like it as it is
For Joy, because she asked for this and even though my write-up is six months delayed, I'll still be her fangirl.
Also for Dr. Lagmay (1919-2005), because I can.
The Black Pope
It's easy as pie, hating the man that stares back from the mirror. It's a fact just like any other, like two plus two equals one.
It is morning and it is afternoon, but it doesn't make any difference. Because each time he just looks around the room, every person dressed in black, every tear duct overworked. And he thinks, finally the world can swallow itself.
They look at him because they don't know him (because they don't know him), what he is, and what he's done. Over and over, he enunciates the words--loving father, dear friend, beloved mentor--and they all blend into a dull platter of oblivion. And he feels like he can't say anymore because the words have already been sucked out.
He speaks to them afterwards.
I’m sorry.
He wonders what they weep for.
Terribly sorry.
Their eyes are blank and the sorrow is lost in the farce of their mourning.
For your loss.
Like obligations written on invisible walls.
Tiny pinpricks of light squeeze themselves through the glass windows of the house. He squints hard enough and he can almost see the faint outline of something--someone--that isn't supposed to be there. He exhales a breath he doesn't know he's been holding.
He waits most of the day for this. It comes and goes, sometimes staying long enough to leave an imprint in space, sometimes barely registering before it dissolves into particles (lightwaterweight) and in its wake there's just floating dust motes in the angry blaze of white light.
In the morning he turns the water tap all the way to icy cold so that it burns and stings when he washes his face. He looks frighteningly pale in the mirror, and he takes a moment to feel the tiny barbs of frost weaving through his veins, nerves, skin until he can't feel his fingers anymore.
He offers consolation like the prostitutes in the church park offer comfort--fleeting, shallow, unwanted. He finds that he likes that word. consolation. He says it to himself when he arranges his slippers beside the bed before he goes to sleep. consolation. He rolls the consonants and the vowels over his tongue, filling his mouth with it until he can almost taste what it stands for.
When the telly has finally consumed all types of reruns, he goes out into the warm night and walks for half an hour to the cathedral at the edge of town. He listens, even though he doesn't hear, to the quiet benedictions and desperate prayers that swim in the air above his head. He needs this, even though he doesn't understand what it means.
Sometimes when he grows tired of watching his skin grow sallow in the dark, he drinks himself to a stupor like the characters that beat their wives in the shows he watches on the telly. He gets involved in a bar brawl one night when a loose-tongued drunkard crudely mentions that he is a freak. He wakes up the next morning with different parts of his face throbbing dully. He doesn't stare too long at the mirror this time. He just bares his teeth and his grin is red. Like Indian ink stains tattooed on his gums, teeth, mouth.
He makes tea, then, for the first time. A cuppa for the pain. A cuppa for his faults. He thinks that this day would only bleed into the next, a footnote in the book of miseries. He thinks now, as the sunlight settles itself comfortably in his kitchen that his life has been full of those, of footnotes that nobody reads.
.oOo.
I think this may have been a Post-HBP Snape AU of some sort but it gave me the slip, unfortunately. So heh.
ETA: The Black Pope is not my copyright. I hardly know what it is anyway. But it does not pertain to the color of skin as used in this context.
My brother got this metal contraption strapped onto his uppper teeth the other day--I think us Muggles call it 'braces' for some reason. So I ask him all the time now.
Are your lips bleeding yet? No.
You cut your tongue yet? No.
Are your gums red and swollen yet? No.
You starved to death yet? No.
I stopped when he looked like he was about to chuck the ps2 controller at my head.
***
I had a bunch of black and white photos that I needed scanned so I gave them to my folks since they were going out anyway.
They came home and my dad said Here's your scanner. Let's set it up. There were a couple moments of disbelief when I could've said I said I wanted them scanned, I didn't say I wanted you to buy a scanner. I settled for quirking an eyebrow at him instead. So there it is and I went to work.
From 1st sem 2003. All photos were taken using Canon EOS Rebel SLR Camera and Kodak Tri-X Black and White Film.
Also for Dr. Lagmay (1919-2005), because I can.
The Black Pope
It's easy as pie, hating the man that stares back from the mirror. It's a fact just like any other, like two plus two equals one.
It is morning and it is afternoon, but it doesn't make any difference. Because each time he just looks around the room, every person dressed in black, every tear duct overworked. And he thinks, finally the world can swallow itself.
They look at him because they don't know him (because they don't know him), what he is, and what he's done. Over and over, he enunciates the words--loving father, dear friend, beloved mentor--and they all blend into a dull platter of oblivion. And he feels like he can't say anymore because the words have already been sucked out.
He speaks to them afterwards.
I’m sorry.
He wonders what they weep for.
Terribly sorry.
Their eyes are blank and the sorrow is lost in the farce of their mourning.
For your loss.
Like obligations written on invisible walls.
Tiny pinpricks of light squeeze themselves through the glass windows of the house. He squints hard enough and he can almost see the faint outline of something--someone--that isn't supposed to be there. He exhales a breath he doesn't know he's been holding.
He waits most of the day for this. It comes and goes, sometimes staying long enough to leave an imprint in space, sometimes barely registering before it dissolves into particles (lightwaterweight) and in its wake there's just floating dust motes in the angry blaze of white light.
In the morning he turns the water tap all the way to icy cold so that it burns and stings when he washes his face. He looks frighteningly pale in the mirror, and he takes a moment to feel the tiny barbs of frost weaving through his veins, nerves, skin until he can't feel his fingers anymore.
He offers consolation like the prostitutes in the church park offer comfort--fleeting, shallow, unwanted. He finds that he likes that word. consolation. He says it to himself when he arranges his slippers beside the bed before he goes to sleep. consolation. He rolls the consonants and the vowels over his tongue, filling his mouth with it until he can almost taste what it stands for.
When the telly has finally consumed all types of reruns, he goes out into the warm night and walks for half an hour to the cathedral at the edge of town. He listens, even though he doesn't hear, to the quiet benedictions and desperate prayers that swim in the air above his head. He needs this, even though he doesn't understand what it means.
Sometimes when he grows tired of watching his skin grow sallow in the dark, he drinks himself to a stupor like the characters that beat their wives in the shows he watches on the telly. He gets involved in a bar brawl one night when a loose-tongued drunkard crudely mentions that he is a freak. He wakes up the next morning with different parts of his face throbbing dully. He doesn't stare too long at the mirror this time. He just bares his teeth and his grin is red. Like Indian ink stains tattooed on his gums, teeth, mouth.
He makes tea, then, for the first time. A cuppa for the pain. A cuppa for his faults. He thinks that this day would only bleed into the next, a footnote in the book of miseries. He thinks now, as the sunlight settles itself comfortably in his kitchen that his life has been full of those, of footnotes that nobody reads.
.oOo.
I think this may have been a Post-HBP Snape AU of some sort but it gave me the slip, unfortunately. So heh.
ETA: The Black Pope is not my copyright. I hardly know what it is anyway. But it does not pertain to the color of skin as used in this context.
My brother got this metal contraption strapped onto his uppper teeth the other day--I think us Muggles call it 'braces' for some reason. So I ask him all the time now.
Are your lips bleeding yet? No.
You cut your tongue yet? No.
Are your gums red and swollen yet? No.
You starved to death yet? No.
I stopped when he looked like he was about to chuck the ps2 controller at my head.
***
I had a bunch of black and white photos that I needed scanned so I gave them to my folks since they were going out anyway.
They came home and my dad said Here's your scanner. Let's set it up. There were a couple moments of disbelief when I could've said I said I wanted them scanned, I didn't say I wanted you to buy a scanner. I settled for quirking an eyebrow at him instead. So there it is and I went to work.
From 1st sem 2003. All photos were taken using Canon EOS Rebel SLR Camera and Kodak Tri-X Black and White Film.