Post by dulcinea on Jan 3, 2003 13:18:06 GMT -5
thanks for showing interest! i'm currently working on becoming a writer, so feedback is my bread and butter right now. this is just something that popped into my head and demanded to be spit out.
big warnings - swearing, which i'm sure the board will censor, violence, a bit of psychological angst (but of course).
genesis.
Which was it to be tonight, he wondered?
He had done something wrong, that much was plain - the slammed doors, the weighty exhalations like tiny punches to the gut, the looks full of vitriolic hatred - he knew the signs by now. Although it surprised him somewhat that they remained so distinct; he heard them nearly every day, after all.
When had the last day been when he had not done something wrong? It was hard to say, considering everything he did was wrong: if he thingyed his head too far to one side when spoken to, it was impertinence; if his emerald eyes lingered too long, he was being smart; each little crime coming with its own little punishment.
But which tonight?
He curled his body inward, trying to make himself as small as possible. Maybe, he thought wildly, he could turn himself competely inside out and disappear, vanish into the steel cot with its foul mattress and single cotton sheet, leave this cramped room full of the sticky air exhaled in snuffling breaths from the mouths of the other children.
The other children.
They were rarely beaten, and never with the ferocity that he was. Only the most heinous of their crimes were punished with starvation, while his last meal had been over three days ago. The breakfast table was like an ocean of smug smiles, gleefully hateful eyes peering over massive bowls of porridge while he tried to bury his gaze in his own, empty bowl.
That was when he felt it most acutely. He imagined it as electricity coursing through a power wire, or water bursting over a broken dam - a violent surge of something that made his vision blur and his ears ring and his fists clench at his side and he was so sure that if he only looked up he could wipe out every last one of them with just his eyes he was so so so....
Sometimes something bizarre would happen, like the time one of the bowls shattered and a shard lodged itself in one of their eyes. That night’s little punishment taught him a very valuable lesson indeed - control. He could not show them anything of what was happening inside him, even if he did not understand it himself.
He had to become a sheet of pure white paper. An empty bowl.
Which, of course, only made them more furious, and the beatings more severe. But he found that they were strengthening him now, each blow, each missed meal, solidifying his resolve. They lashed him until his skin was pulpy and weak, but inside he remained inanimate. Cold as ice. Impervious.
The door slowly slid open, and he unconciously drew his legs closer to his chest, willow-thin body curved into a perfect circle. I am not here. I am not here. You do not see me. I am not here.
“Brat.”
big warnings - swearing, which i'm sure the board will censor, violence, a bit of psychological angst (but of course).
genesis.
Which was it to be tonight, he wondered?
He had done something wrong, that much was plain - the slammed doors, the weighty exhalations like tiny punches to the gut, the looks full of vitriolic hatred - he knew the signs by now. Although it surprised him somewhat that they remained so distinct; he heard them nearly every day, after all.
When had the last day been when he had not done something wrong? It was hard to say, considering everything he did was wrong: if he thingyed his head too far to one side when spoken to, it was impertinence; if his emerald eyes lingered too long, he was being smart; each little crime coming with its own little punishment.
But which tonight?
He curled his body inward, trying to make himself as small as possible. Maybe, he thought wildly, he could turn himself competely inside out and disappear, vanish into the steel cot with its foul mattress and single cotton sheet, leave this cramped room full of the sticky air exhaled in snuffling breaths from the mouths of the other children.
The other children.
They were rarely beaten, and never with the ferocity that he was. Only the most heinous of their crimes were punished with starvation, while his last meal had been over three days ago. The breakfast table was like an ocean of smug smiles, gleefully hateful eyes peering over massive bowls of porridge while he tried to bury his gaze in his own, empty bowl.
That was when he felt it most acutely. He imagined it as electricity coursing through a power wire, or water bursting over a broken dam - a violent surge of something that made his vision blur and his ears ring and his fists clench at his side and he was so sure that if he only looked up he could wipe out every last one of them with just his eyes he was so so so....
Sometimes something bizarre would happen, like the time one of the bowls shattered and a shard lodged itself in one of their eyes. That night’s little punishment taught him a very valuable lesson indeed - control. He could not show them anything of what was happening inside him, even if he did not understand it himself.
He had to become a sheet of pure white paper. An empty bowl.
Which, of course, only made them more furious, and the beatings more severe. But he found that they were strengthening him now, each blow, each missed meal, solidifying his resolve. They lashed him until his skin was pulpy and weak, but inside he remained inanimate. Cold as ice. Impervious.
The door slowly slid open, and he unconciously drew his legs closer to his chest, willow-thin body curved into a perfect circle. I am not here. I am not here. You do not see me. I am not here.
“Brat.”
