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 Posted: Sun Oct 06, 2013 11:44 pm
Leaves sprawled across the ground like failed whispers.
This place has seen so many distant falls, so many dismal winters, so many dejected springs. Seasons turned, and still it stood, the same establishment with the same worn wood siding with the same faded sign denoting its service as a café. It housed patrons young and old, whimsical and loyal, with the same tried menu it sported for years. Minor tweaks appealed to the change in the times, but overall, the coffee shop remained a fixture within the turbulent climate of Destiny City.
Alois remembered straying beneath its patched awning to smoke, during nights of torrential rain. Sheets of it pelted his shoes, crawled up his black pants while he lit up, always covering the delicate flame with his meager, spindly hands. Sometimes it worked, but more often than not he lost yet another match to the relentless weather.
But no one complained.
No one accosted him.
In fact, no one was around
for who loitered in the rain, but those plagued by their own afflictions? Their own vices, forever gripping and pulling and straining against their better judgment?
But he forsook that habit months ago. It still lingered in his bones, chipped at the roots of his teeth and teased the corners of his mind on softer occasions. This day was no different, with its lulling breeze and lukewarm sun. Its hazelnut coffee creamer and doubleshot espressos scalding hot and coveted by those who ordered with tired eyes and slackened tongues.
These very people, who read about youma and wrote papers on the Spanish inquisition and fled from the terrorists who slipped through the night.
But what tales did they leave behind? What marked human life as something significant? What news of trysts or tussles littered tables not yet bussed? So Alois passed through the crowded maze of seating like a ghost, and he caught errant glances of various individuals still submerged in their own pretentious novels, or the next greatest party marketed across Facebook. He knew he was displaced here, but he needn't worry now. Even if his scathing anonymity failed to conceal his actions, his impending sentence prevented any harm. He had nothing to fear, nothing to hate, nothing to believe. And that was what he wanted.
The misanthrope teased the rim of a circular table with the tips of piano fingers, and his nails caught the edge of a crumpled napkin. Unfurling it, he discovered a half-written number accompanied by a coffee stain.
Yes - small stories, never finished, always lingering in the outskirts of human perception.
This was what he needed right now.kurotomato let me know if this works!
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Posted: Wed Oct 09, 2013 9:58 pm
He liked the fall best.
It was in the fall that everything changed, the leaves shifted from their bright, vibrant greens to less obtrusive, muted oranges and browns and golds that Magiore enjoyed more. He liked the crisp feeling of the air in autumn, the way that the entire world seemed to smell of campfires and old books and spices.
Not that he liked camping, but the smell of the fire was both pleasant and familiar.
The cafe - a little cluster of a building wedged betwen two larger, less decorated office towers that cast draping shadows across the pale red roof of the coffeeshop - he frequented fortunately was not full by any means, which he much appreciated. Large crowds had never suited him before, because large crowds usually meant small talk, and Magiore had never appreciated, nor found much use in small talk.
He made his way towards the counter and ordered his usual - black, no cream or sugar, with a half sized walnut biscotti stick and a green tea to go - and then proceeded to the back of the cafe, where a small, round table with two chairs was unoccupied. Magiore swung his bag into the first seat and then crossed around to the second, sitting down and pulling out a worn copy of The Hounds of Baskerville and Other Sherlock Holmes Tales.
There was a young man around his age sitting somewhere to his left, but Magiore paid no heed to him, merely gave him a dismissive sort of look as though he wasn't entirely certain of him, and then went back to reading.
When in doubt - read.Strickenized It's fine! <33 sorry about the delay!
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Posted: Sat Nov 23, 2013 9:02 am
Something caught his eye in the way that the black-haired boy, the one sporting clothes too well-suited to this establishment, took to his seat and blocked out the world. His bag now lighted in the stool opposite him - an indication of his distaste for company - and his quick absorption into a tattered copy of ancient stories. Alois could, with little reservation, state that the boy had no lust for company that day. He might even extrapolate further and insinuate that, by reading tales of crime and sacrifice, by reading about those who succumbed to fear and potential drug abuse, he bore no love for humanity either.
And in that, he found a common thread between them.
But Alois cared little for such trifles. He didn't need to make a connection to those would-be dinners or could've-been subduers. It didn't matter what the boy thought of him, or what he thought of the boy - only that, in another time, they would've played a different game. Perhaps the oldest game in the book.
Alois hesitated toward the end of a booth, with long, bony fingers grasping tightly against the faded red vinyl. A tear in the corner revealed the white webbing beneath that entrapped the old, used-up stuffing. He resented it because he related to it, but that didn't matter to the boy who sat with his coffee and biscotti and read from stories published so long ago that the author lay dead in his coffin now, that hollow gaze of eye sockets fixated on a likely rotting lid. But the boy wouldn't consider the author's fate because it didn't matter - he focused on the case of a large hound that terrorized an old English hamlet, where a gifted would-be detective sought a government operation on the grounds that their testing might've impacted the town's occupants.
But it had been such a long time since Alois got acquainted with that particular book. He could've been wrong. But even he neglected to consider the author's fate when he read it some years ago, while lighted on a rock near the bank of the Rhine river. While he enveloped himself in the silence following fresh snow, in his home away from home in Dresden. While he blotted out the pseudo-intellectual dregs of the human race with his Kaffee mit Cognac and an equally worn copy of the very same book, printed in a language he could better understand.
But he was bitter these days - bitter due to his failure to evolve into something past this dismal, cynical facsimile of a plainclothes officer.
Without a word, he approached the boy who fit in the coffee shop as perfectly as a jigsaw piece, and his fingers found the top of the page, where the margins prevented any words from straying toward freedom. He tapped his fingers abruptly, which rippled the pages for a moment when they found the hard wooden surface next to the spine. And still, Alois ventured few words, as was his taciturn disposition outside of a uniform littered with skulls and war paint.
And in that moment, he wanted to say something intellectual and inspiring - something that might stir the ashes of the boy's interest in humanity, something that might exonerate him from this horrid, twisted fate where he remained human til the end of his days. But this was life, not the fiction from which the boy read, and no such phrasing came bubbling to his lips like fresh, vibrant blood. "Why read in such a shitty establishment?"
He came here to discover half-written treasures, left behind by those too entrenched in their own lives to notice them. But this boy enshrouded himself in his life, in his americanized Kaffee mit Cognac and his anglicized Frühstückspause and his telegraphed disdain for those around them. He didn't leave anything behind, but Alois wanted that book.
"Let me see zat for a second." He muttered as he lifted the corner of the book. Even if only to write in it, he needed something to offset this atrocious impasse.
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Posted: Wed Dec 04, 2013 7:03 pm
He supposed it would have been easier, more intelligent, perhaps to read in a place that had a sense of peace and quiet about it, instead of one that lacked all order, as a cafe did. Though it was a smaller establishment, people still rushed by with delayed coffees, spilled lattes across the counter, an dropped cups of tea meant for their patrons.
Still, there was something about it that was almost relaxing to Magiore. He couldn't quite explain it - and had given up trying to, instead focusing on the little table in the back of the room where he preferred to sit. Sometimes he didn't bring a book, but instead ordered his usual and watched the people come in and out of the cafe.
Occasionally, he played games: which he thought were Order members, which he thought could pass as Negaverse agents, though of course he could neither confirm nor deny whatever he decided. It was all inside of his head, a game that he would neither win nor lose, and that was all right, because it was not about winning or losing, but about playing.
This time, he had a book, but this time was also different.
He heard the footsteps approach closer to him, though he didn't raise his head, Magiore's eyes flickering across the pages of his book. It wasn't until he saw pale fingers across the top, pressing down on the page that he gave in and leaned back, his gaze landing on the one he'd seen earlier; a gaunt looking figure, dark eyes and dark hair, and he was entirely unfamiliar to Magiore.
Not that this was unusual; he kept his distance, even from the Negaverse mostly, though the latter was due to a lack of freedom, rather than a desire. Magiore opened his mouth to answer the oddly phrased question that was not something like What a strange place to read or May I ask you something? Instead, it was a brash, unexpected twist of a question, and he found it somewhat curious, rather than off putting.
He let the book go without a fight, eyeing the figure in front of him. "What are you going to do with it?" Magiore asked calmly, disregarding the first question in lieu of the second.Strickenized sdkflsjf sorry for delay holidays at me @_@
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Posted: Tue Dec 10, 2013 8:02 am
"Ze same sing I do wis' every book," he replied easily. After prodding the depths of his jacket pocket for a ball point pen, he produced the unassuming grey object caught between his fingers, and removed the cap with his teeth. He easily pressed the butt of the pen into the cap pinned in his teeth - a mark of too many years spent keeping books for the family business. "We're bos' aware zat, when published, ze story does not change much. In future editions zere might be a grammar mistake corrected here or a typo zere, or even a new cover, but nossing changes as far as plot is concerned. You are still enduring ze same, tired storyline."
The misanthrope folded a leg on the table, pressing his shin into the cold, weathered surface, and rested the book atop his thigh to begin writing. "It's more interesting when you haf' somesing unique to your hundert-tausend times published book. Somesing zat suggests a story of its own, you see." He began writing in the margins at the top of the page, meticulous handwriting tracing into the paper with ease. His words curved just beneath the title printed in the heading before resuming their course in a practiced, straight line. "What I'm doing is donating a little of my own viewpoint. It's a little too close to charity for my comfort, but it's important to leaf' pieces of yourself behind if you expect anyone to mourn your loss."
Once finished, the misanthrope placed the book atop the table once more and slid it toward its rightful owner. At the top of the page, printed in jet-black ink, read a curious phrase: We live in Baskerville, and the Hounds come in droves tonight. Side with their handlers or succumb to teeth innumerable. The remained of the page appeared untouched, save for a lopsided circle, almost an afterthought, denoted a typo not yet fixed in the young man's edition of the book.
Alois caught the cap in his teeth once more, and capped the pen without marking his own face - a well-practiced ritual that earned a plethora of ink stains on his face from years prior. "It's more interesting when somesing else lingers on ze page to enrich a book you'f probably memorized four times over. DIfferent viewpoints and all zat s**t." A quick glance around the coffee shop revealed a profusion of different individuals with their different coffees and their different dress styles while they immersed themselves in their own lives. Alois didn't bother to suppress a sneer when his gaze landed on one particular woman, who removed her knitted cap and obsessed pointlessly over her appearance by studying herself in a stainless steel cup. She combed her fingers through her hair to fix snarls never truly gained.
Inwardly he wished his plans could've come to fruition - that his presence as Bischofite wasn't an entirely superfluous affair. The Negaverse operated in a fully functional capacity before he was even an officer, and it would surely continue without him in that same strength. Even if he powered up and burnt the place to cinders, that girl would still frequent coffee shops in the dead of winter and study herself for imagined imperfections. Nothing would change - no one would change.
Alois finally pocketed his pen and removed his leg from the table. "What's your name?" He asked the boy, though some of his earlier malcontent bled into his tone. The youth didn't look like much, maybe a little pretentious, but he lacked threatening overtones and any sense of bite, as far as Alois could tell.kurotomato don't worry the holidays ate me too :'D i just want to crawl into an abyss and pretend christmas doesn't exist
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