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metamorphosis2012-01-30 08:05 pm
flair) wrote in metamorphosis2012-01-30 08:05 pm
Entry tags:
301;
Title: gula and ira
Rating: G
36/365. original piece.
He meets them one by one; they visit him in dreams, and before they even speak he knows their name. There are seven of them, and it begins one Sunday night and ends the next.
Gluttony is an old woman with a hole above her navel; she's black, as pitch as the night itself, with jaundiced eyes and knobby fingers that curl around knives and forks with great difficulty. Her teeth are crooked and yellowed, with more than a few missing and her gums are raw and red. She grins at him and shakes a fork as she dines at the table in his mind; there's a piece of chicken on her plate, charred inside and out, and it never seems to run out even as she cuts and eats it. Gluttony invites him to sit and talk with her, and he does.
"Come ta give an old woman company?" She croaks, voice hoarse and like a thin river weed, and he nods in reply. The grin widens, seems to stretch to her ears, and it gives him a sense of alarm, the way the wolf's grin to Little Red Riding Hood did. "Then tell me about yoself, because yo sure already know 'bout me, don't yo? No need ta reply ta me, young man, I can see it in yo eyes. What's yo name, young man?"
"Edison, ma'am. Timothy Edison. No relation to Thomas Edison, ma'am. I'm a shoeshiner in New York City, and I'm from Charleston, South Carolina. I go to church every day, just like my momma taught me to, and I haven't got a sinner's bone anywhere in my body." She leans forward as he talks, forking the chicken breast into her mouth and chewing slowly - although as soon as he mentions a sinner's bone she howls with laughter, slamming her fists on the table and making it rattle horrendously. Her laugh is cacophonous, and he's sure that if this hadn't been a dream he would've been out the door and back into the rain-damp streets of New York; it is, though, so he waits it out, listening to the cough and wheeze of an old woman as she tries to catch her breath. She wheezes out a few words (he only catches sin and liar and thief) before she catches it back, wiping the tears from her eyes. He tries not to let the annoyance rising in the back of his mind leak into his words, and feels unusually proud of himself when it doesn't.
"Is there something funny about that, ma'am?"
Gluttony leans back and sucks the ends of her fingers one by one, humming in approval, then nods, eyes on the ceiling, impossibly wide.
"Yessir, indeed there is. Yo say yo ain't a sinner, ain't got a sinner's bone in yo whole body, huh? That's a damn lie right that, and it's a sin ta lie, ain't it? All we peoples are born outta sin. We're conceived in it, bathed in it, from the day we're born ta the day we die, and ain't no amount of prayer or faith gonna save us from that. We all goin' ta Hell and yo ain't an exception. Yo yoself, yo stole yo daddy's life, didn't yo? Popped the damn gun and shot him right in the head because he was lookin' at yo wife in a way yo didn't appreciate, ain't that so?"
He stands jerkily, almost tripping over his own feet and falls out of his bed, waking up when the feel of falling starts and gasps whole breaths. He checks the time and gets up to get ready to leave, the dream of Gluttony already beginning to fade from his mind.
On Monday night he steps through the door and sees a small girl; she can't be much older than his own daughter Alicia, who had just turned seven the other week, but he can tell something isn't right with her. Maybe it's the way she stands, leaning to the side, threatening to topple over but never doing so; maybe it's the way she holds herself, as if she's always cold - as if she'd freeze him with just a touch. Maybe it's red eyes that get him, alight with a warm fury despite her cold countenance. It isn't one of a child (Alicia smiles, always smiles, with her blue eyes shining against her porcelain skin and under her blonde bangs) but an adult, so he doesn't kneel down to speak to her as he would a child, but stands in front of her and looks down at her. He knows her name, too, just like he did with Gluttony.
Wrath greets him with a curtsy and he replies with a thin smile. She clutches a dirty teddy bear between her paper white arms, close to her heart, and his smile softens somewhat.
"How d'you do?" She asks in a surprisingly quiet voice. The anger in her eyes isn't present in her tone, and it stuns him into momentary silence. She waits for his answer though, and he can tell she's getting impatient the longer he doesn't reply because she fidgets and presses her legs together, lips pursing into a small pout.
"I'm fine, little miss." She frowns at his coo and he rectifies it immediately. "I've been well, I mean. Just swell."
"That's good." Her voice is icier now, and she makes her way to a bed, blanketed in whites and light blues. He takes a seat next to her at her insistence (pounding the spot beside her with the flat of her hand, impatient) and waits for her question. He can feel she has another - children always do - and he's not surprised when she finally at her teddy bear and plays with it while she speaks, back to the quiet, soft voice she used before. "What's your name, sir?"
"Timothy Edison. I'm -"
"A shoeshiner in New York City. You were born in Charleston, South Carolina, and you go to church ev'ry day. Gula told me."
His mind and mouth stop working for a few moments; he moves his mouth like a goldfish, words unwilling to come out, and she smiles a little wickedly. Wrath scoots back further onto her bed and crosses her legs on it, what him and his friends called Indian-style, and plays with her little dirty bear on her lap. He closes his mouth and tries to think about the words he knows, then leans forward and nods.
"That's right." His own voice surprises him with its calm, and he double checks to see if he's actually the one speaking. "My momma told me to only way to go to Heaven is to go to church every day and pray."
"That's not true, y'know. Plenty of good people go to Heaven and they don't go anywhere near a church. They do good things because that's how they are, and they don't go looking for divines to save them." She looks at him and he feels like she's looking right through him; he starts to get up and she grabs the edge of his shirt, not letting go no matter how hard to pulls, and he listen as her tirade grows louder and shriller. "They don't think they deserve something good just because they did something good! They don't expect a thing, unlike people who go to Church! You do one good thing and think you're gonna be saved - that's pride right there, thinking you're better than everyone just because of what you do or where you go or who you socialize with! That's -"
He doesn't hear the rest because he's already stumbling and falling back after wrenching himself free; he wakes with a jolt and gets ready for work when he sees the time.
Rating: G
36/365. original piece.
He meets them one by one; they visit him in dreams, and before they even speak he knows their name. There are seven of them, and it begins one Sunday night and ends the next.
Gluttony is an old woman with a hole above her navel; she's black, as pitch as the night itself, with jaundiced eyes and knobby fingers that curl around knives and forks with great difficulty. Her teeth are crooked and yellowed, with more than a few missing and her gums are raw and red. She grins at him and shakes a fork as she dines at the table in his mind; there's a piece of chicken on her plate, charred inside and out, and it never seems to run out even as she cuts and eats it. Gluttony invites him to sit and talk with her, and he does.
"Come ta give an old woman company?" She croaks, voice hoarse and like a thin river weed, and he nods in reply. The grin widens, seems to stretch to her ears, and it gives him a sense of alarm, the way the wolf's grin to Little Red Riding Hood did. "Then tell me about yoself, because yo sure already know 'bout me, don't yo? No need ta reply ta me, young man, I can see it in yo eyes. What's yo name, young man?"
"Edison, ma'am. Timothy Edison. No relation to Thomas Edison, ma'am. I'm a shoeshiner in New York City, and I'm from Charleston, South Carolina. I go to church every day, just like my momma taught me to, and I haven't got a sinner's bone anywhere in my body." She leans forward as he talks, forking the chicken breast into her mouth and chewing slowly - although as soon as he mentions a sinner's bone she howls with laughter, slamming her fists on the table and making it rattle horrendously. Her laugh is cacophonous, and he's sure that if this hadn't been a dream he would've been out the door and back into the rain-damp streets of New York; it is, though, so he waits it out, listening to the cough and wheeze of an old woman as she tries to catch her breath. She wheezes out a few words (he only catches sin and liar and thief) before she catches it back, wiping the tears from her eyes. He tries not to let the annoyance rising in the back of his mind leak into his words, and feels unusually proud of himself when it doesn't.
"Is there something funny about that, ma'am?"
Gluttony leans back and sucks the ends of her fingers one by one, humming in approval, then nods, eyes on the ceiling, impossibly wide.
"Yessir, indeed there is. Yo say yo ain't a sinner, ain't got a sinner's bone in yo whole body, huh? That's a damn lie right that, and it's a sin ta lie, ain't it? All we peoples are born outta sin. We're conceived in it, bathed in it, from the day we're born ta the day we die, and ain't no amount of prayer or faith gonna save us from that. We all goin' ta Hell and yo ain't an exception. Yo yoself, yo stole yo daddy's life, didn't yo? Popped the damn gun and shot him right in the head because he was lookin' at yo wife in a way yo didn't appreciate, ain't that so?"
He stands jerkily, almost tripping over his own feet and falls out of his bed, waking up when the feel of falling starts and gasps whole breaths. He checks the time and gets up to get ready to leave, the dream of Gluttony already beginning to fade from his mind.
On Monday night he steps through the door and sees a small girl; she can't be much older than his own daughter Alicia, who had just turned seven the other week, but he can tell something isn't right with her. Maybe it's the way she stands, leaning to the side, threatening to topple over but never doing so; maybe it's the way she holds herself, as if she's always cold - as if she'd freeze him with just a touch. Maybe it's red eyes that get him, alight with a warm fury despite her cold countenance. It isn't one of a child (Alicia smiles, always smiles, with her blue eyes shining against her porcelain skin and under her blonde bangs) but an adult, so he doesn't kneel down to speak to her as he would a child, but stands in front of her and looks down at her. He knows her name, too, just like he did with Gluttony.
Wrath greets him with a curtsy and he replies with a thin smile. She clutches a dirty teddy bear between her paper white arms, close to her heart, and his smile softens somewhat.
"How d'you do?" She asks in a surprisingly quiet voice. The anger in her eyes isn't present in her tone, and it stuns him into momentary silence. She waits for his answer though, and he can tell she's getting impatient the longer he doesn't reply because she fidgets and presses her legs together, lips pursing into a small pout.
"I'm fine, little miss." She frowns at his coo and he rectifies it immediately. "I've been well, I mean. Just swell."
"That's good." Her voice is icier now, and she makes her way to a bed, blanketed in whites and light blues. He takes a seat next to her at her insistence (pounding the spot beside her with the flat of her hand, impatient) and waits for her question. He can feel she has another - children always do - and he's not surprised when she finally at her teddy bear and plays with it while she speaks, back to the quiet, soft voice she used before. "What's your name, sir?"
"Timothy Edison. I'm -"
"A shoeshiner in New York City. You were born in Charleston, South Carolina, and you go to church ev'ry day. Gula told me."
His mind and mouth stop working for a few moments; he moves his mouth like a goldfish, words unwilling to come out, and she smiles a little wickedly. Wrath scoots back further onto her bed and crosses her legs on it, what him and his friends called Indian-style, and plays with her little dirty bear on her lap. He closes his mouth and tries to think about the words he knows, then leans forward and nods.
"That's right." His own voice surprises him with its calm, and he double checks to see if he's actually the one speaking. "My momma told me to only way to go to Heaven is to go to church every day and pray."
"That's not true, y'know. Plenty of good people go to Heaven and they don't go anywhere near a church. They do good things because that's how they are, and they don't go looking for divines to save them." She looks at him and he feels like she's looking right through him; he starts to get up and she grabs the edge of his shirt, not letting go no matter how hard to pulls, and he listen as her tirade grows louder and shriller. "They don't think they deserve something good just because they did something good! They don't expect a thing, unlike people who go to Church! You do one good thing and think you're gonna be saved - that's pride right there, thinking you're better than everyone just because of what you do or where you go or who you socialize with! That's -"
He doesn't hear the rest because he's already stumbling and falling back after wrenching himself free; he wakes with a jolt and gets ready for work when he sees the time.