ricky — pk / fin | Hunger Games: The RPG

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ricky — pk / fin Dec 29, 2023 16:20:52 GMT -5

Post by fox on Dec 29, 2023 16:20:52 GMT -5

mary oliver, upstream / czeslaw milosz, songs of adrian zielinski / kahlil gibran, sand and foam / mary oliver, we should be well prepared / alex dimitrov, living in time / mary oliver, i don't want to be demure or respectable / kahlil gibran, sand and foam

richard mcdermott,
twenty-five
aka ricky

they call me ranger rick

d10 -> d9 -> d7 ranger
w panem special forces
mutt control sub division

Last Edit: Jan 27, 2024 16:44:57 GMT -5 by fox

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ricky — pk / fin Jan 20, 2024 14:25:53 GMT -5

Post by fox on Jan 20, 2024 14:25:53 GMT -5

Home is adrift between towns, stretched in the open plains. They're in the basin between the mountains and the sagebrush forests. There, the winters are cold, and the summers are blistering. Some years, the horizon is green from snowpack, some years the summer tastes of the desert wind blowing in from the southwest.

Seven's an age where parents don't have names yet. Whole life, they were just his Ma and Pa.

Funny pair, but Ricky doesn't know it as a kid.

He's a little quiet, and she's a little wild. He has three emergency kits under the bathroom sink, and she's got a collection of bowies with names. But she says that's why she loves him. And he says it's a little like holding a piece of a rare storm.

They live on the family ranch, though it'd been long taken in by the Capitol, theirs in name only. No more money in it, but he never quite knew how little there really was until years and years later, eighteen and left with a stack of paperwork and a bank account in negatives. Instead, he watches the slow motion dying of towns, weathered away as more of the land's turned over to the government.

Life changes slowly in Ten, but it changes still. A few years after he was born, ATVs started to roam the pastures and mountain ranges in their metal muscles, carrying the slick smell of gasoline, brand new from Three. They didn't need to be fed or broken in. It saved the labour of rearing a good horse. Production was always going up, and they only ever got poorer.

Funny how that is. Used to be that only the rich had cars. Now they did too, but all of it was signed on a contract, on loan, still property of the Capitol, like all the other equipment, like all their livestock. Suppose a machine's easier to control like that than an animal.

His Pa didn't trust it, so the four-wheeler stayed in the driveway, collecting rust in its hinges.

When Ricky's seven, he already knows how to rope, and hunt, and ride a horse. His Ma used to prop him on the saddle as a baby once he could sit up properly, and they'd go on the long rides as she worked the cattle up the range. He teethed on rifle parts and antlers and ran wild in the fields as soon as he could toddle. His Pa teaches him to fish, but he doesn't have the patience for that. He gets good at shooting though, bit of a natural. Less about the steadiness of his hand than the way he can read the wind. He learns how to skin, to gut, to clean off the bones of the game he kills.

He's ten and spends one year getting thrown off a horse, two year old stallion, warmblood and wild-caught. He's evil, but Ricky's worse. His right wrist gets broken so bad in the summer, they put a metal plate in it for life. But Ricky shows up a week later, drugged on painkillers, and throws a saddle over him, stubborn.

He names him Luci. Doesn't tell anyone it's short for devil.

Ma figures it out and thinks it's funny, then lets him go on calling his horse Luci. He's religious because his Pa is, and his Pa is because his own father was too. They go to church when they need to, pray when they need to. Not God-fearing so much as there goes God again. He asks for forgiveness for naming his horse after something evil, and then doesn't think about it anymore.

Some things are normal to Ricky, and he doesn't figure out that it isn't for a long time.

He loves his Ma. And she's good, just a little unpredictable. She'll have a meltdown in the middle of the local hardware store. She'll bail him out of school and take him to get ice cream instead, but that one's kinda fun. It gets a bit worse by the time he's eleven. It can be terrible, but she's softer with him. She's a good mother, even when she's wailing into the pillow how bad she must be.

Ricky learns a lot about love in a year. There's days when she doesn't leave the bed. There's days where she's screaming at Pa, saying I hate you, don't leave me. He holds her anyway, tucked to his chest. Pa says she's his cross to carry.

Says he likes the weight just fine.

He learns that sometimes love's just not enough.

At night, when he's pretending to sleep, his Ma slips into his room and presses a kiss to his forehead. Something about it makes his chest shake, a sudden lump in his throat. He grabs her hand as she turns to leave, staring at how her eyes are shining with tears in the dim light of the lamp.

I have to go baby, she says. Mama can't stay. Can't let my whole life pass by like this. I love you, I do. But I'm not good for you both. He doesn't let go of her hand, and she cries as she lies down with him.

For a few more weeks, she's still there. Everything passes by idly. Summer turns into the mild autumn, and the last of the calves are born. She laughs and it sounds real. Hugs him and it's warm. And when Ricky's finally settled into thinking it was all a dream, she disappears one morning and never comes back.

His Pa reads the little letter on the kitchen table.

Ricky doesn't know what it says.

Just knows it's the first and last time he's seen him cry.

Last Edit: Jan 20, 2024 18:54:33 GMT -5 by fox

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ricky — pk / fin Jan 20, 2024 18:53:10 GMT -5

Post by fox on Jan 20, 2024 18:53:10 GMT -5

Winter passes by the intermountain west in storms from the north. By March, streams of snowmelt fall off the ranges as the weather warms, and the wildflowers are starting to bloom along the trails. Life knits itself back together blindly, faithfully, as it always does. Time heals, but sometimes it just doesn't heal the same.

That's okay though.

Ricky tries.

His Pa gets more anxious. These days, he makes Ricky come home before sundown. Hugs him a little tighter. Sometimes just opens the door to his room at night to make sure he's sleeping alright. There's a kind of uneasiness there that he tries to control.

Beneath the ranch, there's an old bomb shelter from the Dark Days, and Ricky used to go down there when he was younger, monster-hunting in the dark and dusty maze of old junk.

It starts off as little things, one weekend of clearing out the clutter from years of storage. Then, his Pa's changing out the deadbolts and screwing in new lightbulbs. Then, there's jugs of water down there, a metal shelf of non-perishables, stacks of first aid kits. He's got enough batteries for a lifetime, enough cans of soup for a decade, every tool under the sun in a labeled box.

You never know, he says.

Ricky understands a little. Maybe he's old enough to now.

Pa stacks tins of sardines on the shelf. He buys twenty boxes of bandaids. He reinforces the walls. And in everything he does, he's saying you never know when the last time's the last. He's talking about storms and wars and great disasters, and all Ricky hears is I don't want to lose you too.

He comes home before the sun sets.

Ricky's seventeen, and he's just a bit calmer than he was at twelve. Grown into it now, he wears that wildness he was born with easily, loosely, as natural as breathing. He's like his mother a lot of the time, strangely in love with the world, and the world loves him back. It's in the way he can coax a calf to take a bottle, how he can get any kindling to light on fire, how he can spot the changes in a horse's gait before anyone else. He always lands his shot, always knows how the wind takes a bullet that day. He only ever needs to shoot once.

And then there's the other things. Skipping so much class, he barely passes, just going in to make his Pa happy. He sells cigarettes at school at lunch time, spends the money on illegal books, cassettes, on more PK ration cigarettes, on losing hands and stupid gambles, on pretty girls and funny boys.

There's a hum of wanting to go in his blood. It's been there since he got old enough to understand that life wasn't so free beyond the acres of the ranch.

The pre-war cattle towns die out, and the old ranching methods are dying with them. Some people move to the packing industry, to the meat factories and the slaughterhouses. Since he was fifteen, he'd take the cattle with Luci to graze in the rough country. Then by seventeen, he was driving them over weeks from mountain range to mountain range. No damage, no overgrazing. But industrial feedlots are faster, more productive. More money to be made.

That's just how the world is.

His Pa won't move them anywhere though. They don't leave even when most do. He says home is here, and what he means is he cannot go where she can't find them again.

He still dreams of her too.

Ricky turns eighteen. Summer boy born in the winter. It's not so snowy this year as it is wet. It makes for a drier warm season. It's supposed to be anyway.

In late spring, his Pa's going to drive some of the finishing cattle for about seven to nine days along the trail towards the transport point. But Luci's recovering from a hoof injury, and Lyla's sick, intermittent colic, an ulcer probably. Their new horse isn't broken yet. They'd wait, but the Capitol calls with the sound of a gunshot.

So Pa revs up one of those old ATVs they only use sometimes to get into town or school. It's stupid loud and smells like exhaust. It takes a few days for the cows to stop being nervous, but takes him a bit longer than that. He packs up, tells Ricky to go to school every morning, that he'd know if he doesn't, tells him to give old Lyla her medicine, and that the bunker's got everything he might need. Ricky just smiles and says don't worry.

It rains heavy. Thunders for days. School's cancelled anyway, and Ricky spends most of the time making sure Luci's not so agitated by the weather. He listens to the wind howl like a pack of dogs at night. He watches the cattle sit and wait patient during the gray wash of day.

The storm blows over. There's a steady drip off the roof. Puddles in the fields. It's Saturday morning when Ricky hears the sound of an engine outside the house.

It's not him though.

Someone in the brightest white uniform. Like an angel of death, knocking on the door.

Emmett McDermott's dead. Some kind of accident in the storm. The man in uniform hands him a death certificate and a bill for the ATV. Capitol property, got wrecked on the trail. Have to pay that loan.

Last Edit: Jan 25, 2024 21:29:03 GMT -5 by fox

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ricky — pk / fin Jan 22, 2024 1:09:47 GMT -5

Post by fox on Jan 22, 2024 1:09:47 GMT -5

In the late spring, Emmett meets her on the trail winding up towards the range. He goes five miles west to the hay meadow, expecting to see old Raf, but she's there instead, bright against the morning light. These days, the oxeyes are blooming in little suns. The weather's not so moody now, warm and pleasant.

Ramona, she says, shaking his hand. Raf's getting old, sent her in his place, a new hired ranch hand. Retired at the tender age of nineteen from rodeo.

Almost died, she states, laughing.

He's quiet, but she talks a lot, fills in the silence as they drive the cattle. She grew up with just her ma, used to do bareback bronc for a little money after the family ranch folded, floated around between jobs and landed this one in the end. Emmett doesn't have much to say. He's been living out here with his grandparents almost all his life.

At dusk, they set up camp, unpacking from Raf's weary jenny named Bonnie. Mona tells him about the cryptids on the mountains as the canned soup roils to a boil over the flame, and he's thinking she might be a little crazy actually. When he gets startled by the snap of a twig burning in the embers, she laughs, the sound unbridled in the wilderness, and he scowls at that.

The campfire gets smothered by night, but they have the kerosene lamp, glowing gold against the faint violet of the dark. Emmett's cleaning up from dinner, and Mona lets him sleep first half when he's done.

The days pass idly.

One night they're both still up when they hear it. The jenny's awake too, stiffening.

Em's reaching for the rifle, shadow of a coyote stepping lightly towards the idle cattle in the distance. But she wraps her hand around the barrel, eyes on the animal.

"What're you doing?" He hisses.

During calving season, the ranchers always shot coyotes on sight. He remembers passing by Aldana's land as a kid, smell of rotting fur, the bodies strung up on the poles of the fence with tongues hanging loose from their mouths.

"Worse if we kill it," she whispers. "We just gotta scare it off."

She stands up, like she's about to chase it away with nothing but sheer determination and a death wish, and Emmett can't believe he's going to have to tackle her down. She's insane, she's gonna get hurt.

But Bonnie brays loudly, and Mona pauses.

The coyote slinks away.

They don't bother unless it's calves. Even then, they're just so hungry, she muses. "Feels like they always hunt harder," Mona's saying after a minute of thinking. "More desperate the more we kill. We never touched 'em back then. Just had the dogs keep watch, and we'd scare 'em. They learn from each other, you know? Hardly had trouble."

He thinks she's a bit less crazy after that.

They move along the range to new pastures through the slowness of summer. Em's getting used to the sound of her voice. Like the wind, like the light, like it's always been there. Mona starts calling him sweetheart, so easy how it's said, falls right off her in the softest way. He watches her ride through plateaus, watches how the world loves her as she does, sun on her face, breeze pulling through the braid in her hair. She never stays still. He carves little wooden figurines by the kerosene lamp during his watch at night. Makes her a horse, a wren, a lying dog.

One evening, he's got the knife in his hands, cutting out the block of wood into round shapes, when it hits a soft part, some buried piece of rot. The sudden give has the blade slice into his index. He yelps, drops the wood and the knife, and she turns to look at him.

Blood wells up and trickles into his palm. His hand goes into a fist, but she's already there.

Let's see.

Emmett's sat rigid as she cleans it off, chewing on the side of his cheek until it tastes like pennies. The air stings with the smell of alcohol. She's looking at him as she ties the ends of the bandage up. Too tight? Does it hurt?

It's just a little cut, he answers.

She's got a burning stare sometimes, and he strangely can't look her in the eyes. The setting sun's gold on her hair, and she's glowing as the sky dims. Mona holds his hand for a moment. He can count the freckles on her face.

"If it hurts, it hurts," she says. "You're allowed that."

And very stupidly, he brushes back a bright yellow strand from her face and kisses her.

They part at the end of summer. He watches her go, the sky lavender in the open field, and there's a lingering ache in his chest as she gets smaller and smaller, disappearing into the distance. Em thinks about her all through winter.

It's spring again, and when he rides into the hay meadow, it's old Raf that's waiting for him. Back to the rodeo, he's told. She's at it again.

Where at? He's asking, and Raf looks at him funny.

//

Mona's recovering when he shows up. Stress fracture on the arm, but she's thinking it's no big deal. There'd been worse, and the scar of stitches down her back reminds her of it.

He's at her doorstep in the early autumn, and it feels like seeing a ghost. It's a strange kind of sadness, a relief there too, like finding something misplaced from years ago.

Didn't know how much you missed it until it was in front of you again.

I'm just passing through, Emmett tells her. Home from the last drive of the year.

They sit in the cramped kitchen. There's some small talk, back and forth about the cattle this year, about Raf and Bonnie, and the weather and the routes changing as the PKs fence off some of the ranges, about the Reaping even, though it's depressing as hell. She laughs too loudly in the middle of conversation and grabs a bottle of something stiff from the cabinets.

Have a drink. He obliges.

Evening goes into night. That summer, he's saying, stuttering, just three drinks in. Silly boy, never good with words or liquor. The last summer, yes she remembers.

I've got an event tomorrow, the air's thick and the tap is dripping into the metal basin of the sink in ringing notes. You should go home.

There's a kind of sturdiness to Em, a rare permanence. She remembers thinking she loved him a little then, loved watching him work in the evening, his brow furrowed in concentration. There was a kind of ordinary devotion in everything he looked at. He looks at her now, and it scares her immensely.

I think I didn't do it right, Emmett's mumbling. His cheeks are lightly pink. I've been thinking of you. I didn't tell you. The room is too warm, and he's too close.

I've got an event, she repeats.

He stops stumbling over his words, pauses to try again. He stares at her. Why did you leave?

Sometimes life feels a lot like she's holding onto something wild with nothing but a tether, dragged until her hands are raw. It takes everything to be alright. It's so hard to get attached. There's something wrong with her, she knows it. She can feel the beginning of something terrible before it comes.

He kissed her. It turned into something rotten the longer it sat in her head. That's how it usually is. That's how anything gets ruined, if it stays long enough to spoil. She'll get angry, then get empty, then she's leaving before the worst of it happens. It always does.

Did I do something?

No.

He reaches across the table. Touches her hand.

Terrible, terrible to give in. No, I've been thinking about you too.

Em always looks so solemn, a bit stern at times even. But he grins like the sun, dimples in his cheeks, bright and beautiful. There's the most timid of smiles now, and even that lights him up. How awful. The room feels like it's spinning.

She's someone that leaves. Between two people, there's always someone who goes first.

"I don't think I can be who you want," she answers.

He takes her hand. It's so solid, how he holds her.

I don't want anything, he says. But to know you.

//

The first time it gets bad, she's packed up to go after all that screaming and fighting in the afternoon. But he doesn't let her leave. Not like before.

Did I hurt you? Mona's standing by the door.

A little bit, he doesn't lie. She tells him not to. He reminds her of this too when she forgets. He's seen that scar down her back. Almost died. But it doesn't make all the other stuff better because there'd been something worse. If it hurts, it hurts.

I'm sorry.

I know you are.

I'm afraid you won't love me tomorrow. She's crying, the room's a mess, and Em's taking her to sit on the couch. She collapses on the floor two steps in, and he kneels down to be with her. It's winter now. The haze of frost blurs the window, but it's not so cold here in town as it is in the mountains. He's quiet for awhile, just stroking her hair as she leans against him. His girl, who will always be his. The minutes pass, and she breathes through it.

It's simple to him. Maybe he's just stupid. Maybe he doesn't know what love is, a plain boy from the outskirts of Ten who understands nothing about the world, but it feels so very simple.

"I love you today," he answers. "I'll say it everyday. Today and today and today. Ten thousand todays."

And what he means is, I love you always.

Last Edit: Jan 26, 2024 18:39:34 GMT -5 by fox

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ricky — pk / fin Jan 26, 2024 18:38:41 GMT -5

Post by fox on Jan 26, 2024 18:38:41 GMT -5

"You have an orthopedic plate in your wrist."

"Sure do."

"Might be disqualifying."

"It was eight years ago."

"No residual issues?"

"Just the scar."

"Alright." The recruiter shuffles the papers. "The medical examiner will determine."

Ricky passes the medical exam, and two weeks later, he gets on the train to be shipped to Nine.

His Pa is cremated. The funeral's small. He takes out another loan to pay for it.

It's funny how it turns out even dying isn't free in Ten.

Thing is, he's always known that the land wasn't really theirs, but now he has it in writing too. Not the equipment, not the ranch, not the livestock either. The debt only grew each year with every quota they couldn't meet. He'd be spending the rest of his life paying for it, and even then he'd only be paying the interest with the amount that he could make. That's the crux of it, how life is.

Ricky sits in the kitchen at night and stares at the government files.

The first thing he does is finish the last week of school to get his diploma, like how his Pa wanted. He scrapes by, and they give him the little paper. When he gets home, he rolls it up and carefully puts it in the desk drawer downstairs.

The second thing he does is make the trek to the Justice Building, two day long ride into the city, and signs away his rights to live on the ranch. Then, he walks down the hall and enlists with the keepers.

He passes the background check, and eventually he passes the medical exam too. They give him two weeks to pack up his whole life before he has to go.

He burns his diploma. Puts the ashes with his Pa's. See? I did it. Scatters them through the ranges. He takes Lyla and retires the old girl to one of the nicer riding schools. She's easy, so sweet, good with kids, and best of all free. He doesn't want anything for her. He packs up all their possessions in the house. There's not really anywhere to put them, and he thinks they'll probably just throw it all out, but he does it anyway, and he does it carefully. In his bag, he puts in the documents. A picture of the family when he was a kid. A wooden figurine of a coyote. He eats through the cans in the bunker, until he's sick of beans.

A huge metal beast of a cattle truck pulls up to the fence one morning, crushing the flowers along the road, spitting exhaust with its hacking engine. Most of the cattle get loaded up and driven away. The government will redevelop the ranch, industrialize it to make it more efficient, while still maintaining that pasture-raised stamp for the Capitol supermarkets. The cows will be born on open land, they'll graze a little, and then be finished in the feedlots. No more long drives into the mountains. No more of the old ranching ways. He watches it drive off in clouds of dust.

In the late afternoon, Ricky goes on a ride with Luci for the last time. They're in the warm belly of summer, and the air smells like sun and dust and blooming flowers. Slowly, the sky goes gauzy orange while they roam through the hay meadows. At dusk, they're standing in a swaying pasture, and he pats his horse gently on the withers. Pretty boy, Ricky always liked to call him. Loves his grooming days, and Ricky would spend his sweet time brushing out his tail and braiding his mane.

He's had him for so long now. This asshole horse, who was always so terribly stubborn, so horribly temperamental for years. He'd spook at a leaf falling, he'd try to kick Ricky for the smallest thing, he'd stare at a patch of grass and ignore him completely in the middle of the damn trail.

Now, when Ricky unsaddles him and takes off the bridle, Luci only looks at him.

There's wild horses that pass through the area, and they found him here anyway, almost nine years ago. He touches the horse's head, hugs him for awhile, and Luci rests his weight on his shoulder as the sun goes. Ricky finally turns to go, but every time, the horse only follows.

"No, you gotta get out of here baby."

Stubborn. Evil thing that broke his wrist. Still never listens.

The daylight is fading out. He turns towards the sky and breathes in deep to settle his chest. This year, the mountains aren't so green, but they're still beautiful in their jagged shapes, blue shadows, lined with trees. It's what he grew up on, the wide open landscapes, the joy of running wild for acres, the seasons of change. It's what he's only known his whole life.

Ricky closes his eyes. Then, he pulls the rifle off his shoulder, loads it, and shoots into the air near Luci.

He's a bay smudge in the darkening landscape as he leaves.

Last Edit: Jan 27, 2024 4:50:58 GMT -5 by fox

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ricky — pk / fin Jan 26, 2024 22:30:59 GMT -5

Post by fox on Jan 26, 2024 22:30:59 GMT -5

Nine sucks.

It's all gray buildings and the smell of gunpowder. Oil slicks on the pavement after rain. Smoggy mornings. The basic training's dreary and endless, and sometimes it feels like he's losing his mind staring at the concrete interior of the barracks each morning and night for weeks on end. But it's all okay. That's not the worst part.

Ricky can stand an asshole just fine. Problem is, he just can't stand an asshole that's a bully too.

Can't fucking take new recruits getting hazed, can't take the uptight Ones who're all fresh out of Reaping age and wanting blood, and the stupid Twos with something to prove after their district went to the dumps. The recruits get smoked during the day by the drill sergeants for even breathing too loud, so at night they take it out on the weaker kids. Ricky walks into the damn bathroom one night, and some baby-faced boy from Eight's getting drowned in the toilet.

He gets solitary. The other guy gets a grade two concussion from the ceramic rim. Eight, named Saif, saves him from getting booted. Wasn't his fault, self-defense totally. The little innocent face works wonders. An angel, he is. Instead, Ricky's given extra duty for the rest of his time there.

Near the end of it, they take the Officer Candidate School exam. Ricky's allowed because he's got his diploma, which ends up eliminating at least a quarter of them right off the bat.

He passes the physicals easily. He's an excellent shot, one of the best, scores expert on the weapons qualifications, and it's the first time no sergeant is yelling at him because there's really nothing to say. He gets a near-perfect grade. They tell him he just has to pass the written to go to OCS here in Nine. He could go on the sniper track even, if he does more than pass. And if he does well in Candidate School, he could station in one of the nice districts or work in the Capitol.

What's the alternative?

They tell him AIT in Seven probably. They're sending a selection there.

He fails.

Saif passes, but tries not to be too happy because Ricky's not going. But he only beams, claps him on the back when he hears the news. I hope it's good to you, Saif.

Ricky's laughing when he steps into the station again. The buildings blur into a gray wash as they pull out of the city. He just laughs and laughs for a solid ten while the train picks up speed, a little bit hysterical, before finally sitting back in his seat, sighing. The view goes green outside the window eventually. He smiles. He's missed the trees.

Goodbye Hell.

Seven's great.

They put him on Forest Ranger track in AIT instead of general because of his background. The first time they let him out into the woods for training, he's almost feral, bouncing on the trails in the best mood anyone's ever seen at five a.m. Ricky's gold again, breezing through all of it.

The weather here's different. It's late in autumn, and it's a lot wetter. The trees, even with their browned leaves, are glittering emerald with moss clinging onto the bark. The air's sweet in a different way, smells lush with the lay of earth and pine in everything. He marvels at the size of the trunks and learns the sound of thrushes and sparrows and warblers. He drinks in the heavy mellow silence of winter. He grows to like the softer summers, shaded beneath the dense foliage.

They pay is terrible because they're in the backwater of Seven, they're in the forest, they're hardly important as special forces go, but Ricky doesn't care.

When he graduates, he's given the title of ranger, and there's just one supervising captain for each squad and a director somewhere above all that. It's relaxed, really. Most people are just there to collect paycheck. They rotate so there's months at base in the district, carrying out the usual tasks of the keepers, and there's months on duty in areas of the dense woods.

Most of the time, they're in there bagging mutts, either dead or alive, and studying evolved specimens still loose from the war.

The other times, they're supposed to patrol for wanderers. He isn't so fond of that, but finding people is rare. It almost never happens with how big the expanse of forest is. It'd be more common to find the bones first, scarred with bite marks, buried beneath seasons. The first time he comes across a human skull, he thinks about it for days.

He tries not to dwell on Ten so much, reminds himself that there's nothing to go back to. Home was his Ma holding his arm steady as he learned to shoot, home was the freedom of being five in the tall fields, Luci in the pasture when he first could ride him, the line of wooden figures in his room, carved by his Pa when he was a kid. He can never go back to it because it isn't really so much a place as a memory. Sometimes places are only real in a mind.

So he goes forward instead, faithfully.

Last Edit: Jan 27, 2024 15:06:01 GMT -5 by fox

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ricky — pk / fin Jan 27, 2024 16:44:39 GMT -5

Post by fox on Jan 27, 2024 16:44:39 GMT -5

Mona used to think it took so much of a person to be good in the world. Evil becomes ordinary. Everyday, something terrible happens. She grew up watching her mother wither. It would be so easy to lose herself. To hurt someone.

Em tells her he doesn't shoot the coyotes because of her.

And then, she's looking out into the fields and the mountains and her boys in the soft autumn landscape, and she thinks maybe that's all that good really is.

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last seen Apr 26, 2024 22:33:17 GMT -5

“And now that you don't have to be perfect, you can be good.” - steinbeck

ricky — pk / fin Jan 27, 2024 18:28:59 GMT -5

Post by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ on Jan 27, 2024 18:28:59 GMT -5

if there was a way to precisely label the feeling of the last dregs of summer sunlight with its parting liquid gold warmth cut through a single pane glass window, a decisive line where the light finishes and the dark begins, drawn on the worn edge of a solid old oak kitchen table stood on top of rust-red clay hand-laid tile uneven from wear and the scent of warm grass cooling into night, sky gone from crystal blue to cerulean to dip into a deep royal and the promise with it of the clarity to a see a million stars,

I think I'd call that ricky.

⋆˙ ⋆ ˗ˋˏ ✩ ˎˊ˗ ⋆ ˙⋆

beautiful, clear and intricately woven as always,

accepted

Last Edit: Jan 27, 2024 18:29:38 GMT -5 by ✌ʕ•ᴥ•ʔ

compendium / avriel
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2022 tracker / 2023 tracker / 2024 tracker