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rainbowfic2015-07-11 11:57 pm
starphotographs) wrote in rainbowfic2015-07-11 11:57 pm
Milk Bottle 15, Folly 14
Name: starphotographs
Story: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Milk Bottle, Summer Carnival), Novelty Beads (https://36.media.tumblr.com/c195755c295cb80b80c0b4a0cbdca250/tumblr_mtyqlbvhXb1qaab0to1_1280.jpg)
Characters: Scissors (POV), Frankie, Gail
Colors: Milk Bottle 15 (Peep show), Folly 14 (Relax, I saw it on TV)
Word Count: 1,567
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Frankie investigates some suspicious activity.
Note: All commentary welcome and appreciated. ESPECIALLY NOW THAT I ANSWERED MY BACKLOG. XD
Neighborhood Watch
When I went to see Frankie, I never knew what I’d find when I opened the door. Even worse, was trying to open the door, failing, and realizing that he wasn’t in the house at all. What the heck he was doing then really became a mystery, and I’d have to canvas the neighborhood until I could find him and stop him. Usually, he was somewhere dragging crap off a curb, or sitting on Gail’s porch, either smoking or about to start. And, okay, I couldn’t really care less if he brought home other people’s trash. It’s his house. He can have an ugly lamp with no cord for all I care. Then there’s that one time he fished out some tacky airbrush poster of a spaceship, which is still hanging over the bed in my studio apartment, so the garbage-picking thing is actually kind of interesting. Smoking with his insane neighbor, not so much. Half his pipes are blocked off most of the time, so I usually end up debating whether to drive him to the emergency room, while screaming at Ms. Gail Shit-For-Brains to get it through her head that he could very easily die in a freak smoking accident. Then there’s the whole thing where they always smoke while sitting on her porch and chatting, and Gail inevitably tells Frankie something stupid, which he will believe until convinced otherwise. Possibly over a period of months. Without me around, he‘d probably think nothing of taking advice about environmental toxins from a scientifically backwards chain-smoker who thinks tap water is poison.
This time, it didn’t seem like he was on her porch, so that was one less thing to worry about. I also didn‘t hear trash rustling anywhere nearby, which was one more thing to worry about. Where is he? What the hell is he doing? Is it something that would have repercussions for other people, by which I mean me?
“…Scissors!”
Oh my god. Frankie was chilling out under a bush next to the house across the street. I guess he finally noticed me standing around on his porch like an idiot.
“The hell are you doin’!? That’s not your plant, get over here!”
“…Shh!”
“Frankie… You’re on the other side of the street! I can’t talk any quieter or you won’t fuckin’ hear me!”
“Then get over here!”
Fine. I crossed the street and kneeled on this total stranger’s grass, hoping they’d stay inside so I wouldn’t have to explain what we were doing. An explanation that, for the record, I did not have.
“…Okay, I’m here. Mind telling me what you’re doing?”
“I’m looking in this guy’s window. I think he’s a murderer.”
With that said, he stood up and peered inside.
“Franks… What?”
He ducked back down into the bush. There were leaves in his hair, which made him look like a really lame version of something kids would tell urban legends about. They say he lives in the woods, and he tries to chase after you so he can tell you all about Orgone generators, but he trips on a log and falls over coughing his brains out. Spooky!
“Look. You didn’t see what I saw. He threw out some trash that looked like a body.”
“Oh, all trash looks like a body. You’re overreacting.”
“Skizzy, there was hair.”
“Well, maybe he was throwing out some hair! What do you do when you give yourself a haircut? Just keep the hair?” I remembered the eighty million bronchial casts scattered around Frankie’s house in glass jars, and decided that I didn‘t particularly want to know. “…Never mind, don’t answer that.”
“It wasn’t just little hair! It was a whole head of hair!”
“I guess that’s his business, then!”
“Not if it was attached to a dead body!”
“It’s not attached to a dead body, though.”
“Just look in the window before you make you your mind. He’s really weird, okay?”
I stared at Frankie, dumbfounded, wondering where the hell he’d gotten the idea that he had the right to call other people weird.
“…Fine, I’ll look.”
Sometimes, it was easier to go along with his bullshit so you can get it over with. I looked in the fucking window.
Inside was a middle-aged man in an old fishing hat, aggressively sweeping the floor with a static broom. He had the TV on at what, judging from the noise escaping through the glass, must have been a deafening volume. The living room was lined with columns of identical magazines, and there were some fried chicken bones on the coffee table. Not on a plate on the table, just on the table itself with nothing under them. In one corner, a parrot sat on a perch, shedding feathers into a laundry hamper. Okay, so he was a little weird, but not in a way that really said “murderer.” More in a way that said “dysfunctional magazine salesman.”
“…Yeah, he’s pretty weird.”
“See!?”
“…Not really, Franks. Your house is a lot weirder than his, and you’ve never killed anyone.”
While Frankie was trying to compose another argument, a third party entered the scene from behind, scaring me shitless.
“…What’re you guys doing?”
Oh, for the love of… It was Gail, standing on the sidewalk, and looking more inquisitive than accusing. I didn’t really see her involvement in this situation taking it anywhere good, so I tried to figure out what I could say that would make her leave. Frankie, as usual, said whatever popped into his head first.
“I think this guy might’ve killed someone.”
He crawled out from under the bush, met Gail on the sidewalk, and started filling her in. I crawled out behind him, thinking I could at least do some damage control. Frankie babbled. Gail nodded. I stood there watching them like a moron. Then Gail, for once, did the smart thing. She cracked the trashcan lid and peeked inside. And immediately slammed it closed, looking nauseated and horrified.
“…I’ll be right back.”
Frankie leaned towards me and gritted, told you between his teeth. I ignored him. And I guess we could have looked in the can ourselves and, ahem, buried this whole thing, but I think Gail’s reaction had made Frankie all the more convinced that there was a corpse in there. And me? Well, I didn’t so much as give a shit. It wasn’t a body. They were just idiots is all. Eventually, Gail reemerged from her house. She was carrying a grill lighter, and one of those giant sage cigars that I always saw on ghost hunting shows, which seemed to serve no function other than to make people wonder why the hell ghosts would care if you had sage. Don’t actually light it. Please, no.
She fucking lit it. Then she stood by the trashcan, waving her torch around and muttering. I thought this was about the stupidest display I’d ever seen. Frankie hovered behind her, watching curiously, until Gail swung her chemical weapon a little too close to his face. He got a good lungful of smoke, bent in half coughing, and had to sit down on the curb with his head between his legs, still struggling to breathe. That was the last straw. I’d had about enough of this crap.
“…Gail, please put that thing out.”
“No, I need to finish, or-”
“Or what?”
“This poor vengeful soul could create a lot of problems.”
Vengeful soul my ass. Gail kept waving her burning seasonings around. Frankie started coughing again. I motioned for Gail to look at him.
“Worse problems than that?”
“Oh, he’ll be alright. It’s just a few minutes.”
“A few minutes of not fucking breathing! Jesus Christ, Gail!”
“Look, he’s already okay… Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. I went to a demonstration on this just last week.”
Frankie wasn’t coughing anymore, but “okay” seemed like kind of a strong word. He was sitting listlessly on the curb, watching the two of us go at it, and breathing in that weird way he always does when he’s about to expel a cast.
“No, he’s gonna be fucked-up the whole rest of the day, and I’m gonna have to deal with it!”
Gail took a deep breath.
“Young man…”
This was just the kind of situation where those became fighting words.
“…Don’t ‘young man’ me!”
“Shh. Calm down, it’s just sage, it’s natural, your friend will be just fine.”
“I don’t care if it’s fuckin’ natural! It smells like… Thanksgiving Arson!”
She ignored me, and kept on blessing the trashcan. Then I finally snapped.
I ripped the lid off the can, and inside was a cheap brown wig, glued to a Styrofoam wig stand that someone, possibly Angry Magazine Man, had painted, and poorly at that, to look like a Cyclops. That sight was enough to send me completely over the edge. I yelled in some kind of demonic non-speech, grabbed the demented art project by the hair, and slammed it onto the ground. Gail and Frankie were both staring at me, the way anyone would stare at a fucking crazy person. I stomped across the street to sit on the porch and get the hell away from them. It was only when I was already sitting down and had cooled off a little that I gave the whole event any serious thought.
…Wait, what the hell is going on in that house?
starphotographsStory: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Milk Bottle, Summer Carnival), Novelty Beads (https://36.media.tumblr.com/c195755c295cb80b80c0b4a0cbdca250/tumblr_mtyqlbvhXb1qaab0to1_1280.jpg)
Characters: Scissors (POV), Frankie, Gail
Colors: Milk Bottle 15 (Peep show), Folly 14 (Relax, I saw it on TV)
Word Count: 1,567
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Frankie investigates some suspicious activity.
Note: All commentary welcome and appreciated. ESPECIALLY NOW THAT I ANSWERED MY BACKLOG. XD
When I went to see Frankie, I never knew what I’d find when I opened the door. Even worse, was trying to open the door, failing, and realizing that he wasn’t in the house at all. What the heck he was doing then really became a mystery, and I’d have to canvas the neighborhood until I could find him and stop him. Usually, he was somewhere dragging crap off a curb, or sitting on Gail’s porch, either smoking or about to start. And, okay, I couldn’t really care less if he brought home other people’s trash. It’s his house. He can have an ugly lamp with no cord for all I care. Then there’s that one time he fished out some tacky airbrush poster of a spaceship, which is still hanging over the bed in my studio apartment, so the garbage-picking thing is actually kind of interesting. Smoking with his insane neighbor, not so much. Half his pipes are blocked off most of the time, so I usually end up debating whether to drive him to the emergency room, while screaming at Ms. Gail Shit-For-Brains to get it through her head that he could very easily die in a freak smoking accident. Then there’s the whole thing where they always smoke while sitting on her porch and chatting, and Gail inevitably tells Frankie something stupid, which he will believe until convinced otherwise. Possibly over a period of months. Without me around, he‘d probably think nothing of taking advice about environmental toxins from a scientifically backwards chain-smoker who thinks tap water is poison.
This time, it didn’t seem like he was on her porch, so that was one less thing to worry about. I also didn‘t hear trash rustling anywhere nearby, which was one more thing to worry about. Where is he? What the hell is he doing? Is it something that would have repercussions for other people, by which I mean me?
“…Scissors!”
Oh my god. Frankie was chilling out under a bush next to the house across the street. I guess he finally noticed me standing around on his porch like an idiot.
“The hell are you doin’!? That’s not your plant, get over here!”
“…Shh!”
“Frankie… You’re on the other side of the street! I can’t talk any quieter or you won’t fuckin’ hear me!”
“Then get over here!”
Fine. I crossed the street and kneeled on this total stranger’s grass, hoping they’d stay inside so I wouldn’t have to explain what we were doing. An explanation that, for the record, I did not have.
“…Okay, I’m here. Mind telling me what you’re doing?”
“I’m looking in this guy’s window. I think he’s a murderer.”
With that said, he stood up and peered inside.
“Franks… What?”
He ducked back down into the bush. There were leaves in his hair, which made him look like a really lame version of something kids would tell urban legends about. They say he lives in the woods, and he tries to chase after you so he can tell you all about Orgone generators, but he trips on a log and falls over coughing his brains out. Spooky!
“Look. You didn’t see what I saw. He threw out some trash that looked like a body.”
“Oh, all trash looks like a body. You’re overreacting.”
“Skizzy, there was hair.”
“Well, maybe he was throwing out some hair! What do you do when you give yourself a haircut? Just keep the hair?” I remembered the eighty million bronchial casts scattered around Frankie’s house in glass jars, and decided that I didn‘t particularly want to know. “…Never mind, don’t answer that.”
“It wasn’t just little hair! It was a whole head of hair!”
“I guess that’s his business, then!”
“Not if it was attached to a dead body!”
“It’s not attached to a dead body, though.”
“Just look in the window before you make you your mind. He’s really weird, okay?”
I stared at Frankie, dumbfounded, wondering where the hell he’d gotten the idea that he had the right to call other people weird.
“…Fine, I’ll look.”
Sometimes, it was easier to go along with his bullshit so you can get it over with. I looked in the fucking window.
Inside was a middle-aged man in an old fishing hat, aggressively sweeping the floor with a static broom. He had the TV on at what, judging from the noise escaping through the glass, must have been a deafening volume. The living room was lined with columns of identical magazines, and there were some fried chicken bones on the coffee table. Not on a plate on the table, just on the table itself with nothing under them. In one corner, a parrot sat on a perch, shedding feathers into a laundry hamper. Okay, so he was a little weird, but not in a way that really said “murderer.” More in a way that said “dysfunctional magazine salesman.”
“…Yeah, he’s pretty weird.”
“See!?”
“…Not really, Franks. Your house is a lot weirder than his, and you’ve never killed anyone.”
While Frankie was trying to compose another argument, a third party entered the scene from behind, scaring me shitless.
“…What’re you guys doing?”
Oh, for the love of… It was Gail, standing on the sidewalk, and looking more inquisitive than accusing. I didn’t really see her involvement in this situation taking it anywhere good, so I tried to figure out what I could say that would make her leave. Frankie, as usual, said whatever popped into his head first.
“I think this guy might’ve killed someone.”
He crawled out from under the bush, met Gail on the sidewalk, and started filling her in. I crawled out behind him, thinking I could at least do some damage control. Frankie babbled. Gail nodded. I stood there watching them like a moron. Then Gail, for once, did the smart thing. She cracked the trashcan lid and peeked inside. And immediately slammed it closed, looking nauseated and horrified.
“…I’ll be right back.”
Frankie leaned towards me and gritted, told you between his teeth. I ignored him. And I guess we could have looked in the can ourselves and, ahem, buried this whole thing, but I think Gail’s reaction had made Frankie all the more convinced that there was a corpse in there. And me? Well, I didn’t so much as give a shit. It wasn’t a body. They were just idiots is all. Eventually, Gail reemerged from her house. She was carrying a grill lighter, and one of those giant sage cigars that I always saw on ghost hunting shows, which seemed to serve no function other than to make people wonder why the hell ghosts would care if you had sage. Don’t actually light it. Please, no.
She fucking lit it. Then she stood by the trashcan, waving her torch around and muttering. I thought this was about the stupidest display I’d ever seen. Frankie hovered behind her, watching curiously, until Gail swung her chemical weapon a little too close to his face. He got a good lungful of smoke, bent in half coughing, and had to sit down on the curb with his head between his legs, still struggling to breathe. That was the last straw. I’d had about enough of this crap.
“…Gail, please put that thing out.”
“No, I need to finish, or-”
“Or what?”
“This poor vengeful soul could create a lot of problems.”
Vengeful soul my ass. Gail kept waving her burning seasonings around. Frankie started coughing again. I motioned for Gail to look at him.
“Worse problems than that?”
“Oh, he’ll be alright. It’s just a few minutes.”
“A few minutes of not fucking breathing! Jesus Christ, Gail!”
“Look, he’s already okay… Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing. I went to a demonstration on this just last week.”
Frankie wasn’t coughing anymore, but “okay” seemed like kind of a strong word. He was sitting listlessly on the curb, watching the two of us go at it, and breathing in that weird way he always does when he’s about to expel a cast.
“No, he’s gonna be fucked-up the whole rest of the day, and I’m gonna have to deal with it!”
Gail took a deep breath.
“Young man…”
This was just the kind of situation where those became fighting words.
“…Don’t ‘young man’ me!”
“Shh. Calm down, it’s just sage, it’s natural, your friend will be just fine.”
“I don’t care if it’s fuckin’ natural! It smells like… Thanksgiving Arson!”
She ignored me, and kept on blessing the trashcan. Then I finally snapped.
I ripped the lid off the can, and inside was a cheap brown wig, glued to a Styrofoam wig stand that someone, possibly Angry Magazine Man, had painted, and poorly at that, to look like a Cyclops. That sight was enough to send me completely over the edge. I yelled in some kind of demonic non-speech, grabbed the demented art project by the hair, and slammed it onto the ground. Gail and Frankie were both staring at me, the way anyone would stare at a fucking crazy person. I stomped across the street to sit on the porch and get the hell away from them. It was only when I was already sitting down and had cooled off a little that I gave the whole event any serious thought.
…Wait, what the hell is going on in that house?
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Loved it