Never Hear of That Country More [1/?]
anonymous
May 9 2009, 06:31:25 UTC
Anon apologizes for taking so long writing this - I’ve had a bit of a busy week. It doesn’t help that I have l337 procrastination skills.
The title of this piece comes from this version of the Pied Piper: http://www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/etext/piper/text.html. I’m still not sure what other stories I’ll have integrated in here, but I do plan on their being at least a few more, as is my tradition when I write these types of stories. ___
Chapter I February 23, 1947
One of these days, he’s going to dissolve completely. It’s close. So close, in the pale of his skin and the dark beneath his eyes.
Gilbert knows that he is dying. To him, he thinks he might as well be dead, because - fuck, he can’t live like this. He can’t.
He curls up a little, pressing his back against the wall of his dirty little excuse of a house, and tries not to shake. He doesn’t once think about crying - he’s too awesome for that. Still, he tightens and tenses in an attempt to stop his body from shaking.
It doesn’t work. He thinks his very bones make clicking sounds as he trembles. Then again, West also said he had a habit of being melodramatic.
(Then again, West is on the other side of this wall, thriving, away from Ivan’s lead pipe and frostbite smile.)
He reaches over with a trembling hand and grabs at a bottle of victory gin. It feels light in his hands, and he upends it with a slow turn of his wrist. A single drop trickles down from within, trembling at the edge before falling to the filthy floor with a noiseless splatter.
“Heh…that was my last one,” Gilbert says. His fingers give, and the bottle tumbles from them to the floor. “S’pose I’ll have to go to the bar and buy a shot or something.” But even as the words escape his lips, he knows it’s useless. One reason is that he’s not sure if he can even afford the cheapest stuff they have.
And as he listens to his people crying and shouting on the streets, looting and shouting and laughing in inebriation, he thinks that the other reason is that he simply does not care anymore.
With a sigh, he somehow finds the energy and interest to press his palms flat against the wall and heave himself up. He clenches his fingers and teeth against the dizziness he feels; it trickles away in a slow ebb, and he hates his body and his mind for being so fucking weak.
He staggers to his filthy cot and collapses onto it, jumping a little as something bumps against his foot. Gilbert frowns, reaches down underneath the cot; his hands close on something, and he pulls it out from underneath the sagging frame, pulls it up and onto his lap on the bed.
The box is old, and it’s starting to show a bit of wear. Gilbert runs his fingers over the lacquered wood, his sardonic expression fading into something a little more thoughtful as he looks at the box.
He remembers Frederick, his king, good ol’ Fritz. He remembers the time he spent with the king; the memories stand out in crystal-clear imagery, a sore thumb in a long line of Fredericks. He was not the first king, but he’s the one that Gilbert remembers best, a man worthy of the time Gilbert put into this box of mementos.
Gilbert hesitates, and then his fingers undo the latch and lift the lid. He knows his death is near; he can feel it, almost taste it. Why not visit the memories of the king who forged his country into something great?
The paper is yellowed and old, as aged as the velvet lining he gave the box; a musty smell wafts up towards him, dry, the incense of memories. Gilbert wafts it away with a hand and reaches in.
He lays the mementos out on his bed with a delicate hand to keep the paper from crumbling apart underneath his fingertips; poems on scraps of paper, reams upon reams of short stories and writings and letters. Some are in German, others in French. At the moment, he feels more of a kinship with the German writers, the language that Frederick turned his nose up at. In the language, Gilbert feels a sense of urgency, a need to prove something to someone.
Re: Never Hear of That Country More [2/?]
anonymous
May 9 2009, 06:33:58 UTC
Next to come are the small notebooks. He takes his time rifling through these, though it’s as much out of respect for the delicate material as it is for the things he remembers looking at them. He sees sketches of buildings, some of Fritz’s journal entries; once or twice he happens upon a picture of himself, and he likes seeing himself through Frederick’s eyes, noticing how he grows and looks more mature in each picture.
He’s starting to feel sadness as the box further empties; no jewels, nothing fancy, just half-rotted quills and old inkwells, and some other practical knickknacks that Frederick was fond of. He doesn’t want to end this, because if he does, he’ll have to face the fact that he’s dying, slow and painful, and that his people and country are disappearing without so much as a pathetic whimper.
That’s when he feels it; as he roots through scraps of paper and odds and ends, his fingers brush over something smooth, metal, and round. Gilbert frowns, his curiosity piquing; still, he takes his time, sifting through the artifacts of his past until he can withdraw the item without destroying anything.
The tube of metal is slender and long, cold underneath his grasp as he slides it out of the box. He feels a sharper stab of nostalgia at the sight, remembering how much Fritz loved his flutes, would play them for hours on end while Gilbert sat at his feet and listened to the fluttering notes.
But something’s different.
Gilbert squints and brings the flute closer to his eyes. In the dark of the room, he can barely make out swirling curlicues and flowers on its surface; he rubs his thumb over the silver, but he can’t feel anything under his thumb but smooth, cool metal.
He’s certain of one thing; this isn’t old Fritz’s flute. A thought flickers through his mind, and he blinks.
It isn’t. Right?
In his uncertainty, he sees something; a memory so blurry he can’t see Fritz’s face.
When Gilbert walks into Fritz’s room, he’s not surprised to see the other frowning and thoughtful as he cradles something in his hands.
“New flute, your Highness?” Gilbert asks, striding across the room and saluting his king with a smart flick of his arm.
“You could say that,” Fritz says. He grabs his cleaning cloth and starts rubbing the thin metal tube in his hands. Gilbert has to bite the inside of his cheek to restrain himself from making a tasteless joke.
Instead, he asks, “What do you mean?”
Fritz holds the flute to the light; Gilbert can see filigree, delicate patterns swirling over its surface, beginning to shine under Fredericks’ attentions.
“I got this flute,” Fritz says, “through a very long chain of acquaintances and circumstances. I never thought I’d actually get to see it myself.”
“What makes this so special?” Gilbert asks, and congratulates himself for being so awesomely considerate - after all, to him, a flute is a flute is a flute.
Fritz doesn’t respond right away.
“Gilbert,” he says, “have you ever heard of a town called Hamelin?”
Gilbert frowns and racks his brain. “Yeeeaaaah,” he says, slow and unsure. “I think I have. Why?”
“Many years ago,” Frederick says, “one hundred and thirty children vanished from the town and were never heard from again. There are multiple rational explanations as to why this is.”
Gilbert frowns. “I’m…afraid I don’t follow, your Highness,” he says.
Frederick smiles a little and holds the flute. “You know how I am a fan of rational explanations, right, Gilbert?”
“Yes, your Highness.”
“The existence of this flute proves almost every single one of them wrong.”
Gilbert frowns and thinks a little. “O…kay,” he says, and he hates sounding so impolite, but Fritz sounds as though he’s clearing something up when in reality he’s just making Gilbert more confused.
Fritz just laughs, though, and pats the bed, inviting Gilbert to sit by him. “Gilbert, have you ever heard the story of the Pied Piper?”
“Is it a fairy tale that mothers tell their children at night?”
“Something like that.”
“Then no.”
“I’m not surprised. You were never the type to sit still for bedtime stories.”
The title of this piece comes from this version of the Pied Piper: http://www.indiana.edu/~librcsd/etext/piper/text.html. I’m still not sure what other stories I’ll have integrated in here, but I do plan on their being at least a few more, as is my tradition when I write these types of stories.
___
Chapter I
February 23, 1947
One of these days, he’s going to dissolve completely. It’s close. So close, in the pale of his skin and the dark beneath his eyes.
Gilbert knows that he is dying. To him, he thinks he might as well be dead, because - fuck, he can’t live like this. He can’t.
He curls up a little, pressing his back against the wall of his dirty little excuse of a house, and tries not to shake. He doesn’t once think about crying - he’s too awesome for that. Still, he tightens and tenses in an attempt to stop his body from shaking.
It doesn’t work. He thinks his very bones make clicking sounds as he trembles. Then again, West also said he had a habit of being melodramatic.
(Then again, West is on the other side of this wall, thriving, away from Ivan’s lead pipe and frostbite smile.)
He reaches over with a trembling hand and grabs at a bottle of victory gin. It feels light in his hands, and he upends it with a slow turn of his wrist. A single drop trickles down from within, trembling at the edge before falling to the filthy floor with a noiseless splatter.
“Heh…that was my last one,” Gilbert says. His fingers give, and the bottle tumbles from them to the floor. “S’pose I’ll have to go to the bar and buy a shot or something.” But even as the words escape his lips, he knows it’s useless. One reason is that he’s not sure if he can even afford the cheapest stuff they have.
And as he listens to his people crying and shouting on the streets, looting and shouting and laughing in inebriation, he thinks that the other reason is that he simply does not care anymore.
With a sigh, he somehow finds the energy and interest to press his palms flat against the wall and heave himself up. He clenches his fingers and teeth against the dizziness he feels; it trickles away in a slow ebb, and he hates his body and his mind for being so fucking weak.
He staggers to his filthy cot and collapses onto it, jumping a little as something bumps against his foot. Gilbert frowns, reaches down underneath the cot; his hands close on something, and he pulls it out from underneath the sagging frame, pulls it up and onto his lap on the bed.
The box is old, and it’s starting to show a bit of wear. Gilbert runs his fingers over the lacquered wood, his sardonic expression fading into something a little more thoughtful as he looks at the box.
He remembers Frederick, his king, good ol’ Fritz. He remembers the time he spent with the king; the memories stand out in crystal-clear imagery, a sore thumb in a long line of Fredericks. He was not the first king, but he’s the one that Gilbert remembers best, a man worthy of the time Gilbert put into this box of mementos.
Gilbert hesitates, and then his fingers undo the latch and lift the lid. He knows his death is near; he can feel it, almost taste it. Why not visit the memories of the king who forged his country into something great?
The paper is yellowed and old, as aged as the velvet lining he gave the box; a musty smell wafts up towards him, dry, the incense of memories. Gilbert wafts it away with a hand and reaches in.
He lays the mementos out on his bed with a delicate hand to keep the paper from crumbling apart underneath his fingertips; poems on scraps of paper, reams upon reams of short stories and writings and letters. Some are in German, others in French. At the moment, he feels more of a kinship with the German writers, the language that Frederick turned his nose up at. In the language, Gilbert feels a sense of urgency, a need to prove something to someone.
It’s very much what he feels right now.
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He’s starting to feel sadness as the box further empties; no jewels, nothing fancy, just half-rotted quills and old inkwells, and some other practical knickknacks that Frederick was fond of. He doesn’t want to end this, because if he does, he’ll have to face the fact that he’s dying, slow and painful, and that his people and country are disappearing without so much as a pathetic whimper.
That’s when he feels it; as he roots through scraps of paper and odds and ends, his fingers brush over something smooth, metal, and round. Gilbert frowns, his curiosity piquing; still, he takes his time, sifting through the artifacts of his past until he can withdraw the item without destroying anything.
The tube of metal is slender and long, cold underneath his grasp as he slides it out of the box. He feels a sharper stab of nostalgia at the sight, remembering how much Fritz loved his flutes, would play them for hours on end while Gilbert sat at his feet and listened to the fluttering notes.
But something’s different.
Gilbert squints and brings the flute closer to his eyes. In the dark of the room, he can barely make out swirling curlicues and flowers on its surface; he rubs his thumb over the silver, but he can’t feel anything under his thumb but smooth, cool metal.
He’s certain of one thing; this isn’t old Fritz’s flute. A thought flickers through his mind, and he blinks.
It isn’t. Right?
In his uncertainty, he sees something; a memory so blurry he can’t see Fritz’s face.
When Gilbert walks into Fritz’s room, he’s not surprised to see the other frowning and thoughtful as he cradles something in his hands.
“New flute, your Highness?” Gilbert asks, striding across the room and saluting his king with a smart flick of his arm.
“You could say that,” Fritz says. He grabs his cleaning cloth and starts rubbing the thin metal tube in his hands. Gilbert has to bite the inside of his cheek to restrain himself from making a tasteless joke.
Instead, he asks, “What do you mean?”
Fritz holds the flute to the light; Gilbert can see filigree, delicate patterns swirling over its surface, beginning to shine under Fredericks’ attentions.
“I got this flute,” Fritz says, “through a very long chain of acquaintances and circumstances. I never thought I’d actually get to see it myself.”
“What makes this so special?” Gilbert asks, and congratulates himself for being so awesomely considerate - after all, to him, a flute is a flute is a flute.
Fritz doesn’t respond right away.
“Gilbert,” he says, “have you ever heard of a town called Hamelin?”
Gilbert frowns and racks his brain. “Yeeeaaaah,” he says, slow and unsure. “I think I have. Why?”
“Many years ago,” Frederick says, “one hundred and thirty children vanished from the town and were never heard from again. There are multiple rational explanations as to why this is.”
Gilbert frowns. “I’m…afraid I don’t follow, your Highness,” he says.
Frederick smiles a little and holds the flute. “You know how I am a fan of rational explanations, right, Gilbert?”
“Yes, your Highness.”
“The existence of this flute proves almost every single one of them wrong.”
Gilbert frowns and thinks a little. “O…kay,” he says, and he hates sounding so impolite, but Fritz sounds as though he’s clearing something up when in reality he’s just making Gilbert more confused.
Fritz just laughs, though, and pats the bed, inviting Gilbert to sit by him. “Gilbert, have you ever heard the story of the Pied Piper?”
“Is it a fairy tale that mothers tell their children at night?”
“Something like that.”
“Then no.”
“I’m not surprised. You were never the type to sit still for bedtime stories.”
“I’m still not.”
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No worries anon, take your time, this sounds really interesting. ^^
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