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before we let euphoria convince us we are free; remind us how we used to feel
Topic Started: Jul 14 2008, 09:34 AM (313 Views)
Kate
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Luridel
Revuenex, the City of New Beginnings. The sun was setting, illuminating a worn and cracked fountain and a small figure kneeling next to it.

We've both seen better days, you and I.

***

Music - Cloudy, With Occasional Rain - Cybéria Mix

***

Majestic. Perhaps it once had been. In truth, Mizuo was not too disappointed. He hadn't come to Revuenex seeking a fabulous tourist experience or a chance to start a new life. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to start anew no matter how hard he tried. He was simply hiding from his old one. The water welled up from a stone disk in the center, now, then trickled back over the sides into the basin. It was quiet, calming, and he focused on the sound, steadying his breathing. The sun was still setting, and rays of color shone in a way that, perhaps - if he closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side just so - he could pretend this place was still beautiful.

If another being had approached, this is approximately what they would have seen:
A fountain, ancient and cracked, long past its glory days, still trickling water...
And a small boy, kneeling next to it, resting his head on his arms and his arms on the rim of the fountain. He was looking, head angled, up at the setting sun.

It was clear that he, like the fountain, must have seen better days. His hair was pure white, shrouding pale green eyes. He was dressed in a red-and-white flannel sweater far too large for him, the sleeves rolled up just a little so that the tips of his fingers could poke out, over a black skirt - loose, flowy, and just barely covered his knees. Black women's dress shoes and long black-and-white striped socks covered his feet and his legs, the socks ending just an inch or two below the skirt. The scant area of skin that might have been visible, were he standing, was heavily scarred and bruised. He was thin, pale, fragile... and perhaps he had nowhere to go. Perhaps that was why he had been sitting here for several hours.

The park would be closing in another hour or two, and then Mizuo knew he would be asked to leave, but for now he stayed, imagining a time when this fountain had been majestic and cared-for, and people knelt by the basin to toss coins into it and make wishes. There were no coins left now. Nor did Mizuo have any, himself - he had used what remaining money he had on the train fare. Some distant part of him was a little afraid, but it didn't seem to have caught up with the rest of his body yet. He had never done anything so reckless as running away before.

It hadn't been the first chance he got, nor the second, nor the third. He waited until it was the best chance he was certain he would get, and only then had he run away.

He looked down again, watching the fountain. If he'd had a coin, what would he have wished for?

A guardian angel... perhaps.
after a long time of solitude, after the many steps taken
away from one's kind, toward these other kingdoms,
the hard prayer inside one's own singing
is to come back, if one can, to one's own
a world almost lost, in the exile that deepens,
when one has lived a long time alone.
-"When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone" by Galway Kinnell; excerpt
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It was only two more weeks. Today was the first day, so, Sean figured, juggling his beloved checkered football from knee to chest, counting backwards that was a budget of twenty-eight dollars per day. If he conserved energy and went with a high protein diet to save his muscle from the starvation mode which would naturally result from the sudden drop in caloric intake (4000 per day to maybe 1500), he could probably stretch it all fourteen days. Oh, but that was only figuring for food. What about travel? He'd already spent three-fifty on the underground, and he'd have to find somewhere to stay now.
His parents had packed him up and shipped him off to Revuenex with round trip tickets and the instructions to find his cousins. Apparently, they had their own place and had been corresponding by letter with his parents for about a month, so they were expecting him. But when he arrived at the address given to him by his well-meaning parents, he was informed by the landlady at the door that his cousins had been "taken away." Whatever that meant, they no longer lived there and he was out of luck because she didn't take renters for anything less than a month. Besides, here in this resort town, what would be cheap enough for him to stay in at twenty-eight a night?
The predicament made his head spin. Maybe he could crawl under one of these benches and sleep, or stay in a youth hostel- provided he could find one. With a vigorous growl, he trapped the ball with his chest and channeled his worries into his right foot, which collided with the ball and sent it soaring away through the trees. That was a beautiful kick, thought Sean, staring off after it for a moment, simply listening to the sound of snapping twigs. 'Aw, man...' He jogged after it, through the planters and trees in a straight line, not wanting to lose it on the pathways, and broke out (eventually) into a central pavillion. It was a bit dilapidated, with the roots of the surrounding trees lifting up the cobbles and making the spiraling stonework that must have, at one point, been impressive simply uneven and hazardous. It must have been the back of the clearing where he'd come out at, because to enter it he had to jump a line of benches.
Sean glanced to the left, then glanced to the right: habitually, he checked to make sure no one had seen him lose his ball- his neighbors at home were always yelling at him for jumping over their fences and crashing through their planters for it- then he scanned the cobbled clearing for any telltale flash of white in the fading light. There it was- bobbing in the fountain. He scurried across and waded in, a little grossed out by the algae and scum now soaking into his shorts, but overall relieved by the covert reposession of his ball.
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Kate
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Luridel
Ripples...

A few drops of water splashed out, spattering Mizuo's skirt. He raised a hand to wipe at the drops, his eyes focusing in on the fountain again. There had been a splash, and now there were ripples spreading outwards, neatly and evenly - the object had landed near the center of the fountain. Though his eyes flicked over the object and recognized it as a football from pictures he had seen, the word had little real meaning to him. It could have been a patterned rock for all the difference it would have made. He had never seen a football before in person.

No, what interested him were the ripples in the fountain that it caused. The water had already been flowing, but now it skirted around this new object, which bobbed a little on the surface of the fountain. They--

There was someone coming. He froze, ducking down a little as he saw Sean approach from the other side of the fountain, wading in. The fact that he had come for the object in the fountain didn't quite occur to him at first, and he cringed, lowering his eyes. If this boy was here to bring him back...

The object was closer to him than Sean, however, and his instincts kicked in. He reached for it from his place on the side of the fountain, picking it out of the water, then climbed up shakily onto the stone rim. His dress shoes slid, just a little, but he kept his balance, his head bent down as he held the object-- the football-- out to Sean, trying not to look him in the eyes. It was an offering, but his arms shook just a little: he was expecting to be scolded, not rewarded, for it.

"I-it was flying," Mizuo half-whispered, trying to explain, "and then it landed in the fountain, and the butterfly flapped her w-wings and..."

There were no butterflies nearby at all. He wasn't sure himself where that thought had came from. He shook his head, stammering apologies, still balancing on the rim of the fountain and holding the ball out to Sean.
after a long time of solitude, after the many steps taken
away from one's kind, toward these other kingdoms,
the hard prayer inside one's own singing
is to come back, if one can, to one's own
a world almost lost, in the exile that deepens,
when one has lived a long time alone.
-"When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone" by Galway Kinnell; excerpt
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Just as he'd mentally recovered from the nastiness of the scum, the disgusting water seeping into his boxers and even the chill of the water itself, and was about to make a headlong dive around the central fixture of the fountain to make a daring rescue of his beloved ball, it was snatched from before his eyes by a wisp of a person, neatly obscured by the dirty old fountain. Sean froze. They're going to steal it, he thought, desperately anxious. His hands shook from nerves and his throat became dry and unwittingly he picked at a loose bit of the fountain, letting it drop from his hand into the water with a plop unsuitably comical considering the discomfort of the situation.
Finally, he worked up the guts to peek around the fountain, as he honestly couldn't see the theif over it. A little girl with a messy white bob and a dirty flannel shirt was balancing precariously on the edge of the fountain, babbling, holding his football out to him. He took a few steps around the fixture towards her, trying to make sense out of her stammering. Flying? Butterfly? What? Sean glanced around for a second- he couldn't see any butterflies. What was wrong with the girl? Maybe there had been butterflies a minute ago and he'd scared them off, crashing through the bushes.
'Thanks,' he muttered, reaching out for his ball. But as he latched on, his hands shivered, and there was a terrible moment when he feared he'd knock the girl off the lip of the pool. She looked so horribly unbalanced, and it didn't help that Sean himself was over-stretching himself. He took another shaky step forward to steady himself and ended up falling towards her. 'Don't slip!' he yelped, crashing to his knees, and wrapping and arm around the girl's calves to keep her steady.
He ended up waist deep in the dirty, unfiltered fountain water. How much more embarrassed could he get? Sean flushed bright red and mumbled obscenities under his breath. It was almost too much to handle, but it would be worse if he lost it here. Instead, he took a deep breath and glanced up at the girl. 'Okay?' From where he was, he could see bruises on her legs under the edge of her skirt and immediately let go. 'Sorry- sorry! That was totally an accident!' In his horror and humiliation, he melted into the water and let the mindlessness of liquidity take over.
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Kate
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Luridel
Thanks.

As Sean came over to take the ball from him, Mizuo fell silent, reaching out to give him the ball - an offering, a sacrifice. But...

His green eyes widened, anxious and lost. Before he'd run away, he had known how to read his moods, to know when to apologize and when to be silent, when to take action and when to freeze. This, however, was a stranger. He didn't know how to deal with strangers. Wobbling on the fountain, holding the ball out to the newcomer, he tried to calm the sudden rush of fear... and realized it was not fully his own. He could see it, now, they were both a little shaky, both a little...

Unbalanced.

He swayed as the boy fell, flinging his arms out wildly in a desperate effort to maintain equilibrium.

. . . And then it came to him. Looking down at the newcomer in the water, still with his arms held out like wings, as if he was walking down a tightrope, Mizuo shut his eyes. Paralyzed on the rim of the fountain, he began to explain, in a quiet, calm voice: "The butterfly effect. Chaos theory. A single butterfly flapping its wings can cause ripples all over the world. The... the object did that. Ripples."

With a wave of his hand, he indicated the football, swayed, and quickly hopped back down from the rim before he fell.
after a long time of solitude, after the many steps taken
away from one's kind, toward these other kingdoms,
the hard prayer inside one's own singing
is to come back, if one can, to one's own
a world almost lost, in the exile that deepens,
when one has lived a long time alone.
-"When One Has Lived a Long Time Alone" by Galway Kinnell; excerpt
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Mizuo's reply came to Sean as through a broken phone line, or a voice scrambler: he was, after all, a part of the water in the fountain. His consciousness formed itself loosely around the words, grasping at the minute ripples the soundwaves made in the pool and using them as an anchor in lucidity. At first, he simply let the words bounce around him, but the repetition of the word "butterfly" bothered him enough to make him pay attention for a split second and, in that moment, he became solid again.
Spluttering, Sean grabbed at his clothes which were floating at the top of the water, completely insensitive to the compromised position they had put him in by failing to become water as well. Tugging his boxers and shorts back on at once (with a few awkward, jerky yanks) he coughed and question the girl standing squarely on the ground, 'What about the butterflies again? I missed that, sorry.'
As soon as the words escaped his mouth, what she had said echoed through his brain again. "The butterfly effect. Chaos theory. A single butterfly flapping its wings can cause ripples all over the world. The... the object did that. Ripples." Sean clumsily pulled his shirt on over his head and clambered onto the lip of the pool, simply draping himself over it, clinging to his beloved ball and staring up at the girl's face. 'Chaos theory. What's that? And um... this-' he pointed at his black and white patched ball- 'object... is a football. Or soccerball, depending on who you ask. You play games with it- sports. Football. Or soccer, depending on who you ask.'
It astonished the simple boy that this little girl had no clue what a football was, even going so far as to call it an "object," as opposed to a ball. Did this naivety have anything to do with the babbling and rambling? Or was it more closely related to the staring and spacing? Or better yet, the easy bruising and scarring?
Wait, how could he have scarred her in a matter of seconds? It takes a while to scar- tissue has to form over cuts and scrapes and wounds and stuff, so no way that was his fault. Immediately, Sean felt worlds better knowing that the injuries to the girl's legs could not have been his doing. At least, not all of them.
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