thai m zoofquesque (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
impactings) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
rainbowfic2012-01-01 07:16 pm
impactings) wrote in rainbowfic2012-01-01 07:16 pm
rust #2, alice blue #13, tyrian purple #29
Name: Thai
Title: stone as bitter as an orange
Story: Tempus Transit
Timeline: 0.16 (the sixteenth day of a nonapplicable month [December sixteenth, unknown year])
Colors: Rust #2 - Antique lace; Alice Blue #13 - be what you would seem to be; Tyrian Purple #29 - don't look back
Supplies and Materials: None
Word Count: 1700
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Minor physical abuse (Cinnamon has a cell phone thrown at her head), mentions of mental/emotional abuse and neglect, Bone paterfamilias still being a dick. Actually, you know what, any pieces in which he appears, assume it warns for him being a dick. He's a warning all to himself.
Notes: Augh writing this piece made me feel very uncomfortable. Also, the next few pieces will be long, sad, and in chronological order; if I post anything set after a certain point, things will be incredibly fuzzy and really writing an introduction in this fashion is so much cooler.
Life is different without her sister, in a subtle way that makes Cinnamon dizzy.
She cooks for two instead of three now. She tries, at least. She makes too much at first and leftovers are stored in the crooked white refrigerator in the corner of their trailer. Cinnamon eats them for breakfast, staring watchfully at her father as he makes himself waffles. He doesn’t offer Cinnamon any; she doesn’t ask for them.
She has more space to spread out on the bed in the central space. Their trailer isn’t small by any means, but the double bed was, unspoken, their father’s, from day one. Marianne and Cinnamon’s – just Cinnamon’s now – is right next to the door, and can be folded into the wall. It stays folded for most of the day; they used to take it down at night and hold each other in the blankets, Cinnamon breathing bedtime stories in Marianne’s ear, making her laugh or cry or just smile quietly, teeth glinting in the twilight.
The sheets are cold without her sister, and Cinnamon started sleeping with three blankets instead of two on the day after she came home from the hospital for the last time.
And her father rents one-bed hotel rooms instead of two-bed.
She lugs her tattered case through the door of the room, head bowed, looking at the floor, at the trimmings of the walls, anywhere except at her father. He’s fine with that, staring straight ahead as he sets his luggage on the single bed.
The room is divided into two almost-rooms; one wide square with glass sliding doors and a balcony – Marianne would have loved that, Cinnamon can’t help but think – and a narrower square, half-divided from the other by a low wall that comes to Cinnamon’s chest. There’s a couch here, squat and puffy, and it goes unspoken that Cinnamon will sleep there.
She sets her case on the couch’s arm. She doesn’t look at her father.
December sixteenth. Marianne Bone has been dead for twenty-three days, seventeen hours, and three minutes. Cinnamon has a clock ticking in her chest that marks the time, how lonely she hasn’t been. It stopped at thirteen years, one month, and twenty-two days. She doesn’t know how many hours; the internal clock of grief is not that precise.
A soft chime of music sounds, muffled. Her father rummages in his pocket. Puts the cell phone to his ear.
“Alexander Bone speaking.”
His voice is clear and calm. Cinnamon’s shoulders hunch a little. He is untroubled by grief.
Are you really surprised? she thinks, or perhaps something else thinks to her. Be honest, Cinnamon, are you really surprised?
She settles down on the couch, smoothing the folds of her green-and-gray gown along her knees. Her father turns, presses his forearm against the sliding doors, rests his forehead against it.
“Yes.”
Cinnamon reaches for the remote. Idly, she runs her nails – lacquered, tipped with white, mossy-green swirls the same shade as her gown painted on them – around the soft buttons. She isn’t allowed to turn the television on, lest she disturb her father’s telephone call.
“Yes, that’s correct.” From the corner of her eye she sees her father half-turn, pressing his temple to the cold glass. A moment. “Yes, the funeral was about two weeks ago.”
They’re discussing Marianne. A chill runs through Cinnamon’s bones. She nearly drops the remote.
Her father nods, although they both know the person on the other end can’t see him. “Yes, we’re headed west. Probably end up on the west coast, take a vacation before we return to the caravan. Perhaps February?”
They’re not discussing Marianne.
Cinnamon sets the remote down on the table; tilts her head. Her case unzips, spilling fabric out into midair. She catches her garments calmly, folds the thin t-shirt she sleeps in into four neat squares, sets it on the couch beside her. Repacks everything else. Her father permitted her three months ago to buy a pair of jeans, and she takes them out now, laying them with care on the coffee table in front of her. They will look strange under her gown.
Her father is still on the phone. As quietly as she can, Cinnamon stands. The denim shifts lightly in her grasp as she retreats to the bathroom.
It's sterile and white and smells, to Cinnamon's nose, like cleaning solution and old soap. The maids were careless. There's a bar of used soap besides the sink, mushy with the fingerprints of the person who used it last. She lets her fingers linger over it. His name was Max, and he was missing his wife, washing his face to scrub the sleep-smear from his eyes before he looked in the mirror and sighed. He thought she had come to this town after she left him seven months ago, five months pregnant with a child he's not sure is his. His wife's name is Gabrielle, and with a slow blink of her eyes Cinnamon thinks the child is his, after all, and that scared Gabrielle so much that she left.
She could tell Max that she isn't in this town. Gabrielle is somewhere out west with the child - a girl, Bree by name, which makes Cinnamon purse her lips a little - and her old high school sweetheart, who loves her more than life itself and hopes that Max will never arrive to take her away from him. At least someone in this is happy.
Cinnamon takes her fingers from the soap. Max is gone, but his family swirls about in her head. She wishes she could speak to him and tell him that his search is useless.
She dresses in silence, staring at herself in the mirror when she is done. The jeans, grey-blue and harsh on her skin, bump awkwardly at the hips of the knee-length gown. Cinnamon takes the hem in her fingers. It stretches from her grasp, the fabric of the dress loosening, and when she looks again it's a draping, fern-green-storm-grey lacey thing that fits the jeans perfectly. Her hair is ridiculous. Cinnamon doesn't bother with it.
She leaves the bathroom, feeling awkward in the high-heeled shoes her father makes her wear. To give her more of a presence, he insists, and perhaps she does need that. He's still on the phone, but reclining on the bed, eyes fixed on the lit but soundless TV as he listens to whoever it is on the other end.
Cinnamon keeps her eyes fixed just to the right of his head when he looks at her. She can see a frown surface, like some submarine horror, and he tilts the phone away from his mouth long enough to mouth gruffly, "Where are you off to?"
She's not sure. "Going to get some food," she says vaguely.
"Takeout?"
For him. "Yes."
He grunts, apparently satisfied with this, and returns to the phone. "Yes, that sounds fine. Hmm? Oh, no... Oh, really. Well, we'll have to head back a little early, if that's the case, but-"
He pauses. Whoever it is sighs, static hissing hard through the speakers so loudly Cinnamon can hear it from her place by the door.
"We can discuss it later," he finally tells the person on the other end of the line. "I have something to do right now."
Something to do means her to deal with. He hangs up, tosses the cell phone carelessly onto the bed. "Right. Takeout. Where?"
"Wherever I can find. I think there was a Chinese place on our way in."
"Ugh." He makes a face. Cinnamon and Marianne were the only people to see this side of Alexander Bone; childish and demanding, disdainful and bitter, with a temper like a misloaded shotgun. Handle With Care ought to be tattooed on his forehead, although neither of the Bone sisters will try. Cinnamon has a vivid but ill-remembered memory of sneaking into his room at the age of twelve, Marianne like a nine-year-old puppy trailing after her, and scribbling a mustache onto his face with a permanent marker.
She vividly remembers, also, the three-mile walk between that rest stop and the hotel at which her father had later checked in.
"That'll do if you can't find anything else," he is saying to her. "Look for a Domino's or a Pizza Hut or something, Chinese is always expensive in this part of the country. Wallet's in my luggage."
Cinnamon inclines her head. Docile, dutiful, diffident daughter.
His bag is black and almost Cinnamon's size. If she wanted to, she could fit herself into this bag, let herself be carried around like a stack of clothes or a thesis paper on the concept of love. She doesn't, however, want to. The bag smells thickly of cloves and has too many pockets to count, and Cinnamon goes through three of them without finding the wallet before she grows frustrated and clicks her tongue, and all the pockets fly open -
And then there is a sharp pain on the top of her head, and she is crouching over the unzipped back with her hands on the crown of her head, and the cell phone clatters against the wall. "Don't do that shit!" her father roars at her, hand still outstretched from where he's thrown the phone. "Keep it on the stage or out of my sight! Don't make me tell you again!"
He won't need to. He definitely won't need to. The wallet is in the leftmost pocket on the outside and she scrambles to pull it out, her palms slippery, the twenties swimming like elusive fish behind a plastic screen. She takes two, stuffs them into her pocket quickly, and while he watches her she slides it back into its pocket. Walks quickly towards the door. It slams shut behind her without her moving a hand and she hears a short, angry huff from behind the wood, but Cinnamon is already clicking down the hall and her scalp throbs, but does not bleed, and she doesn't have any sort of plan except leave.
Title: stone as bitter as an orange
Story: Tempus Transit
Timeline: 0.16 (the sixteenth day of a nonapplicable month [December sixteenth, unknown year])
Colors: Rust #2 - Antique lace; Alice Blue #13 - be what you would seem to be; Tyrian Purple #29 - don't look back
Supplies and Materials: None
Word Count: 1700
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Minor physical abuse (Cinnamon has a cell phone thrown at her head), mentions of mental/emotional abuse and neglect, Bone paterfamilias still being a dick. Actually, you know what, any pieces in which he appears, assume it warns for him being a dick. He's a warning all to himself.
Notes: Augh writing this piece made me feel very uncomfortable. Also, the next few pieces will be long, sad, and in chronological order; if I post anything set after a certain point, things will be incredibly fuzzy and really writing an introduction in this fashion is so much cooler.
Life is different without her sister, in a subtle way that makes Cinnamon dizzy.
She cooks for two instead of three now. She tries, at least. She makes too much at first and leftovers are stored in the crooked white refrigerator in the corner of their trailer. Cinnamon eats them for breakfast, staring watchfully at her father as he makes himself waffles. He doesn’t offer Cinnamon any; she doesn’t ask for them.
She has more space to spread out on the bed in the central space. Their trailer isn’t small by any means, but the double bed was, unspoken, their father’s, from day one. Marianne and Cinnamon’s – just Cinnamon’s now – is right next to the door, and can be folded into the wall. It stays folded for most of the day; they used to take it down at night and hold each other in the blankets, Cinnamon breathing bedtime stories in Marianne’s ear, making her laugh or cry or just smile quietly, teeth glinting in the twilight.
The sheets are cold without her sister, and Cinnamon started sleeping with three blankets instead of two on the day after she came home from the hospital for the last time.
And her father rents one-bed hotel rooms instead of two-bed.
She lugs her tattered case through the door of the room, head bowed, looking at the floor, at the trimmings of the walls, anywhere except at her father. He’s fine with that, staring straight ahead as he sets his luggage on the single bed.
The room is divided into two almost-rooms; one wide square with glass sliding doors and a balcony – Marianne would have loved that, Cinnamon can’t help but think – and a narrower square, half-divided from the other by a low wall that comes to Cinnamon’s chest. There’s a couch here, squat and puffy, and it goes unspoken that Cinnamon will sleep there.
She sets her case on the couch’s arm. She doesn’t look at her father.
December sixteenth. Marianne Bone has been dead for twenty-three days, seventeen hours, and three minutes. Cinnamon has a clock ticking in her chest that marks the time, how lonely she hasn’t been. It stopped at thirteen years, one month, and twenty-two days. She doesn’t know how many hours; the internal clock of grief is not that precise.
A soft chime of music sounds, muffled. Her father rummages in his pocket. Puts the cell phone to his ear.
“Alexander Bone speaking.”
His voice is clear and calm. Cinnamon’s shoulders hunch a little. He is untroubled by grief.
Are you really surprised? she thinks, or perhaps something else thinks to her. Be honest, Cinnamon, are you really surprised?
She settles down on the couch, smoothing the folds of her green-and-gray gown along her knees. Her father turns, presses his forearm against the sliding doors, rests his forehead against it.
“Yes.”
Cinnamon reaches for the remote. Idly, she runs her nails – lacquered, tipped with white, mossy-green swirls the same shade as her gown painted on them – around the soft buttons. She isn’t allowed to turn the television on, lest she disturb her father’s telephone call.
“Yes, that’s correct.” From the corner of her eye she sees her father half-turn, pressing his temple to the cold glass. A moment. “Yes, the funeral was about two weeks ago.”
They’re discussing Marianne. A chill runs through Cinnamon’s bones. She nearly drops the remote.
Her father nods, although they both know the person on the other end can’t see him. “Yes, we’re headed west. Probably end up on the west coast, take a vacation before we return to the caravan. Perhaps February?”
They’re not discussing Marianne.
Cinnamon sets the remote down on the table; tilts her head. Her case unzips, spilling fabric out into midair. She catches her garments calmly, folds the thin t-shirt she sleeps in into four neat squares, sets it on the couch beside her. Repacks everything else. Her father permitted her three months ago to buy a pair of jeans, and she takes them out now, laying them with care on the coffee table in front of her. They will look strange under her gown.
Her father is still on the phone. As quietly as she can, Cinnamon stands. The denim shifts lightly in her grasp as she retreats to the bathroom.
It's sterile and white and smells, to Cinnamon's nose, like cleaning solution and old soap. The maids were careless. There's a bar of used soap besides the sink, mushy with the fingerprints of the person who used it last. She lets her fingers linger over it. His name was Max, and he was missing his wife, washing his face to scrub the sleep-smear from his eyes before he looked in the mirror and sighed. He thought she had come to this town after she left him seven months ago, five months pregnant with a child he's not sure is his. His wife's name is Gabrielle, and with a slow blink of her eyes Cinnamon thinks the child is his, after all, and that scared Gabrielle so much that she left.
She could tell Max that she isn't in this town. Gabrielle is somewhere out west with the child - a girl, Bree by name, which makes Cinnamon purse her lips a little - and her old high school sweetheart, who loves her more than life itself and hopes that Max will never arrive to take her away from him. At least someone in this is happy.
Cinnamon takes her fingers from the soap. Max is gone, but his family swirls about in her head. She wishes she could speak to him and tell him that his search is useless.
She dresses in silence, staring at herself in the mirror when she is done. The jeans, grey-blue and harsh on her skin, bump awkwardly at the hips of the knee-length gown. Cinnamon takes the hem in her fingers. It stretches from her grasp, the fabric of the dress loosening, and when she looks again it's a draping, fern-green-storm-grey lacey thing that fits the jeans perfectly. Her hair is ridiculous. Cinnamon doesn't bother with it.
She leaves the bathroom, feeling awkward in the high-heeled shoes her father makes her wear. To give her more of a presence, he insists, and perhaps she does need that. He's still on the phone, but reclining on the bed, eyes fixed on the lit but soundless TV as he listens to whoever it is on the other end.
Cinnamon keeps her eyes fixed just to the right of his head when he looks at her. She can see a frown surface, like some submarine horror, and he tilts the phone away from his mouth long enough to mouth gruffly, "Where are you off to?"
She's not sure. "Going to get some food," she says vaguely.
"Takeout?"
For him. "Yes."
He grunts, apparently satisfied with this, and returns to the phone. "Yes, that sounds fine. Hmm? Oh, no... Oh, really. Well, we'll have to head back a little early, if that's the case, but-"
He pauses. Whoever it is sighs, static hissing hard through the speakers so loudly Cinnamon can hear it from her place by the door.
"We can discuss it later," he finally tells the person on the other end of the line. "I have something to do right now."
Something to do means her to deal with. He hangs up, tosses the cell phone carelessly onto the bed. "Right. Takeout. Where?"
"Wherever I can find. I think there was a Chinese place on our way in."
"Ugh." He makes a face. Cinnamon and Marianne were the only people to see this side of Alexander Bone; childish and demanding, disdainful and bitter, with a temper like a misloaded shotgun. Handle With Care ought to be tattooed on his forehead, although neither of the Bone sisters will try. Cinnamon has a vivid but ill-remembered memory of sneaking into his room at the age of twelve, Marianne like a nine-year-old puppy trailing after her, and scribbling a mustache onto his face with a permanent marker.
She vividly remembers, also, the three-mile walk between that rest stop and the hotel at which her father had later checked in.
"That'll do if you can't find anything else," he is saying to her. "Look for a Domino's or a Pizza Hut or something, Chinese is always expensive in this part of the country. Wallet's in my luggage."
Cinnamon inclines her head. Docile, dutiful, diffident daughter.
His bag is black and almost Cinnamon's size. If she wanted to, she could fit herself into this bag, let herself be carried around like a stack of clothes or a thesis paper on the concept of love. She doesn't, however, want to. The bag smells thickly of cloves and has too many pockets to count, and Cinnamon goes through three of them without finding the wallet before she grows frustrated and clicks her tongue, and all the pockets fly open -
And then there is a sharp pain on the top of her head, and she is crouching over the unzipped back with her hands on the crown of her head, and the cell phone clatters against the wall. "Don't do that shit!" her father roars at her, hand still outstretched from where he's thrown the phone. "Keep it on the stage or out of my sight! Don't make me tell you again!"
He won't need to. He definitely won't need to. The wallet is in the leftmost pocket on the outside and she scrambles to pull it out, her palms slippery, the twenties swimming like elusive fish behind a plastic screen. She takes two, stuffs them into her pocket quickly, and while he watches her she slides it back into its pocket. Walks quickly towards the door. It slams shut behind her without her moving a hand and she hears a short, angry huff from behind the wood, but Cinnamon is already clicking down the hall and her scalp throbs, but does not bleed, and she doesn't have any sort of plan except leave.
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