little talks { margaret/marchello, day 6 }
Mar 30, 2015 23:52:18 GMT -5
Post by Kire on Mar 30, 2015 23:52:18 GMT -5
Marchello Donner
She is analyzing me, watching me, tearing me apart with her eyes. I may as well stand here naked, exposed to the elements and to her gaze that is just as cold. I can still feel the blood running from my neck and down into my shirt. My mutt pelt is stained with more blood than could have come from me and I realize that in that fur is soaked the life of every person I have ever harmed with an axe. I know that I will join them, I know that now, and Margaret was right. "You’ve got far too much heart to be a killer." Of everything anyone had said to me, or any blow I had received, that is what I now hear over and over again. That and
Are we there yet?
I can't answer that, I won't know until I have arrived and by then it will surely be too late for me to change whatever there will mean. Right now it is only a mystery to me, but I feel that soon I will understand it. I will remember this breath, this moment, for however long a memory lasts. This mortal flesh may rot away beneath me but if my memory continues on then I will still cling to this moment. I discovered something about myself. No, I was told something about myself. Told by a girl with steel eyes and a steel tipped spear. She jabs her lessons into me again and again and I can only listen.
I can't teach her anything in return, for all that I can tell her it seems she already knows. I am the one who is behind, and with each breath and each heartbeat I fall further an further behind. The blood that oozes from my wounds turns my entire body red and below me is a trail of red that stretches between us like a chain. We are bound, she and I, we will be connected from this moment and into the rest of our joined lives. Though only one of us will live, that one will be dragging the ghost of the other around by this chain.
She's standing in front of me now, brandishing her spear as though she were hunting. Perhaps she was, perhaps it was me she was hunting and then onto the next until she had trapped the prize of a crown. I could have believed that, had I not seen the weakness and the vulnerability that had been drawn out of her before. My words had made feeling flicker in her eyes so strongly that it had felt like a second flame. My own weapons flashed and flamed in my hands, whispering about death and burning and the way the wind played in their fire. Had I the mind, the heart, the soul, I would drive my axe into Margaret's skull and end our bitter dance now.
Above me the coin was spinning, twirling, falling.
It was plummeting now, I brass bullet that twisted and turned in the air. It flipped end over end endlessly, changing its mind over and over again as it continued on its way to make the last decision. Who will walk away?
My eyes are on the coin as it falls, my breath caught in my throat as I wait for the verdict. Which side represents which one of us. Heads or tails, tails or heads, which one am I, which one are you. On one side is a message, on the other is a story. Which one am I, which one is she? Am I the story, or am I the message. Throughout this battle I have done nothing but explain, while Margaret has taught me much. I am the story, then, and she the message. I am heads and she is tails.
"If you believe in a god, Marchello Donner, I would suggest you start praying."
Are we there yet?
Almost. It's almost fallen. Soon we will be there, wherever there is, whatever there is. It all comes down to this moment when the coin is about to touch the snow, the ground, the earth. The deciding moment is now and I take a breath in to hold as it flips once more and then again. At the second it touches the snow, balanced on one edge, I am almost hopeful. Then my breath is gone, my body is shoved forward, and I look down at the snow to see a message written in brass. It glares at me like an accusation, or maybe it's a look of forlorn and solemn promise.
I stretch out a hand, fingers trembling, and close my fist around my token. The pressure between my ribs increases and then is taken away to be replaced by a sense of emptiness and pain. She had stabbed me in the back - the literal action being much less dramatic than the fuss of the figurative - and with the toss of a coin I knew I was dying.
Are we there yet?
I think we're about to arrive.
Are we there yet?
I can't answer that, I won't know until I have arrived and by then it will surely be too late for me to change whatever there will mean. Right now it is only a mystery to me, but I feel that soon I will understand it. I will remember this breath, this moment, for however long a memory lasts. This mortal flesh may rot away beneath me but if my memory continues on then I will still cling to this moment. I discovered something about myself. No, I was told something about myself. Told by a girl with steel eyes and a steel tipped spear. She jabs her lessons into me again and again and I can only listen.
I can't teach her anything in return, for all that I can tell her it seems she already knows. I am the one who is behind, and with each breath and each heartbeat I fall further an further behind. The blood that oozes from my wounds turns my entire body red and below me is a trail of red that stretches between us like a chain. We are bound, she and I, we will be connected from this moment and into the rest of our joined lives. Though only one of us will live, that one will be dragging the ghost of the other around by this chain.
She's standing in front of me now, brandishing her spear as though she were hunting. Perhaps she was, perhaps it was me she was hunting and then onto the next until she had trapped the prize of a crown. I could have believed that, had I not seen the weakness and the vulnerability that had been drawn out of her before. My words had made feeling flicker in her eyes so strongly that it had felt like a second flame. My own weapons flashed and flamed in my hands, whispering about death and burning and the way the wind played in their fire. Had I the mind, the heart, the soul, I would drive my axe into Margaret's skull and end our bitter dance now.
Above me the coin was spinning, twirling, falling.
It was plummeting now, I brass bullet that twisted and turned in the air. It flipped end over end endlessly, changing its mind over and over again as it continued on its way to make the last decision. Who will walk away?
My eyes are on the coin as it falls, my breath caught in my throat as I wait for the verdict. Which side represents which one of us. Heads or tails, tails or heads, which one am I, which one are you. On one side is a message, on the other is a story. Which one am I, which one is she? Am I the story, or am I the message. Throughout this battle I have done nothing but explain, while Margaret has taught me much. I am the story, then, and she the message. I am heads and she is tails.
"If you believe in a god, Marchello Donner, I would suggest you start praying."
Are we there yet?
Almost. It's almost fallen. Soon we will be there, wherever there is, whatever there is. It all comes down to this moment when the coin is about to touch the snow, the ground, the earth. The deciding moment is now and I take a breath in to hold as it flips once more and then again. At the second it touches the snow, balanced on one edge, I am almost hopeful. Then my breath is gone, my body is shoved forward, and I look down at the snow to see a message written in brass. It glares at me like an accusation, or maybe it's a look of forlorn and solemn promise.
God grant me
the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.
the Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can,
and Wisdom to know the difference.
I stretch out a hand, fingers trembling, and close my fist around my token. The pressure between my ribs increases and then is taken away to be replaced by a sense of emptiness and pain. She had stabbed me in the back - the literal action being much less dramatic than the fuss of the figurative - and with the toss of a coin I knew I was dying.
Are we there yet?
I think we're about to arrive.
Please note that this is not Marchello's death post, it is simply my conclusion to this fight. There will be a final post that I will write and post tomorrow.
