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rainbowfic2014-05-02 03:22 pm
kay_brooke) wrote in rainbowfic2014-05-02 03:22 pm
Amaranth #3, Xanadu #5
Name: kay_brooke
Story: David/Cleaner
Colors: Amaranth #3 (eternity), Xanadu #5 (Elysian Fields)
Styles/Supplies: Canvas, Seed Beads, Photography
Word Count: 536
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply.
Summary: Jerome finds himself in a better place.
Note: A piece I wrote for a prompt call in March, off a prompt frombookblather. Constructive criticism is welcome, either through comments or PM.
One second he was in a boat, and his boat was upon the lake, and the very next both he and the boat were in the middle of a forest.
What happened in between Jerome could not say. He blinked, and everything changed as if eons had passed between breaths.
But he was still in the boat, its rough prow curving up before him, the little seat unforgiving beneath his backside. His fishing net was still crumpled beneath his boots, and his dented lunch pail still leaned to one side next to it.
But the boat was no longer in the water. It sat on dry ground, and rocked slightly as Jerome cautiously stood, gutting knife loosed from his belt and held shakily in one hand.
It was a forest. An actual forest, with trees reaching to the sky and their roots burrowing deep. Bright green moss creeping along the ground. The sound of birds and insects chittering in the trees. The gurgle of water through a drainpipe after a storm, only with no metallic ring and accompanied by a heady scent Jerome had experienced only once, during the year of the Good Spring. Jerome had never seen a forest outside of a picture book, but here it was in front of him, as if it was real.
Was he dreaming?
Jerome stepped out of the boat, tentatively setting one foot on the ground, testing it. It seemed solid enough, if a little springy. Both feet out of the boat, and he reached toward the nearest tree, hesitating for just a second. He half-expected his hand to meet nothing, for the entire forest to be an illusion, but his fingers landed on rough, slightly damp bark. Above him, something skittered, and he threw his head back and watched as a rodent-like creature wound its way up the trunk.
He had never had such a vivid dream. Could it be real?
But there were no forests anymore, everyone knew. Just the ones in the picture books, grainy reproductions taken from Before, the last remnants of the world that was. A whole world, so much bigger than what he knew, where there was more than a lake, more than the temple, more than the endless dust plains stretched out forever beneath an unforgiving sun. A world where there were still trees, and birds, and clear flowing water. Farmland and crops, and animals to graze upon the grass.
All gone, and for centuries.
So, neither dream nor real. Which left only one other possibility: he had died.
It took only a few seconds for Jerome to come to terms with this fact. It did not matter to him how he had died, and his only concern was that someone would be able to retrieve his boat, because there weren’t many water-worthy ones left. The boat that still sat upon the ground--an illusion, clearly, it and everything in it. Everyone knew the dead did not bring material possessions into the afterlife.
Other than that, he couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.
So Jerome fell to his knees, and raised his hands to the sky, and thanked the saints that they had delivered his eternity to the world that was.
kay_brookeStory: David/Cleaner
Colors: Amaranth #3 (eternity), Xanadu #5 (Elysian Fields)
Styles/Supplies: Canvas, Seed Beads, Photography
Word Count: 536
Rating/Warnings: PG-13; no standard warnings apply.
Summary: Jerome finds himself in a better place.
Note: A piece I wrote for a prompt call in March, off a prompt from
bookblather. Constructive criticism is welcome, either through comments or PM.One second he was in a boat, and his boat was upon the lake, and the very next both he and the boat were in the middle of a forest.
What happened in between Jerome could not say. He blinked, and everything changed as if eons had passed between breaths.
But he was still in the boat, its rough prow curving up before him, the little seat unforgiving beneath his backside. His fishing net was still crumpled beneath his boots, and his dented lunch pail still leaned to one side next to it.
But the boat was no longer in the water. It sat on dry ground, and rocked slightly as Jerome cautiously stood, gutting knife loosed from his belt and held shakily in one hand.
It was a forest. An actual forest, with trees reaching to the sky and their roots burrowing deep. Bright green moss creeping along the ground. The sound of birds and insects chittering in the trees. The gurgle of water through a drainpipe after a storm, only with no metallic ring and accompanied by a heady scent Jerome had experienced only once, during the year of the Good Spring. Jerome had never seen a forest outside of a picture book, but here it was in front of him, as if it was real.
Was he dreaming?
Jerome stepped out of the boat, tentatively setting one foot on the ground, testing it. It seemed solid enough, if a little springy. Both feet out of the boat, and he reached toward the nearest tree, hesitating for just a second. He half-expected his hand to meet nothing, for the entire forest to be an illusion, but his fingers landed on rough, slightly damp bark. Above him, something skittered, and he threw his head back and watched as a rodent-like creature wound its way up the trunk.
He had never had such a vivid dream. Could it be real?
But there were no forests anymore, everyone knew. Just the ones in the picture books, grainy reproductions taken from Before, the last remnants of the world that was. A whole world, so much bigger than what he knew, where there was more than a lake, more than the temple, more than the endless dust plains stretched out forever beneath an unforgiving sun. A world where there were still trees, and birds, and clear flowing water. Farmland and crops, and animals to graze upon the grass.
All gone, and for centuries.
So, neither dream nor real. Which left only one other possibility: he had died.
It took only a few seconds for Jerome to come to terms with this fact. It did not matter to him how he had died, and his only concern was that someone would be able to retrieve his boat, because there weren’t many water-worthy ones left. The boat that still sat upon the ground--an illusion, clearly, it and everything in it. Everyone knew the dead did not bring material possessions into the afterlife.
Other than that, he couldn’t have asked for a better outcome.
So Jerome fell to his knees, and raised his hands to the sky, and thanked the saints that they had delivered his eternity to the world that was.