Rabbit Hole Day
I am not a meme-r, but this is a rad idea:
Rabbit Hole Day
Which I heard about from elf_fu . Which I have one hour left to complete, in my time zone (West coast this week, baybeee!)
So, behind the cut, I'll place a short but (hopefully) sweet bit of nonsense about what I find down the Rabbit Hole.
"Just finish the pitcher. It would be irresponsible to let it go to waste."
"I'm already d-d-d-drunk." Intentional stutter for comedic effect. Everyone laughs, because drinking makes you funnier. Or in this case, me.
"This is the only thirtieth birthday you are ever going to get." Oh, the peanut gallery and their logic.
"This is the only thirtieth birthday I am ever going to want, but you all paid, so I'll do it!"
A cheer. I am a hero. I am the girl that I have never been before. How did it happen, all these people in my life? I feel like I've been wrapped in glamour and doused with confetti. I feel like my own birthday cake, with its perfect, fluffy white icing and the tiny silvered dots of sugar.
What's left in the pitcher is green, so green, and it dances into my cup. I barely taste the sting of intoxicant; just the sharp tang of fruit and the sweetness that follows. I am a hero for a while longer. Then, oh then. Then I am out like a light and off like a prom dress. I go somewhere else. Down, down, down, a thousand
stories, falling forever through a void that came from nowhere. Wildly appropriate for a void, if you really think of it.
Yes. I have finished the pitcher, and though I am a hero, I have paid the price. This place is unusual, and I know it by the way that gravity lags. It is just enough that I feel like I am walking on a trampoline, or an old mattress. I can picture the springs protruding from the bottom of my very sensible shoes. They look like cartoon slinkies.
This place is empty, artless, colorless. Is it a black hole? What was in that pitcher? Suddenly, a glint catches my eye. I go to it, for there is nothing else to do, and I am a creature of doing. The light winks from its metallic surface, cold and beautiful all at once. It is a flute. I don't play the flute, and reckon I can't. I tried once, for months. Month after month I pressed my lip to the mouthpiece, made the shape as I was instructed and carefully blew. Month after month, there was no sound.
"You aren't doing anything wrong that I can see. Some people just... can't. It's not your fault."
If it wasn't my fault, why couldn't I have an A for effort. Am I blamed for my most basic shapes? My physiology? The bits that make up the infinitesimal rungs that determine nearly every line, every taste, everything that I am? Seems hardly fair.
I defy you, rungs. I lift the flute and blow. There is no sound. I try again, so determined. Not a peep emerges from the flute, but rather, something I like a great deal more than the treble whine of an old woodwind. Colors bleed from the keys, and in this world of wrong gravity, it spills to the floor and bounces into the void. I blow harder, and harder and harder. The greater my conviction, the more of this not-sound bleeds from my instrument. Soon, there is no blackness left to fill. The world around me is so fucking beautiful.
I lie down, and set the flute beside me. Every breath I take adds detail to the clouds that have been decoupaged to what has become the sky. I am in a pointillist jungle...a million tiny, perfect dots that are not but dots up close are vibrant trees, humming with color. The flowers explode from the landscape, splattered into existence by the staccato bursts of my own breath. Bright colors and vibrant angles cut the soft focus of the noble trees as they dip towards the water. My god, the water. Though it is still, it shimmers silver and blue, winking white light back at the clouds. It is sequined perfection, and I am at ease.
So at ease, in fact, that I begin to sing, though when I open my mouth, there is still no sound. From my lips first float tiny, sweet birds. Sparrows that glide and zip. Hummingbirds that move so quickly to stay in one place that they look like they are still. They are perfection. I think of a sad song, and as I sing, a melancholy troupe of ants disappears into the woods. I think of a fierce song, and angular, beautiful, fearsome tigers prowl my impressionist jungle.
This is a place of stories and magic and light, but even as I marvel in it, I know I cannot stay. This is a world without music, and though I love the violence of the blooms, the sharpness of the beasts and the incredible softness of the trees, this is no place for a girl like me.
Rabbit Hole Day
Which I heard about from elf_fu . Which I have one hour left to complete, in my time zone (West coast this week, baybeee!)
So, behind the cut, I'll place a short but (hopefully) sweet bit of nonsense about what I find down the Rabbit Hole.
"Just finish the pitcher. It would be irresponsible to let it go to waste."
"I'm already d-d-d-drunk." Intentional stutter for comedic effect. Everyone laughs, because drinking makes you funnier. Or in this case, me.
"This is the only thirtieth birthday you are ever going to get." Oh, the peanut gallery and their logic.
"This is the only thirtieth birthday I am ever going to want, but you all paid, so I'll do it!"
A cheer. I am a hero. I am the girl that I have never been before. How did it happen, all these people in my life? I feel like I've been wrapped in glamour and doused with confetti. I feel like my own birthday cake, with its perfect, fluffy white icing and the tiny silvered dots of sugar.
What's left in the pitcher is green, so green, and it dances into my cup. I barely taste the sting of intoxicant; just the sharp tang of fruit and the sweetness that follows. I am a hero for a while longer. Then, oh then. Then I am out like a light and off like a prom dress. I go somewhere else. Down, down, down, a thousand
stories, falling forever through a void that came from nowhere. Wildly appropriate for a void, if you really think of it.
Yes. I have finished the pitcher, and though I am a hero, I have paid the price. This place is unusual, and I know it by the way that gravity lags. It is just enough that I feel like I am walking on a trampoline, or an old mattress. I can picture the springs protruding from the bottom of my very sensible shoes. They look like cartoon slinkies.
This place is empty, artless, colorless. Is it a black hole? What was in that pitcher? Suddenly, a glint catches my eye. I go to it, for there is nothing else to do, and I am a creature of doing. The light winks from its metallic surface, cold and beautiful all at once. It is a flute. I don't play the flute, and reckon I can't. I tried once, for months. Month after month I pressed my lip to the mouthpiece, made the shape as I was instructed and carefully blew. Month after month, there was no sound.
"You aren't doing anything wrong that I can see. Some people just... can't. It's not your fault."
If it wasn't my fault, why couldn't I have an A for effort. Am I blamed for my most basic shapes? My physiology? The bits that make up the infinitesimal rungs that determine nearly every line, every taste, everything that I am? Seems hardly fair.
I defy you, rungs. I lift the flute and blow. There is no sound. I try again, so determined. Not a peep emerges from the flute, but rather, something I like a great deal more than the treble whine of an old woodwind. Colors bleed from the keys, and in this world of wrong gravity, it spills to the floor and bounces into the void. I blow harder, and harder and harder. The greater my conviction, the more of this not-sound bleeds from my instrument. Soon, there is no blackness left to fill. The world around me is so fucking beautiful.
I lie down, and set the flute beside me. Every breath I take adds detail to the clouds that have been decoupaged to what has become the sky. I am in a pointillist jungle...a million tiny, perfect dots that are not but dots up close are vibrant trees, humming with color. The flowers explode from the landscape, splattered into existence by the staccato bursts of my own breath. Bright colors and vibrant angles cut the soft focus of the noble trees as they dip towards the water. My god, the water. Though it is still, it shimmers silver and blue, winking white light back at the clouds. It is sequined perfection, and I am at ease.
So at ease, in fact, that I begin to sing, though when I open my mouth, there is still no sound. From my lips first float tiny, sweet birds. Sparrows that glide and zip. Hummingbirds that move so quickly to stay in one place that they look like they are still. They are perfection. I think of a sad song, and as I sing, a melancholy troupe of ants disappears into the woods. I think of a fierce song, and angular, beautiful, fearsome tigers prowl my impressionist jungle.
This is a place of stories and magic and light, but even as I marvel in it, I know I cannot stay. This is a world without music, and though I love the violence of the blooms, the sharpness of the beasts and the incredible softness of the trees, this is no place for a girl like me.