Birthday drabbles for the_grynne. Happy, happy !
Oh, I am so embarassed ! I thought I posted this already and I didn't. Darling, darling the_grynne, this was supposed to have been your birthday present ! It still is. You are a wonderful mind and an overflowing heart and I admire you deeply. Forgive me for possibly embarassing myself.
"Tu proverai sì come sa di sale
lo pane altrui, e come è duro calle
lo scendere e’l salir per l’altrui scale.
Thou shalt by sharp experience be aware
how salt the bread of strangers is, how hard
the up and down of someone else’s stair."
-Dante's Paradiso, Canto 17.
True Blood
They're at the kitchen table and the windows are open; it smells like drying grass outside, old sunshine, the split kernels of seeds and the cracks in the skin of the sycamore. It's eight minutes past midnight and Sookie is eating a slice of cherry cobbler, slowly, turning the crumbling sweetness over and over in her mouth. Bill is watching.
"It smells nice," he says.
It does. Smells good enough, she guesses. She made the cobbler from scratch and it tastes okay; it's nothing like Gran's. But there's no way to tell what's missing. After a while, she looks up and meets his eyes. Her throat bobs and she swallows and she reaches for a glass of milk; it sweats into her hand and leaves droplets in the ridges of her knuckles.
"Do you ever miss food ?" she asks, awkwardly loud in her own ears. She regrets it immediately. His eyes flicker to the edge of the table, and she can't read him but she can see the tumblers cycling around the question in his mind, looking for an in. A spot in that response that won't bleed when pressed, won't tear. "Never mind," she says, smiling wryly into her collar. "I bet you don't miss cholesterol."
She takes another bite.
Terminator: SCC
There's something in the can still; John turns it over from side to side, caught in mild wonder at the softly rushing sound of grit. The dented tin fits halfway in his hand; the plastic lid hasn't yet begun to decay. Maybe it won't: beyond number, the lasting petroleum-based gifts of his people to this planet. Wonderful. You're welcome.
"Where did you find this ?" he asks, looking up. Cameron looks down at him, chin tilted and eyes brightly accurate, calculating distance. She speaks in coordinates to some of the others, but to him she says-
"Monroe Avenue." He nods and stares back down at the can, still rattling it back and forth. After a long minute he snaps the lid open at the nearest edge, so carefully; there is a gentle puff of dust into the air, the muted smell of earth and bitterness. Something from the morning, or the mornings before- his mother's smell, the earthenware cups and her thin, white hands around them. Peacefulness. Schoolbooks. Hedges trimmed at three feet. John breathes in. He hears Cameron tilt her head in the opposite direction. Her hair, cut short, brushes the top of her collar. "There was a convenience store."
"Yeah," says John, awkwardly. He pulls back, looks up. "Don't tell me. They were out of hot dogs." She turns and steps away without answering. "What ?"
"You said," says Cameron, "not to tell you."
"Tu proverai sì come sa di sale
lo pane altrui, e come è duro calle
lo scendere e’l salir per l’altrui scale.
Thou shalt by sharp experience be aware
how salt the bread of strangers is, how hard
the up and down of someone else’s stair."
-Dante's Paradiso, Canto 17.
True Blood
They're at the kitchen table and the windows are open; it smells like drying grass outside, old sunshine, the split kernels of seeds and the cracks in the skin of the sycamore. It's eight minutes past midnight and Sookie is eating a slice of cherry cobbler, slowly, turning the crumbling sweetness over and over in her mouth. Bill is watching.
"It smells nice," he says.
It does. Smells good enough, she guesses. She made the cobbler from scratch and it tastes okay; it's nothing like Gran's. But there's no way to tell what's missing. After a while, she looks up and meets his eyes. Her throat bobs and she swallows and she reaches for a glass of milk; it sweats into her hand and leaves droplets in the ridges of her knuckles.
"Do you ever miss food ?" she asks, awkwardly loud in her own ears. She regrets it immediately. His eyes flicker to the edge of the table, and she can't read him but she can see the tumblers cycling around the question in his mind, looking for an in. A spot in that response that won't bleed when pressed, won't tear. "Never mind," she says, smiling wryly into her collar. "I bet you don't miss cholesterol."
She takes another bite.
Terminator: SCC
There's something in the can still; John turns it over from side to side, caught in mild wonder at the softly rushing sound of grit. The dented tin fits halfway in his hand; the plastic lid hasn't yet begun to decay. Maybe it won't: beyond number, the lasting petroleum-based gifts of his people to this planet. Wonderful. You're welcome.
"Where did you find this ?" he asks, looking up. Cameron looks down at him, chin tilted and eyes brightly accurate, calculating distance. She speaks in coordinates to some of the others, but to him she says-
"Monroe Avenue." He nods and stares back down at the can, still rattling it back and forth. After a long minute he snaps the lid open at the nearest edge, so carefully; there is a gentle puff of dust into the air, the muted smell of earth and bitterness. Something from the morning, or the mornings before- his mother's smell, the earthenware cups and her thin, white hands around them. Peacefulness. Schoolbooks. Hedges trimmed at three feet. John breathes in. He hears Cameron tilt her head in the opposite direction. Her hair, cut short, brushes the top of her collar. "There was a convenience store."
"Yeah," says John, awkwardly. He pulls back, looks up. "Don't tell me. They were out of hot dogs." She turns and steps away without answering. "What ?"
"You said," says Cameron, "not to tell you."