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Old 05-25-2002, 03:12 PM   #1
Jerome
Knight of the Rose
 

Join Date: January 8, 2001
Location: Scotland
Age: 37
Posts: 4,418
From the results of the poll a little while back, some people seemed interested in posting or reading things that people have written... so this is my humble submission.

If the Mods don't feel this should be in this forum, or here at all, then please move it or delete it as you see fit.

Forewarning: It's not a perticularly happy tale, and it's still a bit 'rough' and yet to be edited quite a bit.

Still, I hope you can enjoy it, and post some feedback, be it positive or negitive. Cheers.

Open, Yet Forever Closed

The small pot of soup gurgled and giggled away to itself quietly, the occasional largish bubble forming on its surface. A wooden spoon caressed it for a few moments and then, after close scrutiny, it was given a final stir and then poured into an ancient enamel relic.

A young boy, dressed in his school uniform, carried the boiling bowl carefully into the living room, where a black and white movie played on the small screen in front of the old lady, who was tucked up comfortably between it’s green cushioned arms. She was like a marble monument - unmoving, unblinking, entranced by the small and fuzzy pictures as if it took up her entire world. She had not descended into old age gracefully; her hair was unkept and distorted, while baggy skin sagged around her eyes and her neck. Like a fish, her mouth was open slightly - the only sign that her pulse was still going was the occasional gulp of air that the forced down.

“Here’s you’re soup, Mrs Quinn.” The boy informed her, pulling over a table, and placing the soup delicately on top. Her eyes blinked a few times, then finally registering recognition.

“Thank you Jamie.” She said, flashing him a toothless smile. Micheal thought about correcting her mistake - her son was called Jamie - but these days, with her memory getting steadily worse, it was easier just to let her believe whatever kept her content. Slowly, with tortoise movements, she reached out and picked up a spoon - handling it like an alien object.

“Why aren’t you out enjoying yourself, instead of bothering with an old lady like me?” The question came suddenly, surprising Michael for a moment. Though she was sick, and getting worse, she still retained a sharp intelligence… even if it rarely showed itself. If he were truthful, he would admit that he did not like this place much: with its prehistoric décor, tatty furniture and odd smelling air. But no one made him come here every second day; it was a choice he had made himself. He knew that she was poor - penniless almost - and could not care for herself in any normal way. In a way, it was his duty. If he did no help her, than no one else would.

“Because someone has to look after you,” he eventually replied, after searching for the right words for a few moments. His wristwatch then chirped twice, meaning he was going to be late for school. “I have to go Mrs. Quinn… I’ll check back on you on Friday. There’s food in the fridge and I’ve left some food for the cat.” With a curt nod and a smile, he grabbed his blazer and exited in a hurry, breaking into an open run before he reached the end of the street.

* * *

The sharp shrieking of the school bell brought forth a flurry of activity, a routine chaos.

Textbook and notepads were hastily thumped shut and packed unceremoniously into schoolbags, adding a few more creases to their well-worn pages. Chairs protested loudly at being scraped backwards, as their occupants leaped to their feet with an air of liberation as they all fought and pushed one another to be the first to escape. Like a noisy colony of ants the streamed out of the various exits of the school like rats leaving a sinking ship.

A trio of the pupils were less overly eager to be free, sauntering down the empty corridors (which seemed oddly spooky and soulless without all the noise and activity it usually hosted). Their blazers has been wrapped up and shoved into their bags in a small show of rebellion, and shirts were untucked, shoes scuffed and bags carried nonchalantly over shoulders.

The three eventually reached the doors, and were hit by the unusually warm spring air as they stepped outside. They paused a few feet from the doors, as one began to walk in a separate direction from the other two.

“Hey Michael! Where you going?” The larger of the two said. The other elbowed him sharply in the ribs with a quick look of anger.

“You idiot! the other one hissed, he’s going to visit her.” A look of embarrassment passed on the young boy’s face as he began to stammer an apology.

Michael turned around and sighed. “It’s okay John, I don’t expect everyone to remember all the time. I’ll see you both tomorrow.” He then turned his back on them, and started walking down the hill on which the school was situated.

“Shit…I keep doing that.” John admonished. His partner just shook his head and started walking.

* * *

Sunlight played like a child in the panoramic view of the landscape from atop the hill: dancing in the leaves of the tall trees, daringly darting behind the occasional cloud, and beaming down upon the fields and pastures of the country. It was a beautiful scene, but Michael had ceased to see with his eyes, and was acting as if automated, moving like a robot down the path to his destination.

Within a short time, the bus stop came into sight, with a small crowd of children sweltering in the afternoon heat, waiting impatiently for their four-wheeled chariot to arrive. Michael recognised a few of them - a lot of them were in the years below him - so he hadn’t had a chance to meet them.

Towards the back of the queue, four heads rose above the rest, like burly towers over a small village. They were a year older than Michael, and commanded more respect and fear around the school than three dozen teachers could ever hope to achieve. In the middle of their small squadron, a boy a little smaller than Michael was standing, visibly shaking, in stark contrast to the meaty hand that was clinging gently to his shoulder.

A toy. A spectacled insect. Incomparable in weight and size to them. Michael felt a great wave of sadness sweeping over him, a deep ache inside his heart that made him visibly grimace. The four of them were well known for their activities, finding a new ‘playmate’ each month, and subjecting them to anything they desired. Everyone, younger and older, teachers and pupils all frowned on it and demanded action on somebody’s part but nothing ever came of it. Much of this was due to the incident three years ago - which had grown in stature and myth like all rumours in the schoolyard.

Still, the fact remained: They had permanently disabled the last person who had tried to stop them, and people now thought it better to keep their heads down. And hope that they were not the next victim.

With one last forlorn look at the young boy in glasses, Michael crossed to the other side of the road.

EASTWOOD CEMETERY

The large, iron wrought letters above the gates marked their territory with loud, proud authority. The gates were open, as they usually were at this time of day. They looked almost too inviting, like treasure in an invisible spider’s web.

Michael made his way into the cemetery with an air of familiarity, passing up through the neat rows of gothic stone monoliths - differing in shape and stature, but all placed a respectful distance from each other. It was not until he was up near the very back of the small place, where tall and impassable bushes cocooned the place from the outside world, a peaceful little bubble of tranquillity in a world of chaos and strife. It was on an unaccompanied wooden bench where he sat down, and lay his bag beside him - facing the smallest, most modest headstone that could ever be imagined.

It was almost unadorned, apart from the a name and a date.

Susan Greaves, 1984-1999

Michael broke down in tears slowly, like a huge tower falling on an inexorable, unstoppable path. In the days and nights that had followed his closest and oldest friend’s death he had maintained his composure and continued with his life - but he could never look at the cold, heartless message which almost triumphantly paraded her demise to the world, without reality catching him.

What made it worse was that he had watched it, like nothing more than a spectator.

He remembered everything about her with pristine perfection: every strand of dark brown hair, the gentle glow of her viridian eyes. The way she would smile and seem almost incandescent in the summer sun. They had grown up together, almost as brother and sister, ignoring each other’s sexuality. Not a couple, never even a though towards being one. They were beyond friendship, and when Michael had heard of her death, he felt as though a half of his soul had been taken from him: forcibly severed.

But his memory was haunted. For each perfect view of her he remembered: he also saw each bruise, purple and bloated, each cut on her fragile face, the marks, the scars and the pains that lay below the skin. For every day in almost a year and a half she would come home from her school to him, crying, with another trophy in her catalogue of injury. And all Michael could do was console her, and pray that things got better.

But they never did.

They had taken apart her beauty piece by piece, cut by cut, with systematic precision. Her skin was never as smooth again - always roughened by blemishes and indentations. Her eyes never shone again - the colour retreating and diluting every day, until they were no more than empty husks.

He had come here every second Wednesday since her death. How long had it been now? Was it two years already? With only half a soul, a second was an eternity. But he checked on her little brother from time to time, helped her widow-mother around the house sometimes - the labours of his guilty conscience rather than dedication. As much as he tried to blame the shifting phantoms: the nightmare shapes he saw that abused her, he knew he was as guilty as they were.

Michael sat with pavement silence, eyes melding with the grave in front of him. His watch, for the second time today, bleeped urgently, before resuming it’s digital slumber, reviving him from his dreams and memories. He reached into his bag for a moment, and pulled out a single A4 sized sheet of paper, with writing covering one side. Carefully… slowly… deliberately, he folded it a few times and placed it where headstone met ground. It was a ritual he went though every time - sending her his love and news of her family like this. The letters were always gone the next time he returned; perhaps it was his romanticism, or just his guilt that wished that she knew what was in them.

He turned his back and left; his shoulders sagging, feet dragging, schoolbag lagging, while the wind howled with disapproval and the sunshine beginning to diminish.

He never looked back after leaving the cemetery, and today was no different. The bus would arrive in fifteen minutes or so, leaving him plenty of time to reflect on his visit, and on his mortality - of which the visits always forcibly reminded him. He waited for perhaps four, perhaps five, minutes before he noticed it.

A schoolbag. To be more specific: the spectacled boy’s bag.

It may have been curiosity that made him drop his own bag and start looking about for him, or it could have been the rising, and all too familiar dark sense of dread building it’s way up from his heart to his throat.

Just beside a pedestrian entrance into one of the residential outlets from the main road he found a small heap of twisted metal, surrounded by small shards of broken glass. Glasses.

He ran into the entrance, down the path towards an area that was notorious for crime: full of empty buildings and abandoned and burnt out cars, like some sort of war zone. Then he slowed to a stealthy walk as the sounds of crying and of heavy and loud swearing drew nearer. Just outside an old antique house, complete with crumbling masonry, he clearly saw four massive bodies gathered round an tiny, lithe shape on the ground, while around them the road was decorated by pieces of clothing - ripped and torn.

Michael’s first instinct was to run, to escape the scene that looked so much like his nightmares with Susan, to retreat back to his world where he could forget about it. But it was the fresh memory of standing over Susan’s grave that made him stand his ground, and watch with fascinated horror.

“Oh stop ■■■■■■■ crying, we haven’t touched y’ yet.” One of them said.

“Aye, jist look at ‘im. Bet you’ve never had to stand up fer yerself have y’? There’s no a mark on him, look!” one of his companions pointed out, kicking the boy sharply in the back, which brought and animal scream of pain from the writhing figure on the ground.

Like a sudden bolt of passion, the anger shot through Michael, starting somewhere in his lungs and burning along his veins and down to his fists. Seeing firsthand the taunts and attacks that his angel - Susan must have suffered had sparked a fire that he had carried about with him for too long. The ground around him was littered with stones and rubble, and he picked up the first piece that came to hand, and charged.

He covered the thirty feet or so barely touching the ground, and threw himself again the black-clad walls around the boy. The rock struck at somewhere near the neck of one of them, and with a cry he dropped to his knees, clutching the back of his head with both hands. Michael was a man possessed, swinging his rock like a sword cutting a swath through evil. He hit another one in the chest just as they begin to realise his presence, following up swiftly with a kick to what he hoped was the giants groin.

A great feeling of relief and liberation welled up inside him, guiding his blows and giving him greater strength and speed. He was fighting back where no one else dared to! And he was winning!

Ice touched him, and his breath was knocked away by a retaliatory punch. He crumpled to the ground without warning, all his passion and power gone in an instant, like a balloon pricked by a pin.

His enemies stood around him, while he fought for breath.

“Y’ didnae have to ■■■■■■■ stab him y’ dick!” Cried the largest of them, untouched by Michael’s attacks.

“He cracked me wi’ that ■■■■■■■ brick!” Michael’s first victim retorted, wincing as he felt the large bump beginning to form on his cranium’s shell.

“Ach, ■■■■ this! No one will find ‘im here. ‘Time they do, they cannae say we done it. Just leave ‘im.”

The group agreed together, and made a hasty exit out the same way Michael had come in, with one last vengeful kick to his stomach before they left.

Michael’s world would not focus, kept spinning around, and he felt bile rising up in his throat. His hands flew to his back, where all he could feel was numbness, and felt the sticky - sweet smelling scent of thick blood stain his hands. He closed his eyes and surrendered to sleep.

* * *

He awoke without dramatics, or any warning. Just one eye opening after the other in an absent minded kind of dreaminess as he struggled to take a breath. Sitting just a few feet away from him was the boy in glasses, sitting hunched in a small ball, in the same tattered clothes on the same stained road. Stained with blood?

“An ambulance is coming. They got you pretty bad.” He said, on the verge of tears. Michael croaked inaudibly in reply.

There was silence between them for a minute, emphasised by the howling of sirens far, far in the distance.

“You didn’t have to do that.” The young boy said finally, pulling himself a little closer to Michael. "They could have killed us both." It took Michael several moments to find the strength for a reply.

“No… but sometimes… he coughed violently, and waited a moment to try again, sometimes you just have to do something, no matter if it’s right or wrong. You have to stand up sometimes and stop living on your knees.” The boy nodded in solemn agreement.

Silence resumed. Michael felt the cold spreading, felt the life draining for him limbs, and tried to speak for a last time. The boy had to crouch over him, just to make out what he was saying.

“Leave me a letter to know how things go sometimes. I’ll read it, I promise.” And with his message delivered, he rested his head back against the round and smiled contentedly towards the sky.

The boy nodded a few times to himself, and then shivered. It was still cold without much clothes, spring or no spring. He would need to direct the ambulance in here too, not that they could help much now. He stood up, and gave a final, respectful bow to the crimson stained body, lying with his it’s eyes opened; yet forever closed.

[ 05-25-2002, 03:13 PM: Message edited by: Jerome ]
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Old 05-25-2002, 03:31 PM   #2
ʆë®Ñï†Ý
Zhentarim Guard
 

Join Date: January 7, 2002
Location: Oxford
Age: 40
Posts: 307

moving [img]graemlins/crying.gif[/img]
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~blows kisses around~<br />♥~¤Ê†ë®Ñï†Ý¤~♥<br /><br /><b>vulnerable... yet tempted </b><br />
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Old 05-25-2002, 03:42 PM   #3
Talthyr Malkaviel
Ma'at - Goddess of Truth & Justice
 

Join Date: August 31, 2001
Location: Land of the Britons
Age: 37
Posts: 3,224
I love it.
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Resident cantankerous sorcerer of the Clan HADB<br />and Sorcerous Nuttella salesman of the O.R.T<br /> <br /><br />Say NO to the Trouser Tyranny! Can I drill you about this?
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Old 05-25-2002, 03:46 PM   #4
Sir Goulum
John Locke
 

Join Date: February 7, 2002
Location: Edmonton, Canada
Age: 35
Posts: 8,985
No comment. Its actually quite good!
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Old 05-25-2002, 03:47 PM   #5
Jerome
Knight of the Rose
 

Join Date: January 8, 2001
Location: Scotland
Age: 37
Posts: 4,418
Quote:
Originally posted by Sir Goulum:
No comment. Its actually quite good!
LOL... you don't have to sound so suprised.
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Old 05-25-2002, 03:49 PM   #6
Lioness
Jack Burton
 

Join Date: June 3, 2001
Location: Among the Stars
Age: 36
Posts: 5,837
Quote:
Originally posted by Jerome:
quote:
Originally posted by Sir Goulum:
No comment. Its actually quite good!
LOL... you don't have to sound so suprised. [/QUOTE]This cracked me up... [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

[img]smile.gif[/img]
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Old 05-25-2002, 04:14 PM   #7
Jerome
Knight of the Rose
 

Join Date: January 8, 2001
Location: Scotland
Age: 37
Posts: 4,418
Quote:
Originally posted by Lioness:
[QBThis cracked me up... [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

[img]smile.gif[/img] [/QB]
Everyone else get's sad when they read it... oh no, not Nessy... [img]tongue.gif[/img]
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Old 05-25-2002, 04:31 PM   #8
Lioness
Jack Burton
 

Join Date: June 3, 2001
Location: Among the Stars
Age: 36
Posts: 5,837
Quote:
Originally posted by Jerome:
quote:
Originally posted by Lioness:
[QBThis cracked me up... [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

[img]smile.gif[/img]
Everyone else get's sad when they read it... oh no, not Nessy... [img]tongue.gif[/img] [/QB][/QUOTE]You know I didn't mean your story. [img]tongue.gif[/img]
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Old 05-25-2002, 06:23 PM   #9
Jerome
Knight of the Rose
 

Join Date: January 8, 2001
Location: Scotland
Age: 37
Posts: 4,418
Quote:
Originally posted by Lioness:
quote:
Originally posted by Jerome:
quote:
Originally posted by Lioness:
[QBThis cracked me up... [img]graemlins/laugh2.gif[/img]

[img]smile.gif[/img]
Everyone else get's sad when they read it... oh no, not Nessy... [img]tongue.gif[/img] [/QUOTE]You know I didn't mean your story. [img]tongue.gif[/img] [/QB][/QUOTE]So you're really not cold, heartless and evil? [img]tongue.gif[/img]
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Old 05-25-2002, 07:30 PM   #10
Lioness
Jack Burton
 

Join Date: June 3, 2001
Location: Among the Stars
Age: 36
Posts: 5,837
[img]graemlins/angelwings.gif[/img]
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