Title: Cold Night
Author: Michelle Connor
Fandom: Smallville/Doctor Who
Disclaimer: Not mine, nope. Wish they were.
Pairing: none
Rating: PG
Genre: Fantasy. Pure wishful thinking.
Spoilers and/or Warnings: Spoiler sorta for the Season 5 Smallville Finale, even though my stupid Tivo didn't record more than 5 minutes of it.
Summary: Clark writes, and, gets a genie to answer a wish.
Cold Night
In the vast reaches of the dry, cold night, thousands of stars were constantly appearing, and their sparkling icicles, loosened at once, began to slip gradually toward the horizon.
Albert Camus (1913 - 1960)
I thought about starting this off with something traditional, cliche' even. "It was a dark and stormy night," or perhaps, "It wasn't a dark and stormy night." But then, I realized that neither of those things are important. The weather just was. Sort of indomitable, changeless, and yet still in constant motion. Kinda like the Great Red Spot and Little Red in Jupiter's turbulent atmosphere. They're supposed to almost meet this July, and who knows what could happen. They could merge. They could change. They could even move one past the other with fringes tangling and twining and the centers still left essentially the same.
Somehow, that is the most depressing thing I have ever thought about.But then, not much else in here to think about. It's just empty, a flat plane of nothing and there's no one here. I've looked, looked really hard, ran until I was breathless and almost tired. Still, nothing. I don't know what to do. Someone's going to have to get me out of here, and I am thinking it's not going to be anyone I want to be grateful to, not now, or ever. Even if he does call me 'son'.
There's a consolation prize, though. I can see everything here. Wall of Wierd, indeed. It's flat, and I can walk around it, and there's no thickness. Only two dimensions. When I first got here, I tried to go back, but it was like touching fog. Nothing there really just a sense of moisture. So I just sit mostly, til I found this journal. It's probably not supposed to be a journal, but it feels like paper and this pen-shaped thing writes.
Watch anything, everything I ever wanted to see. Soccer in mexico. Hurricane relief in Louisiana. Tsunami... well, you get the idea. I think I'd go crazy if I could not write, could not have this small effect on something in my life. There's so much I can't do, but I can do this. I can be a witness and record it all. I have made a point to look at everything, as far back as...well. As I want to look. I went back as far as I could.
The beginning of the world -- Oberon, I think it was called, something with an O. The Earth, Mark I.
It's all water and no land, and bigger somehow than it is now. And there's this other planet, all dry rock, and it just smooshes into the Earth and it's terrifying, it's like watching a train hit a car. You can't NOT look. The Earth just splashes around this cosmic invader and turns so bright it hurts my eyes. It's so amazing, and beautiful, and I really wish I had a camera, just so I could see it with eyes that are not mine. It's kinda funny, really, watching it all start over again.
The world, that is. It nearly gets blown apart, but it doesn't. Somehow it holds itself together and spins and then there's the moon, and then the surface is not all hot lava. It's a relief, to see that happen and know that it will happen, every single time I see this. Then...it goes quickly. Or what I am watching goes from slo-mo to fast-forward. There's water. And greenery, and more plants and then stuff... Well. I don't know if it is a plant or an animal or what. But they move and then there's dinosaurs again, but POOF. They're gone. Flashes of silver in the skies, too fast for me to see what they are or what they do,
Then... people. Then, I can see my mom. My friends. They're caught in something that seems so far beyond them, and they're hurting, and I know I can't DO anything here. I cannot hate myself more. God. I can't write right now.
----
I had to run again. I know, it's stupid, but there's really nothing else I can do here. Screaming helps too, a little I can't look at the wall. It's that monster that is using the face of my friend, and it hurts. I should have been the one to stop this long before it happens, and it happens over and over and over. So much has changed and so much has happened and I should have been more understanding. I wish I could do it all over again, knowing what I know now. That's the irony. I can see it over and over.
Maybe... I...hear something. Weird mechanical noise. Oh god. It's a column. Or maybe it's a box, a blue box? What? And there's a head poking out of it, Just LOOKING at me. Crazy faced guy. He's talking but I can't really hear what he's saying. And I am walking toward it, this thing, with the man's head popping out to look at me and then back in again. How --- Skinny guy. Smiles at me and I have to smile back. And this blonde girl with the deepest eyes just grabs and I am inside. And that wooshing noise starts. And I can hear voices now but I can't stop staring, or really understand what. I think I fall over, and then all goes white.
"Well, let's try all that again, shall we? And this time Clark, be a little less with the fisticuffs, and a little more with the listening, eh?"
----
I'm on the bridge, walking home. There's the truck. The roll of baling wire. The porsche. I know what to do, this time.