A Picture is Worth 1000 Words: A Multifandom Comment Fic Meme

[igrockspock]

Have you seen a hot photo at Sex is Not the Enemy and you wish there were a fic to go with it? Is there a still from your favorite series that needs a story to accompany it? Do you have a vast stockpile of pictures of outer space that would make amazing back drops for a sci-fi story? Well, this is your place! You're invited to post an

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Unknown but remembered, The Giver, Lily, G

[jactrades]

Lily finds the photograph in the archive within the Annex of the House of the Old.

The colors are all wrong, she thinks as she lifts the tattered sheet from the dusty file, and smiles at the thought.

There’s no reason that she can see for the image to exist at all. The details of the plants are too hazy for it to be a learning aide - besides there's no botanical name given. The file itself has a label, tidily written in a firm hand: Place - Elsewhere, Time - Before.

The Community now has a new definition for Before. There's the slight hesitation, always: "It happened a few years before... Before." Before he left the Community. No one mentions the name, ever, although it hasn't been designated Not-To-Be-Spoken.

There aren't many decrees from the Elders anymore.

The edges of the photograph have been worn away from more than time, she realizes, looking closer. Someone once looked at - held - touched this image often. Someone once valued it enough keep it, keep it safe for a future that didn't - wouldn't - couldn't see the possibilities in the faded colors.

The unknown and unknowable stories are always the ones that set her mind flickering about, like the fireflies she now dreams of.

Lily's Assignment may be Historian, her life's task to record the Not-My-Memories. (A lie, not merely imprecise language. They were all their memories now.) But that's not who she is.

She gently places the photograph aside. On the next Unscheduled Holiday she'll try to write the story of this photograph, and the someone who loved it.

Re: Unknown but remembered, The Giver, Lily, G

[igrockspock]

Thank you SO MUCH for this! I got chills as I was reading because those were exactly the sort of impressions I hoped to create when I took the photograph :)

Re: Unknown but remembered, The Giver, Lily, G

[jactrades]

That's your photo? It's fabulous!

Glad you liked the ficlet!

Re: Unknown but remembered, The Giver, Lily, G

[hellokatzchen]

Dude. DUDE. I haven't read The Giver in a lot of years but-- just. I don't even know. But this is brilliant.

I would've never thought to write something set in that world; now I cannot imagine this image anywhere else. You are awesome.

Re: Unknown but remembered, The Giver, Lily, G

[jactrades]

:D Glad you liked it!

(Dude. I have no idea where this came from. At all. Haven't thought about the book in years. The second line appeared in my head while I was staring at the photo, and then it just kinda went from there.)