A sequel to the film. Sweet Pea returns home, where she finds romance and tragedy.
Rated: M (R)
Sweet Pea and company created by Zack Snyder and Steve Shibuya. The other characters, situations and setting in this fic are mine. Everything is fictitious.
Prefatory remarks:
This fic was inspired as much by Sinéad Lohan's haunting music as by the film Sucker Punch. I wrote it by listening to Sinéad, writing, listening to Sinéad, writing. A special thanks to Famaniel for turning me on to Sinéad about ten months ago. I am still enchanted. Enchanted is the right word. Bewitched is another. Her songs are mostly about loss and longing - isn't everything about that? My fic is also about loss and longing. Sinéad only made two albums and a couple of singles about twenty years ago, but if you are fortunate enough to know her music, you might notice more than a few nods to her in my fic. I understand that she has lived for a longtime in an idyllic Irish village with her family, and yet there are those thirty songs of loss and longing... Many years ago, she blessed us with her numinous voice! People with two good ears should listen!
So, here's chapter one of my fic. I'll revise and post subsequent chapters as soon as I can.
What Can Never Be a fic by Diablo Priest.
"In my grief I fell into your heart." -Sinéad Lohan.
Chap. 1
I Could Be Almost All the Way Home.
Her guardian angel took Sweet Pea all the way to Fort Wayne. She had no money, so he paid for her meals along the way too. Grace. It is sometimes granted to sinners.
Sweet Pea had been born in a small farming community called Jackson's Leap. The place was named for the alleged heroic feat of the first White settler, Enoch Jackson, who supposedly escaped from a band of Miami braves in 1793 by jumping over the gorge south of what became the village. Jackson was celebrated as a courageous Indian fighter like Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, or the more famous Jackson, Andrew; in reality, Enoch massacred mostly women, children, and old men at a Miami settlement in 1794. For winning this "battle," General Wayne, the namesake of Fort Wayne, gave him a medal, which was now proudly displayed in a glass case in the town's library. The denizens of the town were indoctrinated in the belief of Jackson's righteousness. It was a simple narrative that was regarded as holy: Kill what is different in the name of your god. For surely, what is different is the work of the Devil. Among these high-minded people, the descendants of self-reliant pioneers, Sweet Pea had been raised.
It was a hot, dusty day near the middle of July, when Sweet Pea stepped off the bus in her hometown, 42 miles outside Fort Wayne. A hot breeze blew the dust stirred up by the bus down the deserted street. It looked like a scene from a John Ford Western. The thought of talking with anyone before she saw her folks seemed sacrilegious to her; and so she set off for the farm on foot at once. It was a long walk, nearly five miles; but like a true wayfarer, she rested twice under the shade of comforting trees.
Before Sweet Pea reached the old farmhouse, she could see that it needed to be painted, the barn too. The lilac bush in the southeast corner of the yard was dead, had been so for a long time she reckoned. The post of the RFD box was leaning precariously. It was past milking time; her parents would be eating their supper. She walked to the backdoor amidst a dozen chickens scratching the ground. When Sweet Pea walked in the door, as if she had just been outside doing chores, her mother looked as if she had seen a ghost, her expression momentarily frozen in disbelief. Her normally stoic father broke the spell by shouting:
"Sweet Pea!" And he jumped up, sending his chair crashing to the floor with a loud bang.
Her parents hugged and kissed her. She hugged and kissed them back. The old woman kept pinching her cheeks, as if she were a child.
Their joy was transient. Sweet Pea followed her mother's gaze to the door. Sweet Pea knew that the old woman was expecting her younger daughter to come through the doorway. Rocket. Jenny.
"You had better sit down, Ma," Sweet Pea said.
Her father solicitously held the chair for his wife.
"Rocket isn't coming back," Sweet Pea said softly. The words were simple, but came out with great difficulty. "She will never be coming back."
The old woman's comprehension stalled. And when the meaning of Sweet Pea's words was understood, the old woman piteously wailed:
"My baby!"
The cry hit Sweet Pea like the kick of a mule, and she staggered forward to brace herself with the wooden table.
"No, no, no! My baby!"
Her father gazed at the chair in which Rocket used to sit. He too did not understand Sweet Pea's words at first. But as his wife cried, he went to Rocket's chair and locked his arms around it as if embracing his lost daughter.
"Dear Jenny," he sighed. "Dear God." His voice was frail, and it shocked Sweet Pea to hear the vulnerability infused in it. That her father was weak mortal flesh frightened her.
Sweet Pea gazed at her mother then her father, both afflicted with deep sorrow. Surely, she was a monster to bring such appalling news to her parents. A monster. How evil a homecoming. When Rocket ran away from home, there had always been hope, hope that she would return. When Rocket died, hope also died. Without that hope, home would never be the same. It would be more akin to a home without a hearth. Sweet Pea had brought the black news, the news that hope was dead. And now the promise that Sweet Pea had made to Rocket to tell their mother that Rocket loved her, seemed empty and futile. What of love is left after death?
The farm was beautiful in mid-summer, the fields were filled with life. Yet, to be in tune with the numinous cycle of nature was a curse. The work was ceaseless - the same as digging a hole in dry sand. The cows had to be milked twice a day, every single day of the year; the hay had to be harvested, the straw had to be harvested, and a hundred other things had to be done. Rocket was gone, but nothing changed. Even so, all was different. Rocket was gone.
The next day at first light, as if she had never been away, Sweet Pea fed the chickens, while the eastern sky effloresced from gray to honey. A small black kitten hobbled among the chickens on its way to the barn, where the cows where being milked. Sweet Pea's mother said that Mrs. Litz had seen some boys throw the cat from a moving car. She had fed it at her place until her dog had chased it away. The cat had been injured when it hit the ground, or perhaps had been born with a defect, one of its eyes was sunken. It lived under the back steps now; and with the other stay cats, Sweet Pea's father gave it cow's milk twice a day.
Sweet Pea watched the kitten awkwardly shuffle towards the barn. The cat would never be a mouser, and Sweet Pea knew that her father would complain about it, complain about feeding it twice a day. He would resent that little cat for those drops of milk that really belonged to God. Was it the farm-life that had hardened her father, Sweet Pea wondered, the never-ending toil, the constant worrying about the weather and about paying the bank, and the haggling over credit at the feed store. And Sweet Pea wondered about what kind of boys would throw a defenseless kitten from a moving car. Would they lead normal lives? Would they be the kind of men that patronized Blue's brothel? Would they be like the Cook and rape Rocket? Stab Rocket? Murder Rocket? Murder her sister. Would they bombard trench-works over and over and over, until two hundred thousand men had disappeared? Would they gas millions more? Would they let a man strangle at the end of a rope for a half-hour in the name of justice? Would they drop a bomb, destroy two entire cities filled with people, and live normal lives?
The sun was up now. The rooster crowing loudly, calling all to witness God's glory. Her mother was calling Sweet Pea to breakfast. And on it went for a week, maybe two. Or maybe fifty-two.
[contd]