InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Stop making that big face!"

Patricia Delphine Stimpson (montaigne) wrote in liberalis,
@ 2009-05-24 21:52:00

Who: Patricia Stimpson & Regulus Black
When: Tuesday afternoon
Where: Cafe in London
What: Meeting of sheer coincidence
Rating: PG-13 for language
Status: Incomplete

Today was one of the rare days Patricia was allowed some quality time with herself –free from her adorable but undeniably draining daughter. Elyse was spending her day at her grandmother’s house in Toulouse, and though Patricia felt slightly guilty for it, she was looking forward to quiet alone time. She was similarly tired of spending her days cooped up inside her small flat, so she decided to make a trip first to the bookstore to pick out a new book to read to Elyse at bedtime (she apparently wasn’t all too fond of Shakespeare), an ethnography on Magical Germany post-WWII, and a secret indulgence: a sappy romance novel (of course only women who have no romance in their own lives buy these horrible excuses for writing so that they may live vicariously through the beautiful, dainty main character); and then she was off to a nearby café where she sipped on lemon tea and thumbed through her worn copy of Essais by Michel de Montaigne.

Patricia was an avid Montaigne fan, and she could recall perfectly his essay “Of Cannibals” –which her eyes were currently trained on. There were scribbled notes in the margins, lines underlined, paragraphs emphasized. It was quite obvious she had read this essay only a hundred times perhaps, but she found it very applicable to her current study in East Asia where the tribe practiced post-mortum cannibalism and fierceness was a virtue. Patricia constantly worried what affect her writings might have on the tribe. She had seen before where an anthropologist’s research on a certain group had consequently led said group’s extinction. People would hardly feel sympathy for a tribe in which murder and warfare were a way of life. Of course if you understood the tribe’s culture and beliefs, you would understand that they didn’t believe in chance. Everyone who died, died because someone else wished it so. Therefore, their basic foundations involved revenge often in a very gruesome magical ritual.

Montaigne seemed to grasp this, and in his essay –though it was written during the Renaissance- questioned whether the true barbarians weren’t the cannibalistic tribes people but those living in the modern world. Patricia’s eyes trailed over her favorite line: “Everyone calls barbarity what he is not accustomed to.” Oh this was the absolute perfect day. Just as she was smiling inwardly with a nerdy satisfaction, it was abruptly cut short as scalding hot tea fell directly into her lap.

Letting out a short shriek, Patricia stood up, knocking her chair over in her haste. The tea burned her legs and to her horror that very special place between them. As a result, she wasn’t able to maintain a demure front. Quiet the contrary, several choice words slipped out of her lips harshly (“bloodyfucking-ohmyfuckingMerlin-whatthefuck-holycrap”) while she vainly swatted and patted at her wet jeans with a napkin, not even sparing the idiot who spilled it on her a glance. Clearly grabbing her wand and taking care of this magically would have been the reasonable thing to do, but Patricia was too pained and too furious to think reasonably.

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