Well Aimed Chaos (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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rainbowfic2013-07-15 10:37 am
whitemage) wrote in rainbowfic2013-07-15 10:37 am
Fire Opal #11; Fever Red #2; Surgical Steel #9
Name: Ardy
Piece/Story: The Average Annie Duskcrow/Working title Blood Saint
Colors: Fire Opal 11 (own personal war); Fever Red 2 (chronic); Surgical Steel 9 (IV)
Styles/Supplies: Graffiti
Word Count: 1640
Ratings/Warnings: PG - explicit description of bleeding, discussion of illness and death; No standard warnings apply (though if I’ve missed one, please tell me!)
Notes: This is a new voice for me, so I apologize if she’s a little rough or has a bit of emotional whiplash in the first few pieces.Hopefully she’ll solidify like a properly coagulating blood clot. Edit: Thank you for the tags!
There were 1,446 dots in each panel above my head. Each panel had a width of 12 inches, and there were four columns of them between the two mint green curtains on either side of my cot. For privacy, the nurse had pulled the third curtain across the end of my space in the emergency room. I was in the limbo of triage, engulfed by the whims of a colorblind interior designer and the beeps, whines, screams, and murmuring medical jargon that was hospital drama.
There were 23,136 dots in my ceiling territory, and if I stared at them long enough, I could close my eyes and the after-image emblazoned on my retina would burst into negative, creating a sea of primordial, unpatterned stars in my eyes. If I let it sit, breathed slow and steadily--in for 8, 9, 10--out for 10, 9, 8 and onward--they would slowly flicker out, time moving backwards from before the first moments of God’s sweeping hand into the first Void which existed in the eons before our world.
I would squeeze my eyes more tightly shut, and colors would crackle to life, creating the sensation of matter and expansion. In this way, while healthcare professionals fiercely debated my current fate, I relived the Big Bang over and over.
Someone who spends their entire life being a case study, who wracks up frequent flyer miles with emergency departments and exam rooms, learns the value of entertaining themselves. Eternity is not the terrifying nor incomprehensible prospect it seems to so many who live life in the hale and well fast lane. They’ve already waited it out once, and could do so even if the clock were to utterly stop over just creeping by.
There’s a clock behind my head. It’s ticking on the back beat of the monitor beside my bed. It would almost be a rhythmic song, except the timing is nanoseconds off.
My fingers attempted to tap out the proper beat in correction, but that did little more than remind me of the rosary tangled around my hand. It was from my brother, Luke, with beads of bloodstone at my grandmother’s insistence. They were both radiantly joyful when I converted--though for Luke, it was just in sharing his faith. My grandmother, on the other hand, was convinced it would lead to my miraculous recovery.
My mysterious hematological condition continued to deteriorate bit by bit--I wasn’t sure that counted as a miracle. Unless I was destined for a bitterly macabre kind of sainthood.
I began praying quietly, beads clicking covertly under the blanket over me. I made it only to the first mystery, but it was Tuesday, so I ended up stuck in the garden of Gethsemane.
I remembered a song they used to sing at the Baptist church Dad frequented--several songs, actually, about this very event. They reminded me of what I’d learned about Puritans: very obsessed with suffering. People pin that on the Catholics, but they seem to greet suffering either with perverse joy or contented stoicism. Those with more Calvinist influences, it’s like they glut themselves on the horrors and majesty of it, like they find themselves impressed with the idea of being so anxious and terrified facing down a crucifixion that the future martyr is sweating drops of blood. Trust me, there are a disturbing number of hymns that discuss sweating blood in finer detail that just matter-of-factly mentioning it.
I wasn’t sweating blood--thankfully--but I had certainly been crying it before I collapsed. Haemolacria: it sounds so pretty and mysterious. It was a bit more stomach churning to experience, though. Probably moreso for the college chaplain that came across me meditating in the campus chapel than for me. The beautiful sunny day of early spring was filtering gently through the stained glass windows as I lifted up my head, a red fountain meandering out of my eyes in dainty rivulets. He turned a little ashen. I probably won’t be going back there for a while.
“Hey! I heard you did a statue of Mary impersonation--impressive.” My thoughts snapped back to the present as Luke strode in and plunked down on a rolling stool, a bright but clearly professional smile covering over the concern in his drawn face. His dark bangs were starting to fall into his eyes, hospital name tag dangling from the end of his sleeve, body still in a rush even after he had come to a physical rest.
I focused on the bright white square centered on his starched collar to avoid eye contact. Since we had reunited in adulthood, he had become one of my closest confidants, and a safe place to break down. But breaking down right now including crying again, and while it wouldn’t bother him, my eyeballs and water line were still stinging from last time. “How long ago did you get the call?”
His whole demeanor went sheepish in my periphery. “Speeding is morally acceptable if it’s an emergency.”
“Getting yourself killed when I’m only sick as I ever was is not sisterly acceptable, though.” I lived with the possibility of my own death for so long, it had become an old friend. Still, that gave it no right to go around snatching up my loved ones.
Luke waved a hand, then rummaged the cart by my bed, pulling out an alcohol wipe. “Enough about me: do they have a decision on what to do with you yet?”
I watched his scarred but nimble fingers wrestle with the package. “Dr. Patel was over in French Lick today. She’s making her way back, and is still debating admitting me or not.”
Scooting closer, Luke nodded as he began to carefully wipe my face clean. “Do you think they should?”
I chewed my lip, tapping the rosary automatically. “I don’t know. I hate to miss classes, but a forced break would be nice. I’m so tired.”
“How many hours do you have this semester?”
I frowned. “18. That’s required to finish the program in 2 years.” My tone may have been a little defensive--people had been trying to get me to quit nursing school since before I had even applied. To me, this was already a compromise from attempting medical school--something I couldn’t do just from the physical aspect of the hours necessary. I had good days and bad days, and one couldn’t afford the latter trying to complete the classes, let alone an internship and residency.
Luke steepled his hands in thought, the wipe hanging down between them. “Do you have to--”
“I really want this.” I broke in quickly, assuming his thoughts. Maybe he only wished me to slow down instead of stop, but either one felt devastating to me. “Even if I can’t be healed myself, I want to help. I want to be part of healing others. To give them back a portion of their life’s quality. This is important to me, Luke.”
He nodded, remaining in his position for what felt like a considerable length of time. He mopped up one last rust-colored path on my cheek. “Even as we all have burdens, we also all have gifts. As much as you might want to do that service, there might be something else waiting for you to hear its call.”
I grabbed his hand, pulling the wipe from it. “What are you trying to say?”
He licked his lips nervously. “I was talking to Grandmother--”
I threw the wipe in his face and crossed my arms, ending up tangled and whimpering in the equipment--and the needle stuck in my arm.
He chuckled and threw it in the trash, standing up to help me straighten out. His smile was much more brotherly over ecclesiastical now. “Seriously, though, she would like to see you. I’m not saying you have to just go live with her permanently, but you’ve already mentioned a break. This could be a good one.”
“Oh...” Arguing internally about following his advice--no more compromises! No more waiting!--I realized the strange tears had started up again. It was a thick oozing that still managed to reach my chin too quickly. Drip. Drip.
Relatively keeping his cool, Luke blotted at my face with a tissue, scrambling to hand it to me and poke his head out of the curtains. “Nurse! Please!”
The authoritative request for attention was answered by a few dutifully bustling ones on the other side. One in particular zeroed in. “Yes! Father?”
I gripped the rosary, not even trying to stop myself anymore. There was busyness and harried discussion around me. Phones calls being placed, orders barked. Luke squeezing my hand that cradled the beads as he watched, interjecting with a prayer.
The IV blew--predictably--with a sudden change in my blood pressure and a poorly laid stab to begin with. The needle flew off, the tubing leaked and sprayed. There were exclamations. A new kit on my bed. Jabs into both arms to find a vein as they all rolled away. A fervent wish from someone that they hadn’t taken out my port when it became infected last year.
Everything became more frantic as they realized skin had opened a few places on my arms as well. They gave up on the line. In a split second, the discussion shifted from whether or not I could cope with the life I wanted to whether or not I could still cope with life at all.
My vision blurred and I blinked, sinking back into the pillow; hollow resignation replaced fretting in my breast as I gave myself over to numerous outcomes. In my chart, there are 8 active prescriptions. Around me, there is one priest and two nurses. Above me, there is one God, thousands of angels, and 23,136 dots.
And we were still an army outnumbered, at the mercy of my one broken body.
Piece/Story: The Average Annie Duskcrow/Working title Blood Saint
Colors: Fire Opal 11 (own personal war); Fever Red 2 (chronic); Surgical Steel 9 (IV)
Styles/Supplies: Graffiti
Word Count: 1640
Ratings/Warnings: PG - explicit description of bleeding, discussion of illness and death; No standard warnings apply (though if I’ve missed one, please tell me!)
Notes: This is a new voice for me, so I apologize if she’s a little rough or has a bit of emotional whiplash in the first few pieces.
There were 1,446 dots in each panel above my head. Each panel had a width of 12 inches, and there were four columns of them between the two mint green curtains on either side of my cot. For privacy, the nurse had pulled the third curtain across the end of my space in the emergency room. I was in the limbo of triage, engulfed by the whims of a colorblind interior designer and the beeps, whines, screams, and murmuring medical jargon that was hospital drama.
There were 23,136 dots in my ceiling territory, and if I stared at them long enough, I could close my eyes and the after-image emblazoned on my retina would burst into negative, creating a sea of primordial, unpatterned stars in my eyes. If I let it sit, breathed slow and steadily--in for 8, 9, 10--out for 10, 9, 8 and onward--they would slowly flicker out, time moving backwards from before the first moments of God’s sweeping hand into the first Void which existed in the eons before our world.
I would squeeze my eyes more tightly shut, and colors would crackle to life, creating the sensation of matter and expansion. In this way, while healthcare professionals fiercely debated my current fate, I relived the Big Bang over and over.
Someone who spends their entire life being a case study, who wracks up frequent flyer miles with emergency departments and exam rooms, learns the value of entertaining themselves. Eternity is not the terrifying nor incomprehensible prospect it seems to so many who live life in the hale and well fast lane. They’ve already waited it out once, and could do so even if the clock were to utterly stop over just creeping by.
There’s a clock behind my head. It’s ticking on the back beat of the monitor beside my bed. It would almost be a rhythmic song, except the timing is nanoseconds off.
My fingers attempted to tap out the proper beat in correction, but that did little more than remind me of the rosary tangled around my hand. It was from my brother, Luke, with beads of bloodstone at my grandmother’s insistence. They were both radiantly joyful when I converted--though for Luke, it was just in sharing his faith. My grandmother, on the other hand, was convinced it would lead to my miraculous recovery.
My mysterious hematological condition continued to deteriorate bit by bit--I wasn’t sure that counted as a miracle. Unless I was destined for a bitterly macabre kind of sainthood.
I began praying quietly, beads clicking covertly under the blanket over me. I made it only to the first mystery, but it was Tuesday, so I ended up stuck in the garden of Gethsemane.
I remembered a song they used to sing at the Baptist church Dad frequented--several songs, actually, about this very event. They reminded me of what I’d learned about Puritans: very obsessed with suffering. People pin that on the Catholics, but they seem to greet suffering either with perverse joy or contented stoicism. Those with more Calvinist influences, it’s like they glut themselves on the horrors and majesty of it, like they find themselves impressed with the idea of being so anxious and terrified facing down a crucifixion that the future martyr is sweating drops of blood. Trust me, there are a disturbing number of hymns that discuss sweating blood in finer detail that just matter-of-factly mentioning it.
I wasn’t sweating blood--thankfully--but I had certainly been crying it before I collapsed. Haemolacria: it sounds so pretty and mysterious. It was a bit more stomach churning to experience, though. Probably moreso for the college chaplain that came across me meditating in the campus chapel than for me. The beautiful sunny day of early spring was filtering gently through the stained glass windows as I lifted up my head, a red fountain meandering out of my eyes in dainty rivulets. He turned a little ashen. I probably won’t be going back there for a while.
“Hey! I heard you did a statue of Mary impersonation--impressive.” My thoughts snapped back to the present as Luke strode in and plunked down on a rolling stool, a bright but clearly professional smile covering over the concern in his drawn face. His dark bangs were starting to fall into his eyes, hospital name tag dangling from the end of his sleeve, body still in a rush even after he had come to a physical rest.
I focused on the bright white square centered on his starched collar to avoid eye contact. Since we had reunited in adulthood, he had become one of my closest confidants, and a safe place to break down. But breaking down right now including crying again, and while it wouldn’t bother him, my eyeballs and water line were still stinging from last time. “How long ago did you get the call?”
His whole demeanor went sheepish in my periphery. “Speeding is morally acceptable if it’s an emergency.”
“Getting yourself killed when I’m only sick as I ever was is not sisterly acceptable, though.” I lived with the possibility of my own death for so long, it had become an old friend. Still, that gave it no right to go around snatching up my loved ones.
Luke waved a hand, then rummaged the cart by my bed, pulling out an alcohol wipe. “Enough about me: do they have a decision on what to do with you yet?”
I watched his scarred but nimble fingers wrestle with the package. “Dr. Patel was over in French Lick today. She’s making her way back, and is still debating admitting me or not.”
Scooting closer, Luke nodded as he began to carefully wipe my face clean. “Do you think they should?”
I chewed my lip, tapping the rosary automatically. “I don’t know. I hate to miss classes, but a forced break would be nice. I’m so tired.”
“How many hours do you have this semester?”
I frowned. “18. That’s required to finish the program in 2 years.” My tone may have been a little defensive--people had been trying to get me to quit nursing school since before I had even applied. To me, this was already a compromise from attempting medical school--something I couldn’t do just from the physical aspect of the hours necessary. I had good days and bad days, and one couldn’t afford the latter trying to complete the classes, let alone an internship and residency.
Luke steepled his hands in thought, the wipe hanging down between them. “Do you have to--”
“I really want this.” I broke in quickly, assuming his thoughts. Maybe he only wished me to slow down instead of stop, but either one felt devastating to me. “Even if I can’t be healed myself, I want to help. I want to be part of healing others. To give them back a portion of their life’s quality. This is important to me, Luke.”
He nodded, remaining in his position for what felt like a considerable length of time. He mopped up one last rust-colored path on my cheek. “Even as we all have burdens, we also all have gifts. As much as you might want to do that service, there might be something else waiting for you to hear its call.”
I grabbed his hand, pulling the wipe from it. “What are you trying to say?”
He licked his lips nervously. “I was talking to Grandmother--”
I threw the wipe in his face and crossed my arms, ending up tangled and whimpering in the equipment--and the needle stuck in my arm.
He chuckled and threw it in the trash, standing up to help me straighten out. His smile was much more brotherly over ecclesiastical now. “Seriously, though, she would like to see you. I’m not saying you have to just go live with her permanently, but you’ve already mentioned a break. This could be a good one.”
“Oh...” Arguing internally about following his advice--no more compromises! No more waiting!--I realized the strange tears had started up again. It was a thick oozing that still managed to reach my chin too quickly. Drip. Drip.
Relatively keeping his cool, Luke blotted at my face with a tissue, scrambling to hand it to me and poke his head out of the curtains. “Nurse! Please!”
The authoritative request for attention was answered by a few dutifully bustling ones on the other side. One in particular zeroed in. “Yes! Father?”
I gripped the rosary, not even trying to stop myself anymore. There was busyness and harried discussion around me. Phones calls being placed, orders barked. Luke squeezing my hand that cradled the beads as he watched, interjecting with a prayer.
The IV blew--predictably--with a sudden change in my blood pressure and a poorly laid stab to begin with. The needle flew off, the tubing leaked and sprayed. There were exclamations. A new kit on my bed. Jabs into both arms to find a vein as they all rolled away. A fervent wish from someone that they hadn’t taken out my port when it became infected last year.
Everything became more frantic as they realized skin had opened a few places on my arms as well. They gave up on the line. In a split second, the discussion shifted from whether or not I could cope with the life I wanted to whether or not I could still cope with life at all.
My vision blurred and I blinked, sinking back into the pillow; hollow resignation replaced fretting in my breast as I gave myself over to numerous outcomes. In my chart, there are 8 active prescriptions. Around me, there is one priest and two nurses. Above me, there is one God, thousands of angels, and 23,136 dots.
And we were still an army outnumbered, at the mercy of my one broken body.
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I hope to see more of this to read here soon!
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Do you ever have that problem?
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Sometimes the beginnings are problems for me; but more often, my problem is just the plot in general. I often suffer from plot fail! :-P
In general, if a part of something (beginning, middle, particular scene, etc) doesn't seem to want to come out right now, sometimes it helps if you try writing something else (some other part) for now. A lot of times forcing it doesn't work; the story comes out when it's ready to come out, I guess! LOL
Oh, and don't worry if you post things "out of order" here in rainbowfic-land. Many of us do that. :-)
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Oh, I have happily noticed order is not necessary and that is so good. I have some snippets of later things, and hopefully at some point I can just start finishing and posting and not worrying.
What you're saying about just doing what you can definitely makes sense. Usually, though, if I get a snippet and sit on it, something comes around. This? I went beyond tweaking and started this scene over a good 4 times. XD
It's clear we enjoy what we're doing or we wouldn't be here.
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"Oh, what is plot? Like who needs that? =P" --- rofl... see, my point! LOL... Or, that's what I say when the plot isn't happening. Or, as my one friend reminded me: anything can be plot. Sometimes just being alive is a plot.
"It's clear we enjoy what we're doing or we wouldn't be here." -- Exactly! I couldn't agree more. :-)
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I'm glad adapting that inspiration seems to have worked.
Also, I adore your icon.
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Thanks! It is also true (I've been drinking tea before it was cool, since coffee screws me up something awful).
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Oh, I had to give up coffee this past year for that reason. Well, I had to give up caffeine, period, which meant a lot of tea was out, too, but the acid in decaff was still too high.
Now I drink mostly reds and some decaff chai, and my husband turns up his nose at anything but super strong, bitter British black tea and we try very hard not to mix up our teapots.
People may get fancy with coffee, but tea seems like a very serious personal choice.
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Yeah, coffee without milk and/or sugar does terrible things to me. Not really worth the caffeine hit. I drink green tea, though lately it's been British rose scented. I guess I don't mind the bitterness after years of strong green tea.
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No, it's not worth it. That tea sounds awesome. I just got some vanilla bourbon flavored red. There's some green teas I like and don't find all that bitter--though they're probably not the strongest varieties. My dad's family drinks chicory and nearly any herb/weed you can think of in teas (the old grannies each have a "medicine tea" they swear by as a cure for anything from corns to acne to gout), so you'd think tannins wouldn't bother me at all, but I can get picky.
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Anyway. This made me choke up, and I don't usually do well with descriptions of blood/gore/hospitals. It's just... she's so resigned. She's been here before, so many times, and she knows how this works, and she's just... tired, and resigned, and wants to be normal, and that... I'm only chronically mentally ill, but it still feels so familiar.
Well done.
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Aw! I feel bad, but I'm glad that came across so well. While I'm not to the point she is, I've been through medical establishments for most of my life due to anemia and what appear to be immune related disorders. I've definitely felt this way, too, whether my symptoms were presenting as physical or mental. Chronic illness: it just does things, man. <3
(Also, spoiler: this is your future vampire queen, in case you were wondering. Vampirism: the new cure for what ails you.)
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It's already helping me feel more productive towards my summer binge of vampires and exorcists priests.
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Yeah, I don't know why, but I felt a little awkward writing so much about her faith--I always worry about it coming across as hokey or making the character a caricature. But she kind of needed that foundation laid for some of what comes later on, so I took the plunge. XD
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I kind of like humor and angst together quite a bit--it leads me to a love of campy soap operas and getting in trouble at funerals, but I guess it's well worth it if that's coming across in my writing.
I consider myself a fairly religious person, but writing religious characters is still difficult for even me, for a lot of reasons. Like I was just telling Tom, I worry about making it hokey. And it's also a deeply personal thing that I don't want to get preachy with--part of what encouraged me to try is I read Life of Pi recently, and I thought the author did an excellent job handling that aspect of the protagonist.
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bluh, /soapbox
Getting in trouble at funerals? Hah! You or your characters? Either way I suspect that there's quite a story there.
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No no! I don't see that as a soapbox: I totally agree. I'm glad this piece worked for you as a not-religious person. I feel the same way about fiction, really, that when properly executed, it's excellent for broadening the reader's perspective and helping them develop and empathy and openness to people with very different values from them. I am really big on seeking enlightenment and understanding why people do as they do and why they live as they live, and what the world looks like to them. Because it's usually interesting.
And oh, it was me. And the most memorable time, my brother. And it involved my grandmother having my uncle cremated in the early fall, but insisting on having the memorial the week before Christmas so the kids were all off school together, and so we endured hours and hours of happy holiday tunes on the radio, at stops, and all though downtown. Meaning that when we were at the funeral in the midst of a see of black clothed weeping mourners, my brother turns to me with this horrible face and says "You'll never guess what's stuck in my head."
A short time later, we were both swaying in the pew singing "It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year."
The other times were strangers' funerals and they're probably still offended. Though at one of them, I was not the one that decided to use music from the Glenn Miller Band. I only danced to it.
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I'm not quite sure what is happening to her by the end but it's viscerally quite unnerving. Walking that line between sickness or violence done tritely to over-gory/dramatically is very finicky, but I think you pull it off.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?
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Yeeeah, I was actually really lazy at the end with proper medical descriptions and explicitness. It is a difficult line--you are right. Hopefully I'll manage to stay on it? Or get on it if I'm off.
Thank you for mentioning haemolacria descriptions. I need to figure out if that's really her or if that's me slipping in there with my habit of being super melodramatic and poetic about things that unnerve me/things that I find overly amusing that no one else does.
Annie seems to have a love for grotesques, so we'll see what happens.
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I have faith that you'll pull off more eloquent writing. You seem to think about things before popping 'em on the page (perhaps also edit things fairly rigorously? I'm not privy to your process but I'm curious!) so I wouldn't be too nervous about staying on the line!
Your sense of humour (from reading above!) is awesome, but I think without the context of what you are finding amusing, that kind of description can and has been abused by writers in the past who use it at face value, so folks who've read it enough times (like me, why????) leap to conclusions that it's another unironic use of the style. You may be just a bit too sly about slipping the purple prose without letting us in on the joke! (On the other hand if that's your aim, why not? Lots of people write for in-jokes and are completely unapologetic!)
I sense trouble on Annie's horizon and I suspect she's probably also going to enjoy it. O_O Good luck!
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Aw, thank you. But, oh, gosh, I wish I was a better editor. I really try, and I give things a lot of pondering, but my editing process still needs work. Right now it just involves reading things several times, putting them away, and reading them again later until I can't think of anything else to do. 8/
Thank you for explaining that. It makes a lot of sense. Maybe working on analyzing why I feel like that style fit there and making it more accessible to the reader might help. I definitely wouldn't say it's me being sly because I'm not that great at slyness. XD
Thanks! Yes, it's going to be the best trouble.
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That's the only way I can think of to edit without outright grabbing beta readers, and I'm not sure how to manage that save for posting in places like this and accruing an audience! It seems to work, though!
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See, I suspect the close circle of people I usually inflict my pieces on conspired to get me here for that very purpose. I'm glad it worked for you!