Re: MORITURI TE SALUTANT!! [S!4]
10-10-2012, 11:38 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by Agent1022.
Sam was still naked.
No, no. There was his coat. It was draped over him like a blanket as he lay there - where? A black expanse, interspersed with seams, screws, not inconsiderable dust...
Slowly, he rose to hands and knees. A theatrette loomed away around him. He felt, for some reason, very small. The black walls seemed so far away. Hands, scrabbling, clutched for the coat, wrapping it around him, a tenuous link to his reality, the last piece of his identity. Yes. Definitively the last piece. He unclenched his hand and stared at the scrap of corduroy there, felt again the timeless screech as it was torn away with the Haruspex’s new interference. His coat was all he had. He put that in the center of his mind.
His thoughts came in broken, hazardous blocks. cleaved from a consciousness glacial. He drew the coat around him. He realized it was cold, there in the black room with the black curtains. It was not a living cold.
The theatrette was one of those rooms, born of theater, that the audience never saw. In the minds of those naive to theater, actors rehearsed onstage, in front of ten thousand empty seats - but the truth was here: up until the last months before production, actors turned a small, black-painted room into every setting and every scene. With each practiced line, they nurtured a performance into existence. Theatrettes were the forgotten nurseries of the play.
Just as Sam drew a shaking hand to herself now, and with a few startled grabs realized that she was still female. But no longer the lean, tan figure of Sir Gregory. This frame was frail. Unused. Or - the thought hit her with the force of a freight train - used
“Mish - Mish, what the fuck?”
“I got these out of Ash’s gym locker. You know - Ash, we have Civics with her, the one with those amazing red eyes-”
“She’s a shifter, Mish, they can look like anything they want. And I’m not wearing her underwear, so you can just stuff these into whatever masturbation stash you’re using today.”
“Don’t talk about her like that!”
“Fuck! Fuck, Mish, what - what the hell is wrong with you? Did someone slip you something, you fucking moron?”
“You don’t understand, Sam! She’d never give me the time of day! I-I just want to hear her say that she loves me...”
“And you want me to, what, to fucking be her? You are a sick, sick son of a bitch - I’m leaving. We’re through, Mish. And I’m taking these - with me, and I’m taking them back to their rightful- what are you- get out of my way, Mish-”
“You’re not leaving until you put them on, and Ashley Hayden tells me she loves me.”
“Mish. Stop kidding around. Unlock the fucking door. We’re done.”
“No, we’re not! And you’re not leaving!”
“Aahhh!”
“Now put fucking put them on! ...Good. Good girl.”
“F-fuck you, Mish. Fuck you so-*ick!* <font color="#FF0000">Fuck!”
“Ohh. You sound like her.”
“Back off, y-you fucking perv!”
“Look at me - look at me!”
“Get your fucking hands off of me! Let go! Let-gahhhh!”
“Your eyes, Ashley. You have the most beautiful eyes.”
“I’m not-! Mish! N-no!”
“They’re like little rubies.”
“Mish!”
“Ashley...I love you, Ashley. I’ve always loved you.”
“Please, please Mish, please no...
“I’ve wanted you to see me for so long, Ashley.”
“No, Mish no, stop, please stop-”
“I’ve wanted to have you. Since the moment I met you.”
“Stop! Please don’t, Mish! Mish! Stop! Stop!
She drew the coat in tighter around her. It muffled the memory, made it farther away, made it not hers anymore. It made it so she could care about the world again.
For an eternity she lay on her side and stared at a little crater in the dust. A tear glistened in the hollow center, gleamed in the warm orange light of the oil-lamps above her. Somewhere nearby, someone was playing a piano. And singing, in a pleasant tenor.
“Passo dopo passo, abbiamo resistere alle tempeste della vita;
la nostra forza ci sostiene e ci porta domani...”
The doors of the theatrette were open. Light streamed into the black. Slowly, she rose, gathering the too-large coat around her; step after step, she strode towards the song.
“Non importa il nostro male, se ne vanno con il sorgere del sole -”
The music stopped. There was the sound of a slamming piano lid, some eloquent cursing, and a brief, gaunt silhouette swept by the rectangle of the doorway. She must have called out. The figure turned. It was coming, it was coming, it was coming; she ran. But there was nowhere to go. The beginnings of a scream forced its way up her throat-
The figure was a few steps away when it stopped, hands raised in a clear sign of neutrality. The tenor voice, tinged with the hint of issued once more from the folds of its hood and cloak. “Ma belle, mia cara! That will not save you.”
“W-what?! What?!” Her eyes darted between looking about for a weapon, anything, and trying to look into the darkness under the hood.
The owner of the voice suddenly seemed to realize this, and pushed back the hood to reveal a young Mediterranean face framed in curly brown hair. “No, no, not like that, bambina. Here we are in the opera, see? A scream is not out of place.”
This was not comforting. He seemed to sense this. “My name is Lorenzo Gagliardi.” He waited. She stared. ”What is yours?”
She drew herself together ever tighter, gaze travelling over the black, hooded cloak.
“Ah. Ah, well, I see you wonder about the cloak? I always wear this when I am rehearsing. Rehearsing the aria I will sing to Angela, my love. It would not feel right if I did not wear the cloak she gave me on our first meeting, so long ago, in a trench in sweet Napoli.”
He stopped, and shrugged off the cloak to reveal a tatty soldier’s uniform underneath. She relaxed - an infinitesimal amount, but definitively there for his careful gaze. A relieved smile leapt across his face, brightening up his features so that they seemed to light the room far better than the oil lamps.
“You cannot stay here forever, mia cara.” Delicately, he bundled up the cloak and cradled it in his arms, then gave her another appraising look. “You are in bad shape, I can see - not on the outside, bambina, but on the inside you are very hurt. I have seen it many times on the battlefield: many, many amicos calling for padre, madre, la divinita in the trenches, and they come out still calling in their heads.” He put a hand out slowly, letting it hang in the space between them. “Always calling, always remembering gunfire and bad food and the illness. But then you take away the guns, and you give them good food and wine, and let them have medicine, and they stop hearing the bullets and stop feeling like small children in a grown-up world.”
She stared at the hand a while. She did not take it. But something in his earnestness struck him, and she realized he could not possibly be over nineteen. Nineteen and a soldier. Small children in a grown-up world, indeed.
She heard her voice say, stronger than she had intended: “Lead the way. And you go first.”
There came that smile again, filling that face with delight. “Ah! Mia gattina, you can speak! Very well!” They stepped from the darkness of the theatrette into the warm, bronzed wood of the hallway, and in a moment it seemed as if some oppressive burden in that space had been lifted from her. She tried to remember what she’d been thinking about, but the memory slid between the slipping gears of her mind and into that space where they all seemed to be remnants of a million half-worn identities, mixing into an unguentary blob of strange, nonsensical memories. She drew the coat tighter around herself. There were torn stitches in the sleeves where she’d been gripping them.
“You must meet my family! We have lived here for many years, the Gagliardis; we, as Italians, are known for our hospitality! And perhaps you can tell us your story? We are very good at stories...”</font>
Sam was still naked.
No, no. There was his coat. It was draped over him like a blanket as he lay there - where? A black expanse, interspersed with seams, screws, not inconsiderable dust...
Slowly, he rose to hands and knees. A theatrette loomed away around him. He felt, for some reason, very small. The black walls seemed so far away. Hands, scrabbling, clutched for the coat, wrapping it around him, a tenuous link to his reality, the last piece of his identity. Yes. Definitively the last piece. He unclenched his hand and stared at the scrap of corduroy there, felt again the timeless screech as it was torn away with the Haruspex’s new interference. His coat was all he had. He put that in the center of his mind.
His thoughts came in broken, hazardous blocks. cleaved from a consciousness glacial. He drew the coat around him. He realized it was cold, there in the black room with the black curtains. It was not a living cold.
The theatrette was one of those rooms, born of theater, that the audience never saw. In the minds of those naive to theater, actors rehearsed onstage, in front of ten thousand empty seats - but the truth was here: up until the last months before production, actors turned a small, black-painted room into every setting and every scene. With each practiced line, they nurtured a performance into existence. Theatrettes were the forgotten nurseries of the play.
Just as Sam drew a shaking hand to herself now, and with a few startled grabs realized that she was still female. But no longer the lean, tan figure of Sir Gregory. This frame was frail. Unused. Or - the thought hit her with the force of a freight train - used
“Mish - Mish, what the fuck?”
“I got these out of Ash’s gym locker. You know - Ash, we have Civics with her, the one with those amazing red eyes-”
“She’s a shifter, Mish, they can look like anything they want. And I’m not wearing her underwear, so you can just stuff these into whatever masturbation stash you’re using today.”
“Don’t talk about her like that!”
“Fuck! Fuck, Mish, what - what the hell is wrong with you? Did someone slip you something, you fucking moron?”
“You don’t understand, Sam! She’d never give me the time of day! I-I just want to hear her say that she loves me...”
“And you want me to, what, to fucking be her? You are a sick, sick son of a bitch - I’m leaving. We’re through, Mish. And I’m taking these - with me, and I’m taking them back to their rightful- what are you- get out of my way, Mish-”
“You’re not leaving until you put them on, and Ashley Hayden tells me she loves me.”
“Mish. Stop kidding around. Unlock the fucking door. We’re done.”
“No, we’re not! And you’re not leaving!”
“Aahhh!”
“Now put fucking put them on! ...Good. Good girl.”
“F-fuck you, Mish. Fuck you so-*ick!* <font color="#FF0000">Fuck!”
“Ohh. You sound like her.”
“Back off, y-you fucking perv!”
“Look at me - look at me!”
“Get your fucking hands off of me! Let go! Let-gahhhh!”
“Your eyes, Ashley. You have the most beautiful eyes.”
“I’m not-! Mish! N-no!”
“They’re like little rubies.”
“Mish!”
“Ashley...I love you, Ashley. I’ve always loved you.”
“Please, please Mish, please no...
“I’ve wanted you to see me for so long, Ashley.”
“No, Mish no, stop, please stop-”
“I’ve wanted to have you. Since the moment I met you.”
“Stop! Please don’t, Mish! Mish! Stop! Stop!
She drew the coat in tighter around her. It muffled the memory, made it farther away, made it not hers anymore. It made it so she could care about the world again.
For an eternity she lay on her side and stared at a little crater in the dust. A tear glistened in the hollow center, gleamed in the warm orange light of the oil-lamps above her. Somewhere nearby, someone was playing a piano. And singing, in a pleasant tenor.
“Passo dopo passo, abbiamo resistere alle tempeste della vita;
la nostra forza ci sostiene e ci porta domani...”
The doors of the theatrette were open. Light streamed into the black. Slowly, she rose, gathering the too-large coat around her; step after step, she strode towards the song.
“Non importa il nostro male, se ne vanno con il sorgere del sole -”
The music stopped. There was the sound of a slamming piano lid, some eloquent cursing, and a brief, gaunt silhouette swept by the rectangle of the doorway. She must have called out. The figure turned. It was coming, it was coming, it was coming; she ran. But there was nowhere to go. The beginnings of a scream forced its way up her throat-
The figure was a few steps away when it stopped, hands raised in a clear sign of neutrality. The tenor voice, tinged with the hint of issued once more from the folds of its hood and cloak. “Ma belle, mia cara! That will not save you.”
“W-what?! What?!” Her eyes darted between looking about for a weapon, anything, and trying to look into the darkness under the hood.
The owner of the voice suddenly seemed to realize this, and pushed back the hood to reveal a young Mediterranean face framed in curly brown hair. “No, no, not like that, bambina. Here we are in the opera, see? A scream is not out of place.”
This was not comforting. He seemed to sense this. “My name is Lorenzo Gagliardi.” He waited. She stared. ”What is yours?”
She drew herself together ever tighter, gaze travelling over the black, hooded cloak.
“Ah. Ah, well, I see you wonder about the cloak? I always wear this when I am rehearsing. Rehearsing the aria I will sing to Angela, my love. It would not feel right if I did not wear the cloak she gave me on our first meeting, so long ago, in a trench in sweet Napoli.”
He stopped, and shrugged off the cloak to reveal a tatty soldier’s uniform underneath. She relaxed - an infinitesimal amount, but definitively there for his careful gaze. A relieved smile leapt across his face, brightening up his features so that they seemed to light the room far better than the oil lamps.
“You cannot stay here forever, mia cara.” Delicately, he bundled up the cloak and cradled it in his arms, then gave her another appraising look. “You are in bad shape, I can see - not on the outside, bambina, but on the inside you are very hurt. I have seen it many times on the battlefield: many, many amicos calling for padre, madre, la divinita in the trenches, and they come out still calling in their heads.” He put a hand out slowly, letting it hang in the space between them. “Always calling, always remembering gunfire and bad food and the illness. But then you take away the guns, and you give them good food and wine, and let them have medicine, and they stop hearing the bullets and stop feeling like small children in a grown-up world.”
She stared at the hand a while. She did not take it. But something in his earnestness struck him, and she realized he could not possibly be over nineteen. Nineteen and a soldier. Small children in a grown-up world, indeed.
She heard her voice say, stronger than she had intended: “Lead the way. And you go first.”
There came that smile again, filling that face with delight. “Ah! Mia gattina, you can speak! Very well!” They stepped from the darkness of the theatrette into the warm, bronzed wood of the hallway, and in a moment it seemed as if some oppressive burden in that space had been lifted from her. She tried to remember what she’d been thinking about, but the memory slid between the slipping gears of her mind and into that space where they all seemed to be remnants of a million half-worn identities, mixing into an unguentary blob of strange, nonsensical memories. She drew the coat tighter around herself. There were torn stitches in the sleeves where she’d been gripping them.
“You must meet my family! We have lived here for many years, the Gagliardis; we, as Italians, are known for our hospitality! And perhaps you can tell us your story? We are very good at stories...”</font>
----
So very British / But then again | People are machines Machines are people | Oh hai there | There's no time
----
Superhero 1920s noir | Multigenre Half-Life | Changing the future | Command line interface
Tu ventire felix? | Clockwork for eternity | Explosions in spacetime