The Headless Aftermath and Other Rats in the Sun
A Piece of Prose: being transmitted from my witless brain to your sore, computer eyes.
Phoenix Down the Magnificent
"It's not the way, that you say it, when you do those things to me,
it's more the way that you mean it, when you tell me what you see, and when you stop and think about it, you won't believe it's true- that all the love you've been giving, has all been meant for you." (The Moody Blues- from the song, "Question," off the album, "This is the Moody Blues."
"I can't believe I've fucking ran into you. You know? I've wanted a fucking HUGE
piece of you since the temple. You know what HELL I've gone through? HUH!"
Tseng shoved Reeve harshly. Tseng smelt of cheap wine and soiled rags, of unwashed skin and garbage dumps. He wore a battered green jacket that smelt of urine and sweat. Around his thin, pale jaw hung a five year old black beard battered in age and gray hair.
"LAY OFF, Tseng!" Part of Reeve wanted to throw several pieces of gil at him and run- the other part of Reeve- the hero- wanted to grab his violently shaking, thin hands and scream some sense into him.
"You wanna know what happened to me since the temple of the fucking Ancients, eh, Reeve?! Yeah, I BET you do! Your such a fucking HERO now. You know what you are!? Huh?? You're a double crossing ASSHOLE, Reeve! You, and your fucking HERO friends, including that bitch, Aeris, LEFT me to DIE back there! I was still alive, Reeve, when the temple collapsed, eh? YEAH I WAS!"
"Get your hands off me, Tseng!"
"You want to know how I escaped!?" Tseng let go of Reeve's shirt collar, and backed down. His eyes were bulging and bloodshot. His cheekbones were jagged and sharp. His hair was much, much longer than it used to be- but most of it was matted and filthy.
"I CRAWLED OUT of the collapsing temple! I was BLEEDING! Fuck, there was... there was... so... much BLOOD." Tseng covered his face in his frail hands. "I laid in the forest for days. I... thought that I was going to DIE. And... I..." Tseng calmed himself slowly. Reeve stood and listened, trying not to gag on Tseng's smell.
"I couldn't go back to Shin-Ra, Reeve. I was as good as a dead man. I- I had no place... to go. No one would fix my arm." Tseng's bright, pink eyes and black pupils swelled in tears. "My arm... sniff... still... doesn't work. The nerves are too badly damaged. Fuck, Reeve, I used to be a big shot like you. Sniff. And.. and look at you, you still work for the shit-hole. What a fucking asshole you are. Bastard. Fucking selfish bastard. You really are Satan, Reeve Sith. Then, the Turks were disbanded, and the only person who gave a SHIT about me in the past years and actually tried finding me was Elena."
"How is she?" Reeve whispered. He didn't know what to say.
"How the FUCK do you THINK she is?! The Turks was all she had, Shin-Ra was all she HAD! Shin-Ra was all the Turks ever had! We gave up or lives, and our families, to become TURKS. Fuck..." Tseng coughed. "I couldn't get a job with my arm and all. She's a waitress. Or a secretary, I don't know. She works. We went out for a while. Then, we broke up and stopped talking. She even took care of me."
"How's Reno and Rude?"
"Got a cigarette?"
"No, I don't smoke." Reeve suddenly felt a wave of sympathy and guilt over him. Tseng wasn't a bad guy, not like the rest of the Turks. He always had a heart, and it left him cold and desolate as a homeless guy on the streets of lower Midgar.
"Reno is fine. He always finds a way to... manage. Rude drinks himself stupid and works as a Taxi driver. Fucking bastard. He deserves every hardship he gets. Reno... he's just a kid, Reeve.... He's just a kid."
Tseng began to walk back into the shadows of the ally way. Reeve followed him. "I can't believe I ran into you..." Tseng went on in a broken voice, "and the first thing I did WASN'T grabbing a stake knife and slitting your throat and cutting out every organ in your body and forced you to eat your own shit."
"It wasn't my fault, Tseng." Reeve added weakly.
"Then, why DIDN'T you go back for me, Reeve? I've wanted to ask you that for like, five or six fucking-"
"There wasn't enough time, Tseng, ok, I'm sorry. If you want me to make it up for with money, that's fine. I got it."
"Money won't give me back my arm." Tseng said sullenly as they reached the end of the ally way.
"Sephiroth took that from you, NOT ME, Tseng."
"I...I..." The anger melted from his pall, sick face. The gray and bruise colored bags under his eyes made his face seem like a sunken, bearded, sad, skull. "I know, Reeve. Listen, I got to tell you something." Tseng coughed. Past the shadows, and around the corner, the ally way opened up to a small, cold and dirty junk yard.
There were dozens of homeless people milling about, gathered around a garbage fire, and talking softy.
Some of them pushed bent grocery carts filled with tin cans and forgotten clothes. Others leaned against the brick wall that caged them in- simply resting.
"See, you ass fucker," Tseng whispered to Reeve, "Because of you, I live here now, instead of my flat in Costa del Sol."
He swallowed when a old and crumpled man turned, and let his eyes bore into Reeve's well kept face.
He definitely felt out of place there.
"Taste of reality, eh?"
"What did you have to tell me?" Reeve asked as Tseng approached the others huddled around a flaming, rusted, trash can.
"Oh. That. A bit of information that doesn't do me any good, but may do you some."
"Yeah, so, what is it?"
"It doesn't come free. Ass-wipe." Tseng began to warm his thin hands above the fire.
Reeve waited, and shifted his weight under the heavy stares of the homeless folk- who- with their eyes- studied and hungered for his Italian suit and tiny cell phone.
Tseng watched him like a writhing worm.
"You... wanna know the price?" He grimaced like a fox as he stroked his furry beard.
"Then take me in."
"What?" Reeve took a step back into the gaping mouth of the ally way.
"Yeah. Clean me up, give me money and a place to stay for a while. Fuck, look at me, Reeve, I'm a business man and a damn good one, you know what. I'm not staying in this shit-hole forever. I'm not like these guys."
Some of the folk near him- eyed Tseng wearily. They were used to harsh, forked tongues flickering un-kind words near their proximity. They learned to never pay attention.
Besides, Tseng would be the first of their kind to talk of, 'getting out of the life style.' One of them chuckled dirtily.
"Fine." Reeve hissed. "But, tell me what your secret is, though, first."
"Nope. Let me shower, first. I've almost forgot the feel of hot water." Tseng approached Reeve. Reeve nodded.
Together, they left the ally way.
~
There was a electronic chime. "We will be reaching our- uh- destination of Costa del Sol in under three hours. If you would sit patiently, folks, and enjoy the scenery. And a reminder, there is uh- no smoking on this ride. Thanks uh- again for choosing the Shin-Ra mass transit system."
Tifa sat back, and clutched her carry on. She sat beside the window- but nobody else.
She un-zipped her brown backpack, and pulled out a photograph.
It was of her, Barret, and Marlene when she was six.
Barret had Marlene wrapped up in his tree-trunk arms.
Tifa was leaning on Barret as if they had been married for years.
But they hadn't; it was only a photograph.
Then, she leaned her head against the window-glass, and looked up into the Clouds.
~
"VIIIIINNNNNCCCEEEE!!! PASS me a Hi-Potion!!!" Yuffie screeched.
"I can HEAR you. Don't call me Vince." Vincent replied as he re-loaded his pistol and aimed it at the beast.
The moment after he fired, (he braced himself for the kickback, the noise, and the smoke, as well as the green-blood and hiss of the monster,) he tossed Yuffie a Hi-Potion.
Yuffie caught the potion, then dived into the beast with a mighty stroke of her bladed weapon.
A bloody swipe.
A high pitched yelp.
The beast collapsed.
And... it smelt immediately.
Vincent un-loaded his gun, and safely put it into it's holster. He approached the huge, orange, bloody beast, and tapped it with his thin foot.
"What the heck was it?" He asked as he starred down it's mangled, bulky body.
It smelt of jasmine and sewers.
"I donno. Cid in the morning?" Yuffie chuckled as she poked it with a stick.
Vincent glared at her with flaming ice.
"Don't make fun of him."
"Why? Is he your boyfriend, or something?" She tossed the stick aside and began to walk away.
"No!" Vincent bit at her with his voice. As he turned his back, the creatures dead flesh disintegrated into the grass with a slippery hiss and waving mist.
"Look. Speaking of your boyfriend, I guess we were heading in the right direction all long. There is Rocket Town ahead." Yuffie pointed to the horizon with a scratched and dirty finger.
"I'm... exhausted. I don't care how close we are, I'm not moving another foot."
Yuffie wordlessly agreed.
A Piece of Prose: being transmitted from my witless brain to your sore, computer eyes.
Phoenix Down the Magnificent
"It's not the way, that you say it, when you do those things to me,
it's more the way that you mean it, when you tell me what you see, and when you stop and think about it, you won't believe it's true- that all the love you've been giving, has all been meant for you." (The Moody Blues- from the song, "Question," off the album, "This is the Moody Blues."
"I can't believe I've fucking ran into you. You know? I've wanted a fucking HUGE
piece of you since the temple. You know what HELL I've gone through? HUH!"
Tseng shoved Reeve harshly. Tseng smelt of cheap wine and soiled rags, of unwashed skin and garbage dumps. He wore a battered green jacket that smelt of urine and sweat. Around his thin, pale jaw hung a five year old black beard battered in age and gray hair.
"LAY OFF, Tseng!" Part of Reeve wanted to throw several pieces of gil at him and run- the other part of Reeve- the hero- wanted to grab his violently shaking, thin hands and scream some sense into him.
"You wanna know what happened to me since the temple of the fucking Ancients, eh, Reeve?! Yeah, I BET you do! Your such a fucking HERO now. You know what you are!? Huh?? You're a double crossing ASSHOLE, Reeve! You, and your fucking HERO friends, including that bitch, Aeris, LEFT me to DIE back there! I was still alive, Reeve, when the temple collapsed, eh? YEAH I WAS!"
"Get your hands off me, Tseng!"
"You want to know how I escaped!?" Tseng let go of Reeve's shirt collar, and backed down. His eyes were bulging and bloodshot. His cheekbones were jagged and sharp. His hair was much, much longer than it used to be- but most of it was matted and filthy.
"I CRAWLED OUT of the collapsing temple! I was BLEEDING! Fuck, there was... there was... so... much BLOOD." Tseng covered his face in his frail hands. "I laid in the forest for days. I... thought that I was going to DIE. And... I..." Tseng calmed himself slowly. Reeve stood and listened, trying not to gag on Tseng's smell.
"I couldn't go back to Shin-Ra, Reeve. I was as good as a dead man. I- I had no place... to go. No one would fix my arm." Tseng's bright, pink eyes and black pupils swelled in tears. "My arm... sniff... still... doesn't work. The nerves are too badly damaged. Fuck, Reeve, I used to be a big shot like you. Sniff. And.. and look at you, you still work for the shit-hole. What a fucking asshole you are. Bastard. Fucking selfish bastard. You really are Satan, Reeve Sith. Then, the Turks were disbanded, and the only person who gave a SHIT about me in the past years and actually tried finding me was Elena."
"How is she?" Reeve whispered. He didn't know what to say.
"How the FUCK do you THINK she is?! The Turks was all she had, Shin-Ra was all she HAD! Shin-Ra was all the Turks ever had! We gave up or lives, and our families, to become TURKS. Fuck..." Tseng coughed. "I couldn't get a job with my arm and all. She's a waitress. Or a secretary, I don't know. She works. We went out for a while. Then, we broke up and stopped talking. She even took care of me."
"How's Reno and Rude?"
"Got a cigarette?"
"No, I don't smoke." Reeve suddenly felt a wave of sympathy and guilt over him. Tseng wasn't a bad guy, not like the rest of the Turks. He always had a heart, and it left him cold and desolate as a homeless guy on the streets of lower Midgar.
"Reno is fine. He always finds a way to... manage. Rude drinks himself stupid and works as a Taxi driver. Fucking bastard. He deserves every hardship he gets. Reno... he's just a kid, Reeve.... He's just a kid."
Tseng began to walk back into the shadows of the ally way. Reeve followed him. "I can't believe I ran into you..." Tseng went on in a broken voice, "and the first thing I did WASN'T grabbing a stake knife and slitting your throat and cutting out every organ in your body and forced you to eat your own shit."
"It wasn't my fault, Tseng." Reeve added weakly.
"Then, why DIDN'T you go back for me, Reeve? I've wanted to ask you that for like, five or six fucking-"
"There wasn't enough time, Tseng, ok, I'm sorry. If you want me to make it up for with money, that's fine. I got it."
"Money won't give me back my arm." Tseng said sullenly as they reached the end of the ally way.
"Sephiroth took that from you, NOT ME, Tseng."
"I...I..." The anger melted from his pall, sick face. The gray and bruise colored bags under his eyes made his face seem like a sunken, bearded, sad, skull. "I know, Reeve. Listen, I got to tell you something." Tseng coughed. Past the shadows, and around the corner, the ally way opened up to a small, cold and dirty junk yard.
There were dozens of homeless people milling about, gathered around a garbage fire, and talking softy.
Some of them pushed bent grocery carts filled with tin cans and forgotten clothes. Others leaned against the brick wall that caged them in- simply resting.
"See, you ass fucker," Tseng whispered to Reeve, "Because of you, I live here now, instead of my flat in Costa del Sol."
He swallowed when a old and crumpled man turned, and let his eyes bore into Reeve's well kept face.
He definitely felt out of place there.
"Taste of reality, eh?"
"What did you have to tell me?" Reeve asked as Tseng approached the others huddled around a flaming, rusted, trash can.
"Oh. That. A bit of information that doesn't do me any good, but may do you some."
"Yeah, so, what is it?"
"It doesn't come free. Ass-wipe." Tseng began to warm his thin hands above the fire.
Reeve waited, and shifted his weight under the heavy stares of the homeless folk- who- with their eyes- studied and hungered for his Italian suit and tiny cell phone.
Tseng watched him like a writhing worm.
"You... wanna know the price?" He grimaced like a fox as he stroked his furry beard.
"Then take me in."
"What?" Reeve took a step back into the gaping mouth of the ally way.
"Yeah. Clean me up, give me money and a place to stay for a while. Fuck, look at me, Reeve, I'm a business man and a damn good one, you know what. I'm not staying in this shit-hole forever. I'm not like these guys."
Some of the folk near him- eyed Tseng wearily. They were used to harsh, forked tongues flickering un-kind words near their proximity. They learned to never pay attention.
Besides, Tseng would be the first of their kind to talk of, 'getting out of the life style.' One of them chuckled dirtily.
"Fine." Reeve hissed. "But, tell me what your secret is, though, first."
"Nope. Let me shower, first. I've almost forgot the feel of hot water." Tseng approached Reeve. Reeve nodded.
Together, they left the ally way.
~
There was a electronic chime. "We will be reaching our- uh- destination of Costa del Sol in under three hours. If you would sit patiently, folks, and enjoy the scenery. And a reminder, there is uh- no smoking on this ride. Thanks uh- again for choosing the Shin-Ra mass transit system."
Tifa sat back, and clutched her carry on. She sat beside the window- but nobody else.
She un-zipped her brown backpack, and pulled out a photograph.
It was of her, Barret, and Marlene when she was six.
Barret had Marlene wrapped up in his tree-trunk arms.
Tifa was leaning on Barret as if they had been married for years.
But they hadn't; it was only a photograph.
Then, she leaned her head against the window-glass, and looked up into the Clouds.
~
"VIIIIINNNNNCCCEEEE!!! PASS me a Hi-Potion!!!" Yuffie screeched.
"I can HEAR you. Don't call me Vince." Vincent replied as he re-loaded his pistol and aimed it at the beast.
The moment after he fired, (he braced himself for the kickback, the noise, and the smoke, as well as the green-blood and hiss of the monster,) he tossed Yuffie a Hi-Potion.
Yuffie caught the potion, then dived into the beast with a mighty stroke of her bladed weapon.
A bloody swipe.
A high pitched yelp.
The beast collapsed.
And... it smelt immediately.
Vincent un-loaded his gun, and safely put it into it's holster. He approached the huge, orange, bloody beast, and tapped it with his thin foot.
"What the heck was it?" He asked as he starred down it's mangled, bulky body.
It smelt of jasmine and sewers.
"I donno. Cid in the morning?" Yuffie chuckled as she poked it with a stick.
Vincent glared at her with flaming ice.
"Don't make fun of him."
"Why? Is he your boyfriend, or something?" She tossed the stick aside and began to walk away.
"No!" Vincent bit at her with his voice. As he turned his back, the creatures dead flesh disintegrated into the grass with a slippery hiss and waving mist.
"Look. Speaking of your boyfriend, I guess we were heading in the right direction all long. There is Rocket Town ahead." Yuffie pointed to the horizon with a scratched and dirty finger.
"I'm... exhausted. I don't care how close we are, I'm not moving another foot."
Yuffie wordlessly agreed.