Scaffold & Throne: Randomnesssssssss.
Feb. 14th, 2004 12:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
breakfastofchampionsThis is mainly for Jennnnnnio, but anyone else can read it if they like! Heh. Jen, I don't know if you'd want to reply as Neville, but you're welcome to!
xo!
Earnest:
He has managed to make his way outside unassisted. The use of his crutches does not count as assistance, since he is obligated to maneuver them himself, and they are as much a hinderance as a help, because he finds them unwieldy, difficult to use. Perhaps he will grow accustomed to them with time, will learn the art of manipulating them without having to struggle and grit his teeth and shed a few tears of frustration. But for today, they help him only a little, and he manages to make his way out of the house and into the garden, but no further.
Once he finds himself in the garden, suddenly it's as though he's lost all his strength, and he feels he's going to fall down. Fortunately, he finds himself standing but a few paces away from a wooden bench, all but lost amidst the shrubbery, and with the last of his power and the clumsy movements of his crutches, he reaches the bench in time and collapses into it with a broken sigh. The warped, weatherworn bench creaks beneath his weight, but his is a slight weight, and it is strong enough to hold him. He lets his crutches fall to the ground.
Now Earnest is stranded here. He knows he won't be able to get back to the house by himself. He shouldn't have ventured out alone. He isn't supposed to. A pained expression creases his brow and purses his lips. He hopes Neville won't be cross with him. Neville is away tending to a dying man, and Earnest has no idea when he'll return. Until he does, Earnest will doubtless be stuck where he is. If he screams, maybe Cook will hear him, but he doesn't want to scream. He's too embarrassed to call for help.
It's colder outside than Earnest had anticipated. A faint breeze plays with his dark curls, and he raises his gray eyes to survey the similarly gray sky. He hopes it won't rain. If it rains, he will be drenched, and probably he'll catch a cold, and maybe he'll die from it. His brow creases anew as he glances about himself nervously. He doesn't want to die.
The thought of the dying man Neville is tending to has filled his mind with visions of death. He imagines himself flushed and fevered in his bed, his life passing out of him in a series of short, bitter coughs. He imagines a stranger coming upon him as he sits here helpless and alone, an awful stranger who will decide to strike him in the head with a cudgel. Earnest imagines his skull cracked open, a wound in his head spewing dark blood. It's so frightening! What if he really does die? He wishes he hadn't had the idea to come out here by himself, wishes Neville would come home and find him and carry him back inside. But probably Neville won't return for hours and hours, and by then it will be too late.
But time passes, and the sky does not open up. Neither does a strange man with a cudgel emerge from the bushes. Earnest begins to relax. It isn't until the tension slips from his limbs that he realizes how stiffly he has been holding them, and he releases a soft sigh of relief at the ease of it. Perhaps he'll survive this ordeal after all? Yes, it seems likely. Now his only concern is that he'll get a scolding. He hates to be scolded and doesn't want to be accused of being a bad patient. Yet isn't Neville always telling him he should try doing more things by himself? Yes, with that in mind, it would be hypocritical of Neville to reprimand him, wouldn't it? Earnest feels himself relax even more.
Finally he remembers why he decided to venture out in the first place. Of course! The flowers. It's spring, the garden in the midst of which he sits is beginning to bloom, and this is the first rainless day they've had in more than a week. It's as though, through the release of his tension, Earnest is cured of a curious kind of blindness, for all at once he can see the flowers.
The garden is only that of a country doctor's house: modest in size and disorderly, the plot it occupies a riot of flowers and herbs interspersed with ragged and defiant weeds.
Earnest doesn't mind the humility of the garden. He only wanted to sit among flowers, and here they are; he sees them now: the first blooms of spring, buds already opening to display delicate petals of yellow and pink and lavender and white. Earnest allows himself a faint smile. He breathes in, and he can smell them, a slight, sharp vegetable sweetness mixed with the damp, fresh, loamy scent of spring itself.
Yes, this is why he came outside, and suddenly he is glad he did. He forgets that there are people dying, forgets that he, too, will die, and he sits and watches the flowers bowing gently in the breeze like demure ladies wearing bonnets. No, thinks Earnest, disliking the simile he has concocted, just like flowers bobbing in the breeze. That suits him. There's no need to compare flowers to anything, because they are whole and lovely in and of themselves
xo!
Earnest:
He has managed to make his way outside unassisted. The use of his crutches does not count as assistance, since he is obligated to maneuver them himself, and they are as much a hinderance as a help, because he finds them unwieldy, difficult to use. Perhaps he will grow accustomed to them with time, will learn the art of manipulating them without having to struggle and grit his teeth and shed a few tears of frustration. But for today, they help him only a little, and he manages to make his way out of the house and into the garden, but no further.
Once he finds himself in the garden, suddenly it's as though he's lost all his strength, and he feels he's going to fall down. Fortunately, he finds himself standing but a few paces away from a wooden bench, all but lost amidst the shrubbery, and with the last of his power and the clumsy movements of his crutches, he reaches the bench in time and collapses into it with a broken sigh. The warped, weatherworn bench creaks beneath his weight, but his is a slight weight, and it is strong enough to hold him. He lets his crutches fall to the ground.
Now Earnest is stranded here. He knows he won't be able to get back to the house by himself. He shouldn't have ventured out alone. He isn't supposed to. A pained expression creases his brow and purses his lips. He hopes Neville won't be cross with him. Neville is away tending to a dying man, and Earnest has no idea when he'll return. Until he does, Earnest will doubtless be stuck where he is. If he screams, maybe Cook will hear him, but he doesn't want to scream. He's too embarrassed to call for help.
It's colder outside than Earnest had anticipated. A faint breeze plays with his dark curls, and he raises his gray eyes to survey the similarly gray sky. He hopes it won't rain. If it rains, he will be drenched, and probably he'll catch a cold, and maybe he'll die from it. His brow creases anew as he glances about himself nervously. He doesn't want to die.
The thought of the dying man Neville is tending to has filled his mind with visions of death. He imagines himself flushed and fevered in his bed, his life passing out of him in a series of short, bitter coughs. He imagines a stranger coming upon him as he sits here helpless and alone, an awful stranger who will decide to strike him in the head with a cudgel. Earnest imagines his skull cracked open, a wound in his head spewing dark blood. It's so frightening! What if he really does die? He wishes he hadn't had the idea to come out here by himself, wishes Neville would come home and find him and carry him back inside. But probably Neville won't return for hours and hours, and by then it will be too late.
But time passes, and the sky does not open up. Neither does a strange man with a cudgel emerge from the bushes. Earnest begins to relax. It isn't until the tension slips from his limbs that he realizes how stiffly he has been holding them, and he releases a soft sigh of relief at the ease of it. Perhaps he'll survive this ordeal after all? Yes, it seems likely. Now his only concern is that he'll get a scolding. He hates to be scolded and doesn't want to be accused of being a bad patient. Yet isn't Neville always telling him he should try doing more things by himself? Yes, with that in mind, it would be hypocritical of Neville to reprimand him, wouldn't it? Earnest feels himself relax even more.
Finally he remembers why he decided to venture out in the first place. Of course! The flowers. It's spring, the garden in the midst of which he sits is beginning to bloom, and this is the first rainless day they've had in more than a week. It's as though, through the release of his tension, Earnest is cured of a curious kind of blindness, for all at once he can see the flowers.
The garden is only that of a country doctor's house: modest in size and disorderly, the plot it occupies a riot of flowers and herbs interspersed with ragged and defiant weeds.
Earnest doesn't mind the humility of the garden. He only wanted to sit among flowers, and here they are; he sees them now: the first blooms of spring, buds already opening to display delicate petals of yellow and pink and lavender and white. Earnest allows himself a faint smile. He breathes in, and he can smell them, a slight, sharp vegetable sweetness mixed with the damp, fresh, loamy scent of spring itself.
Yes, this is why he came outside, and suddenly he is glad he did. He forgets that there are people dying, forgets that he, too, will die, and he sits and watches the flowers bowing gently in the breeze like demure ladies wearing bonnets. No, thinks Earnest, disliking the simile he has concocted, just like flowers bobbing in the breeze. That suits him. There's no need to compare flowers to anything, because they are whole and lovely in and of themselves
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-14 10:07 pm (UTC)never fear, i can't ponder forever... or can i? think how wonderful that would be! but no, i crave our stories too much for that!
lurve you madly, you know (and will write soonest ;) - y'r devoted flea
ps - thank you <3<3<3
(no subject)
Date: 2004-02-15 08:55 am (UTC)love you madly right back. have a marvelous rest of the weekend!
Re:
Date: 2004-02-15 12:40 pm (UTC)i love that dream-like mid-afternoonish state...
(tee-hee! i printed it out! *cuddles cold, unfeeling paper, reads it all over again*)
ooo la la! charade is playing at the afi on monday! *swoons with you in the grand old style*
and of course, i wish the marvelous for you as well. *^^*
*smooches*
Re:
Date: 2004-02-16 09:23 am (UTC)ooh! charade! now i have le envy! lucky girl... do have fun!
i have been thinking about characters all this weekend. and i have thought of many things! and learning little secrets, which i hope i will not forget. hey, we didn't think of anyone to bear the name cedric yet, did we? i hope not, because if not, then i know who it is.
*plotting & dreaming*
lurve,
foxy.
Re:
Date: 2004-02-16 09:38 am (UTC)j'accuse, loverly fox, j'accuse. *smooches*
*scheming & noting*
paging dr. peale-smythe
Date: 2004-02-16 11:15 am (UTC)he determines to walk home. despite the distracted offer of a ride in a rather elderly looking trap. he doesn't like to impose on the family, begining to grieve as they are.
the sun is low in the sky and neville cuts the distance across a meadow, shrugging on the jacket he had thought too warm by half when he had left the house of mister crumrin and his faded sister; it smells of mothballs and the bland air of long illness in a closed room - and so it's good to walk in the eveing breeze, shedding the flavors of the day.
no doubt miss crumrin will by now be ordering things for the influx of distant relations that morning would bring. nothing like a dead bachelor and his money to bring out the best in humanity.
he's being cynical, which he doesn't like to be, but it is after all a very small step from detatchment to cynicism and he is tired and so has stumbled into the thing. no matter.
he has done his very best by his patient, no less for the dying man than for any who might live; easing him as he was able, though they had both known that such measues could only stretch so far.
miss crumrin had seemed resigned as well. they had seen eachother through life, he supposed, and thus, out of it. now only she remained, and would follow her brother in due course.
neville thinks of death as something neither good nor ill, but something that is. one day it will come for him and this does not worry him, he feels content to understand as far as he is able and to leave it lay beyond that.
but what of the people one leaves behind? the loved ones, those who depend on one? what will happen in one's absence?
in his absence?
the sun is glowing dark gold in the last wash of the day's grey sky and he thinks of earnest.
neville is not a man given to fanciful notions, to overstated feelings, and yet he feels a sharp pain to think of it, leaving earnest alone, abandoning him for death, as surely earnest will see it, in some strange way.
and yet it is sharper still and hard in the glowing late afternoon to think of earnest's death - to know that he might well have to sit at that bedside at some date passed every year, the year itself unknown and unmarked.
as with all things unforseen, he puts it from his mind, holding hard to the notion that he can do only his best, just as he always had always done, and will do.
but the flavor of it lingers in his mind like the scents of the house he has left and he wants suddenly to be home. his home with it's unruly garden, his small practice, his indulgent Cook, his resident patient. earnest.
somehow it is harder to fear eventuality when he thinks of these things, and he smiles to himself, looking, in his slightly rumpled way, like a young boy who has thought of there being something particularly pleasing for supper after a long day over his books.
his feet have been finding their way and he looks up to see the windows of home glinting in the waning light, the white of the garden gate against picked out against green shadows.
earnest, pt 1:
Date: 2004-02-16 11:19 pm (UTC)Earnest felt guilty at once for wishing such a thing. How terrible, wishing the death of someone who had never done him any harm, whose name he couldn't even remember, even though Neville had mentioned it. Then again, he reflected, wasn't a quick death more merciful? If he was going to die, he would want it to be quick. It was better not to linger. After all, what right had the dying man to linger if by lingering he would bring about Earnest's own death? That would be dreadfully unfair. So either he should die, and quickly, or he should make a miraculous recovery. So the man would cease suffering, and Neville could come home.
Then Earnest would cease suffering too. He was aching from sitting up for so long, and there was another ache in him as well, one that was not physical.
Earnest frowned up at the sky. Really, it wasn't quite so dark, was it? No need to grow truly alarmed yet. He suppressed the fear he felt bubbling up within him anew. He tried to think of something he could do to make the time pass a little faster. The waiting was growing awful, anticipation with no definite end in sight. He had already plucked all the flowers within reach and filled his pockets and hair with them-- a rather difficult operation for someone with fingers like his: those which had not been amputated no longer worked. It was like having paws instead of hands, and particularly clumsy paws, at that. Yet he had perservered and managed to festoon himself with flowers. Yet those flowers were beginning to fade, and he felt rather faded himself.
earnest, pt 2:
Date: 2004-02-16 11:20 pm (UTC)The song came to him, perhaps, because it was in line with his thoughts of the day, and also with the moment. He sang it in his full voice, one he had not used in some time. He was pleased to find that, though unused and shaky at first, it was still there. Unlike the voices of some boys who had sung prettily as children, his own voice had survived the breaking of his adolescence, had remained lovely, even though it had changed:
The day is past and gone;
The evening shades appear:
O may we all remember well
The night of death draws near.
We lay our garments by,
Upon our beds to rest;
So death shall soon disrobe us all
Of what is here possest.
Lord, keep us safe this night,
Secure from all our fears;
May angels guard us while we sleep,
Till morning light appears.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-03-18 08:38 pm (UTC)