Went to see Romeo and Juliet. Wrote some fic.
My subject line is remarkably descriptive. I went to see a student production of Romeo and Juliet this afternoon and it was all right - Juliet was fantastic, Romeo less so. He was actually the same actor who played Hamlet just after Christmas and he kind of played both roles the same(?!). It's cruel, but I'm starting to wonder who keeps casting this guy, because he shouldn't be getting all these lead roles. It's not that he's bad - on the contrary he does everything he's supposed to - but he doesn't make me feel anything, and in this production he was really shown up by Juliet and Mercutio, almost managing to suck the energy out of their performances as well.
But anyway, I knew going in that it was, as usual, going to drag a bit after Mercutio died. But it was only after twenty minutes that I realised, to my shame, that I'd forgotten just how flipping ace Mercutio is. After a particularly spectacular rendition of the Queen Mab speech I was left with a bunny that wouldn't go away.
It's not so much fic as a small meander, but it is exactly 500 words. No more warnings than the play would have (and with fewer references to drugs and suicide). I need to come up with a title.
.
Mercutio dreams. He dreams of music and of roses and of fair maids' blouses (not to mention of the secrets that lie hid within). He dreams and as he dreams the world rises up to meet him, closes in around him until he can barely breathe for feeling every ounce of life.
He knows the feelings of a river, rushing out to sea so as to rage beneath the fickle moon, lover of the ships that she caresses but never reaching down to touch his depths, he who rolls and writhes beneath her hoping for one glimpse of light and love. He knows the feelings of the air, the wind, the bird swimming through the swell, thick song heavy on his chest. He knows of earth and fire, metal and wood, leopards and fairies.
Yet all the while he dreams he counts and marks the moments, waiting long sometimes until the dream he bears decays to plague.
He is a fly this time, God's smallest creature, borne on lattice wings across a girl's dark-blushing cheek, all perfumed with kitchen spice and sugar. She bats him back, teasing him with mercy, moving her hand too slow to hurt him truly. He flits then wends his way at last beneath her dress, down the banks of that forbidden country, curving shores. The smell of sugar still is fresh with him, but then at length he finds himself enmeshed in snares, held back from that last goal of sweetness. He turns yet as his wings are broken and cannot stop as binds cut through his flesh and tear him all asunder.
His body leaves him. Then he is alone with sight and sees the one that they call Mab. She laughs and tells him he's her favourite, that he is hers to rule and have look on her honeyed countenance. No other even faceless in his dreams will lie for him apart from her.
“Show me then your face,” he begs, tired for wanting dream's solution. In all these years of visitation he has yet seen naught but her accoutrements, felt naught but her effects, remembered naught but all her traps.
But she will only laugh once more and promise him that days do follow on from nights, Phoebus running after Phoebe, that he in turn will be returned, for since he longs to look on dreams with daylight's benefit he must surely find himself awake.
Her riddles spin around him, straw from gold. She flies in closer till she chokes him with her rotting breath and then repugnant makes a mockery of kisses. He knows the weight of deaths that he has never dealt and hears the call of corpses for his body cut in payment. Her promises are as dark as theirs.
Mercutio dreams but never rests. And yet he revels knowing well the next time he's to rest is deep within his grave. He will endure, so long that these Catullan verses he calls life will bear him in fatigue.
But anyway, I knew going in that it was, as usual, going to drag a bit after Mercutio died. But it was only after twenty minutes that I realised, to my shame, that I'd forgotten just how flipping ace Mercutio is. After a particularly spectacular rendition of the Queen Mab speech I was left with a bunny that wouldn't go away.
It's not so much fic as a small meander, but it is exactly 500 words. No more warnings than the play would have (and with fewer references to drugs and suicide). I need to come up with a title.
.
Mercutio dreams. He dreams of music and of roses and of fair maids' blouses (not to mention of the secrets that lie hid within). He dreams and as he dreams the world rises up to meet him, closes in around him until he can barely breathe for feeling every ounce of life.
He knows the feelings of a river, rushing out to sea so as to rage beneath the fickle moon, lover of the ships that she caresses but never reaching down to touch his depths, he who rolls and writhes beneath her hoping for one glimpse of light and love. He knows the feelings of the air, the wind, the bird swimming through the swell, thick song heavy on his chest. He knows of earth and fire, metal and wood, leopards and fairies.
Yet all the while he dreams he counts and marks the moments, waiting long sometimes until the dream he bears decays to plague.
He is a fly this time, God's smallest creature, borne on lattice wings across a girl's dark-blushing cheek, all perfumed with kitchen spice and sugar. She bats him back, teasing him with mercy, moving her hand too slow to hurt him truly. He flits then wends his way at last beneath her dress, down the banks of that forbidden country, curving shores. The smell of sugar still is fresh with him, but then at length he finds himself enmeshed in snares, held back from that last goal of sweetness. He turns yet as his wings are broken and cannot stop as binds cut through his flesh and tear him all asunder.
His body leaves him. Then he is alone with sight and sees the one that they call Mab. She laughs and tells him he's her favourite, that he is hers to rule and have look on her honeyed countenance. No other even faceless in his dreams will lie for him apart from her.
“Show me then your face,” he begs, tired for wanting dream's solution. In all these years of visitation he has yet seen naught but her accoutrements, felt naught but her effects, remembered naught but all her traps.
But she will only laugh once more and promise him that days do follow on from nights, Phoebus running after Phoebe, that he in turn will be returned, for since he longs to look on dreams with daylight's benefit he must surely find himself awake.
Her riddles spin around him, straw from gold. She flies in closer till she chokes him with her rotting breath and then repugnant makes a mockery of kisses. He knows the weight of deaths that he has never dealt and hears the call of corpses for his body cut in payment. Her promises are as dark as theirs.
Mercutio dreams but never rests. And yet he revels knowing well the next time he's to rest is deep within his grave. He will endure, so long that these Catullan verses he calls life will bear him in fatigue.