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rainbowfic2015-07-12 12:00 am
starphotographs) wrote in rainbowfic2015-07-12 12:00 am
Skyblue Pink with Striped Polka Dots 5
Name: starphotographs
Story: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Summer Carnival), Glitter (http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/thaw), Novelty Beads (“cold”)
Characters: Milo (POV), Kit is there but doesn’t have a speaking role.
Colors: Skyblue Pink with Striped Polka Dots 5 (“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”)
Word Count: 795
Rating: PG
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Milo follows the sun.
Note: The title is the word that inspired this story in the first place!
Apricity
On my last day off before I collapsed at work and got fired, I sat by the window, waiting for the sun to climb all the way to the top of the sky. Then I pulled myself to my feet, put on my coat, and left.
The night before had been cold and dank and hellish. I couldn’t have gotten warm if my life depended on it, and believe me, I felt like it did. Wherever I laid my head was soaking wet in a matter of minutes. More than half a day later, heading out the door at noon, my hair still felt damp, sections of it still plastered to my face. Then the dry wind blew through it, and the ends froze and crackled against each other.
That didn’t bother me. I was used to it. I kept going.
I kept going, until I’d left the development, then sat down in the dirt. Iron Hills Residential District rising up from the ground behind me. An empty lowland plain sprawling out ahead, so vast I could almost see the exact point where it disappeared behind the curve of the planet. I remember it was one of those really clear days; when the dust settles and shows the real color of the sky, a faded dirty yellow. I could see the white sun, stretching itself to its limits to reach out and shine on us all.
Taking a deep breath, or at least what passed for it by then, I closed my eyes, and sat perfectly still. I could feel blood rising at the back of my throat, but I didn’t even let myself cough.
I needed to be still, or it wouldn’t work. If I moved around too much, the sun couldn’t catch up with me.
But, if I sat motionless, I could start to feel it on my face.
It’s the kind of thing you wouldn’t even notice if you weren’t concentrating, but it’s enough to make you want to concentrate. A faint heat, a literal and tactile trick of the light, like when you hold your hand up to a lamp.
I sat for what felt like forever, willing the sun to shine.
Eventually, my teeth stopped chattering.
I turned around and went home.
*****
Now it’s almost a lifetime later, and I’m waking in a bed a stranger lent to me. As long as I’m here, he says, he can charge his cells on the floor.
I can’t see the sun, but I know it’s there. I feel it all the way down here, through panes of glass and a layer of dense grey clouds. The sun is right next to me. There’s so much water that it’s falling out of the sky, and this is exactly what I wanted.
I made it happen.
My brother comes to sit beside me, and we stare out the window. From where we are, reality looks dense. So many things at once, everything blocking my view of everything else. And even out beyond what I can see, I know there’s so much more. Forests, cities, oceans, possibilities.
A sun you don’t have to wait for.
Sitting here, in someone else’s bed, small and invisible, I know that I’m part of it all. That I’m not really an outsider. That I can’t be, because I threw the door open and let myself in.
I made it happen.
A long time ago, I sat down in the red dirt, begging the sun to shine on me. But I knew it wasn’t enough. So I took a running leap and jumped the gap, touching down on a new world. It wouldn’t stretch out to meet me, so I went to meet it myself.
I thought that would be enough, to do that one thing and finally stop.
I thought it would be enough to land on my feet, then fall down and die.
And maybe, it would. But I’ve had enough of “enough.” I brought us here so I’d never have to settle for “enough” again. So I won’t. I may have spent last night the same way I spent a year’s worth of nights before it, shivering and spitting blood, but even then, nothing felt the same. Because nothing is the same. Not even the things that hurt. Everything I do, I’m doing in a different context.
I did that.
And if I could do that, I can find a way to fix myself and live.
I don’t know what happens next. But I know I’ll be the one to make it happen. Just like I made everything happen.
Everything that lead me to this moment. On Earth, just as I’d always planned. My brother at my side, warm at last.
Watching the branches glistening outside.
starphotographsStory: Universe B
Supplies and Styles: Graffiti (Summer Carnival), Glitter (http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/thaw), Novelty Beads (“cold”)
Characters: Milo (POV), Kit is there but doesn’t have a speaking role.
Colors: Skyblue Pink with Striped Polka Dots 5 (“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not.”)
Word Count: 795
Rating: PG
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: Milo follows the sun.
Note: The title is the word that inspired this story in the first place!
On my last day off before I collapsed at work and got fired, I sat by the window, waiting for the sun to climb all the way to the top of the sky. Then I pulled myself to my feet, put on my coat, and left.
The night before had been cold and dank and hellish. I couldn’t have gotten warm if my life depended on it, and believe me, I felt like it did. Wherever I laid my head was soaking wet in a matter of minutes. More than half a day later, heading out the door at noon, my hair still felt damp, sections of it still plastered to my face. Then the dry wind blew through it, and the ends froze and crackled against each other.
That didn’t bother me. I was used to it. I kept going.
I kept going, until I’d left the development, then sat down in the dirt. Iron Hills Residential District rising up from the ground behind me. An empty lowland plain sprawling out ahead, so vast I could almost see the exact point where it disappeared behind the curve of the planet. I remember it was one of those really clear days; when the dust settles and shows the real color of the sky, a faded dirty yellow. I could see the white sun, stretching itself to its limits to reach out and shine on us all.
Taking a deep breath, or at least what passed for it by then, I closed my eyes, and sat perfectly still. I could feel blood rising at the back of my throat, but I didn’t even let myself cough.
I needed to be still, or it wouldn’t work. If I moved around too much, the sun couldn’t catch up with me.
But, if I sat motionless, I could start to feel it on my face.
It’s the kind of thing you wouldn’t even notice if you weren’t concentrating, but it’s enough to make you want to concentrate. A faint heat, a literal and tactile trick of the light, like when you hold your hand up to a lamp.
I sat for what felt like forever, willing the sun to shine.
Eventually, my teeth stopped chattering.
I turned around and went home.
Now it’s almost a lifetime later, and I’m waking in a bed a stranger lent to me. As long as I’m here, he says, he can charge his cells on the floor.
I can’t see the sun, but I know it’s there. I feel it all the way down here, through panes of glass and a layer of dense grey clouds. The sun is right next to me. There’s so much water that it’s falling out of the sky, and this is exactly what I wanted.
I made it happen.
My brother comes to sit beside me, and we stare out the window. From where we are, reality looks dense. So many things at once, everything blocking my view of everything else. And even out beyond what I can see, I know there’s so much more. Forests, cities, oceans, possibilities.
A sun you don’t have to wait for.
Sitting here, in someone else’s bed, small and invisible, I know that I’m part of it all. That I’m not really an outsider. That I can’t be, because I threw the door open and let myself in.
I made it happen.
A long time ago, I sat down in the red dirt, begging the sun to shine on me. But I knew it wasn’t enough. So I took a running leap and jumped the gap, touching down on a new world. It wouldn’t stretch out to meet me, so I went to meet it myself.
I thought that would be enough, to do that one thing and finally stop.
I thought it would be enough to land on my feet, then fall down and die.
And maybe, it would. But I’ve had enough of “enough.” I brought us here so I’d never have to settle for “enough” again. So I won’t. I may have spent last night the same way I spent a year’s worth of nights before it, shivering and spitting blood, but even then, nothing felt the same. Because nothing is the same. Not even the things that hurt. Everything I do, I’m doing in a different context.
I did that.
And if I could do that, I can find a way to fix myself and live.
I don’t know what happens next. But I know I’ll be the one to make it happen. Just like I made everything happen.
Everything that lead me to this moment. On Earth, just as I’d always planned. My brother at my side, warm at last.
Watching the branches glistening outside.