124 Ficlet: The Same River Twice
Title The Same River Twice
Author Bruttimabuoni
Rating PG
Word Count 365
Prompt 124 Free For all (Prague)
Characters/Pairing (if any) Spike
Prague.
Nice word. Doesn’t sound doom-laden.
Or Praha, come to that. Bit Slavic for an English tongue, but nothing we can’t handle.
I’ve been trying to avoid coming back. Didn’t want to remember what happened here. My princess in ripped bloodied rags, me helpless knowing she was in agony, both in the hands of the mob.
(I mean, a mob. How retro is that? God knows where they got the pitchforks and torches from - shops were empty as anything, and it’s not exactly Big City gear, is it? Not that I was thinking such things at the time. I was trying to save my reason for living, after all.)
Of course, that was Before. Before the Wall fell and the Iron Curtain was torn down or ripped up or whatever.
I know Dru was sick for ages, but sometimes I’m still surprised by just how long it was. It was another world, then, behind the Curtain. So everything should be different. There won’t be anything to remind me.
Before... before was grey. Conformist, unconsumerist and just a little bit scared all the time. We loved the atmosphere - that wariness. But even more that no one ever asked questions - so when some bloke vanished on the way home, his family didn’t raise a peep. (Had to avoid Party members of course. Shame, they were better eating, on the whole).
After... Now it’s a stag weekend paradise, just a cheap flight away from any other Eurotrash capital. Stuffed with Brits on the lash, doing the conga in Wenceslas Square with felt antlers to show they’re special.
Special? Don’t make me laugh.
Still, would be easy pickings - grab a pisshead off the street, ten to one his mates’ll miss it, won’t notice he’s gone or else think he’s in a gutter somewhere. Half of’em would get to the airport before taking it seriously.
Anywhere, really. Anywhere in the world a vampire can spot those that won’t be missed. At least for a short time.
But I don’t do that anymore. Obviously. I’m here to do good.
Author Bruttimabuoni
Rating PG
Word Count 365
Prompt 124 Free For all (Prague)
Characters/Pairing (if any) Spike
Prague.
Nice word. Doesn’t sound doom-laden.
Or Praha, come to that. Bit Slavic for an English tongue, but nothing we can’t handle.
I’ve been trying to avoid coming back. Didn’t want to remember what happened here. My princess in ripped bloodied rags, me helpless knowing she was in agony, both in the hands of the mob.
(I mean, a mob. How retro is that? God knows where they got the pitchforks and torches from - shops were empty as anything, and it’s not exactly Big City gear, is it? Not that I was thinking such things at the time. I was trying to save my reason for living, after all.)
Of course, that was Before. Before the Wall fell and the Iron Curtain was torn down or ripped up or whatever.
I know Dru was sick for ages, but sometimes I’m still surprised by just how long it was. It was another world, then, behind the Curtain. So everything should be different. There won’t be anything to remind me.
Before... before was grey. Conformist, unconsumerist and just a little bit scared all the time. We loved the atmosphere - that wariness. But even more that no one ever asked questions - so when some bloke vanished on the way home, his family didn’t raise a peep. (Had to avoid Party members of course. Shame, they were better eating, on the whole).
After... Now it’s a stag weekend paradise, just a cheap flight away from any other Eurotrash capital. Stuffed with Brits on the lash, doing the conga in Wenceslas Square with felt antlers to show they’re special.
Special? Don’t make me laugh.
Still, would be easy pickings - grab a pisshead off the street, ten to one his mates’ll miss it, won’t notice he’s gone or else think he’s in a gutter somewhere. Half of’em would get to the airport before taking it seriously.
Anywhere, really. Anywhere in the world a vampire can spot those that won’t be missed. At least for a short time.
But I don’t do that anymore. Obviously. I’m here to do good.