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rainbowfic2013-08-26 10:43 pm
ysabetwordsmith) wrote in rainbowfic2013-08-26 10:43 pm
Poem: "The Recollection of Smells"
Name: ysabetwordsmith
Story: Tripping into the Future
Colors: Vellum #3 "Edition"
Styles/Supplies: None
Word Count: 309
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply
Summary: An alien planet offers a refuge, but raises mixed feelings.
Note: Tripping into the Future begins with weaponized time travel. The series is narrated in second person, and the narrator is the one who fired the weapon on an enemy fleet, dragging everyone so far into the future that none of the stars and planets are even the same. It has kind of an apocalyptic flavor as a result, although there are bright spots too.
I need a story tag for Tripping into the Future, please.
"A Recollection of Smells"
It is the wind that
catches you off-guard this time,
wrapping invisible fingers
around your throat
to choke you with
a scent of memory.
You stand at the edge
of the field you've planted,
where the first pink shoots
are just beginning to show,
bright against the dull soil
that is not and never will be
earth.
You turn your face
into the breeze,
remembering how lilacs smell,
but it isn't lilacs at all --
it is a row of bushes
with reddish-bronze leaves
and long pannicles of
burnt orange blossoms --
but as long as
you don't have to face them
you can pretend,
for a moment,
that they are lilacs.
This world has written
a different edition of life,
strange botany
pressed like flowers
between the pages of a book,
and perhaps it is no wonder
that creation has
cribbed from itself.
The world that you knew
is gone now, lost
in the distant ripples of history,
and you have no one
else to blame:
you threw the stone yourself,
threw yourself like a stone,
pulled your enemies down
into the dark muck of entropy.
Flowers, you recall,
grow up from muck,
and the scent of them
is wringing tears from you
like water from a twisted rag.
You set yourself the task
of learning them,
studying this edition
because it is all you have left
of the long library of wildlife,
flower and fur and feather and all.
You will gather what is
and memorialize what was,
a recollection of smells
from the pink and orange and purple
from the bushes and vines and herbs,
beginning with these,
here, at the edge of the field.
Fire lilacs,
you decide to call them,
and you wonder
if it will ever be remembered
that lilac
once meant purple
instead of orange.
ysabetwordsmith Story: Tripping into the Future
Colors: Vellum #3 "Edition"
Styles/Supplies: None
Word Count: 309
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply
Summary: An alien planet offers a refuge, but raises mixed feelings.
Note: Tripping into the Future begins with weaponized time travel. The series is narrated in second person, and the narrator is the one who fired the weapon on an enemy fleet, dragging everyone so far into the future that none of the stars and planets are even the same. It has kind of an apocalyptic flavor as a result, although there are bright spots too.
I need a story tag for Tripping into the Future, please.
"A Recollection of Smells"
It is the wind that
catches you off-guard this time,
wrapping invisible fingers
around your throat
to choke you with
a scent of memory.
You stand at the edge
of the field you've planted,
where the first pink shoots
are just beginning to show,
bright against the dull soil
that is not and never will be
earth.
You turn your face
into the breeze,
remembering how lilacs smell,
but it isn't lilacs at all --
it is a row of bushes
with reddish-bronze leaves
and long pannicles of
burnt orange blossoms --
but as long as
you don't have to face them
you can pretend,
for a moment,
that they are lilacs.
This world has written
a different edition of life,
strange botany
pressed like flowers
between the pages of a book,
and perhaps it is no wonder
that creation has
cribbed from itself.
The world that you knew
is gone now, lost
in the distant ripples of history,
and you have no one
else to blame:
you threw the stone yourself,
threw yourself like a stone,
pulled your enemies down
into the dark muck of entropy.
Flowers, you recall,
grow up from muck,
and the scent of them
is wringing tears from you
like water from a twisted rag.
You set yourself the task
of learning them,
studying this edition
because it is all you have left
of the long library of wildlife,
flower and fur and feather and all.
You will gather what is
and memorialize what was,
a recollection of smells
from the pink and orange and purple
from the bushes and vines and herbs,
beginning with these,
here, at the edge of the field.
Fire lilacs,
you decide to call them,
and you wonder
if it will ever be remembered
that lilac
once meant purple
instead of orange.
no subject
Thank you!
no subject
Thank you!