licenseartistic: June Prompt
Title: Without Their Whispers
Fandom: M*A*S*H
Character: Radar O'Reilly
Word Count: 333
Rating: General Audience
Spoilers: Post-Goodbye, Radar
Disclaimer: M*A*S*H and its characters are the property of the writers, actors, and Twentieth Century Fox. No copyright infringement is intended.
Prompt:
"We wake in the night, to stereophonic silence."
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
Walter awoke with a start, his heart racing in his chest. While groping for his glasses with one hand, he disentangled himself from his sheets with the other and swung his bare legs over the edge of the bed. The images of his interrupted dream were already fading, but the disorientation still lingered. It wasn't until he slipped his glasses over his ears and registered the floral pattern of the wall paper that he remembered where he was.
He was home - he had been for several days now. And Mitzy, his cat, was perched on his dresser peering at him, her eyes reflecting moonlight.
Walter scratched the back of his neck, then padded across the room and gently lifted Mitzy off the dresser, pulling her to his chest. “You know you're not s'posed to be up there, honey,” he murmured. Stroking her fur, he carried her into the hallway, set her down at the top of the stairs, and watched as she darted out of sight. Then he righted his overturned trash can and crawled into bed.
Sometime later, he was still awake, mentally tracing the cracks in the ceiling and breathing in the remnants of an early evening rain shower that periodically wafted into his room on a light breeze that whispered through his open window.
In Korea, Radar - or Walter - very few people called him Radar here, yet it was difficult to stop thinking of himself in that way - had once told Mr. Clete Roberts that sometimes he wished for a room of his own. But now it seemed wrong to be alone in this quiet place. There was no artillery fire in the distance. There were no choppers, no late night phone calls, and no frantic arousals. And the ebb and flow that existed at sub-hearing - those murmurs and impulses that he could somehow catch on their way to speech - was vastly diminished.
The last, Walter was beginning to recognize, was the sound he missed most of all.
Fandom: M*A*S*H
Character: Radar O'Reilly
Word Count: 333
Rating: General Audience
Spoilers: Post-Goodbye, Radar
Disclaimer: M*A*S*H and its characters are the property of the writers, actors, and Twentieth Century Fox. No copyright infringement is intended.
Prompt:
"We wake in the night, to stereophonic silence."
~Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960
Walter awoke with a start, his heart racing in his chest. While groping for his glasses with one hand, he disentangled himself from his sheets with the other and swung his bare legs over the edge of the bed. The images of his interrupted dream were already fading, but the disorientation still lingered. It wasn't until he slipped his glasses over his ears and registered the floral pattern of the wall paper that he remembered where he was.
He was home - he had been for several days now. And Mitzy, his cat, was perched on his dresser peering at him, her eyes reflecting moonlight.
Walter scratched the back of his neck, then padded across the room and gently lifted Mitzy off the dresser, pulling her to his chest. “You know you're not s'posed to be up there, honey,” he murmured. Stroking her fur, he carried her into the hallway, set her down at the top of the stairs, and watched as she darted out of sight. Then he righted his overturned trash can and crawled into bed.
Sometime later, he was still awake, mentally tracing the cracks in the ceiling and breathing in the remnants of an early evening rain shower that periodically wafted into his room on a light breeze that whispered through his open window.
In Korea, Radar - or Walter - very few people called him Radar here, yet it was difficult to stop thinking of himself in that way - had once told Mr. Clete Roberts that sometimes he wished for a room of his own. But now it seemed wrong to be alone in this quiet place. There was no artillery fire in the distance. There were no choppers, no late night phone calls, and no frantic arousals. And the ebb and flow that existed at sub-hearing - those murmurs and impulses that he could somehow catch on their way to speech - was vastly diminished.
The last, Walter was beginning to recognize, was the sound he missed most of all.