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rainbowfic2016-05-19 11:31 pm
starphotographs) wrote in rainbowfic2016-05-19 11:31 pm
Entry tags:
Meme Party 14
Name: starphotographs
Story: Corwin and Friends
Supplies and Styles: Yarn (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160519.html), Glue (May 19th)
Characters: Spenser, others mentioned but this mostly takes place in his head.
Colors: Meme Party 14 (Not sure if)
Word Count: 1,257
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: "You have married a mobile mortuary, constantly living the first line of his obituary. And I'm a bad man." - John Congleton and the Nighty Nite (Spenser figures out what it means to be a real person. Or, you know, tries.)
Note: x-post to tumblr for the Dare to Write Challenge! (Also, I wish the song quoted in the summary had been released when I was making his theme album, because holy CRAP.)
Chaos Terrain
I’ve always been a pretty talkative guy, and yeah, that’s the understatement of the fuckin’ century, I know. Point is, it’s hard to catch me without a reply, even if it’s half-assed or stupid or not really part of the same conversation. It’s like my body wants to talk, even when I don’t, so I let my mouth run like a screensaver, telling myself that, if there’s fallout, I can deal with it later. I’ll talk my way out of it, or I’ll shout that person out of my life, whichever comes first.
Except now, I think there must be something wrong with my brain, because I keep finding myself with nothing to say. And it’s always the simplest goddamn things. Like the other night, when Piston was staying over. I was sitting at my work desk, as I’m wont to do, alternately fiddling with a remote-control car I’d found in a dumpster and playing a computer game. It wasn’t all that exciting, but I guess it was a pretty good time. Piston was already under the covers, reading a book on her phone. Then she told me I looked tired, and asked me if I wanted to come to bed.
I realized I had no fucking idea, and sat staring dumbly at the screen for a while. Am I tired? Do I want to go to bed? I’d been careening along cheerfully for the past two days and nights, so I wanted to say “no,” but I wasn’t really sure if that answer came from inside me. After a few minutes of me sitting there silently and trying to figure it out, Piston got tired of being ignored, took off her shirt, and threw it at my head. Not knowing what else to do, I closed my computer, turned out the light, and crawled in bed next to her, still wearing my regular clothes. Do I want to come to bed? Well, either way, I was there, so I guess it was a moot point whether or not I wanted to be. I did a lot of things I didn’t exactly want to do, just because they felt natural in the moment, and I couldn’t slow down and steer myself. I’d gone this long without understanding my own motivations half the time, and it always worked out… Well, okay, it worked out pretty hit-and-miss. But, by the time it affected me, there was never all that much left to do about it. So I figured I’d stay where I was.
She’d made my bed, and I was going to lie in it. Wide awake, until the sun hit the horizon. My burning signal to start all over again.
And thus, all was well. Until the next morning, when we sat down at the kitchen table for some breakfast, and Corwin, buried in his laptop and pretty much on autopilot, asked me how I was. I froze.
How am I?
I really didn’t know.
He was concentrating on something else and probably didn’t care, but I felt like he was waiting for a response, so I blurted the first thing that came to mind:
“...Your face!”
Crap.
In trying to choose a canned retort that worked in any situation, I’d ended up picking one that happened to work in any situation but this. Corwin was more engaged with the outside world than I’d ever seen him, giving me a squinty stare that was about as good as shouting “what the fuck!?” at the top of his lungs. I still didn’t know how I was, but I knew I’d just made a giant ass of myself, so I started laughing hysterically and had to lie my head down on the table. Martin, who was nursing a drawer of pills and a cup of lukewarm coffee, just shook his smarmy little head.
“Well, this day’s off on the right foot.”
*****
I don’t belong with these people. I belong chained to the floor in a concrete cell. I belong beaten-up and broken in a ditch somewhere. I belong bricked into a wall. I belong scrapped and in pieces in a walk-in fridge, my parts sold off one by one. I belong strapped to a gurney and cut open and left there. I belong wherever I’m most likely to get knocked down and curbstomped.
I belong right back where I was.
Doing the things that got me there, because that’s all I’m good at, and all I’m good for, and I’m really no good at all.
I’m worse than any of you could guess. If you knew what I’ve done, you wouldn’t be asking me all these stupid-ass questions. You wouldn’t care how I felt, or if I was tired, or if I wanted to come to bed or watch a movie or eat your leftovers. You’d hate me. All you’d want to know is how quickly you could put me in the ground.
(Pretty quick. I’d let any one of you do it. Any way you wanted. Because I have it fucking coming.)
How would it feel, knowing that, if the wrong person had a beef with you last summer, I might have caved in your skull before you ever got to know me?
How would it feel, if I told you that you didn’t actually know me at all?
I only ask because I care.
Go on. I’ll wait.
*****
It’s just another way to prove I’m a real person. Or pretend, if that’s how you’re gonna play it. Just another way to catch myself off guard with the realization that I Am.
So I tell myself this isn’t something new. It’s the same fucking thing. If it feels different, that’s my damage.
(And yet…)
Back then, when the job was done, I’d watch the lights going down in some poor asshole’s brain, and think; I did that. I’m here. I exist outside myself. The world would be a very different place if I didn’t. Even if nobody knows it.
What I’m saying is, here, people do. They work from the assumption that I’m not a figment of my own imagination. That they aren’t figments of their own, all of us blowing around like so many plastic bags in a thunderstorm, subject to forces we can’t begin to understand. I’m a human being. I’m supposed to know what kind of day I’m having, or what I want to eat, or whether I’m unfulfilled. I want to snap, well what does it look like!? Because anyone’s guess is as good as mine.
It’s one thing to break something or someone, and say, I did that. I’m here.
It’s another thing entirely for another person to say, I see you in there.
(Bullshit. Not even I can see me.)
And yet, they do. On a consistent basis, even. They’ve been looking at this stupid pile of meat and bones so long that they’re starting to worry about its welfare. I want to tell them they’re all nuts. But, I’m not one to talk, so fuck it.
I’m worse than nuts. I’m slowing down and sputtering. I can’t answer simple questions. I catch glimpses of myself in rain puddles and darkened windows and stop dead in my tracks.
How are you, Spenser?
How are you?
Story: Corwin and Friends
Supplies and Styles: Yarn (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap160519.html), Glue (May 19th)
Characters: Spenser, others mentioned but this mostly takes place in his head.
Colors: Meme Party 14 (Not sure if)
Word Count: 1,257
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Choose not to warn.
Summary: "You have married a mobile mortuary, constantly living the first line of his obituary. And I'm a bad man." - John Congleton and the Nighty Nite (Spenser figures out what it means to be a real person. Or, you know, tries.)
Note: x-post to tumblr for the Dare to Write Challenge! (Also, I wish the song quoted in the summary had been released when I was making his theme album, because holy CRAP.)
I’ve always been a pretty talkative guy, and yeah, that’s the understatement of the fuckin’ century, I know. Point is, it’s hard to catch me without a reply, even if it’s half-assed or stupid or not really part of the same conversation. It’s like my body wants to talk, even when I don’t, so I let my mouth run like a screensaver, telling myself that, if there’s fallout, I can deal with it later. I’ll talk my way out of it, or I’ll shout that person out of my life, whichever comes first.
Except now, I think there must be something wrong with my brain, because I keep finding myself with nothing to say. And it’s always the simplest goddamn things. Like the other night, when Piston was staying over. I was sitting at my work desk, as I’m wont to do, alternately fiddling with a remote-control car I’d found in a dumpster and playing a computer game. It wasn’t all that exciting, but I guess it was a pretty good time. Piston was already under the covers, reading a book on her phone. Then she told me I looked tired, and asked me if I wanted to come to bed.
I realized I had no fucking idea, and sat staring dumbly at the screen for a while. Am I tired? Do I want to go to bed? I’d been careening along cheerfully for the past two days and nights, so I wanted to say “no,” but I wasn’t really sure if that answer came from inside me. After a few minutes of me sitting there silently and trying to figure it out, Piston got tired of being ignored, took off her shirt, and threw it at my head. Not knowing what else to do, I closed my computer, turned out the light, and crawled in bed next to her, still wearing my regular clothes. Do I want to come to bed? Well, either way, I was there, so I guess it was a moot point whether or not I wanted to be. I did a lot of things I didn’t exactly want to do, just because they felt natural in the moment, and I couldn’t slow down and steer myself. I’d gone this long without understanding my own motivations half the time, and it always worked out… Well, okay, it worked out pretty hit-and-miss. But, by the time it affected me, there was never all that much left to do about it. So I figured I’d stay where I was.
She’d made my bed, and I was going to lie in it. Wide awake, until the sun hit the horizon. My burning signal to start all over again.
And thus, all was well. Until the next morning, when we sat down at the kitchen table for some breakfast, and Corwin, buried in his laptop and pretty much on autopilot, asked me how I was. I froze.
How am I?
I really didn’t know.
He was concentrating on something else and probably didn’t care, but I felt like he was waiting for a response, so I blurted the first thing that came to mind:
“...Your face!”
Crap.
In trying to choose a canned retort that worked in any situation, I’d ended up picking one that happened to work in any situation but this. Corwin was more engaged with the outside world than I’d ever seen him, giving me a squinty stare that was about as good as shouting “what the fuck!?” at the top of his lungs. I still didn’t know how I was, but I knew I’d just made a giant ass of myself, so I started laughing hysterically and had to lie my head down on the table. Martin, who was nursing a drawer of pills and a cup of lukewarm coffee, just shook his smarmy little head.
“Well, this day’s off on the right foot.”
I don’t belong with these people. I belong chained to the floor in a concrete cell. I belong beaten-up and broken in a ditch somewhere. I belong bricked into a wall. I belong scrapped and in pieces in a walk-in fridge, my parts sold off one by one. I belong strapped to a gurney and cut open and left there. I belong wherever I’m most likely to get knocked down and curbstomped.
I belong right back where I was.
Doing the things that got me there, because that’s all I’m good at, and all I’m good for, and I’m really no good at all.
I’m worse than any of you could guess. If you knew what I’ve done, you wouldn’t be asking me all these stupid-ass questions. You wouldn’t care how I felt, or if I was tired, or if I wanted to come to bed or watch a movie or eat your leftovers. You’d hate me. All you’d want to know is how quickly you could put me in the ground.
(Pretty quick. I’d let any one of you do it. Any way you wanted. Because I have it fucking coming.)
How would it feel, knowing that, if the wrong person had a beef with you last summer, I might have caved in your skull before you ever got to know me?
How would it feel, if I told you that you didn’t actually know me at all?
I only ask because I care.
Go on. I’ll wait.
It’s just another way to prove I’m a real person. Or pretend, if that’s how you’re gonna play it. Just another way to catch myself off guard with the realization that I Am.
So I tell myself this isn’t something new. It’s the same fucking thing. If it feels different, that’s my damage.
(And yet…)
Back then, when the job was done, I’d watch the lights going down in some poor asshole’s brain, and think; I did that. I’m here. I exist outside myself. The world would be a very different place if I didn’t. Even if nobody knows it.
What I’m saying is, here, people do. They work from the assumption that I’m not a figment of my own imagination. That they aren’t figments of their own, all of us blowing around like so many plastic bags in a thunderstorm, subject to forces we can’t begin to understand. I’m a human being. I’m supposed to know what kind of day I’m having, or what I want to eat, or whether I’m unfulfilled. I want to snap, well what does it look like!? Because anyone’s guess is as good as mine.
It’s one thing to break something or someone, and say, I did that. I’m here.
It’s another thing entirely for another person to say, I see you in there.
(Bullshit. Not even I can see me.)
And yet, they do. On a consistent basis, even. They’ve been looking at this stupid pile of meat and bones so long that they’re starting to worry about its welfare. I want to tell them they’re all nuts. But, I’m not one to talk, so fuck it.
I’m worse than nuts. I’m slowing down and sputtering. I can’t answer simple questions. I catch glimpses of myself in rain puddles and darkened windows and stop dead in my tracks.
How are you, Spenser?
How are you?
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