Dr. Lawrence Morris [Death] (_memento_mori_) wrote in forgotten_gods, @ 2010-09-01 11:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | death, famine, war |
Now the party don't start 'til I walk in.
Who: Death (_memento_mori_); OPEN to Famine (malnourishment) and War (on_a_red_horse)
What: Three of the four Horsemen convene.
Where: Famine's loft
When: Wednesday morning
Warnings: TBA.
Most people would have been driven insane by the sound of the second-hand on the clock ticking away, reverberating in the recesses of a dark, old mind.
Tick, tick, tick.
Imagine the cacophony of over six billion clocks ticking away at the same time, all at a different pace, like sitting in a room with a thousand ringing telephones and only being able to answer one at a time. That was the noise Death was used to, echoing in the back of his mind, always reminding him of the mortality of the world, of time ticking lives away, and how frustrating but wonderfully temporal everything in this planet was.
Tick, tick. Tick.
Amidst the six billion clocks is one very old, rotting grandfather clock. The pendulum swings left and right slowly, steadily, having started its oscillation from the beginning of time. In the time it takes to perform one oscillation, thousands of other clocks would have started and stopped ticking, and the sound of that clock ticking reverberates through the whole room. It's a sound he's grown to live with, a sound he ignores, because he knows when that particular clock stops ticking, he would know it by the deathly silence that would follow. In the meantime, he has to contend with indulging in worldly pleasures.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
He pulled up on the side of the road in his white vintage car, taking his time to step out of the vehicle. A gloved hand smooth over the top of the parking metre, and he pops in all his spare change before turning to look up at the windows on the floor of the apartment building he needs to be at.
Tick. Tick... tick.
He meets an old woman in the hallway and offers to help carry the groceries she is struggling with. They enter the elevator together and he takes his time to appraise her. She has numerous back problems but more strikingly she looked barely more than skin and bones.
Tick... Tick... Tick...
She smiles and thanks him as he brings the groceries to her doorstep. Young people are so self-centred nowadays and kind young men like him don't exist anymore, she laments. He bids her goodbye and gets back into the elevator, heading towards his destination.
Tick... Tick...
Footsteps echo down the empty corridor, reverberating through the walls. He knocks at the door and waits until a woman he doesn't recognise greets him at Famine's door. She seems surprised to see him. The gloves come off and he offers her the same smile he offered the old lady. He extends his hand and she reaches out to shake it.
Tick...
She is astonished at how cold his hand is, and that happens to be her final thought before she falls, slumping down to a heap in the doorway. He steps over her body while slipping his gloves back on.
The silence is only temporary, and all the more precious.
"Famine?"