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Jan. 8th, 2005 04:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mikkenekoplaying by the rules, part two. part one
time for the author to bitch! still not happy. ;_; I can't decide if I just suck, or if the setting is throwing me off. Writing 'chris' feels easy and natural to me, especially during his periods of angst, but everything around him is just... weird. like it's completely disconnected from him. Or is that just a product of his own sense of alienation? I can't tell the difference. But I'm not happy. I feel like I've assembled all the proper pieces of the setting, but I can't make them... fit. And I don't think I've achieved the right balance between constructing a situation which feels completely 'normal' and family-like, and making sure I remain in the FMA world. ~_~
Suggestions are appreciated, please!
He'd hardly pulled up in front of his house before the sound of excited barking hit him; he made quick work of tying his bike safely up before the front door banged open and he was assaulted by two small, excitable beagle puppies and one not-so-small girl. "Nii-san!" she shrieked, and years of practice allowed him to catch her and not lose his balance when she flung herself at him and caught her arms around his neck. "Welcome home!"
It was impossible not to be infected by her enthusiasm, and he laughed as he swung her around, before setting her down on her feet and smoothing back her dark curls. "Hey, Laurie," he said. "I'm sorry I'm late. Do you want to go right out to the park, or wait a bit?"
Laurie's face fell, and she shook her head, linking her hands in front of her. "We can't go today, Nii-san," she said, with a tremor in her small voice.
"Eh? Why not?" He was surprised; she had been so looking forward to this afternoon out. "I thought we were going to have a picnic?"
"Daddy says I can't go out." A frown pulled her lips down. "He doesn't think it's safe." One of the puppies nipped at her ankle, trying to get her attention, and she crouched down to gather him up before she turned and went inside.
Confused, he followed her back into the house, collecting the other puppy as he went. Her father was seated at the dining table, newspaper open in front of him as was usual; the radio was also on, droning in the background.
"Dad?" he said. The newspaper dipped, revealing a large, heavyset man in his fifties, with dark hair the same color as his daughter's. Her mother's was much the same, with a tight curl that loosened to ringlets in the little girl; the family resemblance among the three was easy to see.
He, of course, didn't look like any of them. Nobody in his family had light brown hair, or eyes that shaded between brown and green. But that was only to be expected. He shrugged off his books, setting them on the edge of the table.
"Welcome back, Chris," Abert said distractedly. "You're a little late."
"I'm sorry. I was talking to my friends and it slowed me down," he apologized. "Why did you tell Laurie she couldn't go out today?"
Abert frowned, and flipped down the newspaper, tossing it across the table. "The newspaper only gives it a mention, but there's more detail on the radio," he said. "The military might have wanted to keep it quiet, but there's no way we're going to let a dangerous man wander our city without warning everyone about him."
"Dangerous man?" Another chill stole down his back, as he remembered the stranger from earlier. He picked up the paper, and scanned the article, eyes moving rapidly over the words. "So he was an escaped convict!"
Abert snorted, and reached for the newspaper back. "No, boy, it's nothing that dramatic. He was in prison all right, but they let him out free as a bird two weeks ago." He unfolded the paper, turning back to the story he'd been reading before his son's entrance. "Apparently called in a few favors with the military brass, or so the rumor goes."
He shook his head, only half disbelieving. Abert was such a cynic, always ready to believe the worst in people... but then, from what he'd heard, that was the way the military worked. Favors traded for favors. "What was he put in prison for?" he asked.
"They won't confirm anything, of course." The radio murmured on in the background, a constant static. "The rumors say all sorts of things; everything from insubordination, treason, to murder. One thing they all agree on -- he was involved in Lior; that's about the time he was put in prison."
His head came up. "In Lior?" he asked, horrified.
Even though he'd been a child at the time, and he didn't remember anything about it -- of course -- every child knew about the disaster at Lior, the military's most spectacular failure in over thirty years. Bad enough that the military had been provoking conflict with the natives, but then the entire city turned into a trap that killed almost a thousand men. Nearly every town in the country had lost someone; Edenburg had sacrificed its fair share, and too many off his classmates had older brothers who were gone forever.
Even aside from the deaths and material losses, the blow to pride and morale had been devastating; of course anyone they could lay hands on as being responsible for the event would be punished. The only thing he couldn't understand was how this man could possibly be free again only six years later.
He frowned, and his hands fisted at his sides. He suddenly didn't much feel like taking Laurie out into the neighborhood, either. "What's he doing here?" he asked quietly. "When will he leave?"
"That, they don't tell us," Abert replied. "With any luck, his parole will run out and they'll throw him back in prison where he belongs."
He found himself staring at the back of the newspaper his father held, the sparse print of the announcement. There were no photos, so he found himself thinking back to the haggard figure in the park. A strange feeling like nausea filled him, and he pushed away from the table. "Excuse me," he said. "I don't feel well. I'm going up to my room."
"Nii-san?" Laurie stopped in the doorway, dark eyes wide and worried. "We aren't going to the park, are we?"
He shook his head, then managed a smile and reached to tousle her curls. "Probably not today, Laurie. With someone like that wandering around, it's better safe than sorry. Keep that in mind, too -- don't go out without an adult until he's gone, right?"
"Oh." She looked dismayed, and no wonder -- Edenburg was a quiet neighborhood, a good place for kids, and never in her eight years had she been warned against going outside. She surprised him by adding, "Is Nii-san okay? Are you afraid?"
He sighed. How could he explain to her that he wasn't scared of strangers -- only of what they made him think? "I'll be fine, Laurie. I just want a nap."
She hesitated, then nodded. "Okay, Niisan. Feel better. But come down for dinner, so you can taste what I'm helping Mama with!" she said, scoldingly.
Smiling, making promises, he headed upstairs to his room.
Stupid. He flung himself down on his bed, looking up at the ceiling, and then took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid, to invent stories about strange men he'd probably never met before and never meet again. He couldn't help it; his mind played tricks on him, fixating on every new face, some suppressed part of him wondering and wishing if maybe he knew him or her from long ago. Once upon a time; a time he'd lost.
He rolled over on his side, looking towards the wall with the dresser and the door; his eye fell on a small leather book perched at the back of the desk. The latest Doctor had suggested that he keep a dream journal, in the hopes that some of his lost memories would surface during his sleep. But he never had anything to record in it, other than vast clear dreams of emptiness, a pale light plane that stretched away below him in every direction, sounds rippling away from him forever.
Why couldn't he remember anything? Everything, absolutely everything before that day was just a blank slate, a void. Ten missing years out of his life. He must have had a real family, once; a real father, a mother who looked like him, who'd raised him. People didn't just pop out of the ground, did they? They couldn't just spring into existence at ten years and wander on like normal people. Somewhere, sometime there must have been a family, and a childhood, that were missing from his memory.
His memory began, sharp and clear, coming out of an alley into a street in Central, surrounded by the chaos of the riots that had devastated whole city blocks. He'd been swept up hastily by a rescuer along with a dozen other children, all orphans like him; bundled out of the dangerous city into Edenburg just like them, placed in the orphanage and eventually adopted, just like the rest of them.
But he wasn't just like the rest of them, was he? He had some friends, but he wasn't wildly popular, either; everyone at school knew that Christopher Abert was a little strange, even if they didn't know why. Even if that's not my real name. Not the name I was born with...
Nobody knew that he studied all those different subjects so long and hard, reading every book he could get his hands on, because he was trying to fill up the empty place in his head. Nobody that he was so unfailingly nice to everyone, no matter if they were nice to him, because there was a cold and aching hole in his heart that he was always, always trying to fill.
He got up, and went over to the dresser to pick up his little book. The Doctor had made his parents promise not to look in it, for the sake of confidentiality; he said, Chris needs to worry about nothing else besides the past when he's dreaming, he will need a safe place to write it in. He had no dreams to report, but the book wasn't empty. Instead, Al filled it with daydreams and fantasies, made-up days and weeks and years, long complicated storylines that grew as fast as he could dream them up. For all he knew, they might be true.
The little book was his guilty secret. His parents would be terribly disappointed if they found it; his father would be angry, and call him ungrateful, and his mother would cry, and they would both wonder what they did wrong, if they didn't love him enough. And that wasn't true at all; he loved them both, and his little sister more than anything, but it wasn't always enough.
It wasn't ever enough. The hole inside of him had gotten smaller, over the years -- or maybe he'd gotten bigger -- but it never really went away.
He picked up his book, and brought it back with him to his bed, digging out a small pencil from under the mattress. He flipped the book open to a new page, a fresh start, instead of going back to continue any of the stories he'd started before. Turning to a new leaf, he took a breath, closing his eyes, and wondered how to begin this time.
It came to him, maybe from the radio, maybe from the newspaper, and he began. My parents lived in Lior...
The next morning, he walked Laurie to school.
It made him late -- her school started well after his did anyway -- but he had a note tucked in his pocket to give to the teacher. Not that Mr. Centine would have likely given him grief over it, once he explained, but it was nice to have that crackling little gesture of concern riding with him. The change of routine was nice; walking his bike through the cool morning air, listening to Laurie's happy chatter and giving her the right answers when she pestered him for one.
It all felt so... normal. A good life. A life anyone would be grateful for, would envy.
Why do I feel hollow?
He dropped her off at her school building, three-story brick with too many windows, and turned his bike down the smooth-paved street towards his own school. The wind picked up a few dead leaves, skittering them over the stones. He left the schoolhouse behind, and the noise of the shouting, laughing children died away behind him. Nobody else was on the streets; all his classmates were already at school, the classroom bell must have rung.
His mind wasn't on school, though. Instead he was thinking about the Edenburg library -- technically attached to the high school, but sponsored by some retired general to serve the whole town. He was thinking about the old stacks of military newspapers tucked away behind glass cases; unconsciously planning an attack on them before he'd even acknowledged that he wanted to go there today. He could go there today, after school -- look up Lior, there would surely be --
He stopped dead, nearly thrown from his bike as he hit the brakes hard.
The school was just ahead, at the end of the next block. Between him and it stood the stranger, the ex-prisoner. There was nobody on the street but the two of them.
~tbc
time for the author to bitch! still not happy. ;_; I can't decide if I just suck, or if the setting is throwing me off. Writing 'chris' feels easy and natural to me, especially during his periods of angst, but everything around him is just... weird. like it's completely disconnected from him. Or is that just a product of his own sense of alienation? I can't tell the difference. But I'm not happy. I feel like I've assembled all the proper pieces of the setting, but I can't make them... fit. And I don't think I've achieved the right balance between constructing a situation which feels completely 'normal' and family-like, and making sure I remain in the FMA world. ~_~
Suggestions are appreciated, please!
He'd hardly pulled up in front of his house before the sound of excited barking hit him; he made quick work of tying his bike safely up before the front door banged open and he was assaulted by two small, excitable beagle puppies and one not-so-small girl. "Nii-san!" she shrieked, and years of practice allowed him to catch her and not lose his balance when she flung herself at him and caught her arms around his neck. "Welcome home!"
It was impossible not to be infected by her enthusiasm, and he laughed as he swung her around, before setting her down on her feet and smoothing back her dark curls. "Hey, Laurie," he said. "I'm sorry I'm late. Do you want to go right out to the park, or wait a bit?"
Laurie's face fell, and she shook her head, linking her hands in front of her. "We can't go today, Nii-san," she said, with a tremor in her small voice.
"Eh? Why not?" He was surprised; she had been so looking forward to this afternoon out. "I thought we were going to have a picnic?"
"Daddy says I can't go out." A frown pulled her lips down. "He doesn't think it's safe." One of the puppies nipped at her ankle, trying to get her attention, and she crouched down to gather him up before she turned and went inside.
Confused, he followed her back into the house, collecting the other puppy as he went. Her father was seated at the dining table, newspaper open in front of him as was usual; the radio was also on, droning in the background.
"Dad?" he said. The newspaper dipped, revealing a large, heavyset man in his fifties, with dark hair the same color as his daughter's. Her mother's was much the same, with a tight curl that loosened to ringlets in the little girl; the family resemblance among the three was easy to see.
He, of course, didn't look like any of them. Nobody in his family had light brown hair, or eyes that shaded between brown and green. But that was only to be expected. He shrugged off his books, setting them on the edge of the table.
"Welcome back, Chris," Abert said distractedly. "You're a little late."
"I'm sorry. I was talking to my friends and it slowed me down," he apologized. "Why did you tell Laurie she couldn't go out today?"
Abert frowned, and flipped down the newspaper, tossing it across the table. "The newspaper only gives it a mention, but there's more detail on the radio," he said. "The military might have wanted to keep it quiet, but there's no way we're going to let a dangerous man wander our city without warning everyone about him."
"Dangerous man?" Another chill stole down his back, as he remembered the stranger from earlier. He picked up the paper, and scanned the article, eyes moving rapidly over the words. "So he was an escaped convict!"
Abert snorted, and reached for the newspaper back. "No, boy, it's nothing that dramatic. He was in prison all right, but they let him out free as a bird two weeks ago." He unfolded the paper, turning back to the story he'd been reading before his son's entrance. "Apparently called in a few favors with the military brass, or so the rumor goes."
He shook his head, only half disbelieving. Abert was such a cynic, always ready to believe the worst in people... but then, from what he'd heard, that was the way the military worked. Favors traded for favors. "What was he put in prison for?" he asked.
"They won't confirm anything, of course." The radio murmured on in the background, a constant static. "The rumors say all sorts of things; everything from insubordination, treason, to murder. One thing they all agree on -- he was involved in Lior; that's about the time he was put in prison."
His head came up. "In Lior?" he asked, horrified.
Even though he'd been a child at the time, and he didn't remember anything about it -- of course -- every child knew about the disaster at Lior, the military's most spectacular failure in over thirty years. Bad enough that the military had been provoking conflict with the natives, but then the entire city turned into a trap that killed almost a thousand men. Nearly every town in the country had lost someone; Edenburg had sacrificed its fair share, and too many off his classmates had older brothers who were gone forever.
Even aside from the deaths and material losses, the blow to pride and morale had been devastating; of course anyone they could lay hands on as being responsible for the event would be punished. The only thing he couldn't understand was how this man could possibly be free again only six years later.
He frowned, and his hands fisted at his sides. He suddenly didn't much feel like taking Laurie out into the neighborhood, either. "What's he doing here?" he asked quietly. "When will he leave?"
"That, they don't tell us," Abert replied. "With any luck, his parole will run out and they'll throw him back in prison where he belongs."
He found himself staring at the back of the newspaper his father held, the sparse print of the announcement. There were no photos, so he found himself thinking back to the haggard figure in the park. A strange feeling like nausea filled him, and he pushed away from the table. "Excuse me," he said. "I don't feel well. I'm going up to my room."
"Nii-san?" Laurie stopped in the doorway, dark eyes wide and worried. "We aren't going to the park, are we?"
He shook his head, then managed a smile and reached to tousle her curls. "Probably not today, Laurie. With someone like that wandering around, it's better safe than sorry. Keep that in mind, too -- don't go out without an adult until he's gone, right?"
"Oh." She looked dismayed, and no wonder -- Edenburg was a quiet neighborhood, a good place for kids, and never in her eight years had she been warned against going outside. She surprised him by adding, "Is Nii-san okay? Are you afraid?"
He sighed. How could he explain to her that he wasn't scared of strangers -- only of what they made him think? "I'll be fine, Laurie. I just want a nap."
She hesitated, then nodded. "Okay, Niisan. Feel better. But come down for dinner, so you can taste what I'm helping Mama with!" she said, scoldingly.
Smiling, making promises, he headed upstairs to his room.
Stupid. He flung himself down on his bed, looking up at the ceiling, and then took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Stupid, stupid, stupid, to invent stories about strange men he'd probably never met before and never meet again. He couldn't help it; his mind played tricks on him, fixating on every new face, some suppressed part of him wondering and wishing if maybe he knew him or her from long ago. Once upon a time; a time he'd lost.
He rolled over on his side, looking towards the wall with the dresser and the door; his eye fell on a small leather book perched at the back of the desk. The latest Doctor had suggested that he keep a dream journal, in the hopes that some of his lost memories would surface during his sleep. But he never had anything to record in it, other than vast clear dreams of emptiness, a pale light plane that stretched away below him in every direction, sounds rippling away from him forever.
Why couldn't he remember anything? Everything, absolutely everything before that day was just a blank slate, a void. Ten missing years out of his life. He must have had a real family, once; a real father, a mother who looked like him, who'd raised him. People didn't just pop out of the ground, did they? They couldn't just spring into existence at ten years and wander on like normal people. Somewhere, sometime there must have been a family, and a childhood, that were missing from his memory.
His memory began, sharp and clear, coming out of an alley into a street in Central, surrounded by the chaos of the riots that had devastated whole city blocks. He'd been swept up hastily by a rescuer along with a dozen other children, all orphans like him; bundled out of the dangerous city into Edenburg just like them, placed in the orphanage and eventually adopted, just like the rest of them.
But he wasn't just like the rest of them, was he? He had some friends, but he wasn't wildly popular, either; everyone at school knew that Christopher Abert was a little strange, even if they didn't know why. Even if that's not my real name. Not the name I was born with...
Nobody knew that he studied all those different subjects so long and hard, reading every book he could get his hands on, because he was trying to fill up the empty place in his head. Nobody that he was so unfailingly nice to everyone, no matter if they were nice to him, because there was a cold and aching hole in his heart that he was always, always trying to fill.
He got up, and went over to the dresser to pick up his little book. The Doctor had made his parents promise not to look in it, for the sake of confidentiality; he said, Chris needs to worry about nothing else besides the past when he's dreaming, he will need a safe place to write it in. He had no dreams to report, but the book wasn't empty. Instead, Al filled it with daydreams and fantasies, made-up days and weeks and years, long complicated storylines that grew as fast as he could dream them up. For all he knew, they might be true.
The little book was his guilty secret. His parents would be terribly disappointed if they found it; his father would be angry, and call him ungrateful, and his mother would cry, and they would both wonder what they did wrong, if they didn't love him enough. And that wasn't true at all; he loved them both, and his little sister more than anything, but it wasn't always enough.
It wasn't ever enough. The hole inside of him had gotten smaller, over the years -- or maybe he'd gotten bigger -- but it never really went away.
He picked up his book, and brought it back with him to his bed, digging out a small pencil from under the mattress. He flipped the book open to a new page, a fresh start, instead of going back to continue any of the stories he'd started before. Turning to a new leaf, he took a breath, closing his eyes, and wondered how to begin this time.
It came to him, maybe from the radio, maybe from the newspaper, and he began. My parents lived in Lior...
The next morning, he walked Laurie to school.
It made him late -- her school started well after his did anyway -- but he had a note tucked in his pocket to give to the teacher. Not that Mr. Centine would have likely given him grief over it, once he explained, but it was nice to have that crackling little gesture of concern riding with him. The change of routine was nice; walking his bike through the cool morning air, listening to Laurie's happy chatter and giving her the right answers when she pestered him for one.
It all felt so... normal. A good life. A life anyone would be grateful for, would envy.
Why do I feel hollow?
He dropped her off at her school building, three-story brick with too many windows, and turned his bike down the smooth-paved street towards his own school. The wind picked up a few dead leaves, skittering them over the stones. He left the schoolhouse behind, and the noise of the shouting, laughing children died away behind him. Nobody else was on the streets; all his classmates were already at school, the classroom bell must have rung.
His mind wasn't on school, though. Instead he was thinking about the Edenburg library -- technically attached to the high school, but sponsored by some retired general to serve the whole town. He was thinking about the old stacks of military newspapers tucked away behind glass cases; unconsciously planning an attack on them before he'd even acknowledged that he wanted to go there today. He could go there today, after school -- look up Lior, there would surely be --
He stopped dead, nearly thrown from his bike as he hit the brakes hard.
The school was just ahead, at the end of the next block. Between him and it stood the stranger, the ex-prisoner. There was nobody on the street but the two of them.
~tbc
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no subject
Date: 2005-01-08 02:00 am (UTC)*passes out*
no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 11:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-01-09 11:58 am (UTC)