Mongoose - Chapter 2A
anonymous
March 10 2010, 05:59:23 UTC
Thank you so, so much for the feedback! It's given me some courage to write more of this. >.> Really, I can't thank you enough for the lovely comments and flurry of Russia/America love.
This chapter's a bit boring; it's exposition, mostly. And not even very good exposition. It gets confusing. Mostly 'cause you can't know all the backstories yet. But you will! Sorry!
October 15 Friday, 9:13 p.m.
Night rests her weight against the harbor waters so gently that Russia almost doesn’t notice the dark. He walks along the decking, listening to the waves lap against wood and earth, and is reminded of how lucky he is not to be landlocked. As a child, the only waters he’d known were frozen, fragile wastelands. Just another place for bones to be buried.
America, while an annoying and loud country, at least has seasons.
He’s always wanted a boat. Perhaps it’s part of the idleness that stews deep in his marrow, but as soon as Russia has found somewhere to settle, he immediately wants to go somewhere new. (Or, perhaps nothing is close enough to motherland yet. Dogs without their owner are restless in a similar way.) So, he’s come to believe that it would be best to always be moving. A boat goes places. A boat goes anywhere it pleases.
Russia would like a boat.
Freedom from debt is a step toward that. He smiles to himself as the dock ends and sand-beaten path, pockmarked with scattered weeds and fish entrails, takes its place. There’s a small house with four rooms that will be visible in the gloom after another fifteen minutes. This is Russia’s house, for now. The water runs, and there’s heating, and that’s all he needs. The leaky basement used to keep the house inhabitants up at night (who can listen to the sea creeping in so very slowly, submerging you in your slumber?), but Russia likes it, likes to listen to the instability of its existence. Someday, the house will be gone; on that day, so will Russia.
“With my gratitude to you,” Russia tells the pictures he’s holding in his hand. The pictures are stapled to the front of a few leafs of paper, all of it contained neatly in a folder that Russia had exchanged some money for. Gilbert, the local bartender, is a crass and arrogant man, but he knows his patrons well and like any paranoid proprietor, he keeps records and evidence of all comings and goings. A little gossip, some hidden cameras, and an ear for information go a long way in the world.
Whatever you want with that nasty sonofabitch, Gilbert had said, wiping out a dirty mug and giving Russia a look that clearly said it wasn’t as ugly as his current company, have at. It’ll be funny to see the look on his face.
Russia knows that Gilbert will keep silent, no matter what news of the kidnapping comes out. One twisted man recognizes another. One rehabilitated man respects another, as well.
He studies the three pictures. One is useless-it’s only Arthur Kirkland, his face flushed with blood, eyes wild with the drink as he shouts down someone in the local bar-but the other two are more fruitful to his needs. In the second, a blurry snapshot of the street outside Gilbert’s facility, Arthur is speaking to a young man in a red hoodie, his eyes soft but intent on the youth. His son. His oldest son, Russia recalls from Gilbert’s scrawled notes. The son looks nothing like him: frizzed, half-curled hair the color of buckwheat that’s been bleached by the sun, subdued eyes hidden behind oversized glasses, a lip too often bitten. Matthew Williams (the Williams from the mistress, the woman Arthur Kirkland never intended to marry but whose child he’d claimed) is everything he looks like.
This chapter's a bit boring; it's exposition, mostly. And not even very good exposition. It gets confusing. Mostly 'cause you can't know all the backstories yet. But you will! Sorry!
October 15
Friday, 9:13 p.m.
Night rests her weight against the harbor waters so gently that Russia almost doesn’t notice the dark. He walks along the decking, listening to the waves lap against wood and earth, and is reminded of how lucky he is not to be landlocked. As a child, the only waters he’d known were frozen, fragile wastelands. Just another place for bones to be buried.
America, while an annoying and loud country, at least has seasons.
He’s always wanted a boat. Perhaps it’s part of the idleness that stews deep in his marrow, but as soon as Russia has found somewhere to settle, he immediately wants to go somewhere new. (Or, perhaps nothing is close enough to motherland yet. Dogs without their owner are restless in a similar way.) So, he’s come to believe that it would be best to always be moving. A boat goes places. A boat goes anywhere it pleases.
Russia would like a boat.
Freedom from debt is a step toward that. He smiles to himself as the dock ends and sand-beaten path, pockmarked with scattered weeds and fish entrails, takes its place. There’s a small house with four rooms that will be visible in the gloom after another fifteen minutes. This is Russia’s house, for now. The water runs, and there’s heating, and that’s all he needs. The leaky basement used to keep the house inhabitants up at night (who can listen to the sea creeping in so very slowly, submerging you in your slumber?), but Russia likes it, likes to listen to the instability of its existence. Someday, the house will be gone; on that day, so will Russia.
“With my gratitude to you,” Russia tells the pictures he’s holding in his hand. The pictures are stapled to the front of a few leafs of paper, all of it contained neatly in a folder that Russia had exchanged some money for. Gilbert, the local bartender, is a crass and arrogant man, but he knows his patrons well and like any paranoid proprietor, he keeps records and evidence of all comings and goings. A little gossip, some hidden cameras, and an ear for information go a long way in the world.
Whatever you want with that nasty sonofabitch, Gilbert had said, wiping out a dirty mug and giving Russia a look that clearly said it wasn’t as ugly as his current company, have at. It’ll be funny to see the look on his face.
Russia knows that Gilbert will keep silent, no matter what news of the kidnapping comes out. One twisted man recognizes another. One rehabilitated man respects another, as well.
He studies the three pictures. One is useless-it’s only Arthur Kirkland, his face flushed with blood, eyes wild with the drink as he shouts down someone in the local bar-but the other two are more fruitful to his needs. In the second, a blurry snapshot of the street outside Gilbert’s facility, Arthur is speaking to a young man in a red hoodie, his eyes soft but intent on the youth. His son. His oldest son, Russia recalls from Gilbert’s scrawled notes. The son looks nothing like him: frizzed, half-curled hair the color of buckwheat that’s been bleached by the sun, subdued eyes hidden behind oversized glasses, a lip too often bitten. Matthew Williams (the Williams from the mistress, the woman Arthur Kirkland never intended to marry but whose child he’d claimed) is everything he looks like.
A quiet boy, Gilbert had said. A real pansy.
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