[otc] 30.2 - can you handle it?
NOTE: Based on this letter received from Cinzia (inlight_ofcinz) just after Ziyah's death.
It’s all that’s left…a letter with an all too familiar coffee stain and silence ringing in his ears while he reads. The words are in her familiar busy scrawl, empty and meaningless without her voice to give them warmth and nuance.
The coffee stain means more to him than the tender words of comfort and love ever could. He can see her in his mind’s eye, cursing in Italian and moving her cup when she sees the damp ring forming on the stationary. She’d be too impatient to start over, knowing he wouldn’t care…
He wants her. It’s a sweet, fleeting need to touch her, to hear her. He can’t call out our reach out, because she’s just beyond his reach…
The pain of loss isn’t what drives him to his feet with an angry howl. It isn’t what clenches his fist around the letter and calls power to flesh, setting the note ablaze. He’s hollow, he’s aching, but it’s not grief that drives him to fling the burning wad of paper against a nearby wall with enough strength to scorch and chip the paint.
“Tommy, I heard a noise…oh my word!”
His mother’s voice is tinny and distant in his ears. Hellish red eyes just watch, brimming with tears as he watches the paper fall to the floor and burn. The words disappear as ash forms, the coffee stain the last to go as the fire consumes the last of Ziyah’s final words.
“Tom Tom?”
He hears his father, knowing he’s afraid that he’s not talking to his son. He almost wishes that the Titan god’s rage was on him, but it’s just the power of his own anguish.
“Where is she, Dad?” His own voice is strained, angry in his ears as the tears spill down his cheeks. It’s all he can do not to shout again, afraid of waking Mayilia. “Where is she?”
There aren’t any answers in the comforting circle of his father’s arms. The nonsense words of comfort don’t soothe him like they did when he was younger. This is one thing Dad can’t fix, he can’t make her last letter hold meaning or solace. He can’t help Tommy grieve.
Still, he holds on and lets the tears of frustration fall, praying to grieve. He prays to Zeus, to Elpis, to any god listening…not for comfort and not for peace.
He prays for the killing blow. He prays for pain so that her final words will mean something.
He begs the gods to let him feel her death, so that he can stop waiting for her to come home.
Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 436
It’s all that’s left…a letter with an all too familiar coffee stain and silence ringing in his ears while he reads. The words are in her familiar busy scrawl, empty and meaningless without her voice to give them warmth and nuance.
The coffee stain means more to him than the tender words of comfort and love ever could. He can see her in his mind’s eye, cursing in Italian and moving her cup when she sees the damp ring forming on the stationary. She’d be too impatient to start over, knowing he wouldn’t care…
He wants her. It’s a sweet, fleeting need to touch her, to hear her. He can’t call out our reach out, because she’s just beyond his reach…
The pain of loss isn’t what drives him to his feet with an angry howl. It isn’t what clenches his fist around the letter and calls power to flesh, setting the note ablaze. He’s hollow, he’s aching, but it’s not grief that drives him to fling the burning wad of paper against a nearby wall with enough strength to scorch and chip the paint.
“Tommy, I heard a noise…oh my word!”
His mother’s voice is tinny and distant in his ears. Hellish red eyes just watch, brimming with tears as he watches the paper fall to the floor and burn. The words disappear as ash forms, the coffee stain the last to go as the fire consumes the last of Ziyah’s final words.
“Tom Tom?”
He hears his father, knowing he’s afraid that he’s not talking to his son. He almost wishes that the Titan god’s rage was on him, but it’s just the power of his own anguish.
“Where is she, Dad?” His own voice is strained, angry in his ears as the tears spill down his cheeks. It’s all he can do not to shout again, afraid of waking Mayilia. “Where is she?”
There aren’t any answers in the comforting circle of his father’s arms. The nonsense words of comfort don’t soothe him like they did when he was younger. This is one thing Dad can’t fix, he can’t make her last letter hold meaning or solace. He can’t help Tommy grieve.
Still, he holds on and lets the tears of frustration fall, praying to grieve. He prays to Zeus, to Elpis, to any god listening…not for comfort and not for peace.
He prays for the killing blow. He prays for pain so that her final words will mean something.
He begs the gods to let him feel her death, so that he can stop waiting for her to come home.
Muse: Tommy Karras
Fandom: Original Character
Words: 436