[original: people's republic] Ode to Joy
Jul. 19th, 2012 07:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
perfectworrytitle: Ode to Joy
verse: People's Republic of Heaven
community:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
writerverse + ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
originalfic100
prompt: Phase #03: Challenge #04: Table of Doom (250+: "Tienanmen Square") + Table A - 060 Drink
word count: 662
characters: Salomé & Gabriel
rating: T
summary: Salomé can't stand the news.
"Well shit," says Salomé.
She's watching the late night news with her feet on the coffee table and Gabriel hates it when she does that so she makes a point not to even take off her boots.
Gabriel looks up from his book of poems. He looks from the man on the screen standing before an oncoming tank, alone, to Salomé's face. Her expression is unreadable to him; she is a closed book, looking straight ahead at the television, light from the screen playing across her face. She has a cigarette in her mouth and a glass of whiskey balanced precariously on the arm of the sofa.
When Gabriel looks back at the news, the man disappearing into the crowd, another anonymous protester captured on grainy film. The newscaster doesn't know his name, but history won't forget his silhouette.
"I'm out," says Salomé, standing abruptly. She drains the remainder of her glass and sets it down on the low table. It's hardwood. She doesn't care.
Without any further explanation (which Gabriel neither needs nor wants), she stalks out of the room. Gabriel lets her go. He knows what she's thinking: they used to be brave. He doesn't follow her out the door and down the driveway, doesn't try to stop her from pealing down the street already doing twice the speed limit, because he is too tired and too old to have this argument again right now.
He turns off the television and returns instead to his book and his brandy.
Salomé screeches the breaks, slamming her foot down, and is thrown against the steering wheel with bruising force. She'll feel that in the morning.
She starts to laugh over the music, a worn out tape of Beethoven's Ninth. It's Ode to Joy as she shifts into gear and takes off again towards the highway.
As she pulls up the ramp, Salomé lights another cigarette and rolls down the driver's side window. Reasonably confident that no one else will be on the roads out here at this time of night, she she keeps one hand on the wheel and leans across the car to roll down the other window.
The blare of a horn and her last minute swerve save her and her car from a nasty collision. She would walk, or limp, away but her poor car would have been totaled.
She inhales, breathing in the scent of the night sky, and the burning stars above her head, and stale cigarette smoke, and exhaust. Air escapes her lungs in a choked laugh. Her throat is tight but she's smiling. When she catches a glimpse of herself, her smile in the reflection looks more like a grimace because she remembers.
She remembers revolution. With the cold night air buffeting her, she remembers the burn on her hands when she lit the rag, singeing her hair when she threw the bottle and the gasoline and turpentine caught fire and burned down everything around her.
Surrounded by the sounds of Beethoven's last symphony, she remembers the tinkle of breaking glass and the dull blast of fire catching and the ringing in her ears when he fired the revolver right over her head to cover her.
Most of all, alone now on the highway, she remembers her friends. She remembers drinking and smoking and sleeping side-by-side on hard wooden floors under boarded-up windows. She remembers the frantic search through streets reduced to rubble, and the flood of relief overtaking her when she saw a familiar, soot blackened face or heard a far off voice calling her name. She remembers the dull, heavy weight of grief at finding a friend twisted and broken beneath a burning building.
She remembers running towards danger instead of always running from it, but those days are over and she doesn't feel anything any more. She drinks to forget and drives to remember, and she screams out her loss over Ode to Joy at the stars of infinite night skies.
verse: People's Republic of Heaven
community:
writerverse + originalfic100 prompt: Phase #03: Challenge #04: Table of Doom (250+: "Tienanmen Square") + Table A - 060 Drink
word count: 662
characters: Salomé & Gabriel
rating: T
summary: Salomé can't stand the news.
"Well shit," says Salomé.
She's watching the late night news with her feet on the coffee table and Gabriel hates it when she does that so she makes a point not to even take off her boots.
Gabriel looks up from his book of poems. He looks from the man on the screen standing before an oncoming tank, alone, to Salomé's face. Her expression is unreadable to him; she is a closed book, looking straight ahead at the television, light from the screen playing across her face. She has a cigarette in her mouth and a glass of whiskey balanced precariously on the arm of the sofa.
When Gabriel looks back at the news, the man disappearing into the crowd, another anonymous protester captured on grainy film. The newscaster doesn't know his name, but history won't forget his silhouette.
"I'm out," says Salomé, standing abruptly. She drains the remainder of her glass and sets it down on the low table. It's hardwood. She doesn't care.
Without any further explanation (which Gabriel neither needs nor wants), she stalks out of the room. Gabriel lets her go. He knows what she's thinking: they used to be brave. He doesn't follow her out the door and down the driveway, doesn't try to stop her from pealing down the street already doing twice the speed limit, because he is too tired and too old to have this argument again right now.
He turns off the television and returns instead to his book and his brandy.
Salomé screeches the breaks, slamming her foot down, and is thrown against the steering wheel with bruising force. She'll feel that in the morning.
She starts to laugh over the music, a worn out tape of Beethoven's Ninth. It's Ode to Joy as she shifts into gear and takes off again towards the highway.
As she pulls up the ramp, Salomé lights another cigarette and rolls down the driver's side window. Reasonably confident that no one else will be on the roads out here at this time of night, she she keeps one hand on the wheel and leans across the car to roll down the other window.
The blare of a horn and her last minute swerve save her and her car from a nasty collision. She would walk, or limp, away but her poor car would have been totaled.
She inhales, breathing in the scent of the night sky, and the burning stars above her head, and stale cigarette smoke, and exhaust. Air escapes her lungs in a choked laugh. Her throat is tight but she's smiling. When she catches a glimpse of herself, her smile in the reflection looks more like a grimace because she remembers.
She remembers revolution. With the cold night air buffeting her, she remembers the burn on her hands when she lit the rag, singeing her hair when she threw the bottle and the gasoline and turpentine caught fire and burned down everything around her.
Surrounded by the sounds of Beethoven's last symphony, she remembers the tinkle of breaking glass and the dull blast of fire catching and the ringing in her ears when he fired the revolver right over her head to cover her.
Most of all, alone now on the highway, she remembers her friends. She remembers drinking and smoking and sleeping side-by-side on hard wooden floors under boarded-up windows. She remembers the frantic search through streets reduced to rubble, and the flood of relief overtaking her when she saw a familiar, soot blackened face or heard a far off voice calling her name. She remembers the dull, heavy weight of grief at finding a friend twisted and broken beneath a burning building.
She remembers running towards danger instead of always running from it, but those days are over and she doesn't feel anything any more. She drinks to forget and drives to remember, and she screams out her loss over Ode to Joy at the stars of infinite night skies.
