There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.
— The Wasteland T.S. Eliot
Sharp crackling splits the howls of night. The sound of breaking china above the wind follows with an impact that rattles the windows.
You take the duvet cover up over your head and roll to face away.
The glass panel above the bedboard trembles, sending an uncomfortable seizing through to your shoulders. Your back curls, ready for the inevitable moment where the wind measures its force just right.
The soft squeak of mattress accompanies the gentle sounds of your cousin, tiny and elfish. Her whimpering had slowly ebbed away, the more into sleep she ascended. The little beast that had formerly threatened to keep most of the house from sleep, has gone blissfully over to dreamland. And you're… glad. Really.
Burying facedown into the mattress blocks out the pink nightlight dividing the beds. You pinch your molars a little too hard as chunks of ice skate noisily off of roof. A heavily gilded tree groans somewhere down the block and a moment of panic seizes your limbs when you realize there's no real way of knowing how close or far away that was.
Barely a tease of tension eases out when the tree comes down and the house doesn't quake. There's a lot of night left, and the placement of these beds beneath the widest of the house's windows, seems like a pretty poorly executed taunt.
When the door parts across the room, you mistake it for the wind. The rapid slapping of hardwood doesn't even register until the beats are at the final stretch to your bed. Gamey arms and knees flail over the edge, landing a little on you and a little off. You shove the spidery body halfheartedly, intent to knock him down, but those needle-thin fingers catch into the blankets and clasp tight.
Cody is four years younger. You both have the same eyes and nose, but Cody's hair is copper and coiled. And he is endless exhaustion. Gathering the blankets, you prepare room, bulking up over on the other edge of the bed. A low grunt splits in your throat as Cody piles in and spiders out, frigid fingers and toes swiping the backs of your legs. The mattress jumping when he flattens out on his back and tucks his head down below the blankets.
"Is Abigail sleeping?" He asks like his mouth is full, and takes your silence as confirmation. …"That's good."
You'd like to argue that nothing is 'good' about this situation at all. The room is freezing, the walls sound like they're about to split apart, you'll be waking up in the morning to the same loud, overcrowded house…
Cody is too young. He thinks they're on vacation. Three-year-old Abigail, all baby teeth and favorite blankets, even she knows better.
Their aunt, with her highly aggressive stage 3 osteoporosis, is responsible for keeping everyone upbeat. She puts smiles for the little ones, makes conscious efforts to spread that kindness onto you. She works tirelessly at the mess of what's been handed off to her, but she tries too hard. She tries to play mother in a house full of children who know they aren't hers.
You would've had it a lot easier, had they made themselves any easier to forget. …Especially her. …If only Cody couldn't remember a voice so sweet, couldn't painted such vivid outlines of his hero, bask her in backdrops of fire.
Cody presses into the hollow dividing your shoulders, and you have to override the impulse to shrug. More ice crackles off the shingles, pelting at the window pane. The winds are picking back up.
The sound of something dull and solid crunches around your back. You cast a look over your outside shoulder and stare.
Cody's outline; corkscrew copper locks flattened against the sheets, faint shocks of electric energy rippling as he buries his forehead. Shadows block the precise moment where he notices he's being watched. His tongue rolls around, making that same hollow sound against his teeth. Three colorful balls spill out of his sweaty grip.
…"You won't tell." He says, as if there's even the chance it could've been taken as a threat over the sweetness on his breath.
You exhale, flaring air into his face.
It's enough to satisfy him. Within a beat he's back to peeling the colorful foil away from his chocolate. With Cody fully enamored, you take the opportunity to pluck up one of the stray chocolates from where it had rolled in the sheets. Bringing it in, you take an edge of its fold between your teeth and peel back.
You listen to the storm. You listen to Cody and Abigail breathe when they're synchronized in sleep. You push around the chocolate with your tongue, considering whether or not it should be more of a concern that your little brother is so used to the rumblings of airships with bomb shells, but petrified of an ice storm.
The sweet, cheap taste of chocolate stays on your tongue. It lingers there, when the winds have died down and the trees are no linger coming so angrily at the windows.
You fit the crumpled ball of red and silver foil into one cheek, testing the capacity of your mouth.
…At one point or another, it starts tasting like honey.
.
.
A prevalent breeding of frost coats the ground.
There's a scarred look to anything that takes the beatings of nuclear war. Weeds that have the guile left in them to stand upright are gangly and frail. A thin veil of ice encroaches along the shallows of a partially drained lake, sitting on the south end of the camp.
You think this might be the first time you straight up, witness someone die for entertainment purposes. You're watching a man go wilfully to his death, and it's entirely acceptable to be sitting back about to split open a case of knock-off Colas on the bank.
No one could confidently tell you that the water was contaminated. CEOs rallied their troops away though, duly acknowledging that they are fully stocked with less than preservative shock troopers and air junkies. Men who're on first name terms with death and desensitized enough to be hardly paying attention the next time it comes around.
Taking a shallow guzzle of what tastes like sugar and pond water, you squat a little from your view, playing oblivious to the harrowing disagreement going on up the bank.
"We're going to get court-martialed." Says the voice that belongs to Lieutenant Lawter. She's been known to have such moments of clarity.
"We're not getting court-martialed." Benesi corrects. "He's getting court-martialed. We tried to stop him, that's the alibi."
In all fairness, they had tried.
Corporal Fletcher has been gazing sidelong at the half drained lake since day one. What did it matter that he has about a 4% body fat quota? He used to take plunges in his grandparents pond during late Januarys on Earth. Never once caught hypothermia. This was a thing that was going to happen. And with an unhealthy amount of credits on the line, he had the perfect incentive.
The next gust of air snatches your breath. Over a swallow, you notice the dewy helix of heat drifting away on the wind. One of them behind you inhales sharply, a zipper hiss and drop of boots to the ground.
"What's my time to beat?" Fletcher asks, stripping down to his skivvies.
"Three minutes." Benesi says. "Your dick is gonna fall off."
"Set the compensation on my trousers," Fletcher instructs, shifting on the balls of his feet.
"That's not how these types of bets work, asshole. I'm not handing over shit unless the time gets beat."
"Morning patrol starts in 20 minutes." Says Lawton, testily. "Nobody wins if we get caught. Alan show him the fucking slip."
Benesi is eventually stared down and saunters forward. He drags the corner of a napkin out of his pocket, sum written, initialled and approved the last evening, long before the rest of this plan was set in motion. Benesi pins the contract down with a rock on Fletcher's discarded uniform. By way of confirming his approval, Fletcher strips off his socks and stands barefoot in the frost.
"Watch the clock for me, buddy," He says, leaving a clap on your shoulder.
The glare projected over the ring of your soda is one of reproach but he doesn't bite. Swiping the flaxen bangs away from his eyes, Fletcher heads down the gulley.
He's in the water for almost five minutes, whether it's to be a jackass or because the cold has upset his perception of time.
He scrambles up the bank an off shade of blue, the veins in his legs pulsing inky and purple. Lucid enough to keep true to himself, he shakes his hair out over you and rubs his head on Benesi, grinning through trembling lips at their reactions or lack of as Lawton swoops in with a thermal blanket.
It's late in the evening before anyone notices his breathing has gone ragged.
Fletcher doesn't get hypothermia. He does get pneumonia.
Two weeks into the front lines, you've seen many people charge off to their deaths. Lawton's Eagle is shot down and burns up in reentry somewhere to the East over Harvest. You're thirty feet away when Benesi has an energy sword split through his torso. When Fletcher is finally released from bedrest and when you tell him that the napkin contract had expired, he shrugs.
"Wasn't going to use it anyway."
You wait for Corporal Fletcher's plane to blow up. You wait for the sizzle of heat that cauterizes through him while you're within spiting distance. You get neither of these, and little of everything else. Fletcher has a ridiculous sweet tooth and a spray of freckles targeting the left side of his face. He doesn't shy from explosions but if there's a crash in the breakfast tent he just about falls out of his seat.
He doesn't look all that confused the one one day you put a globe of chocolate wrapped green and gold in his palm.
"Where's yours?"
You give up on counting his starburst of freckles. "Already ate it."
.
.
"We all need to drink more…" Connecticut says.
She has the pen Carolina dropped on the floor when it ran out of ink balanced between middle and ring fingers. The light bounds off of it in streaks as it twirls around her knuckles. She matches the rhythm best with knives, but you still watch. The pen seems to be taking up an orbital rotation the longer you concentrate on it. Connie makes a yearning sound in her throat, sagging her spine into the couch. "Who's turn was it to bring booze?"
"I brought it last time." York utters, his face to the floor on the other side of the room. "Could you people try keeping your voices down? I'm gonna go ahead and sleep off a concussion…"
Carolina is on the couch with her back up against your ribs, a tablet in her lap. Her eyes are honed over a brightly colored layout of brain teasers and crosswords; things your grandfather would've looked over at breakfast because his grandfather used to.
Connie breathes through her lips. "Waste of an opportunity… How often do we get Maine to participate in movie nights?"
It plays significant weight to the ties corded between her and Carolina that the latter looks up from her puzzles. "Maine doesn't drink."
"He drinks Sprite and like he's got a problem." Connie contradicts, scooting away from the side of the couch.
Carolina hums, a concentrated crease billowing out between toxically bright eyes. She narrows them as Connie flips onto her stomach, kicking her bare feet within dangerous proximity of York's head. …"Is there not a book you could be reading?"
"None of you get it." Connie says unhappily. "That's the worst part. You don't even know what there is to miss."
A small huff passes through Carolina and you feel the accompanying clench and unclench between her shoulders. Her eyes scope in as she draws her finger across the screen, completing another function.
"That much fun, huh?" She says, like it's the start of a challenge, her eyes flicking at you through damp sheaves of copper.
You give what feels like an adequately disinterested grunt and shrug. The motion lifts and drops the hem of her sweatshirt.
"Huh. Color me mildly intrigued." She reviews, with the same flint of goading.
Connie takes the line by her teeth.
"There's something really…divine about Maine. He has his own gravitational pull." She says, all profound and serious. And then she blinks. "Tell her about your midget story."
"No."
"The Founders day parade then. What was that trombone player about?"
"Maine's sculpted ass is what he was about,"
Washington glides into the room with a cup of pudding in his hand and a spoon between his teeth. The epitome of an asshole, flipping the spoon around with his tongue, he pivots and drops to the floor to be next to Connie.
"So, this musician in the parade is really, really blowing hard and looking over at us. He keeps looking over at us. We don't get it right away, but then we do, because it's like, 90 something degrees out and we're all dripping but Maine is in this tight white undershirt and sweat– anyway, the guy's face starts to look pretty fucking flustered, like he's gonna pass out–"
You can reach him from here. You could have him by the throat in the time it would take for him to blink, and he doesn't even have the decency to give two shits.
"–ambulance shows up," Wash scoops another spoonful of vanilla cream. …"and when they're loading him in, thinking he had a heat stroke or something, one of the trumpet players comes running up to us in the crowd to give Maine the musician's number."
Connie, whether on a caffeine high or simply that delighted by his storytelling, rocks sideways on her knees, rolling her head over her shoulder. "Jesus, I almost –the trumpet player gave him a number too, remember that?"
"You remember what happened the last time we were leaving Tribute? We were heading out of the inn, going to take the trans up to the launch station,"
Wash and Connie together in any light, make for a formidable infusion. There's cohesion to the spark bursting across her face, and what's an almost obnoxious confidence blooming from his end. There's not a God that could've crafted the union of two better suited to execute fuckery. Goddamn beautiful.
Connie's ugly guffaw defiles that notion as soon as it comes, and you tap out when she launches into one of her revisions of further dramatics.
Occasionally, Carolina flits her eyes above the puzzle, like she's trying to hold herself up to being at least partially engaged. Her fingers carry a subtle quiver though, and before long she's gone back to solving, eyes darting cyclically through numbers and figures. She solves and puts things back together as though the problems in her lap weren't written to be played. For Carolina, anything can be a conquest. Her hair, glossy and wet from the showers, tickles your ear. You make to turn and an end of it slips into your mouth.
Strawberries.
You scoop up her ponytail and tuck it away in her hood.
—"turns out it was what?"
You glance down to the floor. Connie cocks an eyebrow for charm, unfolding her legs. "What was the thing that followed you from the inn, Maine?"
Carolina's hood whooshes up and the aroma of fresh berries goes from your tongue to your nose. Wash takes the spoon from his mouth and Connie leans forward.
…"A horse."
There's dead silence, the only sound Washington's spoon against his teeth.
Connie starts cackling.
.
.
White wades midway above your calves.
In and out of trees, shadows pass as silhouettes, some of them more convincing than others. The itch in your trachea moves like a hot mouthful of cider, only backwards. You swallow up, the ball scratching its way along.
Keep moving. They will not catch you.
You won't ask who 'they' is. The answer could very well be one of the many you would much rather avoid.
It's quiet. The planet and all her sights withholding a breath. Crystallized plains of white seem like they could be stretched onward to the very edge of the world.
No falling behind…
They left you here, didn't they? They left you to become this spec of heat in the dark.
Alone now, only not quite.
The way each step sinks accommodates another wake of dread. Whatever ones you have left, they're trying to lose you in the white.
They've tried to bury you.
Honey and saccharine wouldn't let them.
Honey and saccharine have hands on either side of you pushing–notrightnotright, running you, to make it to what's up ahead. …A warmth in red rushes back. Red, either in corkscrews or silk, the names of nuisances, freckles on faces, their names in the fire—
"With you." Sigma ushers, and his is a warmth of tenderness, fluctuating pride. "All of us, we are with you."
Fresh snow starts to fall and it's you but not you that stretches your tongue out to a bundled clump of flakes…tasting nothing.
/
end.
/
Written for rvb secret santa 2016.
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All are appreciated