Everyday and the Extraordinary

Original, 375 words: Lottery

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 05:12:57 GMT

Don't know where this came from. Maybe I'll write more of it. Maybe not.

Red dust everywhere, dust and corn and nothing for as far as the eye can see. They said you could go crazy driving through the flat country, the unchanging horizon which drove men mad.

Mel believed it. She thought maybe she was going a little crazy herself.

She pulled into a gas station three miles from nowhere and got out of the car for a moment, scarlet billowing around her ankles with every motion. Her socks would be stained. She couldn’t bring herself to care.

The sun burned above her, and she could feel the top of her scalp burning, so she stepped inside to the tune of a tinkling little bell and handed the man at the counter a bill as worn and wrinkled as he was in exchange for an icy glass bottle of Coke.

He watched her as she drank it, looking as though he could use the drink himself. She didn’t offer. He didn’t ask.

“Headed out west?” he asked. She nodded, cool liquid sliding down her throat.

“Yeah.”

She didn’t elaborate, and, again, he knew better than to ask.

“Want a lottery ticket or something?”

Mel thought for a moment, then shrugged and pulled another old bill out of her pocket.

“Why the hell not. Sure.”

He smiled at her, missing half his teeth, and handed her a red card and a penny to scratch it off with.

Six quick stripes. Nothing. Hardly a surprise. She wasn’t disappointed, because she hadn’t expected anything.

It would have been nice.

She tossed the man another bill – he reminds her of her great-uncle, long gone, and she wonders how long he has to live- and told him to buy a ticket for himself. She doesn’t wait for him to scratch it off.

No one ever wins those things anyway.

And then she’s driving down the road again. The dust is just as bad as it ever was. But she’s headed to sunny California, where there’s no dust and no corn and plenty of something.

California, overfull of dreamers. Mel doesn’t care. Somebody’s gotta get lucky, someday, right? Maybe it’ll be her. Maybe it won’t be. Whatever, what the hell- she’s got nowhere else to go and ten dollars in her pocket. Why not?

Weiss Kreuz (Schuldig), 600 words: Gebet

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 03:40:13 GMT

The others hide themselves in their rooms, for one reason or another.

Nagi, who likes to think of himself as the nice one, the one who isn’t as bad as the rest, even though he knows that he’s quite possibly the worst, sits in his room and chitter-chats with children online, like he’s one of them. Schuldig doesn’t stay in his mind. Nagi plays worse games with himself than Schuldig could ever inflict on him.

And Farfarello. Most people think he’s the most insane of the group, hanging upside down like a demon bat with a vendetta. Schuldig, who sees everyone’s inner brains- their souls, he would say, if he believed in such things-, knows better. Farfarello has purpose, and he knows exactly who he is. He thinks he’s a Godsend.

The rest can’t say as much.

Anyway, Farfarello talks to God, and that gains him points. God won’t listen to Nagi. Schuldig stopped asking Him to a long time ago.

And Bradley. Bradley, more than Takatori ever did or ever will, more than Esset, even… Bradley thinks he is God.

Schuldig likes to try to play with his mind, mainly because Bradley doesn’t let him.

He just looks at him over those damn glasses, always the same expression, even when Schuldig is bleeding and can’t stand up and the voices in his mind are shouting at top volume.

It’s almost reassuring, if anything about Brad Crawford could ever be said to be reassuring.

Just looks at him, and tells him to stop being an idiot and get on with things. Like he has to ask. He knows what Schuldig will do. He knows what everyone will do.

Precognition, Schuldig often thinks, is a real bitch.

Takatori looks in on them every so often. He never stays long, and Schuldig smirks when he sees the fear naked in the man’s upper mind. He knows who’s working for whom, even if he doesn’t want to admit it. He doesn’t have to. They already know how it will go.

They always do. They just have to wait. And so the others lock themselves away in their own little worlds.

But Schuldig sits in the middle, frolicking in the playgrounds of other minds. He doesn’t lock himself in his room, pretending to be alone.

Schuldig is never alone. No matter how much he wants to be.

And other minds are so much nicer than the burnt out shell he calls his own.

Buzz, buzz. Buzz buzz buzz. Little bees and their honey minds, so sweet, taking the edge off. But it’s never enough, those little minds, and they’re too sticky. They won’t go away.

And Schuldig always finds himself back here, kneeling in front of Brad Crawford, begging for the personal affirmation that only Bradley can grant him. No matter how many times he promises himself that this is the last.

“Idiot.” Crawford says, as he always does, and Schuldig reaches for a hint of compassion in Bradley’s mind, only to be thrown back by a shield just as strong as ever. There is no compassion in his eyes, glinting behind his glasses. There never is. But he does not shout at Schuldig with his mind, and for that small glory, Schuldig is willing to forgive him anything.

Bradley knows that. He knows everything. He always does.

And so he smirks at Schuldig and puts a heavy hand on the back of his neck. And Schuldig knows himself to be as much of a puppet as Nagi and Farfarello. Probably more.

But Schuldig is too far beyond his own mind to even care.

X-Men (Pyro/Iceman), 251 words: Antithesis

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 02:38:06 GMT

And so we begin with a particular classic pairing of mine. Very mild spoilers for the end of the second movie.

John looks out the window as the helicopter flies away, and all he can see below is white. This high, the little things that mar the snow’s perfection- trees, buildings, people- are invisible, and all that can be seen is the flat white stretching from mountain to mountain.

John wants to destroy every trace of it. He hates snow. He has to.

Snow, frozen beauty that is the antithesis of everything he has ever been. Snow, and winter, and ice.

And Bobby.

Bobby, who John is leaving behind, and who will never- could never- understand why. Bobby, who fits in the manor, with his control and his oh-so-cool attitude; Bobby who never screams or feels like he’s going to explode.

John could never be that controlled. And they don’t understand why not, why he can’t do just what they want him to and be a good little mutant posterchild, like Summers, or Dr. Grey. Or Bobby. But John isn’t nice, and he isn’t controlled, and he isn’t good.

He’s fire, and fire can never quite fit into a civilized world.

And so John flies away in a helicopter, following another man who promises to give him everything he’s ever wanted. But John’s heard that before. It’s never true.

At least Magneto won’t try to cage him. Won’t try to make him something he can never – will never- be.

And at least John won’t have to see Bobby and know that there is one bit of ice that he can never melt.

Mon, 02 Jan 2006 01:44:42 GMT

So here I am, at the beginning of a new year, with two new resolutions waiting for me to begin. This journal will be for me to keep up with them- one, my log of books that I read this year, and two, the 500,000 words I'm going to try to write this year. This should theoretically mean that this journal gets updated practically every day, if I'm going to hit *that* goal, but we'll see.

I plan on putting a monthly progress report in my regular journal on the last day of each month, but other than that, this will be the place where all my fiction and booklogs/reviews end up.

*crosses fingers* Here goes!