A Silver Pin-Head Vast
Oct. 21st, 2007 01:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kiyakotariAnother prompt response for the Resinality ABJD Writing usergroup's Themes challenges. This was for the Week 5 challenge. The prompt was You Are the Moon by The Hush Sound.
Use the username resinthemes@gmail.com and the password 'themes' to sign in if you don't have an IMEEM account.
Jian looked down on the city spread out below him, streets lit up by passing cars, the pulse of late evening life pushing and pulling the citizens through their nightly dance like so many cells. This high up the call of the city was muted, honks and screeches and cries distant things, alternately snatched away or carried to his ears by the wind. Even here, on the roof of the tallest building, the city stretched as far as he could see, warehouses like blocks of rotten cheese, rows of cheap housing marching off into the night, the skyscrapers of the city center rising from the depths, modern monoliths with worshippers gathered at their feet.
He leaned his elbows on the wall and watched it all, his stare the impartial, passionless gaze of a statue, an effigy. Careless. Omniscient. Eternal.
The door swung open behind him, its protesting creak almost lost in the wind. He didn’t have to turn to know it was Wren, her footsteps on the gravel a barely audible crunch to mark her passage as she approached him. He didn’t have to look to know that there was a thermos dangling from one hand, hot tea inside it cooling slowly despite the insulation.
She didn’t pause for even a moment, finally coming to a stop beside him, her own elbows resting on the wall as she too looked out at the city. They were both silent.
“The moon is a silver pin-head vast, that holds the heaven's tent-hangings fast.”
Jian glanced at her from the corner of his eye, surprised that she’d said anything at all. That had the sound of a quotation.
Wren straightened up and opened the thermos, poured Ti Quan Yin Oolong in a fragrant, barely colored stream into the lid, held it out to him. “William R. Alger. A poet.”
Jian accepted the cup, holding it in both hands, watching steam rise from the surface only to be whisked away by the wind, indicator of the coming storm. Sipped it carefully, as one might taste a fine wine in a high-class restaurant – certainly not the way one would expect a man who’d just killed three others to drink anything, on a roof, in the wind, a city and an array of antennae the backdrop to his existence.
When he raised his eyes, Wren was looking out over the edge again, but her face was turned up, toward the bright disc of the moon hanging over them. The light cast her face in shadows, high contrast, illuminating the dips and curves of her skin. She seemed to be made of ice and paper.
“He also said, ‘The line of life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.’ Personally, I’ve always thought of it as a bumpy downhill ride in a dilapidated old pickup that belongs to a yam-farmer. But I suppose either applies.” There was no expression on her face.
Jian considered this for a moment, finished his tea. He gave the upturned lid back to her, but when she went to pour more into it he put his hand on her arm.
“Let’s go home.”
Wren smiled.
Use the username resinthemes@gmail.com and the password 'themes' to sign in if you don't have an IMEEM account.
A Silver Pin-Head Vast
Jian looked down on the city spread out below him, streets lit up by passing cars, the pulse of late evening life pushing and pulling the citizens through their nightly dance like so many cells. This high up the call of the city was muted, honks and screeches and cries distant things, alternately snatched away or carried to his ears by the wind. Even here, on the roof of the tallest building, the city stretched as far as he could see, warehouses like blocks of rotten cheese, rows of cheap housing marching off into the night, the skyscrapers of the city center rising from the depths, modern monoliths with worshippers gathered at their feet.
He leaned his elbows on the wall and watched it all, his stare the impartial, passionless gaze of a statue, an effigy. Careless. Omniscient. Eternal.
The door swung open behind him, its protesting creak almost lost in the wind. He didn’t have to turn to know it was Wren, her footsteps on the gravel a barely audible crunch to mark her passage as she approached him. He didn’t have to look to know that there was a thermos dangling from one hand, hot tea inside it cooling slowly despite the insulation.
She didn’t pause for even a moment, finally coming to a stop beside him, her own elbows resting on the wall as she too looked out at the city. They were both silent.
“The moon is a silver pin-head vast, that holds the heaven's tent-hangings fast.”
Jian glanced at her from the corner of his eye, surprised that she’d said anything at all. That had the sound of a quotation.
Wren straightened up and opened the thermos, poured Ti Quan Yin Oolong in a fragrant, barely colored stream into the lid, held it out to him. “William R. Alger. A poet.”
Jian accepted the cup, holding it in both hands, watching steam rise from the surface only to be whisked away by the wind, indicator of the coming storm. Sipped it carefully, as one might taste a fine wine in a high-class restaurant – certainly not the way one would expect a man who’d just killed three others to drink anything, on a roof, in the wind, a city and an array of antennae the backdrop to his existence.
When he raised his eyes, Wren was looking out over the edge again, but her face was turned up, toward the bright disc of the moon hanging over them. The light cast her face in shadows, high contrast, illuminating the dips and curves of her skin. She seemed to be made of ice and paper.
“He also said, ‘The line of life is a ragged diagonal between duty and desire.’ Personally, I’ve always thought of it as a bumpy downhill ride in a dilapidated old pickup that belongs to a yam-farmer. But I suppose either applies.” There was no expression on her face.
Jian considered this for a moment, finished his tea. He gave the upturned lid back to her, but when she went to pour more into it he put his hand on her arm.
“Let’s go home.”
Wren smiled.
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no subject
Date: 2007-10-21 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-22 09:24 am (UTC)This is why hacks like Nick Sparks piss me off. He would have rambled on for 3 pages about how her skin was alabaster and her personality was cold and yet calculating or some B.S. I'm inexplicably glad Wren gets to be made of ice and paper. Sparks can like my scrotum. *hate that douche*
no subject
Date: 2007-10-22 01:03 pm (UTC)I believe in description, but also minimalism, in writing? ^_^;;
no subject
Date: 2007-10-22 06:52 pm (UTC)