Post by Arden Patricks on Jan 22, 2008 16:13:16 GMT
Too many people are dying, I think slowly, blinking just as slowly as I stare down at the book in front of me without actually seeing it. I keep reading the words without taking them in, my mind too absorbed with repetitive memories.
I can feel my own voice hurling angry accusations at a just-as-angry redhead sitting across from me, possibly at this very table. I can’t hear the words exactly, but I can remember the shape and the feel of them tumbling out of my mouth… remember the painful shock of shame when I take it a little too far… and then remember laughing with the redhead as, in an instant we go from being at each other’s throats to something very like friends.
"Cheery but in a not annoying way...cool.” She smiles. “I think you're helpful in an infectious way, and thinky in an infectious way."
From there I move on to a kooky dark-haired girl who started a game of charades without telling me, patiently sat through my homework, and inexplicably asked me if I’d like to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. This particular set of memories is tinged with burning guilt… from what I’ve heard, I may have been the last person she talked to before she died. I try not to think about that… but my mind, evidently hating me, provides as a replacement an image of Riley with his ever-present smile, showing me the ring in the entrance hall.
”It's different when I'm with Riyann…. She influences me to not be boring.”
And I blink away tears, forcing down the tight sob that’s building in my chest, as the cycle of memories moves on to Andra… blinking her eyes as if mystified by whatever strange new species I must be, as I compulsively straighten and tidy our section of the table… then suddenly turning and yelling for all the Hall to hear: ”To the kitchens! I think they’ve lost a house-elf!”
And now the thoughts and memories are rushing by too fast, none of them lingering long enough to really cause me pain, but building up and up until the pressure tries to crush me.
”Life isn’t something you should throw away so easily.”
"That m'dear, is the biggest lie I have ever heard.” He rocks back and forth, grinning widely but stubborn. “No one hates smiling. They're just not use to doing it all the time."
”You do remember me, don’t you?” the soft-voiced woman asks with trusting eyes, and a hopeful but trembling smile.
And the usual finale: ”Fate has a way of picking off the decent of us first.”
And I’m silently shaking with tears, hands clapped childishly over my ears… as if people will stop dying if I no longer hear about it. As if that will somehow stop all the remembered voices… some of them still living, most not. And I know that I look like an idiot but for once I really don’t care.
There are just too many dying, and it might not ever stop.
I can feel my own voice hurling angry accusations at a just-as-angry redhead sitting across from me, possibly at this very table. I can’t hear the words exactly, but I can remember the shape and the feel of them tumbling out of my mouth… remember the painful shock of shame when I take it a little too far… and then remember laughing with the redhead as, in an instant we go from being at each other’s throats to something very like friends.
"Cheery but in a not annoying way...cool.” She smiles. “I think you're helpful in an infectious way, and thinky in an infectious way."
From there I move on to a kooky dark-haired girl who started a game of charades without telling me, patiently sat through my homework, and inexplicably asked me if I’d like to be a bridesmaid in her wedding. This particular set of memories is tinged with burning guilt… from what I’ve heard, I may have been the last person she talked to before she died. I try not to think about that… but my mind, evidently hating me, provides as a replacement an image of Riley with his ever-present smile, showing me the ring in the entrance hall.
”It's different when I'm with Riyann…. She influences me to not be boring.”
And I blink away tears, forcing down the tight sob that’s building in my chest, as the cycle of memories moves on to Andra… blinking her eyes as if mystified by whatever strange new species I must be, as I compulsively straighten and tidy our section of the table… then suddenly turning and yelling for all the Hall to hear: ”To the kitchens! I think they’ve lost a house-elf!”
And now the thoughts and memories are rushing by too fast, none of them lingering long enough to really cause me pain, but building up and up until the pressure tries to crush me.
”Life isn’t something you should throw away so easily.”
"That m'dear, is the biggest lie I have ever heard.” He rocks back and forth, grinning widely but stubborn. “No one hates smiling. They're just not use to doing it all the time."
”You do remember me, don’t you?” the soft-voiced woman asks with trusting eyes, and a hopeful but trembling smile.
And the usual finale: ”Fate has a way of picking off the decent of us first.”
And I’m silently shaking with tears, hands clapped childishly over my ears… as if people will stop dying if I no longer hear about it. As if that will somehow stop all the remembered voices… some of them still living, most not. And I know that I look like an idiot but for once I really don’t care.
There are just too many dying, and it might not ever stop.
