echoes
Title: Echoes
author: atlantis_z13
rating: PG
word count: 597
summary: for day 1
comments are love and chocolate and air and all manner of fuzzy cuddly things
Remus raises his head from under the pillows. He had been dreaming, he doesn’t quite remember what, but something unpleasant. He wakes sweating and with the gnawing of memories, echoes against his ribcage.
Remus makes tea, pours himself milk; he spreads the morning paper. Tries to focus. Forces himself to read. Word after word after word, chocked down, marching. It still feels like effort. But the words fill a void, they push out emptiness, the words are invasive and their presence more forceful than hollowness. Even the weather report “sunny and mildly breezy” feels like a reassurance. Rhythm is comforting.
He steps out of the house into the morning. The world is beginning to look green around the edges. The brown is beginning to slip away, pushing back the traces of winter, the memories of snow.
Remus notices, but does not think about the poetry, does not think about metaphor. He can’t.
He sometimes feels dead. But he’s alive. He supposes. What does that mean anyway? To be alive. What does that require? If all it requires is getting up every morning, making tea, pouring milk, reading the paper, going to work, coming back, making tea, going to bed. If that’s what living is, well then, he’s living. But it feels only like existing - like taking up space in a universe.
He exists. He goes on step by step. Toward nothing really. But he is walking, standing, breathing, from habit. Maybe from the habit of his cells, which are not weighed down by thinking, which don’t have to rehash every moment spent in enveloping arms. His cells don’t picture a familiar smile or gray eyes. His cells don’t remember the moments of laughter, or pain, or quiet. His cells don’t recall every curve of a body. Don’t recall the warmth of words, the weight of memories. Don’t hear the echoes of whispers or promises. His cells don’t have to wonder what was real and what wasn’t, where the lies were, and if they left any room for truth. His cells just continue, continue with their cellular things. They go on living, dying, catalyzing his chemical reactions. His cells seem at a disconnect from his brain. He feels alone; even in his own body.
It will be like this for a while still. He will feel hollow. A bit of him, a bit which he will lock away and burry and loose within himself, but never quite forget, will feel hollow for the next 12 years. For now its all just repetition, for now it is just the habit of existing: get up, make tea, read the paper, notice as the temperatures in the weather report steadily rise, walk to the corner book store, walk back, make tea, go to bed.
He used to have reasons for existing. He used to have reasons. They had faces, they had smiles, they cried, and laughed. They shook under shared blankets on cold nights. They were whispered words in the dark. They were battles, fury, anger, hope. They were dreams of possible futures, breathless promises and declarations between sheets. They were quite nights around dinner tables with everyone while a baby slept in the next room.
For now Remus is just continuing day by day, moment by moment. Existing. Taking up space between the folds, ignoring the buzzing of unfilled cracks in reality, chasing after the echoes of memory. For now he ignores the hollowness, the emptiness without reasons.
author: atlantis_z13
rating: PG
word count: 597
summary: for day 1
comments are love and chocolate and air and all manner of fuzzy cuddly things
Remus raises his head from under the pillows. He had been dreaming, he doesn’t quite remember what, but something unpleasant. He wakes sweating and with the gnawing of memories, echoes against his ribcage.
Remus makes tea, pours himself milk; he spreads the morning paper. Tries to focus. Forces himself to read. Word after word after word, chocked down, marching. It still feels like effort. But the words fill a void, they push out emptiness, the words are invasive and their presence more forceful than hollowness. Even the weather report “sunny and mildly breezy” feels like a reassurance. Rhythm is comforting.
He steps out of the house into the morning. The world is beginning to look green around the edges. The brown is beginning to slip away, pushing back the traces of winter, the memories of snow.
Remus notices, but does not think about the poetry, does not think about metaphor. He can’t.
He sometimes feels dead. But he’s alive. He supposes. What does that mean anyway? To be alive. What does that require? If all it requires is getting up every morning, making tea, pouring milk, reading the paper, going to work, coming back, making tea, going to bed. If that’s what living is, well then, he’s living. But it feels only like existing - like taking up space in a universe.
He exists. He goes on step by step. Toward nothing really. But he is walking, standing, breathing, from habit. Maybe from the habit of his cells, which are not weighed down by thinking, which don’t have to rehash every moment spent in enveloping arms. His cells don’t picture a familiar smile or gray eyes. His cells don’t remember the moments of laughter, or pain, or quiet. His cells don’t recall every curve of a body. Don’t recall the warmth of words, the weight of memories. Don’t hear the echoes of whispers or promises. His cells don’t have to wonder what was real and what wasn’t, where the lies were, and if they left any room for truth. His cells just continue, continue with their cellular things. They go on living, dying, catalyzing his chemical reactions. His cells seem at a disconnect from his brain. He feels alone; even in his own body.
It will be like this for a while still. He will feel hollow. A bit of him, a bit which he will lock away and burry and loose within himself, but never quite forget, will feel hollow for the next 12 years. For now its all just repetition, for now it is just the habit of existing: get up, make tea, read the paper, notice as the temperatures in the weather report steadily rise, walk to the corner book store, walk back, make tea, go to bed.
He used to have reasons for existing. He used to have reasons. They had faces, they had smiles, they cried, and laughed. They shook under shared blankets on cold nights. They were whispered words in the dark. They were battles, fury, anger, hope. They were dreams of possible futures, breathless promises and declarations between sheets. They were quite nights around dinner tables with everyone while a baby slept in the next room.
For now Remus is just continuing day by day, moment by moment. Existing. Taking up space between the folds, ignoring the buzzing of unfilled cracks in reality, chasing after the echoes of memory. For now he ignores the hollowness, the emptiness without reasons.