Disclaimer: I own nothing of Cowboy Bebop, and nothing of the Dark Tower. I'll make something of my own someday that will probably be fanfic'd on this site, but for now, I'll just fic others. Enjoy.
Shuffle and Sand
The man in the blue suit suddenly woke up in an oven of a room. Actually, it was more of a hastily constructed shack, one whose rough-plank walls that were once spaced evenly, almost fittingly, and now allowed tall slivers of light to meander their way through the various holes and gaps in the rough-hewn wood. In a few places, the slats looked like they were recently replaced, and in others, there looked to be a more widespread and lackadaisical approach to the maintenance (or deconstruction) this shack so desperately needed. He propped himself up on his right elbow, feeling a bit groggy, rubbing his tousled hair in a haze of dusty brightness. He reached in his inner pocket for his cigarettes, only to find that the pack was empty. He had smoked the last one somewhere else, somewhere quite far from here, in a place and time he neither remembered nor cared about.
A place that was worlds away from here.
"Hmm. Looks like my luck follows me everywhere," he deadpanned as he shakily got to his feet. He stretched his back to no effect, as he neither felt the sweet pangs of a spine readjusting itself, nor felt like he needed it, upon further observation. He actually felt quite good, considering his surroundings. Then he finally noticed the strangeness of this place, the sheer amount of dust in this place, the unexpectedness of this place. All of this observation warranted a bit of investigation to back it up, to make any sense of it all. He slowly looked about him, letting every detail great or tiny soak into his mind. It was all a charade, he knew, because for one thing, this place was easy to figure out; desert, or a reasonable replica of it, dominated the entire surrounding area. For another, he knew he was primarily trying to figure out how he had gotten from the top floor of a none-too-modest skyscraper in the middle of a massive city to a quite modest shack in the middle of what promised to be nowhere. The type of nowhere as in Nowhere Special, Nowhere to Go, and—most appropriately—Nowhere I'd Want to Be.
He smirked at this last in the quasi-dimness of the shack's paltry shelter. He was glad that he was still able to see the lighter side of dark things, glad that he still felt like himself, glad that he was
(alive)
able to keep a cool head in the midst of one more unusual situation in a long line of them.
For him, of course, "unusual" always meant either dangerous, deadly, or flat-out weird. This situation seemed only to fit two of those three thus far, and that wasn't too bad. But hey, he just got here. Who knows what weirdness lay beyond these wooden walls? What dangers? What peril?
"Whatever happens, happens," he murmured, the trademark grin noticeably absent from his statement of general disregard, despite a meager attempt to resurrect it. Somehow, he felt as if those words changed meanings for him, not only with their intent but also their inherent consequence. What's more, they seemed to echo in his mind, each mental reverberation bringing back a flood of fuzzy, disconnected images with it, each one fuzzier and more disconnected than the last.
It didn't take very much effort for him to quell the flood of input, partly because the images didn't help him in this place, at least to any immediately discernable effect, but mostly because he knew that they would most likely hinder him with the guilt of dark deeds long ago fulfilled, the memory of things best left forgotten, or the feelings for
(Julia)
people who aren't here. In time, those images, feelings and memories would fade away to nothingness in the dark, unexplored realms of his mind where not even hypnotism would bring them once again to the surface. Besides, whatever or whomever those feelings referred to, he had a hunch that he'd felt all there was to feel concerning them. No need to remember past pains if those wounds were meant to be healed or forgotten. He was content doing both for now.
In an absent gesture of this mental filing, he scratched the back of his head, feeling a few hundred grains of sand run their course through his suit. He jigged his leg, grinning widely when he saw the sand run out of his pant leg, covering the tip of his shoe. It was almost a metaphor for his mental stance; recognizing molehills for what they were.
His grin softened, though, when he noticed that his luck wasn't his only inexorable trail mate. He also noticed that his luck wasn't exclusively bad after all.
He had no idea how and he cared even less why, but lying in the sand, no more than a foot away from his shoe lied his trusty Jericho.
It wasn't precisely his old, familiar Jericho, mind you, because somehow it had morphed into an ancient-looking incarnation—possibly even a different caliber—of itself, most likely upon reentry. Despite appearances, it definitely held the spiritual essence of his old standby. He felt that cold and emotionless—yet comfortable—chi call out to him, beckoning him. Slowly, he squatted down to retrieve it. As his fingers wrapped around the grip, he suspected that, like other things around here, appearances would provide no discernible barrier against familiarity. For one thing, his gun simply felt like it had before this trip, yet it was now a much-bigger .45 caliber. For another, it was now a big revolver instead of an automatic. For yet another thing, the grips were the same shade of red his old ship, the Swordfish was colored. The grips even felt like they were made from the same metal, textured and uneven in places, almost as if they were taken from the ship itself.
He inspected the chambers, seeing with satisfaction that each compartment was occupied by a shell. He ejected the shells, hoping to see some lead despite the dimples in the middle of each firing pin. Like everything else, he only confirmed what he already expected. The small indentations on the firing pins, even in this screwed-up place, still indicated that each of the six shells were spent.
"Oh well, we can't have everything, can we?" he asked himself as he snapped his wrist to the right, locking the cylinder back into place. Instead of the nice metallic SNAP that he expected, however, a strange muted sound made its way to his ears, masking the gun's hulking, practical appearance. The sound indicated that an abundance of grease occupied the gun's joints, yet it didn't feel or smell like that was the case. Like all his habits, good or bad, he filed this away in his mental archives. The next person he sees in this godforsaken place, he'd make sure to remember to ask them about it. Questions only led to unsatisfying answers, which oftentimes led to more dead-end questions, and besides, he didn't expect to see anyone out here. This place felt like the abandoned wastelands of Earth, or maybe the endless stretches of Mars between the city-craters.
While filing these mental notes, he got familiar with his "new" weapon, pulling the trigger and fanning the hammer and drawing from his holster. Weird, he'd always called his type of holster as a side holster, but docker's clutch seemed to be a more appropriate label.
His brow furrowed with this thought. It felt warm and tingly in his brain, as if meanings and associations of words he'd known all his life were suddenly shifting.
He almost stood up before the faint sound of footsteps cautioned him. They were coming from no more than fifty feet from where he stood inside the shack. He squat-walked over to the wall where the footsteps were emanating from, peering through a gap in one of the slats, attempting to identify whatever or whomever was making them. He couldn't see much, because a five-foot high pile of wood and wheels lay directly in his line of sight. The failing sunlight wasn't any help either, as the sun's rays were at the perfect angle so as to obscure whatever wasn't concealed by the destroyed coach with a darker shade that contrasted with the bright desert landscape.
He consulted his steel companion, hoping against hope that it would confirm that the approaching life form was just a drifter. No answer came, neither from his gun, nor from his heightened intuitions. He had the barest of inklings that whoever he was, he might just be sociable, and that was enough for him right now. Anything did, in a pinch, so they said.
Besides, he never worried, not even in his
(dying)
last moments in that building so far away from here, where he finally
(killed him I actually killed him goodbye space cowboy see ya later)
found what he was looking for, whatever, whomever that may have been. Instead of fear, a familiar coldness washed over him, and he found himself once again seeing things that hazy slow-motion that's always remembered in fast motion. That veil of certainty felt familiar in this unfamiliar place, and he welcomed it by reciting his own bounty hunter's mantra, with his trademark grin finally back, and in full force.
"Whatever happens, happens."
Whew! I need to learn to edit myself faster! I might learn how to in the future, but don't bet the farm on it. I actually feel quite connected with my writer's self once again, so it's a very likely possibility. Also, I've been brushing up on CB lately, thanks to Adult Swim, and I've reread the DT series, up to Calla.
Anyways, thanks for the reviews thus far! Don't stop now!
-T.J.
Shuffle and Sand
The man in the blue suit suddenly woke up in an oven of a room. Actually, it was more of a hastily constructed shack, one whose rough-plank walls that were once spaced evenly, almost fittingly, and now allowed tall slivers of light to meander their way through the various holes and gaps in the rough-hewn wood. In a few places, the slats looked like they were recently replaced, and in others, there looked to be a more widespread and lackadaisical approach to the maintenance (or deconstruction) this shack so desperately needed. He propped himself up on his right elbow, feeling a bit groggy, rubbing his tousled hair in a haze of dusty brightness. He reached in his inner pocket for his cigarettes, only to find that the pack was empty. He had smoked the last one somewhere else, somewhere quite far from here, in a place and time he neither remembered nor cared about.
A place that was worlds away from here.
"Hmm. Looks like my luck follows me everywhere," he deadpanned as he shakily got to his feet. He stretched his back to no effect, as he neither felt the sweet pangs of a spine readjusting itself, nor felt like he needed it, upon further observation. He actually felt quite good, considering his surroundings. Then he finally noticed the strangeness of this place, the sheer amount of dust in this place, the unexpectedness of this place. All of this observation warranted a bit of investigation to back it up, to make any sense of it all. He slowly looked about him, letting every detail great or tiny soak into his mind. It was all a charade, he knew, because for one thing, this place was easy to figure out; desert, or a reasonable replica of it, dominated the entire surrounding area. For another, he knew he was primarily trying to figure out how he had gotten from the top floor of a none-too-modest skyscraper in the middle of a massive city to a quite modest shack in the middle of what promised to be nowhere. The type of nowhere as in Nowhere Special, Nowhere to Go, and—most appropriately—Nowhere I'd Want to Be.
He smirked at this last in the quasi-dimness of the shack's paltry shelter. He was glad that he was still able to see the lighter side of dark things, glad that he still felt like himself, glad that he was
(alive)
able to keep a cool head in the midst of one more unusual situation in a long line of them.
For him, of course, "unusual" always meant either dangerous, deadly, or flat-out weird. This situation seemed only to fit two of those three thus far, and that wasn't too bad. But hey, he just got here. Who knows what weirdness lay beyond these wooden walls? What dangers? What peril?
"Whatever happens, happens," he murmured, the trademark grin noticeably absent from his statement of general disregard, despite a meager attempt to resurrect it. Somehow, he felt as if those words changed meanings for him, not only with their intent but also their inherent consequence. What's more, they seemed to echo in his mind, each mental reverberation bringing back a flood of fuzzy, disconnected images with it, each one fuzzier and more disconnected than the last.
It didn't take very much effort for him to quell the flood of input, partly because the images didn't help him in this place, at least to any immediately discernable effect, but mostly because he knew that they would most likely hinder him with the guilt of dark deeds long ago fulfilled, the memory of things best left forgotten, or the feelings for
(Julia)
people who aren't here. In time, those images, feelings and memories would fade away to nothingness in the dark, unexplored realms of his mind where not even hypnotism would bring them once again to the surface. Besides, whatever or whomever those feelings referred to, he had a hunch that he'd felt all there was to feel concerning them. No need to remember past pains if those wounds were meant to be healed or forgotten. He was content doing both for now.
In an absent gesture of this mental filing, he scratched the back of his head, feeling a few hundred grains of sand run their course through his suit. He jigged his leg, grinning widely when he saw the sand run out of his pant leg, covering the tip of his shoe. It was almost a metaphor for his mental stance; recognizing molehills for what they were.
His grin softened, though, when he noticed that his luck wasn't his only inexorable trail mate. He also noticed that his luck wasn't exclusively bad after all.
He had no idea how and he cared even less why, but lying in the sand, no more than a foot away from his shoe lied his trusty Jericho.
It wasn't precisely his old, familiar Jericho, mind you, because somehow it had morphed into an ancient-looking incarnation—possibly even a different caliber—of itself, most likely upon reentry. Despite appearances, it definitely held the spiritual essence of his old standby. He felt that cold and emotionless—yet comfortable—chi call out to him, beckoning him. Slowly, he squatted down to retrieve it. As his fingers wrapped around the grip, he suspected that, like other things around here, appearances would provide no discernible barrier against familiarity. For one thing, his gun simply felt like it had before this trip, yet it was now a much-bigger .45 caliber. For another, it was now a big revolver instead of an automatic. For yet another thing, the grips were the same shade of red his old ship, the Swordfish was colored. The grips even felt like they were made from the same metal, textured and uneven in places, almost as if they were taken from the ship itself.
He inspected the chambers, seeing with satisfaction that each compartment was occupied by a shell. He ejected the shells, hoping to see some lead despite the dimples in the middle of each firing pin. Like everything else, he only confirmed what he already expected. The small indentations on the firing pins, even in this screwed-up place, still indicated that each of the six shells were spent.
"Oh well, we can't have everything, can we?" he asked himself as he snapped his wrist to the right, locking the cylinder back into place. Instead of the nice metallic SNAP that he expected, however, a strange muted sound made its way to his ears, masking the gun's hulking, practical appearance. The sound indicated that an abundance of grease occupied the gun's joints, yet it didn't feel or smell like that was the case. Like all his habits, good or bad, he filed this away in his mental archives. The next person he sees in this godforsaken place, he'd make sure to remember to ask them about it. Questions only led to unsatisfying answers, which oftentimes led to more dead-end questions, and besides, he didn't expect to see anyone out here. This place felt like the abandoned wastelands of Earth, or maybe the endless stretches of Mars between the city-craters.
While filing these mental notes, he got familiar with his "new" weapon, pulling the trigger and fanning the hammer and drawing from his holster. Weird, he'd always called his type of holster as a side holster, but docker's clutch seemed to be a more appropriate label.
His brow furrowed with this thought. It felt warm and tingly in his brain, as if meanings and associations of words he'd known all his life were suddenly shifting.
He almost stood up before the faint sound of footsteps cautioned him. They were coming from no more than fifty feet from where he stood inside the shack. He squat-walked over to the wall where the footsteps were emanating from, peering through a gap in one of the slats, attempting to identify whatever or whomever was making them. He couldn't see much, because a five-foot high pile of wood and wheels lay directly in his line of sight. The failing sunlight wasn't any help either, as the sun's rays were at the perfect angle so as to obscure whatever wasn't concealed by the destroyed coach with a darker shade that contrasted with the bright desert landscape.
He consulted his steel companion, hoping against hope that it would confirm that the approaching life form was just a drifter. No answer came, neither from his gun, nor from his heightened intuitions. He had the barest of inklings that whoever he was, he might just be sociable, and that was enough for him right now. Anything did, in a pinch, so they said.
Besides, he never worried, not even in his
(dying)
last moments in that building so far away from here, where he finally
(killed him I actually killed him goodbye space cowboy see ya later)
found what he was looking for, whatever, whomever that may have been. Instead of fear, a familiar coldness washed over him, and he found himself once again seeing things that hazy slow-motion that's always remembered in fast motion. That veil of certainty felt familiar in this unfamiliar place, and he welcomed it by reciting his own bounty hunter's mantra, with his trademark grin finally back, and in full force.
"Whatever happens, happens."
Whew! I need to learn to edit myself faster! I might learn how to in the future, but don't bet the farm on it. I actually feel quite connected with my writer's self once again, so it's a very likely possibility. Also, I've been brushing up on CB lately, thanks to Adult Swim, and I've reread the DT series, up to Calla.
Anyways, thanks for the reviews thus far! Don't stop now!
-T.J.