Ficlet: The Tao of Play

Aug 21, 2008 09:57

The Tao of Play
Rating: PG
Warnings: none
Summary: Musings on letting your inner child out out to play.
Disclaimer: Not a bit of this is true except in my imagination.
Note: Written for the viggos_50 challenge. Word: poetry. One down, forty-nine left to go.
Archive: Only in the viggos_50 community and my journal. Nowhere else, please.



Every now and then, Viggo lets his inner child out to play.

Fish Fridays with David. Practical jokes on the Rings set. Things he doesn't even want to talk about when he was researching Eastern Promises. Who'd have thought that Russian mobsters - real life Russian mobsters - would have such a finely honed sense of humor? Viggo the adult is forever grateful they did; Viggo the child wonders what his adult counterpart was so worried about. Humor is universal.

Sometimes the child that lives behind his eyeballs gets control of his fingers and takes over. In between the poetry and news articles and sports stories he posts on the Perceval site, he slips in quotes that mean something more than what appears from a simple, surface reading.

He's always thought the meaning of poetry should resonate with the reader; he can't quite remember when he decided quotes could do the same thing. Sometimes the meanings are so obscure, even to him, that he can't for the life of him remember why he posted that particular string of words. Forgetfulness -- one of the joys of getting a little long in the tooth.

Then his inner child comes out to play, and the meaning of the quoted words he posts is so blatantly obvious that Orlando gets worried

"Only a delusional person wouldn't understand," Orlando's said to him more than once. "Why don't you just come out and say it if that's what you intended?"

Viggo won't, of course, because it's not just his life anymore. That changed nearly a decade ago when he swore things he never thought he'd promise again. Inner child or not, Viggo keeps his promises. Especially the ones he made to Orlando.

So he waits, and he plays, and sometimes he giggles over his computer. Life is hard, full of greed and hunger and war, but life can be good. Life can be fucking great, especially when he remembers to let his inner child out to play.
Previous post Next post
Up