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cridecoeur) wrote2009-07-30 10:16 pm
cridecoeur) wrote2009-07-30 10:16 pm
Entry tags:
like flowers, dropped from a rocket; r
title: like flowers, dropped from a rocket
author:cridecoeur
rating: r
word count: 834
warnings: vague naughtiness, unnecessary use of latin, and a complete disregard for quotation marks. again.
The ticking machine had neither recorded name nor function. Two copper clocks kept separate and incomprehensible time, without regard to the position of the sun or the planets, in ignorance of the moon's pregnant swelling and the tidal collisions of the sea. A needle drew ink sharply across paper, in imitation of an infant heartbeat or the vibration of a distant scream. The exposed gears and clockwork guts digested irregularly, whirring along, tick tick tick, then grinding suddenly and discordantly to a halt. Jonas named the machine the Hagiarchy. Governed by saints, he said; beyond our understanding.
Richter called the machine Jonas. Son of a bitch, she said; fond of playing games.
Tick tick tick, said the Hagiarchy; Skree.
The machine sat on a pedestal in one corner of Jonas' postage-stamp office; past inhabitants had left eclectic offerings there: a mangled wind chime hung from one corner; a wooden bowl held three bronze coins, fat as human fists; yellow photographs advertised metal bridges and family automobiles and glass puzzle-piece buildings - all creatures long extinct; a ceramic Mary watched in benediction over the office; and flower petals, recently dried, lay prostrate on the floor, ready to receive her benediction.
Richter crumbled the flower petals between her fingers as Jonas fussed over an arrangement of polished pink stones. Should he stack them, one atop another? Should he arrange them linearly, like so many ducks in a row? Should he begin their line from the north corner, or the south?
I don't care, Jonas; Richter said; To be frank, I don't think your Hagiarchy cares, either.
Jonas startled: the stones fell to the floor, clacking one against another, clack, clack, clack and scattered; one stone took refuge beneath the desk, another beneath a bookshelf, another beneath the pedestal - irrecoverable in a room that merely tolerated bending and stooping and laughed outright at crawling: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. Hope for your unattended limbs and your fashionable trivialities. With his ample belly and withered legs, his swollen hands and geriatric mien, Jonas certainly could not have retrieved them. Richter might have; she had a compact body, a lean-hungry body, a body for medical science, fat-less and bland: small breasts, boy-hips, narrow calves, eat-two-meals-a-day-thighs and matching waistline; LOSE THE WEIGHT, the TelePrompTers would read, FIND SATISFACTION, and a picture of Richter would follow.
TelePrompTers had the unfortunate habit of marginalizing truth in the name of brevity: Richter was satisfied, but rarely. She'd once seen a doctor who had accused her of chronic dissatisfaction. The doctor said: I can do no more. What more do you want from me? What do you lack from me? I have given you all that I can for your satisfaction: a fashionable job, a comfortable home, a home of Good Taste, and myself (do you remember them? me?) and, failing that, sex and alcohol and pills. You lacked wine-drunken nights, and I gave them to you. You lacked my mouth on your thighs, your hands in my hair, my tongue on your clit, twisting, twisting, your hands in my hair, your back bowed, your mark, me. I have given you all that. So what more, what more, at what price does Lady Richter sell her satisfaction?
Richter decided to see no more doctors. Instead, she saw dealers and schemers and unbelievers, the outliers of the State, dissenters and descendants of the Old World. None approved of her work, the digs and the wealthy patrons, the treasure-grabbers, the chipping away at the remains of the Old World, the slow redistribution. Richter didn’t care one whit for the Old World, except for the profit it turned. She told them as much. In turn, they warned her off her current planned expedition. Nothing good can come of crossing the Wall, they said; There are terrible things across Darwin’s Partition, monsters and madness. You won’t return.
Superstition, Richter said; Stories to scare children. Next you’ll be telling me I’ll fall off the edge of the Earth.
Don’t scoff, they said; You very well might.
Jonas coughed into his fist. Having apparently given up on arranging the stones as a bad job, he was now rifling through his desk, pulling out a sheaf of paper and other odds and ends: a fountain pen and a bottle of ink, a silver amulet studded with black andradite and an agate ring. Protection and endurance. Jonas was just as superstitious as the rest of them.
I’m not taking those, Richter said; I don’t need them.
My dear, Jonas said, you’re not leaving without them.
He tapped his pen pointedly on the stack of papers he’d set on his desk.
Richter rolled her eyes and held out her hand into which Jonas deposited the pendant and ring.
Happy now? Richter said.
With you her, my dear? Jonas said signing the papers and sliding them across the desk to Richter; Never.
Tick tick tick, said the Hagiarchy; Skree.
author:
cridecoeurrating: r
word count: 834
warnings: vague naughtiness, unnecessary use of latin, and a complete disregard for quotation marks. again.
The ticking machine had neither recorded name nor function. Two copper clocks kept separate and incomprehensible time, without regard to the position of the sun or the planets, in ignorance of the moon's pregnant swelling and the tidal collisions of the sea. A needle drew ink sharply across paper, in imitation of an infant heartbeat or the vibration of a distant scream. The exposed gears and clockwork guts digested irregularly, whirring along, tick tick tick, then grinding suddenly and discordantly to a halt. Jonas named the machine the Hagiarchy. Governed by saints, he said; beyond our understanding.
Richter called the machine Jonas. Son of a bitch, she said; fond of playing games.
Tick tick tick, said the Hagiarchy; Skree.
The machine sat on a pedestal in one corner of Jonas' postage-stamp office; past inhabitants had left eclectic offerings there: a mangled wind chime hung from one corner; a wooden bowl held three bronze coins, fat as human fists; yellow photographs advertised metal bridges and family automobiles and glass puzzle-piece buildings - all creatures long extinct; a ceramic Mary watched in benediction over the office; and flower petals, recently dried, lay prostrate on the floor, ready to receive her benediction.
Richter crumbled the flower petals between her fingers as Jonas fussed over an arrangement of polished pink stones. Should he stack them, one atop another? Should he arrange them linearly, like so many ducks in a row? Should he begin their line from the north corner, or the south?
I don't care, Jonas; Richter said; To be frank, I don't think your Hagiarchy cares, either.
Jonas startled: the stones fell to the floor, clacking one against another, clack, clack, clack and scattered; one stone took refuge beneath the desk, another beneath a bookshelf, another beneath the pedestal - irrecoverable in a room that merely tolerated bending and stooping and laughed outright at crawling: Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate. Hope for your unattended limbs and your fashionable trivialities. With his ample belly and withered legs, his swollen hands and geriatric mien, Jonas certainly could not have retrieved them. Richter might have; she had a compact body, a lean-hungry body, a body for medical science, fat-less and bland: small breasts, boy-hips, narrow calves, eat-two-meals-a-day-thighs and matching waistline; LOSE THE WEIGHT, the TelePrompTers would read, FIND SATISFACTION, and a picture of Richter would follow.
TelePrompTers had the unfortunate habit of marginalizing truth in the name of brevity: Richter was satisfied, but rarely. She'd once seen a doctor who had accused her of chronic dissatisfaction. The doctor said: I can do no more. What more do you want from me? What do you lack from me? I have given you all that I can for your satisfaction: a fashionable job, a comfortable home, a home of Good Taste, and myself (do you remember them? me?) and, failing that, sex and alcohol and pills. You lacked wine-drunken nights, and I gave them to you. You lacked my mouth on your thighs, your hands in my hair, my tongue on your clit, twisting, twisting, your hands in my hair, your back bowed, your mark, me. I have given you all that. So what more, what more, at what price does Lady Richter sell her satisfaction?
Richter decided to see no more doctors. Instead, she saw dealers and schemers and unbelievers, the outliers of the State, dissenters and descendants of the Old World. None approved of her work, the digs and the wealthy patrons, the treasure-grabbers, the chipping away at the remains of the Old World, the slow redistribution. Richter didn’t care one whit for the Old World, except for the profit it turned. She told them as much. In turn, they warned her off her current planned expedition. Nothing good can come of crossing the Wall, they said; There are terrible things across Darwin’s Partition, monsters and madness. You won’t return.
Superstition, Richter said; Stories to scare children. Next you’ll be telling me I’ll fall off the edge of the Earth.
Don’t scoff, they said; You very well might.
Jonas coughed into his fist. Having apparently given up on arranging the stones as a bad job, he was now rifling through his desk, pulling out a sheaf of paper and other odds and ends: a fountain pen and a bottle of ink, a silver amulet studded with black andradite and an agate ring. Protection and endurance. Jonas was just as superstitious as the rest of them.
I’m not taking those, Richter said; I don’t need them.
My dear, Jonas said, you’re not leaving without them.
He tapped his pen pointedly on the stack of papers he’d set on his desk.
Richter rolled her eyes and held out her hand into which Jonas deposited the pendant and ring.
Happy now? Richter said.
With you her, my dear? Jonas said signing the papers and sliding them across the desk to Richter; Never.
Tick tick tick, said the Hagiarchy; Skree.