My fic: Anamnesis #3: Nesting #3: Gen
May. 18th, 2022 03:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stonepicnicking_okapiTitle: Nesting #3
Length: 1000
Rating: Gen
Warnings: Mention of blood & blood drinking
For: the Anamnesis challenge hosted bysingedsun. See this post has the link to sign up and more info if you want to play.
FILL #1 OF MY PROMPTS is posted here.
FILL #2 OF MY PROMPTS is posted here.
My #3 PROMPTS
"You manage to find your home. The façade is unfamiliar. You fish the key out of your pocket and open the door."
Here's what I drew for this round:
THE DEVIL
"There are signs that someone else stays here (or at least used to stay here). Who is (or was) this person?"
THE WORLD
"You find an item that was gifted to you. What is the item? Who gave it to you?"
TEMPERANCE
"The walls are adorned. What is hanging from the walls of your home?"
I. THE PIT
I pick up the book the old lady dropped. I leaf through the pages as my feet go where they will, leaving the filthy village, the enraging memories, the strange interloper.
I don’t even read the words. The story does not interest me in the least. I am only interested in the drawings, the illustrations, the pictures, and of those, only one, really.
Laura.
After much study, I decide the artist doesn’t do her justice, but maybe it’s just as well.
I stumble and look up. My feet have managed to find my home.
Home. The word is risible. I haven’t a home. Only a resting place which offers no rest.
I have been murdered in my bed. More than once. And yet.
The graveyard does not look familiar. Years will do that. I was asleep for a long time.
My feet follow a familiar path. Soon I arrive at my tomb.
I am still thinking of Laura.
I attempt to fish a key I no longer have out of a pocket I’ve never had to open a door that doesn’t exist.
It’s a farce without an audience or an objective.
I step inside.
The tomb is open, which is strange. There are shoeprints in the dirt, which is even stranger.
I stop. I look down. I see something that was gifted to me once.
A drop of blood.
I move around it the way visitors to a museum move around a sculpture in the centre of a room, viewing it from every angle, admiring it, then passing on.
My sarcophagus has a new decoration. It startles me in a way that nothing has in hundreds of years.
It is a question, written by a finger dipped in blood, on the side of the grey stone.
Where are you, Carmilla?
---
II. THE FRUIT
I find my way home. The village is small, and I have lived here so long, I could hardly do otherwise.
I don’t recognise my front door. I suppose it’s the dream.
I fish a key from my handbag. I think of the girl and the other key.
The living room is arranged as it was after the second Gladys left (there have been so many Gladyses) but before the nearsighted Priscilla arrived. It was a period only remarkable for the fact that a flight commander spent the night. If the village had but known, oh, the scandal, but I can keep a secret.
“I want you to have them, Miss Marple.”
Cufflinks. Diamond set in silver. Simple, elegant, and wholly impractical for a spinster old lady who rarely stepped outside her village.
“I couldn’t, Flight Commander. They’re trove. To be treasured. Keep them and give them to someone in the future. There will be someone, someone special. Just be patient. Wounds will heal.”
Such a handsome face to look so sad.
“What you have done for me, Miss Marple, has a price above rubies. It’s a debt I can’t repay. Please, I can’t breathe knowing I haven’t at least tried to even the ledger.”
I can’t breathe.
It was a strange phrase, and it troubled me.
“Very well. Thank you. I hope everything will turn out for the best.”
But it didn’t, did it? I hoped it would but suspected it wouldn’t.
He was that sort. Just like poor Tommy Westward.
“What are you going to do with cufflinks?” Dolly Bantry had put the question in that brisk manner of hers which had a way of sweeping away my gloomier thoughts like an efficient broom. “Absurd token of appreciation, I’d say. Unless you plan to sell them.”
“I should have to find a buyer.” It might’ve been walking on the moon.
“London. You have to go to London. You know,” Dolly’s eyes had begun to drift in the direction of a bulb catalogue on the far chair, “you could go to London and have them redone into something more suitable. A pair of earrings, for example.”
The cufflinks had been heavy on my palm. I'd looked at them. Then my eyes had been drawn to the walls, to the many adornments.
Drawings. Photographs. Prints.
Framed. Under glass.
My aged gaze rested on a family.
I smiled.
“Earrings. For Raymond’s youngest. Yes, that’s the thing.”
Raymond’s youngest. I wonder where those earrings are now.
---
III. THE SHELL
I take myself to the boarded-up store front. Though I’ve never been here before, it feels like coming home.
It’s the smell.
John’s blood.
John is my home. Her blood is even more my home.
And the smell tells me there is an intruder in my home.
I detect adrenaline as well as a thousand more chemicals which indicate fear and pain.
She is near. And she is in pain. And I am able to smell it.
How dare they.
They will wish they were never born.
My nostrils flare, and my eyes probably reflect an unsettling light.
I stomp, preparing to kick the door down, to put a stop to whatever unwanted, unwise, unpleasant occupation of my home is transpiring on the other side of the partition, but then, suddenly, through the sole of my boot, I feel something, hard and round.
I move my foot and bend to pick up the earring.
Diamond and silver breadcrumbs, and so unlike her normal style, John had confessed that she’d inherited them from a great aunt.
And John has been thoughtful enough to add a gift.
A tiny drop of blood.
I put my tongue to it without hesitation.
Tasting John’s distress is a thousand times worse than smelling it.
I ram the door.
The abandoned shop had clearly had many proprietors and sold a variety of goods. The faded sign on the street had read ‘Ye Olde Haberdashery.’
I fly to the rear of the premises.
The walls are adorned with various dressmaker’s furnishings, including hooks.
But I only have eyes for one item, one adornment.
Hanging from the wall is my home.
Hanging from the wall is John.
Length: 1000
Rating: Gen
Warnings: Mention of blood & blood drinking
For: the Anamnesis challenge hosted by
singedsun. See this post has the link to sign up and more info if you want to play.FILL #1 OF MY PROMPTS is posted here.
FILL #2 OF MY PROMPTS is posted here.
My #3 PROMPTS
"You manage to find your home. The façade is unfamiliar. You fish the key out of your pocket and open the door."
Here's what I drew for this round:
THE DEVIL
"There are signs that someone else stays here (or at least used to stay here). Who is (or was) this person?"
THE WORLD
"You find an item that was gifted to you. What is the item? Who gave it to you?"
TEMPERANCE
"The walls are adorned. What is hanging from the walls of your home?"
I. THE PIT
I pick up the book the old lady dropped. I leaf through the pages as my feet go where they will, leaving the filthy village, the enraging memories, the strange interloper.
I don’t even read the words. The story does not interest me in the least. I am only interested in the drawings, the illustrations, the pictures, and of those, only one, really.
Laura.
After much study, I decide the artist doesn’t do her justice, but maybe it’s just as well.
I stumble and look up. My feet have managed to find my home.
Home. The word is risible. I haven’t a home. Only a resting place which offers no rest.
I have been murdered in my bed. More than once. And yet.
The graveyard does not look familiar. Years will do that. I was asleep for a long time.
My feet follow a familiar path. Soon I arrive at my tomb.
I am still thinking of Laura.
I attempt to fish a key I no longer have out of a pocket I’ve never had to open a door that doesn’t exist.
It’s a farce without an audience or an objective.
I step inside.
The tomb is open, which is strange. There are shoeprints in the dirt, which is even stranger.
I stop. I look down. I see something that was gifted to me once.
A drop of blood.
I move around it the way visitors to a museum move around a sculpture in the centre of a room, viewing it from every angle, admiring it, then passing on.
My sarcophagus has a new decoration. It startles me in a way that nothing has in hundreds of years.
It is a question, written by a finger dipped in blood, on the side of the grey stone.
Where are you, Carmilla?
---
II. THE FRUIT
I find my way home. The village is small, and I have lived here so long, I could hardly do otherwise.
I don’t recognise my front door. I suppose it’s the dream.
I fish a key from my handbag. I think of the girl and the other key.
The living room is arranged as it was after the second Gladys left (there have been so many Gladyses) but before the nearsighted Priscilla arrived. It was a period only remarkable for the fact that a flight commander spent the night. If the village had but known, oh, the scandal, but I can keep a secret.
“I want you to have them, Miss Marple.”
Cufflinks. Diamond set in silver. Simple, elegant, and wholly impractical for a spinster old lady who rarely stepped outside her village.
“I couldn’t, Flight Commander. They’re trove. To be treasured. Keep them and give them to someone in the future. There will be someone, someone special. Just be patient. Wounds will heal.”
Such a handsome face to look so sad.
“What you have done for me, Miss Marple, has a price above rubies. It’s a debt I can’t repay. Please, I can’t breathe knowing I haven’t at least tried to even the ledger.”
I can’t breathe.
It was a strange phrase, and it troubled me.
“Very well. Thank you. I hope everything will turn out for the best.”
But it didn’t, did it? I hoped it would but suspected it wouldn’t.
He was that sort. Just like poor Tommy Westward.
“What are you going to do with cufflinks?” Dolly Bantry had put the question in that brisk manner of hers which had a way of sweeping away my gloomier thoughts like an efficient broom. “Absurd token of appreciation, I’d say. Unless you plan to sell them.”
“I should have to find a buyer.” It might’ve been walking on the moon.
“London. You have to go to London. You know,” Dolly’s eyes had begun to drift in the direction of a bulb catalogue on the far chair, “you could go to London and have them redone into something more suitable. A pair of earrings, for example.”
The cufflinks had been heavy on my palm. I'd looked at them. Then my eyes had been drawn to the walls, to the many adornments.
Drawings. Photographs. Prints.
Framed. Under glass.
My aged gaze rested on a family.
I smiled.
“Earrings. For Raymond’s youngest. Yes, that’s the thing.”
Raymond’s youngest. I wonder where those earrings are now.
---
III. THE SHELL
I take myself to the boarded-up store front. Though I’ve never been here before, it feels like coming home.
It’s the smell.
John’s blood.
John is my home. Her blood is even more my home.
And the smell tells me there is an intruder in my home.
I detect adrenaline as well as a thousand more chemicals which indicate fear and pain.
She is near. And she is in pain. And I am able to smell it.
How dare they.
They will wish they were never born.
My nostrils flare, and my eyes probably reflect an unsettling light.
I stomp, preparing to kick the door down, to put a stop to whatever unwanted, unwise, unpleasant occupation of my home is transpiring on the other side of the partition, but then, suddenly, through the sole of my boot, I feel something, hard and round.
I move my foot and bend to pick up the earring.
Diamond and silver breadcrumbs, and so unlike her normal style, John had confessed that she’d inherited them from a great aunt.
And John has been thoughtful enough to add a gift.
A tiny drop of blood.
I put my tongue to it without hesitation.
Tasting John’s distress is a thousand times worse than smelling it.
I ram the door.
The abandoned shop had clearly had many proprietors and sold a variety of goods. The faded sign on the street had read ‘Ye Olde Haberdashery.’
I fly to the rear of the premises.
The walls are adorned with various dressmaker’s furnishings, including hooks.
But I only have eyes for one item, one adornment.
Hanging from the wall is my home.
Hanging from the wall is John.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-20 05:59 am (UTC)everything is great, can't wait to see how you end it!
no subject
Date: 2022-05-20 09:16 pm (UTC)Thank you! It will be fun to think about how to wrap this up.
no subject
Date: 2022-05-21 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-22 03:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-05-22 07:39 am (UTC)