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 Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 7:38 am
"Ze lights don't work anymore, since most of zem are busted out. But even if zey weren't, zey cut ze power long ago." He would know. He tried to operate some of the still-oiled machinery when he first discovered the place. Nothing. "Zere's enough light to navigate - between all ze windows and ze explosion site, it's practically daylight inside." He wasn't exaggerating - upon entry, it seemed like there was only a matter of time before nature reclaimed the place. The sun already did.
And then she took his hand.
Alois jerked instantaneously, muscles twitching to reject foreign touch. Her hand didn't have clearance for landing; didn't she hear the radio broadcasts? But despite the spasm, despite his skin crawling away from the contact site, up his arm, across his shoulders, Alois did not rebuke her entirely. He did not mention it, but he did not release her hand, either.
Ruthie didn't act as Ruthie anymore, it was a curious occurrence. Obviously she hadn't been out this far. But in the realm of the bookstore, Ruthie exhibited her social demeanor and sought to flirt with someone who wanted nothing more than for the entire damn store to burn down so he could quit treading water and move on to something greater. But Ruthie persisted through all that malice, all those nerves, and now it was his turn to toy with her. It was an ebb and flow affair - he couldn't always stymie the ocean.
Alois would simply have to lead her by a leash of sinew and bone.
"Of what?" He asked, voice more than apparent in the clear air. "Of ze silence? Fill it wis' your voice. Of ze building? Conquer it by climbing inside. Of me? Win me over." He paused, both in speech and stride. Was someone there? Alois tilted his gaze skyward, toward the gaping hole facing west. "Absence is a scary sing until you fill it wis' yourself. And places like zese... Zey're a perfect ewer to receif'e all ze rotten parts of yourself." Not that you have any. No, in all your books and vignettes and half-woven fantasies, you haven't taken the chance to rot any of your perfectly-grown fruit. But no one's tasted one either, I bet.
Alois finished the short distance to the power plant door without forsaking Ruthie's grip. But as he recognized the object pinning the chains together, he let slip her hand in favor of pulling his knife. With the press of a button, the spring-loaded blade clicked into place. With a quick, controlled swipe, the zip tie pinning the heavy chains together gave way and descended to the floor. Like a leaf, he thought. This is my enchanted forest. Surely you appreciate that.
The door gave into his touch, emitting a violent moan while allowing entry. They just had to slip inside, now.
After carefully pocketing the knife once more, Alois ghosted past the threshold and held his hand out behind him for her to catch. Ebb and flow. A butterfly in the forest. "It's just up zese stairs and across a catwalk, now."
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Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 8:59 pm
Alois, she thought as he spoke, ignoring the jerk, appreciating his grasp. Are you sad? What is so rotten inside of you that you can only receive it here? The plant seemed so broken and forgotten--not the place she would choose to release her despair at all. She tightened the grip on his hand. They would tread through, like a child wandering the woods without a flashlight--cautiously, carefully. Who was the wolf: The one who snarled or the one who hunted for affection? She couldn't tell, feeling soft and alone despite the hand-touch. Perhaps he wanted to accommodate her grasp to shut her up, so she wouldn't flirt or complain or whine about her shyness. She sighed.
Over-analytical as always. When would she learn to appreciate these motions without tying them to ulterior motives? Insecurity destroyed every good thing. She would have to overcome it somehow.
Alois, however, seemed so at ease among these moaning doors and zip ties and steel beams, and she wondered about the rods and bridges of his thoughts, if they trailed off or connected every learned thing deeply within his punk/goth/quiet/shy/lonely psyche. She frowned when he pulled his hand away, but smiled when he offered it again, and she took it kindly and gently. It felt worn, but soft.
All of that piano, I guess.
"Thank you," she said--still quiet as if afraid to disturb a hidden sleeper. "When did you discover this place?" She brushed back a strand of hair with her free hand. "Is this what you do in your spare time? Run around the city? Searching its nooks and crannies?" She glanced at the stairs. "It's a sad place, don't you think? Like no one cared about it for a long time."
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Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 10:24 pm
Alois didn't appreciate the feeling of holding hands - how much could someone glean from skin alone? Might they detect minute changes in his body temperature, too much moisture and falsely discern nervousness, even suspect lies from the texture of his skin? These thoughts passed with minor wonder - he clung to them no longer than a handrail when descending stairs. And in their wake, he considered new input, this time from her.
"I don't remember when I discovered it," he lied. He remembered the day in curious detail. He recalled waking on the outskirts of a graveyard, against a tree he'd napped under many a time. He brushed the vivid imagery from his mind, stains of a recurring dream that plagued him since his move. "It must'f' been a few mont's ago, at least." The air whisked a coming storm, turbulence plagued the city, he caught a glimpse of his first senshi (though he didn't realize it at the time). And thus he wandered, chasing the edges of reality as they stretched and pulled, weaving through the city in an attempt to register a little more than a glimpse of what he now knew as youma.
"Sometimes I wonder what happened here." Alois started up the thin metal steps while he maintained her grip. It was hard to focus; this wasn't unusual. "Did zey overlook some security measure? Did zey perhaps work shifts too long to be safe?"
The youma slipped beneath the gate easily. He remembered forcing the lock for several long minutes. He remembered the distinct smell of rust.
"Or maybe zis was just an accident, nossing born out of neglect, you know? Maybe someone simply dropped a sodium ribbon into water, or someone worked a little too fast for zeir own good." One of the steps groaned under his weight. He continued nonetheless. "I don't sink it's quite a sad place. It's slated for demolishing zough. I don't know when it'll happen, but zis building and all its parts will be recycled. No one maintained it for a long time, but zat doesn't discount it from care. Ozzers haf' been here, as you can see. People found it good enough to mark." He gestured to the walls, covered in various graffiti signatures and caricatures.
By the time he pried the door open, rust gave way to gasoline. It was difficult to tell with the coal fires burning bright, but he recognized a heavy, oily scent nonetheless. And by the time his eyes adjusted to the motion-activated floodlights, he caught only a glimpse of an inky tail slithering into the building. Alois couldn't determine what he saw.
"I just like zese places. Zat's all it is." He paused, shortly before reaching the third floor. "You must sink zat's strange." Alois leaned against the banister, which protested his movements. "You're probably accustomed to more typical sings - dinner, movies, libraries, picnics. And maybe I should'f taken you zere, maybe I should'f stifled myself for a while longer. It's what people seek, right? To play games wis' each ozzer?" He chuckled before resuming his ascent.
Something akin to adrenaline froze him in place, though his organs went into overdrive. He froze to the spot, though he didn't understand why at the time. And he didn't need to - soon afterward, the sky crackled and tore open with a deafening roar, showering the city in spit and grime and twisted metal, smoldering down into an unceremonious heap. Intermixed with those remains were fingers, bones, scraps of flesh. A tooth landed at his feet.
"Sometimes sings must undergo total destruction before zey regain some sort of purpose." Alois crossed the catwalk with ease, despite its slight sways under his movements. "For example, I can tell you zey used to manufacture some sort of PVC here, if you look at ze machinery downstairs. I can't tell you what it is, or what it's good for, but zat was ze entire purpose of zis place. Nossing else really stood out to me. Kind of pointless, isn't it?" He paused and half-turned to watch her. "A planned purpose, everysing following ze rules. Everysing according to plan. And look what's become of it."
He still had that tooth.
"You can see ze city now, quite a lot of it. You can see ze sunset. You can see ze bones of zis place." After cracking open one last door, he reached a blackened shell of a room overflowing with daylight. Footprints marred its charred floor. "Sometimes I sink people mistake loneliness for a bad sing. Ze same wis' pain and suffering - but great sings are built from demolished foundations. We just haf' to remember ze husks in its place. Sometimes destruction and neglect are harbingers of change."
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Posted: Wed Aug 28, 2013 11:02 pm
Alois.
Alois meaning famous warrior.
Alois meaning boy who climbed the stairs of an abandoned power plant--who showed her the way to light, who studied machinery without knowing its functions, who wandered abandoned worlds hidden from the pampered, the gentle, the soft. All of this Alois. The city stretching wide and jagged like rows of broken teeth or fingers pressing against the sky, humming with students catching buses, cashiers ringing up regulars, drivers buckling seat belts. Alois. The daylight gleaming white and yellow off bus, building, church, school windows. This too was Alois. Even her watching him could be Alois for this was his domain, and all that existed in his domain came from him, and thus, existed within his mind, his imagination.
She would not stare at this glistening, buzzing city if not for Alois. She would not know this moment if not for Alois.
"It's beautiful," she sighed.
No. This could not be a dinner. This could not be a movie. This could not be a picnic. With him, this could only be her stepping forward as she did then, to catch the sunlight in her hair, to smile as if she understood, to say, "Thank you for showing me this."
She loosened her grip on his hand and pressed her palm to his cheek, the smile fading. She studied his eyes for something...an understanding, perhaps of how much she liked him. Where could she find it but in his look? The beating of his heart? The warmth of his hand? All these signs seemed too variable: A heart beat fast and palms sweated when met with danger, and the factory seemed most dangerous.
No, she needed something clearer, and she chose his gaze, searching for some quiet warmth akin to her imaginings that morning. She said, "You're right, great things can come from loneliness, but they can come from company too. In fact, why be great alone when you can be great with others? What's the point of greatness if there's no one who understands how great you are, what greatness is?"
She retracted her hand and grinned her usual grin, stepping away, turning from him to face the city.
"But you're also right that I've never been on a date like this before!" She laughed. "Is this a casual outing for you?"
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Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 10:18 pm
Alois turned away from her touch in one fluid motion, instead retreating further into the broken confines of the room. They greeted him with blackened smiles. Charred dust. The last scraps of human remains, ashen and windswept into the corners of the room. His gaze traced the scrawling script across the wall, depicting diagrams and formulae and german text long lost to the people of the city. Would she understand the unconscionably morbid prose crowning the doorframe and tracing every pipe in the wall? Unlikely - how many people had he met who understood even an inkling of German? Only Buddingtonite.
And did she just refer to this as a date? He wasn't seeking her romantic companionship, nor should she seek his. Even present in this place, she wouldn't understand him without knowing Bischofite - not that she should hope for such an affair. But he already knew her as an idealist, one who sought the unattainable, if only to marvel at all the inconsequential minutia along the way.
"I guess it is." Idly he wondered how many he could hang from the jagged spikes of rebar protruding from the blown-out wall. Would a man fall far enough to break his legs at this point? "I'm pretty used to it by now, as you can tell." Finally he turned toward her once more and approached the precipice.
"I stopped coming out here when some stupid s**t happened to my life." Alois carefully climbed atop the broken rubble that once amounted to a wall. It shifted precariously beneath him but he maintained his balance. "But I used to come here a lot. Not zat it matters too much - how many souvenirs can you glean from a place like zis anyway? But it does offer somesing zat you don't find much of in Europe - vast privacy. You can secure little bits and pieces of solitude in Germany, but nossing like zis. Zere are shattered visages of times long gone, but tourists frequent zose places, and ze rest are reclaimed for future projects."
He was surprised she even listened. Surely she should've tuned him out by now.
Alois considered referencing the war, the senshi, the Negaverse. But even as he mulled over all that he endured, he couldn't rationalize spoiling a moment bereft of such supernatural occurrences. Here, now, youma no longer existed - and how could he assume the form of a monster that never existed? The notion of evolution, from a human to the grotesqueries that haunted the streets, appeared foolhardy and farfetched more than anything.
At least here he could resume a normal life, or as close to one as he could manage. Alois' father mentioned it himself - Alois chose the paths most difficult to travel, not for a challenge and not to test the limits of his abilities; he did so out of sheer stupidity.
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Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 10:39 pm
"Aw, Alois." Ruthie looked at him deeply, sadly, when he pulled away. It felt like a Picasso being torn apart or a broken gutter spilling rain onto the streets. She sighed. "You don't seem to like intimacy, do you? I'm sorry." Chuckling, she watched him move before her: "Is that one of the reasons you come out here? To escape it? I suppose I caught those signs in the bookstore. The shivers, the tone." She ran a hand through her hair. "It was wrong of me to push." How could she recover the situation? Conversation? Probably. He liked to think aloud, and if she could entice him to confess more, perhaps they would be alright: He would feel safe.
"So why do you enjoy privacy so much?" She leaned against the rubble. She shivered for it felt cool against her skin. "And why bring someone to the space you where you relinquish your demons?"
She teased: "It's a little warm, Alois. I like it."
She liked him, but did he like her? Could he stand her? Don't put out the candles. She smiled. Shine on through.
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Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 11:02 pm
Alois only smirked in response. "Hmph." Intimacy - even the word came with so many clauses, so many exceptions, so many intrinsic rules. He mostly existed outside such notions, with a few exceptions. His own clauses. "You can try to read me all you like. You can extrapolate from my actions or my words, or anysing unsaid." It wasn't the intimacy that bothered him, though the word bore far too many connotations for its own good - he hated the notion of trust.
The notion of falling - wind scraping hair and clothes toward the sky, pushing limbs to their limit, emitting a daefening, infinite screech. All the while, he imagined the ground, though he saw nothing but clouds. A pale grey, maybe. No, a slate. Slate grey and jutting upward as if to pierce the sky, and he would land on them with such force that they split apart his body and threatened to divide it amongst themselves. And he would lie atop their triumph, broken and bloody and choking on his own viscera.
Only to land atop feathers, unharmed and whole.
And he hated that feeling - to trust was to betray himself. It was harder to doubt one who expressed through touch, because most liars were ill-versed in the art of misleading body language.
"People are stifling. Zat's all." Without looking, gaze still focused toward the ground thirty feet beneath him, Alois felt around for an empty beer bottle near his back. Surely enough, his fingers brushed its greasy neck and he rolled it toward his palm. "It's not really important - no more zan determining why chickens lay different colored eggs. If I told you, it would be ze same as finding out ze eggs match ze color of ze chicken's earlobe. And you would understand ze world, or ze chicken, no better zan before. It'd be like knowing I haf' a birs'mark on my right hip. Useless information.
But I haf' a better reason for bringing you here - not to simply show you zis mess. We can revel in ze beauty of entropy all we like, but it serves no purpose in ze end." Finally he wrapped his fingers around the bottle's neck and threw it into the distance, toward the overgrown weeds crawling through the chain links. The sound reached them as a shortened plink. "Once you coat someplace wis' grime, you haf' to wipe it clean before you continue your work. Ze same principle applies here - in order to continue using zis place, I haf' to bring someone in to wick away some of ze grief, you understand?" He tilted his head back and regarded her unblinkingly. "But don't worry - you're not just a tool. But...
"If you call me warm again, I'll burn you alif'e," he shot back with a smile.
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Posted: Thu Aug 29, 2013 11:25 pm
"Alois." Ruthie's grin widened. She faced him. "Is that a smile?" She laughed. "Did this stifling collector of useless information actually bring some humor to your life? I thought you couldn't stand us." She leaned against the rubble again, but facing more toward his glorious expression. She smirked. "Go me."
Regarding his comments about cleaning the grief, Ruthie thought he made an appropriate selection, for her laughter negated her melancholia, and her smiles destroyed her insecurities--all these masks she wore to protect her from herself, to hide from her true feelings. She couldn't cry with a grin. She couldn't hurt if she surrounded herself with friends--so many friends. This constant reaching out.
Did they really matter or were they just tools?
No, she cared, she...must have cared, right? Or she would have released them from her friendship long ago, or maybe they stayed because they felt loved, though she didn't really love them. Maybe she needed them as playthings, so she wouldn't grow bored, and thus, focus on her flaws. She shook her head. They trusted her to love them, so she loved them. With all her heart. Yes. They weren't like the bottle Alois tossed, which couldn't think or feel and existed at his mercy--a victim of his will. They were people. People she loved. Yes.
"Pardon my pun," she said, mirroring his look. "But that could be pretty hot." She added: "I'm glad that I can help you with the grief, and I'd like to know, if you'd ever like to tell me." Back away now... "But I know you're a pretty private guy, so maybe my presence is just enough to negate the memories?"
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Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 7:41 pm
Alois faltered beneath her criticism. His smile faded and he returned to the dying light cast out over the city. He didn't respond - he didn't need to. Rather, his fingers parted slightly in the air, as if tentatively holding a ghostly cigarette.
Old habits never die.
For now, Alois simply listened - he had little reason to respond. Few inclinations to appease her with a response right now. Instead he remained silent for several moments. Cars formed a facsimile of the wind in the distance, and occasional yelling punctuated its monotony. No doubt the dregs of society soon crawled out of their cracks and crevasses, scuttling around in search of some scraps to gorge themselves. Though, they weren't much different from anyone else.
So was Ruthie truly different? She possessed all the markers of a typical girl of his age - youth, vibrancy, even a hint of curiosity. But she wore her acceptance on her sleeve, displayed it for all to see like a war trophy from an era long past. She appeared harmless, at first. Interested. Quirky. Even a little forward.
But now? Now she wielded sarcasm like a weapon, and he was disinclined to return the favor.
No - these charred walls were his white flag, and she pissed on their ashes. Why should he be surprised? Finally Alois stood and crossed the room toward its dilapidated, heat-warped door. "You're right - I'm a pretty private guy." As his sole response whispered out the gaping maw of the building, he ducked beyond the door and into the main area, rife with catwalks and stairs and all manner of grating.
And he loked down, between his feet, through the pinhole slats in the floor. Near the corner of his vision sat an old machine laden with dust - he imagine it once drilled holes into all manner of assembly parts - perhaps just nuts, perhaps even cams. And how many individuals sat upon the seat placed before it? How many crossed their legs, rested both feet on the floor, or forsook the chair altogether? And of those people, how many succumbed to freak accident, whether staged or simple?
It was far too easy to marvel at ghosts.
He continued down the catwalks, leaving Ruthie further behind.
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Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 8:28 pm
Ugh. Either she truly pushed too far or Alois mastered manipulation. Of course she wouldn't let him leave her in the abandoned plant--it seemed far too dangerous. He forced her to follow--to apologize. Why would he compromise her this way? To demonstrate some kind of power? That he was above teasing? Would she call him out on it?
"ALOIS." She followed him. "Alois I'm sorry. Don't leave me here." She gripped onto the catwalk's railing. Did it swing this much before? She panted with fear. "What do you want? Acceptance? Friendship?" Was she catching up with him? He seemed closer. The thought of him leaving her where he left burdens, curses--where she was brought to wipe clean. Did she ruin it? "I'll give you that, but do you think it's wisest to leave the provider alone in an abandoned building and defenseless?"
Maybe it wasn't about feeling anymore. Maybe it was about survival.
I'm weak, aren't I? Have I always been this weak? She narrowed her gaze. One day I will be strong enough to give up people like Alois. She softened her expression. Innocent. Sweet. Good. Apologetic. His mistaken friend. His sorry angel. All these things she would become to earn his kindness.
"I really am sorry." She relaxed. "I was just teasing, but now I understand that you take these things seriously. I was wrong, and you were right to feel upset. I won't play like that again. I understand how it can be hurtful."
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Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 8:45 pm
"What do I want?" He repeated. "Zat's a good question." Transfer to a different catwalk, duck a low-hanging pipe. "What do I want... You can tell I don't want acceptance from ze very sight of me. Not many approach someone so dark, nicht?" Across the grating, watch for the hole. Someone surely snapped their ankle in that hole. Someone surely screamed and writhed and raised alarms in that hole. "Friendship... Well. I don't need to talk about zat one." He laughed, mirthless and cold. This old power plant, it echoed his sentiments.
His hardness.
His coldness.
His ruthlessness.
And in turn he echoed all its construction - the convoluted pipes, the myriad of dangerous precipices beckoning for a misstep, the gaping, blackened hole facing the sun. "Du glaubst fester an den Antrieb denn der Antrieb ist wie du*." Almost a mantra, he spoke the words evenly and fluidly, flowing from his lips like the last rivulets of blood from a punctured lung.
Oh, but he neglected to return to her. He didn't entertain her notions of forgiveness and closure and petty sentimentalities. Such things were not beneath him, but beyond him. He was loathe to admit it, but the gap between typical functioning adults and himself grew ever wider as the days passed. Was it due to the appearance of Bischofite? All the unique changes in his life? He didn't know.
He still pondered over the stories of the men who sat in that chair. Drilling holes, counting bits, safety safety safety.
Finally he halted and turned on his heel despite the protesting rattles beneath him. He shot Ruthie a tired glare, exhaustion over such matters heavily apparent. "You know where ze ground is. You can see it from zat room. Jump if you're so ******** scared." White-knuckled and seething, Alois spoke his piece with venom. Even the handrail beneath his grip rattled with uncertainty.*You believe in the power plant, because the power plant is like you.
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Posted: Fri Aug 30, 2013 9:17 pm
He asked her to jump. He didn't know how to feel. No, that could be wrong. He chose not to feel? He asked her to come with him, so he could murder her? No, he seemed to like her. Seemed. Seemed was such a funny word. She seemed kind. She seemed to care. Was she? Did she? Did he? He seemed so harsh, like a blizzard. Like a thunderstorm. Would she crash onto the floor like a lightning bolt? Would he strike? Fear entered her eyes in a flash. It blinded her like the sun--always the sun shining through her window. Always the sun shining off the buildings, shining like his eyes, but they seemed cold, tired, angry. "Why are you so angry?" She stood tall. A lamp post. Fend off the darkness. Be brave. Tower at 4' 11". "Don't you have anything you care about?"
"Don't you value human life?"
"Aren't you afraid of death?"
She brainwashed herself out of fearing death but not of him. Why? When she died she would become one with the earth and feed the worms with her flesh, but him...he could hurt, and nothing good would happen. No corn would spring from her suffering. No bowls would fill with grain. No worms would live another day. Nothing good came from this.
Why didn't he understand it? That to value life was to fear death?
Why didn't she?
She shook her head. It was all so confusing. She just wanted to be okay.
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Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 3:32 pm
Alois laughed, a whistling sound not unlike shadows chittering in the wake of night or the ticking of clocks. Almost a cough, almost a wheeze, almost a show of mirth. It only lasted half a breath, but it claimed its place all the same. Like pipes along the ceiling, it both blended and bled into their conversation.
"And why are you so curious now? Tell me - from what you know of me, do you really sink you'll get an answer aside from 'no'? Humans are s**t - everyone lies, everyone cheats, everyone deceives. So why would I value human life? Why would I care about people?" He approached, his white-knuckle hand tracing the guard rail as it slowly regained color. "Standing on zese catwalks, why would I fear deas'? Tell me somesing else now - did you put any sought into zose questions, or did you simply speak your mind wis'out looking at ze facts? We are in a power plant. A ******** abandoned power plant. If anysing can go wrong, it goes wrong here, yet I took you to zis specific location. I cannot stress it enough, can I?" How long would it take for you to understand?
The segments groaned and swayed beneath his movements. "But do you sink zose questions really matter? Do you sink zey're what compose a human being? Fear, love, care? And, do you really sink humans matter? Zat zey're somehow going to change ze world, zat somesing good will come of zeir existence before ze ears' is engulfed by ze sun? Tell me - are you sure zose are ze important questions to ask? Because I can tell you now - you're addressing all ze wrong issues wis' me." He smiled once more, though devoid of mirth. No, that smile carried over from Bischofite's murderous repertoire.
That left one final test for her. One final juncture to announce her eligibility.
"Do you trust me?" He asked as he drew to a stop in front of her. His gaze lingered on her unfalteringly. "If you do, if you followed me here out of trust and not because ze potential benefits outweigh ze risks..." In one fluid motion, he withdrew the knife from his back pocket and pressed its spring-loaded button. The blade flashed unnaturally bright in their unmitigated view of the sun. Finally he tilted the handle toward her in an offering. "Zen take my knife and cut one of ze suspension ropes holding zis segment of ze catwalk."
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Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 4:01 pm
During her eighth summer, Ruthie visited her aunt's apartment in Luxembourg--a small apartment with green shutters and daisies potted in turquoise and pink. She drew the daisies with smiles on their eyes, and she watched the ice melt in her tea. At first the cubes seemed bright and whole and crisp, but the tea's acid and sunshine's warmth peeled them away drop by drop. Her father's shadow crossed over her, and he picked her up.
"Today we're learning how to swim." He kissed her brow. "Don't you want to learn, so you won't die?"
Ruthie shook her head. "I just..." Alois' smile reminded her of ice. "I..."
Her father waited at the edge of the pool. He smiled his broken, happy grin. Her aunt guided her to him. Her hands felt so soft--as soft as Ruthie could have been if fear didn't tear away at her, force her to cover her head at night for fear that monsters would see. Her father climbed into the water and opened his arms.
"You just have to jump..."
Ruthie took the knife. Her eyes said, "I hate you." Her mouth said--
She grabbed her aunt's leg. They expected her to dive into an ocean? Dad seemed so far away, and the space between his arms seemed so narrow. How could they expect her to land? Her aunt smiled down at her. Her father smiled up at her. She cried. Her aunt looked at her father.
"If you won't do it then..."
A hand pressed to her back, and with a shove, she flew into the air. She gasped. The sun seemed so bright. Her fingers curled into light fists. She hit the water. It stung her nose. It filled her throat. The water muffled her father's shouts and he pulled her into the sun, into the air. She coughed. She shivered.
She took a deep breath.
"Okay."
She cut the cable.
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Posted: Sun Sep 01, 2013 5:26 pm
Her hair writhed violently, as virulent and defiant as her eyes, which spilled her distaste and disgust for him across the catwalk. He stood in her revulsion as she explained every last iota of his misery, why he deserved to forever crawl through decommissioned husks of buildings like this, why she hated him for all the s**t and piss and misery he dragged her through, and why she would walk away from the knife, from the power plant, from him. Most importantly, she illustrated her absolute understanding of him, from a simple request.
She knew all of him, from a simple request.
Except she didn't - the silence poured between them, filling the gaps as water turning in tides. Though she clarified her disdain for him through her eyes alone, he witnessed the coming backlash, the waves of ice crusted over the silent seas. These were absolutes, waiting for their manifestations. This...
This was no ocean suitable for ships. The dead seas bled in its wake.
The line snapped. He reached out - his spindly, spider-like fingers met with her smooth forearm. It jerked in surprise. He recoiled via pulling her closer. That grip was like ice. White hot and more algid than the permafrost beneath the glaciers. They jutted from the sea and the platform gave out. There were no ships and all the cables and platforms and joints shuddered and groaned. The seas swirled beneath the ice but nothing stirred the surface.
There were no ships and the platform dropped instantly.
This was no ocean suitable for ships and the platform shuddered to a stop only six inches beneath its former hang.
Waves of ice crusted over the silent seas and he still remained with his feet flat against the platform and her arm within his grip.
The seas swirled beneath the ice and the scene settled unceremoniously.
Alois breathed a sigh; he didn't know if the pipes running beneath the platforms could support that kind of weight. His educated guess paid off in the long run, and in a measure of victory, he released her arm. "Sometimes breaking a cable is just what you need to feel alif'e. And sometimes ze sings most fearsome to you harbor a little safety, whezzer you can see it or not." Afterward Alois plucked the knife from her hands and rubbed her fingerprints off the hilt out of sheer automation. When he was satisfied with the result, he retracted the blade and tucked it into his back pocket once more. "To trust is to leap from a building wis'out dying."
After having tied his thoughts back to his earlier insult, Alois walked past her, stepping off the platform and onto the others in working order. "I'm surprised you didn't tell me to go ******** myself and leaf'." He mentioned as he paused against the railing.
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