weren’t a witch,” he says, a smile playing on his lips

“i’m not,”you say, though your voice barely makes it above a whisper; his hair is flopping into his eyes and all of your restraint is going into keeping your fingers out of the dark curls

“then how can one sentence be so enchanting?”

he grins when this time you’re the one to get flustered, and he reaches out and takes your hand and your words get stuck in your throat

“what kind of word witch am i if i can’t find the words to confess to the person i like?” he says, then shrugs. “since you confessed first, can dinner be my treat?”

the first time younghyun kisses you he meets you just offstage when you finish a reading of one of your short stories in the little student-run coffee shop: your papers are still clutched in the hands you throw around his neck, and there’s a smile on his lips as they press against yours, and the moment weaves an enchantment you know has nothing to do with younghyun’s magic and everything to do with younghyun and the way the two of you fit against each other like a perfectly-crafted metaphor

dating younghyun is coffee shop dates to people-watch and pick out threads of language, is borrowing his hoodies even when it gets too warm for them, is laughter and falling in love with the way he scrunches his nose when he’s acting cute, is resting your head on his shoulder at a poetry reading and pressing kisses to his jaw between poems

dating younghyun is him waiting outside the studio at 3 a.m. with hot chocolate and that assignment you needed to print, is running your fingers through his hair until he relaxes enough to sleep after getting anxious about a test, is teaching each other the languages you speak and rewarding each other with kisses when you remember vocab, is closing his laptop and pulling him to bed when he refuses to stop working, is coffee and ink-stained hands and switching languages mid-sentence

more than anything dating younghyun is like a story, a draft that gets better the more you pour time and effort and love into it, is the magic of surprising turns of phrase, is a collaboration you couldn’t ask for a better co-author for, and you know for a fact this is going to be your magnum opus.

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unfortunate-stranger-losers · 5 years ago

Photo

Six Baudelaires AU, Part Three {AO3} {Masterlist} {Part One} {Part Two}

Chapter Twenty-One → in which Fiona is Volatile

Solitude fell asleep in Nick’s arms, while Babbitt crawled into her pocket. Nick made his way into the main hall, where he slid into a chair and held her tight, rocking her gently.

“I’m sorry.” he said quietly. “I can’t… I can’t do anything.”

“That’s not true.” Lilac knelt in front of him, as his other siblings surrounded him, putting their hands on his arm in a comforting gesture. “Nick, it’s okay to not be able to do everything all the time. We understand why you were scared, okay?”

“You don’t need to be the hero, Nick.” Violet said, giving him a side-hug. “You just need to stay with us.”

Nick bit his lip, squeezing his eyes shut, and then he nodded and leaned his head onto Klaus. “We love you, okay?” Klaus said. “And we’re not letting the bastard touch you ever again.”

“We just… we need to go. Soon as Fiona gets here.” Nick said. “And then we need to run. Far away. Please.”

“We-” Lilac paused. “Does anyone hear that?”

They listened, and heard what sounded like a printer.

“Is…” Violet narrowed her eyes, and then she gasped. “Is that the Volunteer Factual Dispatch?”

She and Lilac ran to the telegraph, and saw that, indeed, a paper was coming out of it. Violet grabbed it first, saying, “It’s from VFD! It’s- it’s-” her gaze softened, and she burst into a grin. “It’s from Quigley!”

“What?” Lilac said, shocked.

“It’s from Quigley!” Violet bounced, running back over to her siblings to show them. Even Nick brightened when he saw she was right- his name was beside the phrase sender.

Violet traced the Q in his name, smiling, and then said, “It is my understanding that you have six additional volunteers onboard STOP. We are in desperate need of their services for the most urgent matter STOP. Please deliver them on Tuesday to the location indicated by the rhymes below STOP.”

“What rhymes?” Lilac asked, trying to grab the paper.

“Two poems, one by Lewis Carroll and the other by TS Eliot.”

“I-” Nick stuttered. “I know TS Eliot.”

“Macavity,” Sunny said, which meant, “Wasn’t that from your musical phase?”

“Not the time, Sunshine.” Nick said, curling up.

“I know Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.” Klaus said. “Is the poem from one of those?”

“I think so.” Violet nodded, also remembering the book. “Here’s what it says:”

“‘O Oysters, come and walk with us!’ The walrus did beseech. ‘A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk, Along the movie theater.’”

“A movie theater?” Nick said.

“No.” Klaus shook his head. “Quigley’s using Verse Fluctuation Declaration.”

“Using fucking what?” Violet said.

“It’s a Volunteer code.” Klaus said. “They replace words in poems, like Aunt Josephine did with letters, and the actual words are the message.”

“Liddell?” Sunny asked, which meant, “Then what’s the original poem?”

“A pleasant walk, a pleasant talk,” Klaus recited. “Along the…” He paused.

“Along?” Violet prompted.

“Along…” Klaus swallowed. “Along the Briny Beach.”

They fell silent.

“We’re going to Briny Beach.” Lilac said quietly.

The last time they had been there was when their unfortunate events had began.

“What about the TS Eliot?” Klaus asked, sitting down numbly.

Violet’s hands shook as she held up the telegram, and read,

“At the pink hour when the eyes and back Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a pony throbbing party.”

Nick narrowed his eyes and sat up, still rocking the sleeping Solitude. “He changed three words. The actual poem begins with ‘At the violet hour’ instead of ‘at the pink hour.’ Do you think that actually signals something, or-”

“Maybe,” Violet smiled softly, sitting at the table beside them, “Quigley just wanted to say my name.”

“We can talk about that later.” Lilac said uncomfortably. “What’s the rest of the message?”

“The last line,” Nick said, “Is ‘Like a taxi throbbing waiting.’ The message is, ‘taxi waiting.’”

“Taxi waiting at Briny Beach.” Lilac said.

“Well,” Violet said, curling up. “We’re lucky you all knew poetry. I can’t imagine Fiona or Phil were big studiers of Carroll or Eliot.”

“Fernald used to study poetry.” Lilac said. “So maybe Widdershins has those poetry books hidden somewhere. He would’ve been able to find out.”

“He kept them secret.” Nick hissed. “Like everything else.”

They fell silent, and then Klaus said, “Do you guys remember when Violet and I left the window open in the library and ruined the atlas, and Mother and Father got mad?”

“Yeah.” Violet nodded, as Sunny moved to sit against her.

“I… I don’t think that was the only reason they were mad.” Klaus admitted. “I never told you this, but… I had to use a stepladder to get that atlas from the top shelf. I don’t think Mother and Father thought I’d be able to reach. That’s where they kept the books they didn’t want us to see.”

“Why wouldn’t they want us to see the atlas?” Violet asked.

“There must’ve been a code inside.” Nick said.

“There was a whole row of other books, too.” Klaus said. “I don’t remember what they were, because they moved them later, but they must’ve been mad that I reached the atlas and could’ve discovered a secret.”

“Like a secret that they were working for-” Nick got choked up, and he buried his face in Soli’s hair again.

They fell silent again, and then Lilac said, “I know how to use the ship’s steering mechanism. I can use the locator to take us to Briny Beach as soon as Fiona returns.”

“Are…” Violet bit her lip. “Are we sure she’s coming back?”

“Of course.” Lilac said. “She-”

“She what, my dear Lilac?”

The Baudelaires jumped, and Nick instantly backed up in the chair, curling up around Solitude to shield her with his body, while Violet shoved Sunny into Klaus’s arms and leapt in front of the table with Lilac, blocking their younger siblings from view.

Count Olaf stepped into the room, followed by Esme, who was sneering beneath the hood of her octopus outfit, and Carmelita, who bounced along and clanged her tap shoes.

“When I saw you orphans had flown the coop,” Olaf said, stepping forwards, “I was afraid you might have managed to do something useful and get out.”

“Get away from us.” Lilac said.

Violet reached into her pocket, and to Lilac’s surprise, she pulled out a knife. “I will use this.”

“Okay,” Lilac muttered, “Where did you get that?”

“Kitchen.”

“How long-”

“Just now.”

“Oh, shut up!” Olaf groaned. “You’re all as annoying as-”

“As annoying as what?” Carmelita asked.

Olaf took a deep breath. “It’s nothing. Although I can’t quite figure out how you escaped. You must’ve been lost in that submarine-”

At exactly the wrong moment, Fiona and Fernald ran down the hall; Fiona now had a portrait of Edgar Guest where her portrait of Herman Melville should be, but otherwise she didn’t look harmed. But when the two siblings saw Olaf, Esme and Carmelita in the room, they froze dead in their tracks, and Fiona’s face fell.

“Shit.” Fernald said.

Olaf narrowed his eyes, and before the Baudelaires could do anything, he raced forwards and slammed the Hook-Handed Man against the wall.

“No!” Fiona shouted, but Esme reached a tentacle forwards and ripped her back.

“Let him go or I’ll stab you!” Violet shouted, but Carmelita danced in front of her, blocking her path with her twirls. Violet growled, considering whether or not it’d be unethical to stab her, too.

“You betrayed me!” Olaf shouted with fury. “And our side of the schism has no use for traitors!”

“Ooh! When he’s dead, can we use the hooks for the costume trunk?” Esme asked. “They’ve become In recently.”

“No! Stop it!” Fiona lurched forwards, finally breaking Esme’s grip. “He didn’t betray you! We only let the Baudelaires go so they could lead us to the Medusoid Mycelium!”

“Fiona!” Lilac screamed.

“No!” Klaus shouted.

Olaf released the Hook-Handed Man, who gasped and struggled to stay standing, and stared over at Fiona. “The Medusoid Mycelium? That was destroyed years ago.”

“It wasn’t! We have some in Solitude’s diving helmet!” Fiona said, crying and reaching to help her brother to his feet. “Baudelaires, where is it?”

“It’s- nowhere!” Violet tried.

“I’ll make this simple.” Olaf smiled. “I could torture you until you tell me, or we can trade information- or a lack of information, if you so prefer.” Then, in a sickly sweet voice, he called, “Nick?”

Violet, Lilac and Klaus all stepped in front of Nick, while Sunny bared her teeth. Nick looked up, horrified, but he clutched the sleeping Soli all the tighter.

“How about a deal here?” Olaf stepped forwards, putting his hand on the table, much too close for any of the childrens’ comfort, but still just outside of Violet’s stabbing range; if she ran at him, he would see and disarm her.

“We don’t make deals with bastards.” Lilac crossed her arms.

Olaf smirked, eyeing her in a way that made her incredibly uncomfortable. “Interesting choice of words, my dear Lilac.”

Nick sat up, horrified, as Olaf took a step closer to his oldest sister, and then he shouted, “It’s in the kitchen!”

“Nick!” Sunny said.

“It’s in the kitchen, just leave her alone, please! Don’t hurt them!” Nick pleaded.

Olaf smiled, and then gestured his head. “Esme, go check.”

“Why do I have to go check? Why can’t you?”

“Because I’m intimidating the Baudelaires, love.”

“I can do that, and I can do it better than you.”

“Ugh, stop arguing, you’re starting to sound like my real parents.” Carmelita groaned, before tapping into a room. “Is this the kitchen? It has food and shit.”

Olaf groaned. “Does it have a diving helmet?”

“A small one, on a plate. It is totally not adorable, never make me wear one of these.” She came back in, carrying the helmet on a plate, and the Baudelaires backed up more. The noise woke Solitude, who rubbed her eyes and yawned, looking up.

“The Medusoid Mycelium.” Olaf looked inside the helmet. “It’s here.”

“It is.” said Fernalld with a gasp, sounding very scared.

Solitude saw Olaf, and then said, “Oh, fuck.”

“They really found that horrible mushroom?” Esme looked enthralled. “Oh, good job, Hooky and Triangle Eyes!”

Fiona stared hard at the ground so she wouldn’t have to look at Lilac.

“Oh, I know!” Esme continued. “We should throw them in the brig with it and wait until they suffocate!”

“Then I can do a recital on their graves!” Carmelita gigged.

“No!” Fiona shouted, running forwards. “No, you- you shouldn’t waste such a weapon on them. You’ll need it for the Last Safe Place!”

“Fiona-” Lilac began, her face paling.

“That’s right! Good idea, Triangle-Eyes.” Olaf said.

“How come you think her idea’s better than mine?” Esme asked, offended.

“It doesn’t matter.” Olaf groaned. “Come along. Triangle-Eyes, take them to the brig.”

“I…” Fiona began.

“Why don’t you hurry it up,” Olaf said with a dark grin, “And then we’ll go find your Stepfather? Your whole family can be together again.”

“Boss-” Fernald began, but Olaf shot him a dark look that shut him up.

Fiona turned towards him, eyes full of hope. “You’d really help me find him?”

“He won’t help you.” Nick shuddered.

“He’s lying, Widdershins and Olaf are on opposite sides of the schism.” Violet said.

“Maybe not. He did abandon you, after all.” Esme said.

“Don’t listen to them, Triangle-Eyes.” Olaf said. “They only care about themselves.”

“That’s not true!” Lilac said.

“Really?” Olaf smirked. “I thought you Baudelaires always put your siblings first.”

“We…” Lilac began, but her face fell as Fiona reached over to grab her brother’s hooks.

“To the brig.” Fiona said blankly.

“Good choice, Triangle-Eyes.” Olaf said, “Now, we’ll remove all the valuables-”

“But Countie, my recital’s starting soon!” Carmelita tugged on his arm. “You won’t miss it, will you?”

Olaf forced a smile on his face. “Carmelita, sweetie, Countie needs to rob the Queequeg and torture the Baudelaires.”

“You like the Baudelaires more than me!” Carmelita pouted.

“Darling,” Esme hissed, “We can rob the sub later. Carmelita’s been practicing all day for this recital.”

“It’s the same recital as always.”

“No! This one’s more adorable!” Carmelita said.

Sunny sighed and said, “Cruciatu,” which meant, “Can they kill us now?”

Fernald gave her a look and shook his head, and then Olaf said, “Fine. Hooky, smash some windows so they can’t escape this sub. Triangle-Eyes, get the Baudelaires to the brig, and for the love of God take that knife away from Violet.”

“No, it’s mine forever.” Violet said.

Olaf put his head in his hands. “Why did I decide to work with children?”

“Because you suck?” Klaus suggested.

“Esme, lead the way to our…” Olaf grimaced, “wonderful Carmelita’s recital.”

Carmelita tapped away, spinning and twirling, followed by a delighted Esme. After a moment, Fernald gave Fiona a significant look and then scampered after them.

Olaf turned to the Baudelaires, and smiled. “You’ve lost again, you horrible brats.” he said, cheering himself up by tormenting the Baudelaires. “You can never defeat me, and it’s time you all learned that. I triumphed the moment you lost your family.”

Violet straightened up and threw the knife, which Olaf unfortunately dodged. She glared at him, and then spat, “We didn’t lose our family. Only our parents.”

Klaus linked his arm with Violet’s as Sunny reached to grab Lilac, the four of them still shielding Nick and Solitude. “Our family’s right here.” he said.

Olaf glared at them, and then said, “You will lose everything.” He then turned to Fiona and said, “Triangle-Eyes, make sure they’re in separate cells. No more jailbreaks. We’ll take care of them one at a time.” He gave Nick a smirk, which made the boy curl up over Solitude again. Olaf then walked to the wall, grabbed Violet’s knife, and left.

As soon as he was gone, Fiona whipped around. “Can you pilot a submarine?” she asked.

They stared at her, confused. “What?” Klaus said.

“Can you pilot the sub?”

“Y-yes.” said a shocked Lilac.

“Good. I know how to open the hatch to let you out.” Fiona said. “Soon as I do that, you’ll have to go fast. Carmelita’s recitals likely feel like they last forever, but they don’t, and soon Olaf will notice-”

“You’re not taking us to the brig?” Violet asked.

Fiona shook her head. “I’m not letting him hurt you. Fernald and I discussed this while I was getting my portrait swapped out, in case we got caught, we can just pretend you’ve escaped while we weren’t looking.”

“Fiona, you don’t have to go with them!” Lilac said.

“I’ll be fine. If we get caught, we have a potential escape plan that involves a seaside town, a train, and a vineyard.” Fiona said. “And releasing a bunch of wild new recruits to perform chaos.”

“But you’re still joining them!” Lilac reached forwards, desperately grabbing her hands. “You’re helping them! You don’t have to do this!”

“I do! My brother is here!” Fiona said. “He’s the only family I have left! You wouldn’t leave your siblings, and I can’t leave mine.”

“Fi…” Sunny began.

“Fiona, you can stay with us.” Solitude said, sitting up.

“You can run from VFD altogether.” Nick said, his voice shaking. “From all these assholes.”

“Please.” Lilac squeezed her hands. “You’re not a wicked person.”

Fiona smiled, and then said, “People aren’t either wicked or noble, Li. They’re chef’s salads.” She squeezed her hands and whispered, “Take care of the Queequeg. It’s shit, but it’s home. And… when you think of me, think of a food you love very much.”

She leaned forwards, putting her hand on Lilac’s cheek, and kissed her.

Lilac froze in shock as Fiona’s hands passed over her braids, fingers running through her hair. She shut her eyes a moment, feeling the wonderful, volatile girl pressing against her.

And then Fiona pulled away and ran.

Lilac stared after her, and then raised a hand to her hair, her fingers following the same path Fiona’s had.

“How… how can someone so wonderful do something so horrible?” she asked, her voice breaking.

Violet stepped forwards, and then put a hand on her arm. “She let us go.” she said. “Now. We have to run.”

Lilac took a deep breath, wiped her eyes with her sleeve, and then said, “Aye.”

As she moved slowly towards the controls, Violet at her heels, Nick curled up on his chair, and he whispered to himself, “But they were fucked up in their turn, by fools in old-style hats and coats… who half the time were soppy-stern…”

He hugged Solitude very close, shutting his eyes and trying not to think about everyone who had left. “And half at one another’s throats.”

It took several hours to reach Briny Beach. Nick kept rocking Solitude, who fell back to sleep, while Babbitt crawled to her shoulder to nap there. Sunny served up Violet’s cake, handing out plates to Violet and Lilac whenever they came down to check on them. Klaus was going through the Queequeg’s library, trying to find something that might be helpful.

Lilac finally descended after a while, still looking a bit shocked. “Um,” she said, drawing everyone’s attention, and after Nick shook Soli slightly to awaken her, she said, “We’ve reached the beach.”

“We have?” Violet asked, her eyes sad.

Lilac nodded, and after a moment, Nick said, “Listen. VFD’s waiting for us. I…”

Everyone looked at each other, and then Klaus put a hand on his shoulder, and Violet said, “We know, Nick. And… we won’t trust them. But Quigley could be there. Or someone who can actually help.”

“I just…” he shut his eyes. “Okay. Let’s see the beach.”

Lilac nodded and led them through the hallways, which seemed so echoey and dark now. They climbed up the ladder in silence, and out the hatch, and onto the sand.

Briny Beach looked exactly the same. Like not a single minute had gone by since the Baudelaires arrived on the beach to have a picnic and test Violet’s new invention. The tide pools were still there, the waves still crashed the same way, the sky was still gray, and…

Violet bent down, placing Sunny on the ground, and picked up a rock, marked with an X.

“Nothing’s changed.” she said finally.

“We’ve changed.” Solitude said, leaning onto Nick’s shoulder.

Klaus slid a hand into Nick’s, and said, “Did you guys ever miss the beach? Because… honestly, I feel worse being here.”

“I…” Violet shut her eyes, blocking tears.

“I want to go.” Nick whispered, eyes on the ground.

Lilac stepped forwards, looking around. “I… I can’t believe…” then she looked up and said, “Our taxi’s here.”

Up on the hill, on the road just off the beach, was a yellow taxi, waiting.

Before anyone could say anything else, Sunny looked up and said, “Gack.”

They turned, and heard a familiar coughing as a figure emerged from the fog.

“Baudelaires?”

“Mr Poe.” Lilac said coldly.

The Baudelaires all stood, facing him, and Nick put Solitude down, though he still gripped her hand. Babbitt leapt to her shoulder again, cocking their head at the banker.

“Baudelaires, what ever have you been doing?” Poe said, stepping forwards.

“What are you doing here?” Violet said.

“Why, I received a message saying that you’d be here at Briny Beach today.” Poe said, pulling a telegram from his pocket. “From some JS. But that’s not important. How in the world did you get here? Where have you been? I must admit, I had given up all hope of finding you again- egad! Where on earth did you find Nicholas?”

“It’s Nick.” Nick spat, staring the banker dead in the eye. “My name is Nick, it never was Nicholas, and you need to learn that, you stupid fuck.”

“Language, Nicholas.” Poe said. “Come along, children, you have a great deal of explaining to do.”

The Baudelaires looked to each other, and then Lilac said, “No.”

“No?” Poe said in amazement. “Of course you do! You’ve been missing for a very long time, children! It was very inconsiderate of you to run away without telling me where you were, particularly when you’ve been accused of murder, arson, kidnapping, and assorted misdemeanors!”

“We sent you a telegram.” Violet said.

“We’re going to get right in my car, and I’ll drive you to the police station, and-”

“No.” said Nick.

“No.” said Klaus.

“No.” said Solitude.

“No.” said Sunny.

“Mr Poe,” Klaus said, looking from the taxi to Poe, “Have you ever heard of a Hobson’s choice?”

“I don’t know what gibberish you’re saying,” Poe said, “Or where you’ve been, or how you got here, or why you’re wearing a picture of Santa Claus on your shirts, but-’

“It’s Herman Melville.” Klaus said. “Goodbye, Mr Poe.”

“Piss off.” Solitude said, cheerily flipping him off.

“Sayonara.” Sunny said.

And with that, the six orphans spun on their heels, and ran to the taxi.

“Wait!” they heard him calling after them. “Come back here, Baudelaires! You’re children! You’re youngsters! You’re orphans!”

“And you’re a piece of shit, you fuckhead!” Nick called, also flipping him off as they ran.

They raced to the taxi, and Violet managed to get ahead, calling, “Quigley? Quigley! Quigley!”

When she reached the car, she threw open the door, and then froze in astonishment.

“You’re not Quigley.” she said.

In the driver’s seat, a woman looked up, pushing a pencil into her hair with a white-gloved hand. She placed a commonplace book on the shotgun seat, and smiled at the six children, who slid to a stop upon seeing her.

“Hello, Baudelaires.” she said. “Climb aboard.”

The children looked at each other cautiously, and then at the beach.

Then, Lilac asked, “Who are you?”

The woman smiled at Lilac, as if she’d asked the right question.

“I’m Kit Snicket.”

#asoue #asoue movie #asoue netflix #a series of unfortunate events #six baudelaires au #six baudelaires official fic #my fanfic #mine

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