Shadow of the Sun
2007-11-30, 09:57 AM
I wrote this up for the Town, and was happy enough with it to post it here, too.
I know there are some spelling and grammar errors, but...meh.
______________
In darkness, a sound flourishes. It is...a door slamming. A man sobbing. A...fumbling. He is tyeing a noose, standing onto a chair, and placing it around his neck...
***
We are at...a birth bed. There are no nurses. No doctors. Not a single family. Just a woman, and the child she is trying to introduce to the world. A duet of screams rend the stillness of the air, replacing what was the low quality tranquility of a slum with an enforced curfew with the unmistakable sound of people in pain. Labored breathing...pushing...yet more screams. The cycle repeats. Again. Again. Again. And eventually...a child is born. But the bleeding doesn't stop. As she suckles her first child, the mother keeps bleeding. Until...until there is nothing left in her, her spirit departed the world weeping for the son that she'd never get to know.
It is three days later that the crying of the child alerts some guards. He is sent to an orphanage.
***
He stands on the chair, feeling some trepidation. He'd learned in his life some religious practices, and he had an inkling that most gods would not be pleased with...what he intends to do. He might end up in a hell. But, he ponders, as tears roll down his dirty cheeks, as he prepares to leap, could it be worse than what he's been through, what he's in?
***
We are in an orphanage. There are a large number of rather dirty and worse for wear children in ragtag clothing. These are where those who were never loved go. Those who, due to the icy machinations of fate, missed the opportunity that thousands of others got. They support themselves, like a tower of people. But...as always, there is one among them that has engendered hatred.
He is not overly odd. He is not mean. He is caring, despite the situation he is in, which has tarnished many a soul. No, he is simply...different. Marked out from the rest by his silver hair and golden eyes, by his slightly pointed ears. By the mother he never knew. And he is now sitting down, reading a book that he managed to find, curled up in a hidey-hole. But it isn't good enough.
A rock flies forwards, gashes his cheek, and he falls onto the grass as blood blossoms and fertilizes the earth.
"Hah!" is the triumphant call of the one who threw the rock. He is a few years older than his victim, human, about as common as (and intelligent as) the dirt he stands on with scabbed and lesioned feet. The other children ignore it. They don't want to draw his ire. He steps forward, and picks up his victim by his hair...and pushes his face into a wall hard enough to break his nose, as sobs of pain and anguish escape the other child's throat...
***
He feels a wonderful feeling, akin to being a bird, as he hangs in midair for that glorious moment, when all of his pains fade, escaping him, leaving him only with a pure joy of one that is free. And then, gravity resumes it's role and drags him to the earth, pulling his weight onto the noose as a loud and horrifying crack fills the room and his body goes limp.
***
We are in a bar. He'd left the orphanage. Had been adopted a few years ago. But...the things they did to him, the way they forced themselves upon him...he'd bled and limped for the first week. After the third time he was raped, he fled, ran to the Town. He was free. No-one here hated him. True, they didn't love him, but he was free of hatred. He was free of the pain. Of the torment.
He's currently scrubbing a glass. Compared to the chores he'd had to do, it's nothing, and he actually gets paid. He takes exquisite care to make the glass as clean as possible, to remove any residue that could possibly damage the palate of the next drink to be put in the glass. Eventually, satisfied, he puts the glass onto the drying rack and starts again.
He's found someone, too. Someone who likes him for who he is. Someone who doesn't hate his odd eye and hair colour, someone who actually finds them attractive. It is for her that he is working here. So he can afford to buy her a gift. Something beautiful for the woman with that rare, perhaps unique beauty: the beauty of loving him.
Eventually, he is finished cleaning the glasses and dishes. He dons a coat, and strides through the icy tears of the night, towards the flat she and he share, the flat that has been the closest thing as a home to him in his entire life. He gently opens the door, taking care not to make noise, to surprise his beloved...but she is distracted. He can hear noises...moans...he walks to the door of the bedroom, flings it open, and is confronted with something that turns the highpoint of his life to the deepest trench of despair he has ever inhabited. His beloved, in bed with another man. He flees the house, running into the night...
***
It is...later. His eyes begin to open. His brain begins to work. But nothing else in his body does. Out of habit, he tries to draw a breath, and is greeted by lungs which resist him. He scent of decay wafts into his nose. His eyes finally realize what they are seeing. This hands, which are a pale grey and stuck stiff in rigor mortis. He realizes he is thinking, that he still has that noose around his neck, that he isn't dead, and lets out a scream. Would his torment never end!? Would he not get the peace he deserves!?
Later, the animated corpse of a man who, lost in depression, hung himself, leaves the room, the house, the slums, looking for somewhere he can finally escape it all.
I know there are some spelling and grammar errors, but...meh.
______________
In darkness, a sound flourishes. It is...a door slamming. A man sobbing. A...fumbling. He is tyeing a noose, standing onto a chair, and placing it around his neck...
***
We are at...a birth bed. There are no nurses. No doctors. Not a single family. Just a woman, and the child she is trying to introduce to the world. A duet of screams rend the stillness of the air, replacing what was the low quality tranquility of a slum with an enforced curfew with the unmistakable sound of people in pain. Labored breathing...pushing...yet more screams. The cycle repeats. Again. Again. Again. And eventually...a child is born. But the bleeding doesn't stop. As she suckles her first child, the mother keeps bleeding. Until...until there is nothing left in her, her spirit departed the world weeping for the son that she'd never get to know.
It is three days later that the crying of the child alerts some guards. He is sent to an orphanage.
***
He stands on the chair, feeling some trepidation. He'd learned in his life some religious practices, and he had an inkling that most gods would not be pleased with...what he intends to do. He might end up in a hell. But, he ponders, as tears roll down his dirty cheeks, as he prepares to leap, could it be worse than what he's been through, what he's in?
***
We are in an orphanage. There are a large number of rather dirty and worse for wear children in ragtag clothing. These are where those who were never loved go. Those who, due to the icy machinations of fate, missed the opportunity that thousands of others got. They support themselves, like a tower of people. But...as always, there is one among them that has engendered hatred.
He is not overly odd. He is not mean. He is caring, despite the situation he is in, which has tarnished many a soul. No, he is simply...different. Marked out from the rest by his silver hair and golden eyes, by his slightly pointed ears. By the mother he never knew. And he is now sitting down, reading a book that he managed to find, curled up in a hidey-hole. But it isn't good enough.
A rock flies forwards, gashes his cheek, and he falls onto the grass as blood blossoms and fertilizes the earth.
"Hah!" is the triumphant call of the one who threw the rock. He is a few years older than his victim, human, about as common as (and intelligent as) the dirt he stands on with scabbed and lesioned feet. The other children ignore it. They don't want to draw his ire. He steps forward, and picks up his victim by his hair...and pushes his face into a wall hard enough to break his nose, as sobs of pain and anguish escape the other child's throat...
***
He feels a wonderful feeling, akin to being a bird, as he hangs in midair for that glorious moment, when all of his pains fade, escaping him, leaving him only with a pure joy of one that is free. And then, gravity resumes it's role and drags him to the earth, pulling his weight onto the noose as a loud and horrifying crack fills the room and his body goes limp.
***
We are in a bar. He'd left the orphanage. Had been adopted a few years ago. But...the things they did to him, the way they forced themselves upon him...he'd bled and limped for the first week. After the third time he was raped, he fled, ran to the Town. He was free. No-one here hated him. True, they didn't love him, but he was free of hatred. He was free of the pain. Of the torment.
He's currently scrubbing a glass. Compared to the chores he'd had to do, it's nothing, and he actually gets paid. He takes exquisite care to make the glass as clean as possible, to remove any residue that could possibly damage the palate of the next drink to be put in the glass. Eventually, satisfied, he puts the glass onto the drying rack and starts again.
He's found someone, too. Someone who likes him for who he is. Someone who doesn't hate his odd eye and hair colour, someone who actually finds them attractive. It is for her that he is working here. So he can afford to buy her a gift. Something beautiful for the woman with that rare, perhaps unique beauty: the beauty of loving him.
Eventually, he is finished cleaning the glasses and dishes. He dons a coat, and strides through the icy tears of the night, towards the flat she and he share, the flat that has been the closest thing as a home to him in his entire life. He gently opens the door, taking care not to make noise, to surprise his beloved...but she is distracted. He can hear noises...moans...he walks to the door of the bedroom, flings it open, and is confronted with something that turns the highpoint of his life to the deepest trench of despair he has ever inhabited. His beloved, in bed with another man. He flees the house, running into the night...
***
It is...later. His eyes begin to open. His brain begins to work. But nothing else in his body does. Out of habit, he tries to draw a breath, and is greeted by lungs which resist him. He scent of decay wafts into his nose. His eyes finally realize what they are seeing. This hands, which are a pale grey and stuck stiff in rigor mortis. He realizes he is thinking, that he still has that noose around his neck, that he isn't dead, and lets out a scream. Would his torment never end!? Would he not get the peace he deserves!?
Later, the animated corpse of a man who, lost in depression, hung himself, leaves the room, the house, the slums, looking for somewhere he can finally escape it all.