Topic: Let us begin

Domikai · Date: 2005-07-10 23:57 EST

The suit wore a gray smear over the black and a run of lighter darkness in pinstripes. White, colorless. In the night street he could be a grayscale figure that the world had ejected from its color wheel. The exit of contrast could only be ignored by so many. A shadow fell in step with him, and it wore a gracing of silver from one ear to one side of a lip, chiming like prison chains in step. It issued a chuckle that resolved itself into a thousand versions of hate without the man altering his step or offering acknowledgment.
?You know neither of us can harm the other.? Irrykin was apparently desperate to point this out to the man, who rolled a throwing dagger in his palm only in contemplation of the thought and the action. It was not so simple a ritual to merely kill and consume this time.
?Afraid, brother?? the smooth voice was answered with the rasp of heat and flatness. They walked beneath gas lamps, London and Ripper-style with nearly the same bromine-heavy fog.
?You know better, Kai.? chiding, the elder laughed his way over the breath of the name, marking the way a hand tightened around a dagger. The man was quiet, taking in the heavy stink of the polluted harbors. The elder continued, dual-toned eyes (one blue, the other cataract grayed but still seeing) wandering the low-lying yellow-brown cloud around them.
?Is this what you call living? Peddling yourself to the highest bidder to kill in the plainest manner. I know you; you find no satisfaction in that, or are you still dressing up night corpses to look like the sleeping when you're finished with them??
All was jibed in playful words, like a misplaced jester that had swallowed acid and absence. The man spun a knife lazily around a claw, a metal hiss steadily from the holed hilt.
?You still distract yourself with your kewpie-dolls, desperate for meaning. You cannot harm me, equally as I cannot you. And I never called this Life, brother. ?
The relation came out as a hissed word, and the sandwalker sidestepped into disturbing nothingness to leave Irrykin in a blind remnant of Desert flash and nova-baked sand across cobbles.

Domikai · Date: 2005-07-12 21:41 EST

It was a large family, but clans were always large. Despite this, the boy had never been totally happy, content. This happens with all siblings though, some kind of rivalry. He had taken after Father, had the seer-talents, the 'magic' of their people. It determined his life. His brother had taken after Mother and was to train for the clan guard. Outsiders called it an army. They were probably right, the boy often thought.
?You're not trying, Domikai!? his Father yelled after the third time he had failed to blow out a candle from across the room. The boy was only ten. Most would have said he was doing well, if not exceptionally. But, like most fathers, his Father expected perfection. He clambered down from the seat and pushed out of the door into the stone street beyond and sprinted away. His Father watched behind in disgust and the candle went out.

All young Kyeshan's learned to climb the cliffs their city thrived in. It was a matter of life, in fact, if you wanted to ascend from the dunes below. The boy looked down on them from one of the higher plateaus of Greater Ill'ssar.
?Dad's little gift screw up again?? the jibe came from behind, the voice of his older brother. Despite this, the larger boy came and sat down beside him, legs dangling over the cliff face. Irrykin was five years his senior, muscled from his training in the Amoud'ril, the unarmed and lightly-armed legion of the clan guard.
?Nothing I do is ever right. You know that, Irry.? the smaller boy clenched his hands into fists, envious of the claws that Irrykin was allowed to keep. His were filed down and blunt. Afterall, why should seers ever need them?
?Neh, you just let him get to you. No one's perfect.? Irrykin picked up a stone and lauched it from the cliff, watching it till it was lost in the fading glare of the sands.
?Sometimes, I don't think I'm supposed to be a Seer. I think I'd be a better clansguard, like you and mom...? Kai looked aside to his older brother, confident in the light leathers and cottons of a trainee. The older boy chuckled before his face fell more serious.
?You really think so? Tell you what... I'll start training you. Then you can see what you're better at.? Irrykin gave a nudge to his younger brother's shoulder at his hopeful expression before he stood. After all, he would do anything the would get Father angry at Kai. Maybe the man would notice him, Irrykin, then.

Domikai · Date: 2006-03-05 18:30 EST

after the torchlight red on sweaty faces
after the frosty silence in the gardens
after the agony in stony places
the shouting and the crying
prison and palace and reverberation
of thunder of spring over distant mountains
he who was living is now dead
we who were living are now dying
with a little patience

- wasteland: what the thunder said (eliot)

there was still that distant taste of both night and ink in his mouth, and endless reverie of disturbances and open thoughts like the expanse of a sky. too full of familiarity, the memories disturbed the man?s intentions.
a rod slid down the barrel with a metal hiss and cloth-soft scrape, clean-clean, oiled to a steel perfection of death. he felt nothing towards this perfection. no rapture in tooling the machines together, into working order. there was nothing to be felt through machines, only through the hands.
still, they were necessary, in a credential way, in a way of reputations he did not find useful to walk (but necessary, necessary).

for the first time in days upon days, the man felt tired enough to be distracted with fatigue, and set the gun aside - the semi-auto, the military tailored rem-700. papers fluttered on the walls as he stood and passed them, dressing the wood beneath in a mask of glossy, two dimensional firearms. it wasn?t obsession, it was to make any that entered think it was obsession (we are just too many kinds of clever, aren?t we..).

a cot, a raven, a dim oil-lamp fire. the man eased down onto the cot pushed against wall and wall in the corner, and the bird soon joined him, preening what could be reached of a furred ear before settling down like a brood hen in the middle of his shirted chest.

claws lifted to stroke her feathers, accept the affectionate clacks of a beak biting at blue-black sharpness.

?there are many things that once were, returning. rain on dry places, maybe - or ill tidings?? she burbled back as if his psychobabble meant something.

?I do not think I am ready to breathe in the company of others yet. not yet? ? he tilted his head to one side, feeling the wood rough against the thin, transparent layer of his hair. ?do we always wish to kill the ones that loved us??

strange as it was, strange as it always was, the man was comforted by this small, warm, beating presence. comforted enough to sleep.

Domikai · Date: 2006-03-05 18:33 EST

The lamp said,
'Four o'clock,
Here is the number on the door.
Memory!
You have the key,
The little lamp spreads a ring on the stair,
Mount.
The bed is open; the tooth-brush hangs on the wall,
Put your shoes at the door, sleep, prepare for life'

The last twist of the knife.

( eliot, rhapsody on a windy night)

There was a small movement beside the man, the target, so delicate and disturbing to the desertman's eyes (sandman, sleep man, for we are the bringer of Sleep but not the smaller pieces of death you dream about..). In the cautious dark, there was a child sleeping beside the target, a girl with haloed hair, features still round in baby-youth.
The garrot became a snake in his hands, dropped with a soft clatter. The target grunted in his sleep and shifted his bulk, but the child-eyes opened...

Why was there a girl screaming?
He stumbled. There was the hair of grass and the distant thunder of dogs coming. Night had exploded in a flood of flourescent Hell, and the hard whistle of bullets pinged by the man. His ribs were sore, and he tasted blood as he breathed. One eye had swollen shut, and he could not tell why, until lifting a hand as he scrambled, touched soreness. White fire ripped a line into his left leg, and with a screech, the man stumbled Between.

(the dogs, puzzled, whined and sniffed at the spot. McMullins, the target, held his daughter and looked angrily around at his hired security for losing the man, but he was more concerned with who it was that hired him...)

From blazing heat he exploded into a summer night the felt almost cold, like the ice-lance of pain in his leg. Growling through teeth, mouth frothed at the edges, he sat heavily on the dirt path and looked at the tear in fabric. A long slice horizontally across the thigh, but no embedded bullet. Shaking, the man stood, realizing the garrote had been left behind, but the shock of it was hidden beneath the taste of blood and the bruised feeling of breathing. Home was near, and he stumbled in that direction.

Domikai · Date: 2006-03-05 18:38 EST

It was the night after that the knock came upon the door of the flat, all for the silent dust inside to hear. The lack of lights, of life and inhabitance. They kicked the door in with heavy feet and found less than nothing, but they shrugged amongst themselves. Afterall, they too were only the hired help ? muscle instead of stealth. It was not their problem that the boss would be pissed. It was not their problem to find the man afterwards. Hell, they did not even know who they were looking for, just a name. Sandman? Who has a name like that?

Out in the forest and in the silence (solitude is what is golden), the man gritted his teeth in the shelter of the dirty but dry walls of the shack. Outside, rain wept down, ignored but for the raven that was hopping erratically back and forth before the door left open to breathe the air inside out.
The stitches were crooked, but otherwise neat. He had had a lot of practice, pouring rubbing alcohol thick onto a rag and placing it over the wound. A single cringe and then nothing as a burn festered around the new wound. So many things the man could already assess about the cut. It was not serious enough to produce a remaining limp, having cut only skin and no muscle. Even if it had, it was unlikely it would trouble him for too long. Just another crooked grin of scar tissue.

The raven hopped and flapped again, cawing loudly enough to draw a sharp glance from the sandman. He stared out into the night that the bird was complaining about for the longest of moments, seeing nothing...and then, a flash. Round and distant, yet too bright to be the simple flash of a passing predator. He limped slowly to the door and continued to stare out for another hour (easily prone to such distractions). Nothing was seen, but he closed the door as he stepped away.

The brief sight was not blamed on anything; not upon the black eye that was nearly swollen shut, not on the pain-induced euphoria of movement, the soreness and shortness of breathing, or the blood taste in his mouth. The sandman simply could not afford to blame anything other than what he knew, simply knew, it was. He was content to know he could only be watched, and cared for nothing beyond that simple fact (no, rule). With all series of painful movements, he stretched out upon the cot, grateful for once for the thick blankets he had arranged over it. They gave comfort, like the raven that came swooping down onto his chest to groom at hair.

Domikai · Date: 2006-03-05 18:41 EST

(somewhere in our mind, we realize how sickening this is...)
a concrete floor. no, it was not a floor, but a sidewalk, and the time was probably three because the soul's midnight would be the most appropriate (coincidences have that way of creeping up on you. how clever).
the thing moved, was it a child. no, no.. the scream was a woman's scream as she hit the pavement, lace and neon colors and all. barding on a mule, larval movements. the man was digusted, catching her throat and struggling pulse beneath a boot and adding enough weight, just enough.
sounds gasped out, they sounded like words, touching on the surface of the cold, dead pond of his eyes (instead of ears, that's right). hands clawed and scraped at boots, at the torn and wretched black of his pants which still looked so new, the words were something like, "..you bastard! please, no..let me go, you sick fuck!"
He almost listened, was almost lulled to coherence, before snarling at the larval form beneath his boot which retained little of its humanity in his mind.
"No.. parrot words, to distract me. Parlor tricks. You puppet."
those little agents were everywhere, simulacrums posing in motions of emotion. even the desperation in the maggot-eyes was almost real. Weight and more weight, till the movement ceased and the light in those insect eyes dimmed (death flattens the eyes). He kneeled down and with a mechanical ease began to saw through the woman's with a serrated blade.
The concrete drank a sea of blood when the man stood, drawing up the body by the bloody neck of the flimsy blouse. It was left amongst the trash in the alley for the rats to find.

Domikai · Date: 2006-04-25 00:26 EST

the sandman was careful with the slow charade of his stride, less whole and more wandering than familiarity of the path would allow. a smooth and pleasing silence in the darkness of the woods with trees still winter-barren but whispering of other things (green, freshness, life, warmth thin rain and bright skies? oh how the trees remember, strange we still remember their tongue after so long but we live here do we not in solitude and the river is our confidant for no river is the same to the man stepping within more than once?)

it was not spring he held cupped in those leather-hidden palms, in all those scars and lose edges and disturbed memories that spilled the dust of so many thoughts unbidden (be still!). nature?s first green is gold? this was a deeper hue of summer. he held summer four-leafed and elusive in his grip, all-wondering that it was at all real or if he still dreamed (so little do we sleep sometimes the edges bleed and we cannot trust the fickleness of our eyes?). it was skin he sought to keep the listing of summer from touching, why he made such a cage of fingers, holding within a wild animal with harsh teeth (but notnotnot).

the river was but a distant whisper growing louder, so sluggish in the cold, a great liquid snake in torpor. he broke the clearing with a stumble that caught with confusion at its own existence and found those steady, predator?s strides once more. dark eyes stared at his cupped hands, to the river, over to the single-glimmer of a light in the shack?s lone fa?ade-window (oh but where to place it and yet not touch?) before he started to the door. how faded that echo tree had become (yet it was perishable?).

dawn saw the desertman emerge with one hand still a cage about the green bird that did not fly, the other gripping the dark edges of a sketchbook confining so many wings of white, pure and not. He sat without grace in the haze of exhaustion and a snake hiss of paper being torn from the book broke the morning and the clover was trapped flat and away in the pages so bound (bound, binding).

then he made a boat, small a sail-less. somewhere the sandman found the concentration, probably a ration of it tucked into the same pocket he kept his cloves, sequestered away in the metal confines of a gift. it was plucked out and placed into the folds of the little boat so that claws did not tear the crisp lines he sought to make. the sun was just tickling gold fingers over the sluggish river water when the desertman rose and shook the piece of summer from his sketchbook and into the boat.

measured steps took him nearer, into, the edges of the river. there was still winter ice at the edges, but it shied from his too-warm flesh. the boat was set upon the slow water and given a nudge towards center with a clawed hand, and then summer took off along the river, and perhaps the water flowed a little quicker. perhaps the sea would be warmer and full of dreams when the little boat sank.