The little AU: Winter Drifts: Wrath
The little AU: Winter Drifts: Wrath
slashfairy
~~
He knows the words. In more than one language. By more than one poet, writer, implied in paintings, uncovered in carved sculptures, brought forth in constructed ones.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
He takes himself to a game. They lose, but it's well-played anyway. He expects he looks tired in the photos fans take. He goes home, doesn't sleep.
He works on the house a bit. Gets splinters in his right thumb, just below the proximal knuckle, and laughs wryly when he realizes he really does have medical cousins and knows those terms. Proximal, distal, cephalocaudal... near, far, head-to-tail.
For the passage of time, there is only one word that stays in his brain right now: Age. He fights it. Not because, in itself, it's bad. But because, eventually, things wear out. And he hates that.
He prays that he never lose his indignation, his outrage at injustice, at stupidity, at callous cruelty, at intentional cupidity, at lies. Life should be lived in truth, as much as one is able. He prays he does that, or at least works at it as often as he remembers. He prays he never forgets to remember.
He reads the local paper. He reads the internationals. He reads Burns, and Whitman, and Mir, and Neruda, and marks his note-paper with drawings, with phone numbers and the names of cities, and short bits of writing which may become longer bits or may fall to the floor and be swept out with the snow-damp leaves tracked in on his boots. He rails at what hurts him. He prays for Haiti.
In his dreams he is Thor, his mighty hammer smashing those who do ill; he is Zeus, striking the unjust with lightning. When he wakes, he is first exhilarated, then ashamed: there is a reason that the idea that "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord" came into the world. Man, ordinary men like himself, cannot be trusted with wrath on that scale. From that comes nothing but destruction; never justice, never peace.
He misses his men. He needs them to wrap around him, to contain him like concrete walls three feet thick and reinforced with rebar an inch in diameter. He needs them to hold him on a floating floor like those skyscrapers in Japan that roll from side to side in a big earthquake, because the ground under him is shaking, and he's afraid he will break the world when he falls.
He's not ready to be an orphan. He's not ready to be the oldest in his line. He's not ready to be the mentor, the guide. He's tired of feeling angry at his countries, of being disappointed in their leaders, of grieving for their people. It takes all his energy to fight it, all his courage to let it go.
Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated said Shaw. It's a fool's paradise, fear: Wrath the devil's playground, walking through a dismal world dying on its feet.
Instead he goes outside, walks the blind dog whose nose works perfectly well, gets himself some sunshine, some quiet with the snow-dusted trees and occasional hare, and when he comes back, makes Grace some tea, sits by the fire, and writes. His words are all he has: his words will have to do, for putting the world right, for now.
previously: Covetousness
next: Lust
slashfairy
~~
He knows the words. In more than one language. By more than one poet, writer, implied in paintings, uncovered in carved sculptures, brought forth in constructed ones.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
He takes himself to a game. They lose, but it's well-played anyway. He expects he looks tired in the photos fans take. He goes home, doesn't sleep.
He works on the house a bit. Gets splinters in his right thumb, just below the proximal knuckle, and laughs wryly when he realizes he really does have medical cousins and knows those terms. Proximal, distal, cephalocaudal... near, far, head-to-tail.
For the passage of time, there is only one word that stays in his brain right now: Age. He fights it. Not because, in itself, it's bad. But because, eventually, things wear out. And he hates that.
He prays that he never lose his indignation, his outrage at injustice, at stupidity, at callous cruelty, at intentional cupidity, at lies. Life should be lived in truth, as much as one is able. He prays he does that, or at least works at it as often as he remembers. He prays he never forgets to remember.
He reads the local paper. He reads the internationals. He reads Burns, and Whitman, and Mir, and Neruda, and marks his note-paper with drawings, with phone numbers and the names of cities, and short bits of writing which may become longer bits or may fall to the floor and be swept out with the snow-damp leaves tracked in on his boots. He rails at what hurts him. He prays for Haiti.
In his dreams he is Thor, his mighty hammer smashing those who do ill; he is Zeus, striking the unjust with lightning. When he wakes, he is first exhilarated, then ashamed: there is a reason that the idea that "Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord" came into the world. Man, ordinary men like himself, cannot be trusted with wrath on that scale. From that comes nothing but destruction; never justice, never peace.
He misses his men. He needs them to wrap around him, to contain him like concrete walls three feet thick and reinforced with rebar an inch in diameter. He needs them to hold him on a floating floor like those skyscrapers in Japan that roll from side to side in a big earthquake, because the ground under him is shaking, and he's afraid he will break the world when he falls.
He's not ready to be an orphan. He's not ready to be the oldest in his line. He's not ready to be the mentor, the guide. He's tired of feeling angry at his countries, of being disappointed in their leaders, of grieving for their people. It takes all his energy to fight it, all his courage to let it go.
Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated said Shaw. It's a fool's paradise, fear: Wrath the devil's playground, walking through a dismal world dying on its feet.
Instead he goes outside, walks the blind dog whose nose works perfectly well, gets himself some sunshine, some quiet with the snow-dusted trees and occasional hare, and when he comes back, makes Grace some tea, sits by the fire, and writes. His words are all he has: his words will have to do, for putting the world right, for now.
previously: Covetousness
next: Lust