Firefly ficlets: "Infinite Rosary" and "Lepidopterist Agenda" (River Tam, PG)
This evening I dropped River Tam as a muse over at Theatrical Muse. I love writing her, but my other two muses are more active (also more sane), and a lot of the fun, for me, with TM is interacting with other characters. River...doesn't play well with others.
But anyway, I didn't want to let her go without preserving a few of her weekly prompt responses, which kind of almost work as ficlets. So.
Title: Infinite Rosary
Fandom: Firefly
Rating: PG
Word count: 264
Note: Written for the prompt "religion" at theatrical_muse
Infinite Rosary
Doesn't make sense. People believing in what they can't see. Love, like daddy's in the other room. Mother's upstairs. Good children. Shh.
Can't see molecules, but God is big. Can't miss the elephant. Trip over boulders, not pebbles.
Infinity like counting beads on a string, and you could, you know, if you had enough time and immortality, of course. And you could. Fingertips sliding over colored glass, smooth texture round like souls, circle sign of the divine, forever, and you could say, "I have faith that I will count eternally, amen."
Time is not relevant in the lifespan of a soul. Some insects live for a standard day, and among them, we are gods. Chirp. Breed. Eat. Die. Decompose. My footprints in the mud, and did I carry you?
Butterfly on my hand, set free. They dance circles in the air, lost. Lead 'em back with a trail of breadcrumbs.
Symbols. Wine blood-red on your lips.
If I washed my feet, would that be an adequate solution? Logic dictates that it would not; a lack of dirt does not glue create. Glass shattered, can't be fixed.
Towels made of hair. Lips taste like apples.
Do you see me spin, calves contracting, the arches of my soles? My legs don't know joy kneeling.
Forehead against the floor in supplication; my palms touch down and don't go right through because of matter. State of mind. Faith in the certainty of solids.
I am not afraid of molecules. Forgive me. Amen.
Title: Lepidopterist Agenda
Fandom: Firefly
Rating: PG
Word count: 382
Note: Written for the following prompt at TM: If you could read my mind right now...write about a conversation when what you said was not what you were thinking.
Lepidopterist Agenda
No need to read my mind. You've seen it, haven't you? Shave a strip, circle, bullseye in her hair, bore into her cranium and look because it's beautiful. Just look, don't touch its wings; you'll break it. Didn't your mother teach you?
You touched. Incisions. Metal. Silver point, gray matter. Suck up the blood. Twenty needles stuck into my eyeballs, paralyzed pupils staring straight, watching them come, screaming inside, and you saw what I am, and I am the subject.
You saw my soul, you gorram rutting sons of bitches. Dress me up in hospital gown, and my nipples are showing through, and I am a girl and I am a person and you say "magnificent" and you say "dangerous" and you say "the subject" until I forget that I have a face.
Touched my skin, at night, at first. Making sure I'm still here. No mirrors. No rutting soap. Bit through my tongue to keep from begging for my name.
You made this. Torn off wings pinned up and ragged, and they say, "That was beautiful. Once."
And can't put it back, can't fix it, and my feet remember, and my hands know things I never learned, and my voice--
There exists a condition called aphasia, in which an individual loses the ability to produce and/or comprehend language.
I understand, I hear you, have always, but you don't understand her. And not just because she's using extensive vocabulary well beyond her years but because it's her paths alone and you can't follow. Straight line's logical, fastest, but I go in circles. Spirals. Knots.
Tongue. Tied.
I say everything and nothing that I am thinking. Always thinking, always saying in my mind the things I see, sometimes to you, sometimes not because I know what you think. Know what you see, don't I? Can feel it off you like sickness. Bitter poison. That's what ended its life. Poor thing.
If you heard the colors and the layers; saw the shape of the inflection, maybe you'd understand. Circles make sense even if their circumference is circumlocutious.
They drilled deep. Gotta step carefully in the minefield. Down below, she's speaking clearly, and you'll never know.
But anyway, I didn't want to let her go without preserving a few of her weekly prompt responses, which kind of almost work as ficlets. So.
Title: Infinite Rosary
Fandom: Firefly
Rating: PG
Word count: 264
Note: Written for the prompt "religion" at theatrical_muse
Infinite Rosary
Doesn't make sense. People believing in what they can't see. Love, like daddy's in the other room. Mother's upstairs. Good children. Shh.
Can't see molecules, but God is big. Can't miss the elephant. Trip over boulders, not pebbles.
Infinity like counting beads on a string, and you could, you know, if you had enough time and immortality, of course. And you could. Fingertips sliding over colored glass, smooth texture round like souls, circle sign of the divine, forever, and you could say, "I have faith that I will count eternally, amen."
Time is not relevant in the lifespan of a soul. Some insects live for a standard day, and among them, we are gods. Chirp. Breed. Eat. Die. Decompose. My footprints in the mud, and did I carry you?
Butterfly on my hand, set free. They dance circles in the air, lost. Lead 'em back with a trail of breadcrumbs.
Symbols. Wine blood-red on your lips.
If I washed my feet, would that be an adequate solution? Logic dictates that it would not; a lack of dirt does not glue create. Glass shattered, can't be fixed.
Towels made of hair. Lips taste like apples.
Do you see me spin, calves contracting, the arches of my soles? My legs don't know joy kneeling.
Forehead against the floor in supplication; my palms touch down and don't go right through because of matter. State of mind. Faith in the certainty of solids.
I am not afraid of molecules. Forgive me. Amen.
Title: Lepidopterist Agenda
Fandom: Firefly
Rating: PG
Word count: 382
Note: Written for the following prompt at TM: If you could read my mind right now...write about a conversation when what you said was not what you were thinking.
Lepidopterist Agenda
No need to read my mind. You've seen it, haven't you? Shave a strip, circle, bullseye in her hair, bore into her cranium and look because it's beautiful. Just look, don't touch its wings; you'll break it. Didn't your mother teach you?
You touched. Incisions. Metal. Silver point, gray matter. Suck up the blood. Twenty needles stuck into my eyeballs, paralyzed pupils staring straight, watching them come, screaming inside, and you saw what I am, and I am the subject.
You saw my soul, you gorram rutting sons of bitches. Dress me up in hospital gown, and my nipples are showing through, and I am a girl and I am a person and you say "magnificent" and you say "dangerous" and you say "the subject" until I forget that I have a face.
Touched my skin, at night, at first. Making sure I'm still here. No mirrors. No rutting soap. Bit through my tongue to keep from begging for my name.
You made this. Torn off wings pinned up and ragged, and they say, "That was beautiful. Once."
And can't put it back, can't fix it, and my feet remember, and my hands know things I never learned, and my voice--
There exists a condition called aphasia, in which an individual loses the ability to produce and/or comprehend language.
I understand, I hear you, have always, but you don't understand her. And not just because she's using extensive vocabulary well beyond her years but because it's her paths alone and you can't follow. Straight line's logical, fastest, but I go in circles. Spirals. Knots.
Tongue. Tied.
I say everything and nothing that I am thinking. Always thinking, always saying in my mind the things I see, sometimes to you, sometimes not because I know what you think. Know what you see, don't I? Can feel it off you like sickness. Bitter poison. That's what ended its life. Poor thing.
If you heard the colors and the layers; saw the shape of the inflection, maybe you'd understand. Circles make sense even if their circumference is circumlocutious.
They drilled deep. Gotta step carefully in the minefield. Down below, she's speaking clearly, and you'll never know.