but it, the sea, keeps turning landward [D4|Day Four|blitz]
Nov 22, 2018 15:38:27 GMT -5
Post by WT on Nov 22, 2018 15:38:27 GMT -5
A list of lies that wouldn't help:
I didn't mean to. What else does it mean to drive a weapon forward?
Us, too. Even in the sterile serenity of the Training Center, that was posturing. Of course people aren't meat; of course they cry for each other, of course they reach out when—
I wouldn't do it again. But it's done. And if that's what it takes to see home again, if another dozen throats stand between Wander and vis family—Ripred, ve wants vis parents—---
It's easier than Wander expects to step into the momentum of things. Help patch up Eve, biting vis lip in sympathy at the gap in her hand. Clean the spear—not as easy until ve tilts vis head to look at only the shape, not the color (colors), in vis peripheral vision. Keep fidgeting, reorganizing supplies long after they need it. Keep walking, as they do every day, an uneven but unremitting flight around a cage they can't escape away from competitors they might escape. None of it stops the afternoon replaying again and again, but it keeps ver from wringing vis hands so hard they threaten to crack.
Eventually they need rest and, finding verself out of useful things to do, Wander resorts once more to pacing. On a whim, near enough for the others to see ver in the torchlight but far enough for the gold in the walls to glitter indistinctly out of the darkness like stars, ve takes a picture—tries to take a picture. It takes ver an embarrassingly long time staring at the smear of shadow in vis hands to realize the torches give too little light. The photo will stay black, a void where someone hoped for something beautiful.
Ve slips it behind the rest of the stack without a word.
[Wander does first aid on Eve as per tribmaint, and takes a really bad photo.]
thread title from "Camogli" by Adam Zagajewski, in Eternal Enemies, trans. Clare Cavanagh: but it, the sea, keeps turning landward, / wave after wave, as if wondering / what happened to summer's plans / and our dreams / what has our youth become.