Fic: That Monday Feeling 8/9
Monday 2nd February 9:42am
‘So what happens next?’
Ianto was bored of this game already. Jack had been asking the same question for the past hour, surprised every time Ianto gave a detailed description of the events that occurred moments later. He’d lived through every version of this Monday so many times now that he could detail the life of his postman.
‘The car blows up,’ Ianto said idly, staring out the windscreen of the SUV at a passing family huddled underneath their waterproofs. He could feel Jack looking at him worriedly.
Ianto sighed before looking over at Jack. ‘The little boy falls and skins his hands and knees while his sister chases a seagull down to the barrage. Dad goes after her while Mum sees to her son.’
Jack turned to look out the windscreen again like it was some giant TV screen and the world was suddenly the most fascinating reality TV show ever made. Ianto was bored. Today had been a day where he’d chosen to explain that he was stuck in the same Monday forever, and was dutifully now telling Jack every intimate detail of the day ahead. Since he’d already experienced twelve other Mondays like this the novelty was wearing off somewhat.
‘Can we go now?’
‘Are we supposed to go now?’ Jack asked, turning to look at Ianto with an extreme amount of enthusiasm that Ianto didn’t think was warranted given his current situation.
‘Kathy Swanson will be calling you in a minute,’ Ianto replied, his elbow resting on the rubber of the window ledge, his head in his hand. ‘Also we need to dump those Weevils off before they stink out the boot.’ Ianto already knew he’d have to clean it out later, what with the dead body they were soon to be retrieving from the river, but a part of Ianto thought that today, maybe he wouldn’t clean anything out. He was sick of the smell of bleach.
~
Ianto was impressed with himself. He’s made it all the way to eleven o’clock in the evening without dying. A feat in itself since he’s come close quite a few times during the course of the day. All he really has to do is last another hour and he thinks he’s home free. He can almost taste Tuesday. He wasn’t sure exactly what Tuesday tasted of, but it sent a thrill of pleasure through him just thinking about it - so maybe it tasted chocolate and sex.
He wonders what the weather’s going to be like. He wonders which pair of underwear Jack will pick to wear that day and also what colour top Gwen will put on. He wonders if the garage will phone him with good news about his car, wonders if Rhiannon will invite him over for dinner to say sorry. He wonders what headline will replace the one about the MP’s views on the timing of the roadworks in the city centre. The body in the river will no doubt monopolise Tuesday’s headlines, or the disturbance at The Old Custom House in Penarth. Ianto’s now seen Cardiff from so many angles he’s pretty sure he could write the whole of tomorrow’s paper himself.
So when it’s late and they get a call to say there’s Weevil’s out at the Glamorgan Golf club, Ianto thinks it’s safe to head out there with Gwen and Jack. He even takes it as a thrill to run across the eighteenth hole, stumbling round the last bunker for the course and remembering doing the exact same thing when he was a kid. He doesn’t get caught this time and is now the one doing the chasing rather than being chased.
He’s running down the street towards the sea on his own since he last remembers seeing Jack playing hide and seek at the bunker on the 2nd hole, and Gwen wrestling with her Weevil in the car park, trying to avoid the golf buggies. The sea air hits him like a slap in the face and it’s not long before he’s vaulting the barriers onto Penarth Pier, chasing down a Weevil that when it realises it’s cornered will turn razor sharp teeth on the only thing blocking it’s way back to dry land: Ianto.
They tussle like prize-fighters in a boxing ring, trading blows until they start using their teeth - Ianto isn’t above biting Weevils in a bid for survival. But the boards are wet from the fact it’s been raining all day and either one or both of them slips, it doesn’t matter. They're both locked together in a feral fight that neither of them will win, and before either of them can catch themselves they’re tumbling into the sea.
Weevils can’t swim. It also turns out that Ianto Jones’ can’t swim either. Except, Ianto took lessons at the local pool when he was a kid, and his Dad threw him in the deep end on more than one occasion to see if the lessons stuck. But this is the ocean now and Ianto’s in way over his head. There are no cracked tiles to tell him which way is down and no high vaulted ceiling with fluorescent lights to tell him which way is up. It’s dark on all sides.
Ianto tries to cling onto the last threads of his life, finding calmness in the last waking moment before death for the first time. He watches specks of dirt trailing past his limited vision in his current underwater view of the world. He can feel his clothes billowing around him, pins and needles tingling in his fingers and toes and his lungs demanding him to just breathe, breathe, breathe, please just breathe because his head feels like it’s going to explode through the effort to disobey. So he breathes. Freezing cold water rushing past his lips to fill his lungs, like a thousand stabbing knives from the inside. But the feeling dulls, and fades. Ianto no longer cares that up is down and left is right, but right is still right because he feels like a superhero, flying through the murky depths of the sea. Alone.
He’s not a superhero, because superheroes would have long ago figured out how to escape a never-ending cycle of mundane Monday’s. Superheroes can’t die either. Well, they can, they just don’t stay dead. Because children worship them, and want to be them, and if superheroes died it would break their hearts. That’s why Jack always gets to play the Superhero when they play with Finlay. Ianto’s always the sidekick, always has to wear the smaller blanket as a cape and has to be rescued by Jack from the evil villain Flaming Finn. They always escape just in the knick of time, Finn complaining loudly but always escaping too. Even when they play with Rona, Ianto is always Ken to Jack’s Barbie. Ianto realised a fair few deaths ago that he is no longer the sidekick in this tale, and it is not Jack that is going to save him, but Ianto’s struggling to find the energy to hang on.
It’s the first time he realises that what they say is not true. Your whole life does not flash before your eyes in your dying moments. He doesn’t remember the smell of his grandmother’s house, or the first time he kissed a girl, or a boy for that matter. He doesn’t remember some long distant memory of forgotten summer days. He’s not thinking about anything of any consequence, not even the hope of survival because there’s always tomorrow. He wonders if that’s what Jack thinks as he’s dying. That there will always be tomorrow when he gets the chance to save himself again, and exhausted gives up because after that tomorrow there waits another.
He counts the last three bubbles of air he expels struggling up towards the surface, watching as they pop out of existence only a few feet away. His watch stops at one minute to midnight, too waterlogged to continue its feeble attempt to tick as the increased water pressure cracks the face. Ianto Jones doesn’t notice. His heart has stopped as he sinks towards his watery grave.
~
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
Sylvia Plath
Next
‘So what happens next?’
Ianto was bored of this game already. Jack had been asking the same question for the past hour, surprised every time Ianto gave a detailed description of the events that occurred moments later. He’d lived through every version of this Monday so many times now that he could detail the life of his postman.
‘The car blows up,’ Ianto said idly, staring out the windscreen of the SUV at a passing family huddled underneath their waterproofs. He could feel Jack looking at him worriedly.
Ianto sighed before looking over at Jack. ‘The little boy falls and skins his hands and knees while his sister chases a seagull down to the barrage. Dad goes after her while Mum sees to her son.’
Jack turned to look out the windscreen again like it was some giant TV screen and the world was suddenly the most fascinating reality TV show ever made. Ianto was bored. Today had been a day where he’d chosen to explain that he was stuck in the same Monday forever, and was dutifully now telling Jack every intimate detail of the day ahead. Since he’d already experienced twelve other Mondays like this the novelty was wearing off somewhat.
‘Can we go now?’
‘Are we supposed to go now?’ Jack asked, turning to look at Ianto with an extreme amount of enthusiasm that Ianto didn’t think was warranted given his current situation.
‘Kathy Swanson will be calling you in a minute,’ Ianto replied, his elbow resting on the rubber of the window ledge, his head in his hand. ‘Also we need to dump those Weevils off before they stink out the boot.’ Ianto already knew he’d have to clean it out later, what with the dead body they were soon to be retrieving from the river, but a part of Ianto thought that today, maybe he wouldn’t clean anything out. He was sick of the smell of bleach.
~
Ianto was impressed with himself. He’s made it all the way to eleven o’clock in the evening without dying. A feat in itself since he’s come close quite a few times during the course of the day. All he really has to do is last another hour and he thinks he’s home free. He can almost taste Tuesday. He wasn’t sure exactly what Tuesday tasted of, but it sent a thrill of pleasure through him just thinking about it - so maybe it tasted chocolate and sex.
He wonders what the weather’s going to be like. He wonders which pair of underwear Jack will pick to wear that day and also what colour top Gwen will put on. He wonders if the garage will phone him with good news about his car, wonders if Rhiannon will invite him over for dinner to say sorry. He wonders what headline will replace the one about the MP’s views on the timing of the roadworks in the city centre. The body in the river will no doubt monopolise Tuesday’s headlines, or the disturbance at The Old Custom House in Penarth. Ianto’s now seen Cardiff from so many angles he’s pretty sure he could write the whole of tomorrow’s paper himself.
So when it’s late and they get a call to say there’s Weevil’s out at the Glamorgan Golf club, Ianto thinks it’s safe to head out there with Gwen and Jack. He even takes it as a thrill to run across the eighteenth hole, stumbling round the last bunker for the course and remembering doing the exact same thing when he was a kid. He doesn’t get caught this time and is now the one doing the chasing rather than being chased.
He’s running down the street towards the sea on his own since he last remembers seeing Jack playing hide and seek at the bunker on the 2nd hole, and Gwen wrestling with her Weevil in the car park, trying to avoid the golf buggies. The sea air hits him like a slap in the face and it’s not long before he’s vaulting the barriers onto Penarth Pier, chasing down a Weevil that when it realises it’s cornered will turn razor sharp teeth on the only thing blocking it’s way back to dry land: Ianto.
They tussle like prize-fighters in a boxing ring, trading blows until they start using their teeth - Ianto isn’t above biting Weevils in a bid for survival. But the boards are wet from the fact it’s been raining all day and either one or both of them slips, it doesn’t matter. They're both locked together in a feral fight that neither of them will win, and before either of them can catch themselves they’re tumbling into the sea.
Weevils can’t swim. It also turns out that Ianto Jones’ can’t swim either. Except, Ianto took lessons at the local pool when he was a kid, and his Dad threw him in the deep end on more than one occasion to see if the lessons stuck. But this is the ocean now and Ianto’s in way over his head. There are no cracked tiles to tell him which way is down and no high vaulted ceiling with fluorescent lights to tell him which way is up. It’s dark on all sides.
Ianto tries to cling onto the last threads of his life, finding calmness in the last waking moment before death for the first time. He watches specks of dirt trailing past his limited vision in his current underwater view of the world. He can feel his clothes billowing around him, pins and needles tingling in his fingers and toes and his lungs demanding him to just breathe, breathe, breathe, please just breathe because his head feels like it’s going to explode through the effort to disobey. So he breathes. Freezing cold water rushing past his lips to fill his lungs, like a thousand stabbing knives from the inside. But the feeling dulls, and fades. Ianto no longer cares that up is down and left is right, but right is still right because he feels like a superhero, flying through the murky depths of the sea. Alone.
He’s not a superhero, because superheroes would have long ago figured out how to escape a never-ending cycle of mundane Monday’s. Superheroes can’t die either. Well, they can, they just don’t stay dead. Because children worship them, and want to be them, and if superheroes died it would break their hearts. That’s why Jack always gets to play the Superhero when they play with Finlay. Ianto’s always the sidekick, always has to wear the smaller blanket as a cape and has to be rescued by Jack from the evil villain Flaming Finn. They always escape just in the knick of time, Finn complaining loudly but always escaping too. Even when they play with Rona, Ianto is always Ken to Jack’s Barbie. Ianto realised a fair few deaths ago that he is no longer the sidekick in this tale, and it is not Jack that is going to save him, but Ianto’s struggling to find the energy to hang on.
It’s the first time he realises that what they say is not true. Your whole life does not flash before your eyes in your dying moments. He doesn’t remember the smell of his grandmother’s house, or the first time he kissed a girl, or a boy for that matter. He doesn’t remember some long distant memory of forgotten summer days. He’s not thinking about anything of any consequence, not even the hope of survival because there’s always tomorrow. He wonders if that’s what Jack thinks as he’s dying. That there will always be tomorrow when he gets the chance to save himself again, and exhausted gives up because after that tomorrow there waits another.
He counts the last three bubbles of air he expels struggling up towards the surface, watching as they pop out of existence only a few feet away. His watch stops at one minute to midnight, too waterlogged to continue its feeble attempt to tick as the increased water pressure cracks the face. Ianto Jones doesn’t notice. His heart has stopped as he sinks towards his watery grave.
~
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
Sylvia Plath
Next