[Post 020] Text/Action for Goldenrod City
France has lived for a long time.
It's a difficult truth to express. Age is completely relative for him, whose body ages so minutely a human lifetime wouldn't notice. He isn't even entirely sure of how many years have passed before his eyes, not exactly, not anymore than he can be certain of how he came to be. Those early years, when Paris was still fields and forests, are lost even to him; at best, they are half-remembered visions that might have been imagined from stories told in his youth.
And even that "youth" is a relative term. He does a lot to make himself look older. The stubble only started growing during the later 1800's, and he clings to it, this tiny marker that he is older, that the world has changed from when he was innocent and young and, at times, utterly insane. He wants so badly to believe that yes, I, too, grew up, that yes, I, too, have the capacity to change, that it's alright (or it will be, one day).
But it isn't alright, not really.
France has always lived without regrets.
Maybe it's because he's lived so long; maybe it's because he's arrogant; or maybe it's even because this is just how France is. He couldn't be himself if he harbored regrets, if he let them fester inside of his heart, poisoning, curdling, rotting against his ribcage until the only thing that would be left would be a tattered and putrid shell. And so he doesn't regret, won't let himself, because such an existence wouldn't be beautiful, wouldn't be French.
Instead, he wishes. Wishes are full of all sorts of things, of dreams and love and humanity. Wishes can be bitter, too, but not poisonous like regrets, so France wishes for many things. Sometimes, he wishes for food, for shelter, for water, for warmth, for cold. But, more often, he wishes for simpler things. He wishes for friends, for lovers, for family and children and something to hold and cherish as his own.
Because these are the things he calls beautiful.
France was never good at it, the loosing people thing. Out of all the Nation's he's ever met, he's really exceptionally bad at it. As a Nation, it's normal to outlive all other living things. It's too painful to have to grieve the death of each human, to watch so many people and creatures and things pass out of their lives. This is why France tries his best not to get too attached to anything or anyone.
But France loves.
If there is anything France is guilty of, then it would be love, and attachment is essential to love. It creates the threads that bind a person to another, weaving inbetween and blossoming out of the cracks, like ivy running up the sides of a brick house. Each memory, each touch, each sound or smell or sensation that is associated with another being; that is a thread, that is an attachment, that is love, and that is what France does:
He loves.
He leans against a street lamp, humming to himself, the heel of his left boot beating time against the metal base, his head tilted up to watch the street lamp's bright, unchanging light. Every now and then, he makes to move and then settles back against the lamp post, going back to humming the same song over and over, not really thinking about it.
I promised I would stay...
He closes his eyes after a while, closes them and laughs, unevenly, under and over his own breath. The volume gradually builds, and he's not entirely sure if he's laughing or choking or screaming, not anymore, not now, not ever because the world has gone mad, and this is where love has brought him, to this place where the sidewalk ends.
I stayed.
A handful of hundreds of years ago, when he was still young and unattached, he might have been able to adjust to this place and not just survive. The world had seemed wider then, or more simple, at least in an roundabout sort of way. France isn't sure when things changed. Maybe it was when gas became the order of the day, or when total warfare was no longer a theory, or when he looked up and saw a man in a balloon soaring up
up
and up
into the sky.
Canada's things are still there, parts and pieces scattered about the hotel room.
France doesn't know what to do with them.
Maybe he'll have Marianne burn them and destroy all traces of the boy and the memories of what they shared, or, maybe, he'll hold onto them and act like maybe Canada will come back one day, some day, and let his self-deception grow further.
Or, maybe, he'll open the wine bottle in the fridge and drink it all down, drown it all out. He'll make tonight easier and tomorrow harder, when he has to remember, has to hurt, and has do something at the same time.
Or, maybe, he'll just sit among all these pieces
all these little memories that he loves
strewn out and around the room,
tossed around and held close,
knees against his chest,
hands in his hair,
and just
cry
[Public Text]
Canada's gone. Sometime in the night. He wasn't kidnapped. I would have heard him. I would have known. He's gone.
[Private Text to Envy]
Can you stay over tonight?
It's a difficult truth to express. Age is completely relative for him, whose body ages so minutely a human lifetime wouldn't notice. He isn't even entirely sure of how many years have passed before his eyes, not exactly, not anymore than he can be certain of how he came to be. Those early years, when Paris was still fields and forests, are lost even to him; at best, they are half-remembered visions that might have been imagined from stories told in his youth.
And even that "youth" is a relative term. He does a lot to make himself look older. The stubble only started growing during the later 1800's, and he clings to it, this tiny marker that he is older, that the world has changed from when he was innocent and young and, at times, utterly insane. He wants so badly to believe that yes, I, too, grew up, that yes, I, too, have the capacity to change, that it's alright (or it will be, one day).
But it isn't alright, not really.
France has always lived without regrets.
Maybe it's because he's lived so long; maybe it's because he's arrogant; or maybe it's even because this is just how France is. He couldn't be himself if he harbored regrets, if he let them fester inside of his heart, poisoning, curdling, rotting against his ribcage until the only thing that would be left would be a tattered and putrid shell. And so he doesn't regret, won't let himself, because such an existence wouldn't be beautiful, wouldn't be French.
Instead, he wishes. Wishes are full of all sorts of things, of dreams and love and humanity. Wishes can be bitter, too, but not poisonous like regrets, so France wishes for many things. Sometimes, he wishes for food, for shelter, for water, for warmth, for cold. But, more often, he wishes for simpler things. He wishes for friends, for lovers, for family and children and something to hold and cherish as his own.
Because these are the things he calls beautiful.
France was never good at it, the loosing people thing. Out of all the Nation's he's ever met, he's really exceptionally bad at it. As a Nation, it's normal to outlive all other living things. It's too painful to have to grieve the death of each human, to watch so many people and creatures and things pass out of their lives. This is why France tries his best not to get too attached to anything or anyone.
But France loves.
If there is anything France is guilty of, then it would be love, and attachment is essential to love. It creates the threads that bind a person to another, weaving inbetween and blossoming out of the cracks, like ivy running up the sides of a brick house. Each memory, each touch, each sound or smell or sensation that is associated with another being; that is a thread, that is an attachment, that is love, and that is what France does:
He loves.
He leans against a street lamp, humming to himself, the heel of his left boot beating time against the metal base, his head tilted up to watch the street lamp's bright, unchanging light. Every now and then, he makes to move and then settles back against the lamp post, going back to humming the same song over and over, not really thinking about it.
I promised I would stay...
He closes his eyes after a while, closes them and laughs, unevenly, under and over his own breath. The volume gradually builds, and he's not entirely sure if he's laughing or choking or screaming, not anymore, not now, not ever because the world has gone mad, and this is where love has brought him, to this place where the sidewalk ends.
I stayed.
A handful of hundreds of years ago, when he was still young and unattached, he might have been able to adjust to this place and not just survive. The world had seemed wider then, or more simple, at least in an roundabout sort of way. France isn't sure when things changed. Maybe it was when gas became the order of the day, or when total warfare was no longer a theory, or when he looked up and saw a man in a balloon soaring up
up
and up
into the sky.
Canada's things are still there, parts and pieces scattered about the hotel room.
France doesn't know what to do with them.
Maybe he'll have Marianne burn them and destroy all traces of the boy and the memories of what they shared, or, maybe, he'll hold onto them and act like maybe Canada will come back one day, some day, and let his self-deception grow further.
Or, maybe, he'll open the wine bottle in the fridge and drink it all down, drown it all out. He'll make tonight easier and tomorrow harder, when he has to remember, has to hurt, and has do something at the same time.
Or, maybe, he'll just sit among all these pieces
all these little memories that he loves
strewn out and around the room,
tossed around and held close,
knees against his chest,
hands in his hair,
and just
cry
[Public Text]
Canada's gone. Sometime in the night. He wasn't kidnapped. I would have heard him. I would have known. He's gone.
[Private Text to Envy]
Can you stay over tonight?