there must be a heaven where little annie can play / in heavenly gardens and bowers
WHO: Katurian (solo)
WHERE: Nowhere
WHEN: No time (Monday/Tuesday night/morning)
WARNINGS: Assisted (childhood) suicide. Wiping people out of existence. Generally unpleasant business.
SUMMARY: For months, Katurian been steadily pushed towards using his time-traveling powers to give people happier, albeit shorter lives. He does.
FORMAT: Narrative
Once upon a time, there was a happy little girl who soon became a sad little girl, who soon became a very sad woman, who vowed to take her own life in the subway system one lonely Thursday evening in March. She had no one to leave a note for because she had no friends and no family, and all she expected, really, were a few angry phone calls from work, asking her why she hadn't bothered to show up for the last however many days. She wore the best clothes she had - which really weren't very good at all - and stood at the edge of the yellow line waiting for the next train to approach, so that she might throw herself in front of it and end everything in one, final, bloody mess of flesh and bone. As she heard the rattling moan of the subway, and saw its bright lights illuminate the tunnel like warm, fuzzy eyes, she prepared herself to jump.
It was no great coincidence that, on that day, an unremarkable-looking man with tired eyes and a portfolio full of stories grabbed her arm and told her 'No.'
She screamed, of course, and tried to knock him away, but he whispered to her to hold on for a moment, just one moment, and the entire world slowed and melted like chocolate, and when everything sped up again, she suddenly knew just who he was. He called himself the Pillowman, and he had been with her since she was a little girl, holding her hand as her parents screamed at each other, listening to her cry about the other children at school, hugging her when no one else was willing to even look her in the eye. He was with her the day her mother cut into her father's forehead with an axe, and he was with her when her mother hanged herself from the ceiling fan in the house where they lived under assumed identities and had no friends. He was there when she decided she would never again speak above a whisper. He was there for her right now.
She started to cry.
He brought her home with him and made her pancakes every morning, filling the silences when she needed him to and letting them rest when she didn't. He did everything she asked for with a smile. He treated her like an old friend. He was an old friend. On the third day, however, she let him know that it couldn't last, that she made a decision and she couldn't change it, and his smile dropped and he told her that he knew. That was all he said. That he knew. It was that evening that he told her what it meant to be the Pillowman.
'Will I remember anything?' asked the woman.
'You'll have nothing to remember,' said the Pillowman.
'Will I be alone?'
The Pillowman looked at her, and she could see that he was doing his very best not to cry.
'Never.'
The woman thought about it for two hours, and that was it.
She decided to have him visit her on her seventh birthday party, her last happy memory, the day before her parents started systematically torturing him for seven years started having the larger, louder fights, and the week before her father interrupted her mother cutting firewood twenty minutes too early. They would've used sleeping pills, except she had forgotten that her mother kept them locked up out of reach, but down in the basement, there was an old refrigerator with happy, colorful alphabet magnets, and ____ __ __________ ____ ____ __ ________ ____ ______ _________ ____ ____ __________ __ __________ __________ ____.
_______ ___ _____ ____ ______ ______ ________ ____ _______ _________ ____ ____ _____ _______ __________ _______ ____ _______ ___ _____ ____ __ ____ ________ ________ ____ ___________ ______ __ __________ __________ ___.
'Don't leave me,' said the little girl, and the Pillowman remembered his promise, and although in the present he wouldn't be able to fit into such a small place, as he was quite ghostlike, he could just barely ____ ____ __________ __ ____ __________ __ __________ __________ _______ ____ _____ __ _______ ____ ____ _______ ___ _____ and in that suffocating, burning darkness, he hugged her, and she cried, and then ____ __ ________ ____ ____ _________ __________
________________________
__________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
...
But he wasn't the Pillowman. He was a real man. The ground fell towards him - his apartment floor, cold and familiar - and his head connected with it with a distinct crack. The last things he heard before losing consciousness were dying memories and his own broken screams.
The last thing he wondered was whether or not he had become a monster.
WHERE: Nowhere
WHEN: No time (Monday/Tuesday night/morning)
WARNINGS: Assisted (childhood) suicide. Wiping people out of existence. Generally unpleasant business.
SUMMARY: For months, Katurian been steadily pushed towards using his time-traveling powers to give people happier, albeit shorter lives. He does.
FORMAT: Narrative
Once upon a time, there was a happy little girl who soon became a sad little girl, who soon became a very sad woman, who vowed to take her own life in the subway system one lonely Thursday evening in March. She had no one to leave a note for because she had no friends and no family, and all she expected, really, were a few angry phone calls from work, asking her why she hadn't bothered to show up for the last however many days. She wore the best clothes she had - which really weren't very good at all - and stood at the edge of the yellow line waiting for the next train to approach, so that she might throw herself in front of it and end everything in one, final, bloody mess of flesh and bone. As she heard the rattling moan of the subway, and saw its bright lights illuminate the tunnel like warm, fuzzy eyes, she prepared herself to jump.
It was no great coincidence that, on that day, an unremarkable-looking man with tired eyes and a portfolio full of stories grabbed her arm and told her 'No.'
She screamed, of course, and tried to knock him away, but he whispered to her to hold on for a moment, just one moment, and the entire world slowed and melted like chocolate, and when everything sped up again, she suddenly knew just who he was. He called himself the Pillowman, and he had been with her since she was a little girl, holding her hand as her parents screamed at each other, listening to her cry about the other children at school, hugging her when no one else was willing to even look her in the eye. He was with her the day her mother cut into her father's forehead with an axe, and he was with her when her mother hanged herself from the ceiling fan in the house where they lived under assumed identities and had no friends. He was there when she decided she would never again speak above a whisper. He was there for her right now.
She started to cry.
He brought her home with him and made her pancakes every morning, filling the silences when she needed him to and letting them rest when she didn't. He did everything she asked for with a smile. He treated her like an old friend. He was an old friend. On the third day, however, she let him know that it couldn't last, that she made a decision and she couldn't change it, and his smile dropped and he told her that he knew. That was all he said. That he knew. It was that evening that he told her what it meant to be the Pillowman.
'Will I remember anything?' asked the woman.
'You'll have nothing to remember,' said the Pillowman.
'Will I be alone?'
The Pillowman looked at her, and she could see that he was doing his very best not to cry.
'Never.'
The woman thought about it for two hours, and that was it.
She decided to have him visit her on her seventh birthday party, her last happy memory, the day before her parents started systematically torturing him for seven years started having the larger, louder fights, and the week before her father interrupted her mother cutting firewood twenty minutes too early. They would've used sleeping pills, except she had forgotten that her mother kept them locked up out of reach, but down in the basement, there was an old refrigerator with happy, colorful alphabet magnets, and ____ __ __________ ____ ____ __ ________ ____ ______ _________ ____ ____ __________ __ __________ __________ ____.
_______ ___ _____ ____ ______ ______ ________ ____ _______ _________ ____ ____ _____ _______ __________ _______ ____ _______ ___ _____ ____ __ ____ ________ ________ ____ ___________ ______ __ __________ __________ ___.
'Don't leave me,' said the little girl, and the Pillowman remembered his promise, and although in the present he wouldn't be able to fit into such a small place, as he was quite ghostlike, he could just barely ____ ____ __________ __ ____ __________ __ __________ __________ _______ ____ _____ __ _______ ____ ____ _______ ___ _____ and in that suffocating, burning darkness, he hugged her, and she cried, and then ____ __ ________ ____ ____ _________ __________
________________________
__________
______________________________________________________________________________________________
...
But he wasn't the Pillowman. He was a real man. The ground fell towards him - his apartment floor, cold and familiar - and his head connected with it with a distinct crack. The last things he heard before losing consciousness were dying memories and his own broken screams.
The last thing he wondered was whether or not he had become a monster.