Tweak

InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Say hello to your son"

Username: 
Password:    
Remember Me
  • Create Account
  • IJ Login
  • OpenID Login
Search by : 
  • View
    • Create Account
    • IJ Login
    • OpenID Login
  • Journal
    • Post
    • Edit Entries
    • Customize Journal
    • Comment Settings
    • Recent Comments
    • Manage Tags
  • Account
    • Manage Account
    • Viewing Options
    • Manage Profile
    • Manage Notifications
    • Manage Pictures
    • Manage Schools
    • Account Status
  • Friends
    • Edit Friends
    • Edit Custom Groups
    • Friends Filter
    • Nudge Friends
    • Invite
    • Create RSS Feed
  • Asylums
    • Post
    • Asylum Invitations
    • Manage Asylums
    • Create Asylum
  • Site
    • Support
    • Upgrade Account
    • FAQs
    • Search By Location
    • Search By Interest
    • Search Randomly

rupert "miles" glass ([info]clowning) wrote in [info]bellumlogs,
@ 2010-06-16 13:42:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:black forest witch, rumplestiltskin

who: miles and OPEN.
what: dreaming, and then exploring.
where: the apartment complex, specifically... that damned elevator that never quite goes to where it's supposed to!
when: late evening.
warnings: probably unnecessary.


It was much in the style of a lions growl having lazily secreted itself in between blades of sallow grass through the savanna floor; although the lightning was cast the thunder was invisible, and therefore could go unnoticed. Most unfortunate. A gallop of it rumbled and trumpeted against the neck of a smooth, dark sky. A snake in a pile of hoses to those who raised their noses. Miles was dreaming of the day he was born. When the sky decided to say hello, and the stars spilled their cups.


The dream shifted, as dreams often do, to another location entirely.

People, as they frantically weaved their ways this way and that through the maze of boxed, evening market streets, did not bother to watch out overhead for the inevitable whip crack line of white lightning. As it streaked its naked slenderness through the clouds, Miles noticed his vision was actually... much lower than usual. He was not standing the sturdy six feet he usually did. Odd. Was he a child in this dream? And where was he? He was thirsty. Maybe this dream had diet coke.

The cobblestone streets were lined with those attempting to sell this mornings bread, this mornings cake, this mornings fruit -- this mornings anything before calling it a night. Drunkards were already swerving out of taverns for a snack, singing songs about the revolution. Singing about the King getting married.

And Miles, although he felt the phantom vibration of the thunder rattling at the bottom of his ribcage, was just like the others. Not paying any attention; his brow was dotted with sequins of sweat, and his eyes narrowed in a secluded brand of determination. What puffy clouds there were, he'd noticed, blocked out the laughter of twinkling stars, and seemed as black seeds in the teeth of a Heaven that didn't exist.

The illumination of lightning once again, as he raised his chin to search for stars, flashed and fled as quickly as it had arrived. A mugshot for Zeus to remember him by. Immortalizing the curious and reverent look on his face, that in that fleeting moment was highlighted almost to a bony reflection of death's iniquity... it was not his face in his mind's eye.

And he awoke with a jolt.

Miles half expected rain with how the smell of the air he took in had an almost refreshing odor, and half yearned for it. The dream had left him longing, as most dreams are wont to do, and of course, curious. His past was a distance memory when awake, and the ghosts there haunting the hallways of his wrathful psyche usually summoned up images of rain. Some of the memories of the circus were pleasurable. Some were painful. Some he wanted to never forget, and some he hoped that one day he would lose with the withering affect that the mind has on remembrance.

Tossing the blankets off of him hurriedly and irate, the way one might if they detected the approach of a spider too small to cause alarm, he ejected himself from bed and was happy that his mind was not bent on being rewound. Instantly, the haze of not having slept quite enough eased and erased the impression of the dream--rubbing his eyes of course helped--helped to rid his confusion, and helped to make his vision even blurrier. He liked to have blurry vision. Seeing clearly was much overrated.

After gathering up his clothes, getting dressed, not checking the time, having a diet coke, and tying up his long hair into a pony tail to which he'd amended the look of with a fedora and feather, he'd decided to investigate the apartment complex further. His associates were likely running errands for him at this hour in some dark corner of the city, of which he'd throw light onto soon. There was no use dilly-dallying for long, since there was much business to attend to tonight. For now, he just wanted to see if the rest of the complex looked the way his did, or if there were better locations to aspire to once he stole that wondrous thing he had his eye on at the jeweler ...

As he entered the elevator, he pressed the button for the 4th floor. The elevator, having a familiarly musty smell, had a minor reflective surface which he was more interested in than the mirror itself, and he was able to see himself partly burnished within the golden trim of it. And having still been half awake, he'd reached for the effaced reflections cheek, elongated as it was and would be in a fun house, as if lifes bones were as misaligned and fattened as the false projection implied.

DING.

And he set out onto the... what floor is this? This isn't the 4th floor. Before he was able to turn around, the elevator had come to a close.



(Read comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]clowning
2010-06-23 11:35 pm UTC (link)
"What talents do I have?" The eyes once closed before snapped open and alert like the pulling paper curtain of a window outstretched and abruptly let go. There was a very concise masquerade that'd occurred in a lentissimo fantasyland of unsteadiness, to boot, an array of masks made mostly to look like animals. Sprawling now on the sticky floor of his vivid ingenuity, the attention that had phoenix'd back to the present was pointed like an aztecs dagger. He'd not let himself be troubled with imagining places elsewhere while feeling dizzy! "That's a rather odd question which could be confused in a quieter mind, but fortunately for you, my mind's unquiet. How to answer that precisely is what's going to be the feat."

Bringing both of his lips into his mouth, he slowly began to rove his eyes upward as if there may be a helpful hint, formula, or a technical breakdown of his talents there upon the ceiling, 100% in list form, and conveniently located just above. Wouldn't that be nice? Perhaps, comfortably snuggled with the asbestos, there could be tiny slip of flag-like shape, reading him a sort of fortune of all his glories. Alas, all he saw was predictably that darkly flashy decor which was there previously when he'd looked, and oh, no directions had taken shape. His eyes came back down from their visit to the beyond, and he grinned. The grin could embroider multi-colored maiden's Mexican peasant dresses, or even inspire the golden curve of a cobras neck upon the bejeweled crown of a pharaoh. He'd won invisible awards for that grin. The trophies having taken residency within the pathway of his mental accomplishments and real or imagined, physical achievements. In the form of favors for the welfare of others. Such a blessing!

Was not his talent merely being more useful than others, in a cavalcade of indistinct and unspecified ways?

"I'm a magician." he began, "I'm an illusionist, an escapist, a hypnotist, a diviner, a poet, a madman, a monk, a sinner, a sage, a saint, a baker of cake, an adventurer of the senses, an appreciator of all things cajoled by poignancy, an admirer of the hidden universe. Are those talents? In a world where no one examines their life, thinks about thinking, or realizes experience is the key to unlocking hidden truths and insights into the world... perhaps so." and in conclusion, he'd gotten his cigarette, held it up opposing to his other hand (after of course inhaling a tuft of smoke one last time, and exhaling it quickly.) and smashed it there. Or so it seemed, until he clasped both hands together, pressing his palms, wringing his fingers.

And then he held both of his hands up and opened. The cigarette, ashes and evidence, were gone. A typical trick.

"What about you, insomniac Jane? Who is right about taking walks, they do help. Of that I agree."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]shebringscurses
2010-06-25 04:11 am UTC (link)
Oh, ever the showman! How could she even bat an ink roped lash at the shared confidence of his sorcery. A magician, you say? Well, darling, climb up on this burning stake just beside me! The witches and the wizards of this building will always be the last one's standing, an eternity of smoke billowing from the gallows of their throats and the sanctimonious clutch of their swift knuckles. Vaughn very nearly warned him against admitting a proclivity for magic amongst these bloodhungry saints, but thought better of it. These idiots would probably hire him for birthday parties and parlor tricks, they were easily swayed by anything new and shiny.

Then again, so was she.

When that cigarette vanished, he broke loose the brackets of a tempest's smile. "Bravo," her approval echoed by a demure patter of her fingertips, which were surely satanically cloven in a truer light.

"I'm a librarian," she offered. Then, lifting the dwindling smolder of her cigarette in gesture, continued, "And I'm a smoker. I'm a reader that has never baked a cake. I'm a heartbroken daydreamer.." Was she lying yet?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]clowning
2010-06-25 04:56 am UTC (link)
"Heartbroken." Curious and disbelieving in an equal timber was his mere repeating of the word she'd selected, and there was a fine, yet distinctive stitching of sympathy just underneath the hem of an inculpate dubiety. Studying her now underneath the sallow, emaciated light, seemed somehow to yield more abundant results about her unsolved mysteries. It was because he had decided to believe anything she'd said, or at least to go along with it. When he met new people there was never a reason to doubt them--in time, all people provide their own reasons to be doubted-and ah! If she were being untrue, all the merrier. Lying is an art he knows well. Lies were the true creativity of a defunct, steaming, rueful soul!

"A transient case. An unfortunate and temporary condition. Those with hearts to begin with, capable of being broken, never truly break entirely. People with real heart are stubborn. The state of the heart is very atomic. Atoms, atomos, meaning uncuttable. They're uncuttable. The state of being heartbroken, well, it's kind of a cardiac amnesia, until the next exciting thing makes you remember what it's like, makes you want to glue the pieces together. Try again."

The high, slant arch of his dark brow was a trick he'd learned from the devil in a dream and employed to bring his philosophy to conclusion. He'd also hired a devilish lambency to raise the curtains of his wily smile. Very faint blood-blue crescent moons were boated by his eyes, and he blinked repeatedly.

"But librarians, those are the true low-lives. My God, Jane. We can't possibly be acquaintances now." and in direct opposition to that, he'd said. "Let's take a walk and look for ghosts, then. Before I was a little scared to go it alone. They won't mess with a librarian, though. I'll feel much safer." he thrilled one initiatory step forward into another direction. Probably, toward stairs instead of an elevator.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]shebringscurses
2010-06-25 05:25 am UTC (link)
The heart was uncuttable?

The muddy brown of her irises swelled with bemused interest, patronizingly rapt with attention for his florid explanation on the subject of heartache. Spoken like any sociopathic lothario or psychward patient! Where did this mischief maker conceive such celestially unusual theories? And how?

"Pretty to think so." Didn't he know that it was scientifically proven; the heart could be cleaved in half, be it by hatchet or dismissive word. There was no gluing the pieces back together, only repeating the offense to others. It was an unending cycle, like that of a serpent swallowing it's own tail.

Still, she stamped the deadland remains of her cigarette against the door sill of lucky number eight-oh-one, and started toward him when he continued his passionate mention of ghost hunting. Falling into the form of a traditional pilgrimage alongside him, barefoot and all, Vaughn gestured toward the stairs. She was uncertain of whether he was the type to tempt the elevator's wrath twice in one night.

"Downstairs.." Surely ghosts were jealous of heavenly altitudes and preferred to stay more earthbound. It only made sense that they would hang below levels, halfway to the river Styx.

"Although I'm not sure I'll be able to save you. You'll just have to concoct some magic to make them believe we're dead as well." Spoken in a manner that said she knew that wasn't beyond his level of expertise.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]clowning
2010-06-25 05:59 am UTC (link)
Ah, Jane was a materialist... if only he could read her thoughts!

"I don't believe in ghosts the way that other people do. There's a perfectly rational scientific theory, in fact." he brought his hands out in front of him for her to see, flicking the cuffs of his sleeves up with a sharp twist of his wrists. It was so that the sleeves of his tail coat would ascend his elbows without farther effort. He was such a lazy lout. "Say that my left hand is the past, my right the present. Time is non-linear, but spacetime is one big, tube-like room on the outskirts of reality. Time also has a wacky way of informing itself, or whispering little secrets to the present--which can't be depicted here not only because I don't have a third hand, but also because it isn't here yet--to the future. And although the past can't be altered, it has been shown to communicate with the present. At least on a very delicate, quantum level. It's a very long explanation..." he pressed both of his hands together, fingers interlacing. "Time looks more like this, than separated. It's called entanglement."

To distract her from immersing herself into the cooling idea that his jargon was tedious and tiresome, he ventured to reach behind her ear, though he did not touch her. Not an accidentally phantom stroke of the cloth edge of his sleeve, nothing. And produced a red rose which he offered it to her at once. Yes, he did keep these up his sleeves. And for just these occasions. "You can leave it at someone's door. How nice for them to wake up and find it."

How drab these people's doors were. How drab these people's hallways were. They needed something... something odd. Something that made no sense. Ah ha! Flyers! Flyers for... he'd test it out on Jane first. Many comedians do this, examine reactions first, and of course, with the utter seriousness with which a comedian summons to tell one of his tall tales, Miles inquired deliberately and genuinely:

"Jane? ... have you seen a king cobra around here by any chance? It was in my basket this morning and I haven't been able to find him ever since. He comes to the name Ra."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]shebringscurses
2010-06-26 06:21 am UTC (link)
Miles was a scientist now?

Vaughn remained admirably silent as the man waxed theoretical during their descent through the stairwell. The stairs had always been Vaughn's favorite, she knew that their emptiness pulled echoes through this pipeline of chaos, up and up to her dearest on the roof. Surely the sound was so magnified at that level -- so captured and siphoned and pure -- that even her heartbeat must have rattled his windows like thunder.

Miles' hand swept dangerously close, and the banshee in woman's clothing jerked with a defensive snarl-curl of her lip. But the rose left her a blank-eyed susan, blinking with a tint of self-effaced pink rising to the shore of wane cheeks. If a Witch was even capable of embarrassment, that might have been the turn in her expression; from carnivorous to modestly discharged.

"Thank you," a shared whisper as she collected the flower and curled it's stem in her hands. Vaughn knew just the man to leave it for, of course. A rose by any other name came only from their tale.

"King cobra?" From her confusion over the flower, she fell into an effortless tone of amusement. Surely people did not actually keep those things. She quirked a brow and jaunted down several more stairs ahead of him with a swift suddenness. Her words carried behind her, like the drag of funeral bells, "I think we would all come to the name Ra..."

If given the choice.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]clowning
2010-06-26 06:48 am UTC (link)
Oh, that maniacs laughter. It was high and low, chirping, sacred and profane, bubbling, a prostitute's grapefruit body spray, skittering, the incandescent glitter of an acrobat who loves with a love that's more than love--it poetically saturated the stairwell like a smoke bomb on a Parisian subway, and yet was as demented as Frederick Nietzsche's 'letters from syphillis.' It was primal and for that absolved. It provided residents odd circus intervals to their dreams and made villains blush with its artificial purity. He'd caught the innuendo she'd thrown with the finesse of the aforementioned acrobat, minus the glitter for this set, during the tossing of his partner by way of the triple aerial assault.

Ahem.

"Yes, a king cobra. He's very poisonous. I wouldn't recommend petting him. He's got to be around here somewhere. I'm sure he'll find his way back." he followed after her of course, though kept behind on purpose eventually. He was not only staring out of the windows to see precisely where he was in relation to his own hovel, but the view of Jane at this angle was rather pleasing as well.

"Oh, what's this." he'd inquired, though mostly to himself. It was a small note! "Jane! I found gossip!" he bent down to pick it up and began shamelessly unfolding it.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]shebringscurses
2010-06-27 06:06 am UTC (link)
There was no need in mentioning her intentions for this snake, should she find it. If Miles was serious in it's wandering existence, and should Vaughn cross it, she'd chop loose it's hooded head with a rake. A fine death for any cobra, be they Ra or Antoinette! And, if Miles was trying to kid her.. well, there was no point in indulging the man, was there?

Silence ran deep until he chirped a mockingbird holler, and Vaughn spun with undeniably pinched and curious eyes. Her gaze holding the cloudy depth and intensity of a good espresso when she stepped toward him once in cat-killing curiosity, "Gossip?"

Speak again bright angel!

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)


[info]clowning
2010-06-27 06:45 am UTC (link)
"Oh, pfffft." He fashioned for her a fine and casual, startlingly accurate rendition of a farting noise by use of the side of his mouth and tongue. "It's a list of groceries to get and... oh, there is something good." Clearing his throat dramatically with an over exaggerated EH-HEM which tumbled down the stairwell like an elementary school butterball, he'd straightened up his posture as if an invisible cord held his spine slave and decided now was the time to put him to use.

"I have seen your face a thousand times, yet I do not know you.
Your voice is a song I have heard in my dreams forever, yet your face is one I have never seen.
You, whom I do not know, how strange it is for me to love you.
And in a place I've never been."


And, on cue, he began laughing. Not to mock the tenderness of the admission, no, nor even entirely because it was lame, but because it was delightfully honest and altogether too sweet.

"The next door I see is getting this slipped underneath it."

(Reply to this) (Parent)


(Read comments) -


Home | Site Map | Manage Account | TOS | Privacy | Support | FAQs