pip's original fiction

All in all, it was a rather normal day, which may have been the first clue. Nobody seemed unduly concerned by the street lights staying on all day. Mr Pope from across the hall thought it was just a precaution and said that he approved of the city promoting safety. Jimmy said it was freaking sweet, but he crashed his skateboard into the stop sign anyway, so June didn't really think it was helping with safety, after all. And good old Great-Aunt Agatha ... all she did was wave her cane around and shout incoherently about "children these days."

The next day was also essentially commonplace. Great-Aunt Agatha whispered loud complaints about the possibility of poison in her food, Jimmy and his roller-skates hit a parked car, and Mr Pope asked again if June might want a kitten - a free kitten! what more could one ask for? It was a sort of grey day outside, the kind that might suggest a good rainfall was coming, except for the complete lack of clouds in the sky. June wondered how it might be so grey, but her area was known for its utter dreariness. Some of it must have just seeped into the sky, that's all. It got dark early, but any excuse to put Great-Aunt Agatha to bed early was a good one. June stayed up and read a book wherein the main character ended up in a dark cavern just as she couldn't stay awake any longer.

So when she woke up to darkness the next morning, she immediately assumed that either a) she was still asleep and dreaming of the darkness because of her book or b) her alarm clock was dreadfully wrong. Then again, Great-Aunt Agatha was complaining right on her regular schedule ("This cereal is too hard!"), so June rolled out of bed, turned on a light, and waited for the dream to end.

It turned out to be the longest and most detailed and life-like dream June had ever had. Her day was utterly boring. She went to the shop, served chips to customers, came home, turned down a free kitten, pulled Jimmy's leg out from under a box avalanche, and turned up the telly to drown out Great-Aunt Agatha's loud argument that she was turning into a fish. By the time the evening news came on, she had all but decided to try waking up again the next day to see if it was a regular world again. But when the news footage was all green-tinted and about the darkness-induced chaos in London, she wondered if she wasn't actually awake after all.

Still, she went to bed that night, and when she woke again, the sun was streaming in through blinds she'd forgotten to close the day before. She groped for the ringing phone with one hand thrown dramatically over her eyes. "What the hell are you calling at this hour for?"

"Well, don't be stupid, June bug! I just wanted to see if you'd made it through the day of darkness."

June groaned. "Hi, Daddy. Yes, we're fine. Bye, Daddy."

"Now, wait a second, love, I've got big news for you." His excitement was nearly tangible over the phone line, and she sighed loudly. "I'm the one who made it dark yesterday!"

She blinked behind her hand. "Well, what'd you go and do that for? And did it make you enough money to put your aunt into a home?"

"Oh, it was just for a little experiment, harnessing the light energy to power ... well, some really classified things, but all went well! And it sort of cost me money."

"Good for you, Dad." June hung up the phone and removed her hand from her face. Chaos in the big city aside, she'd rather preferred the darkness. Maybe she should apply for the night shift at the shop.

A half-assed execution of an idea that might be worth something with a little more spit-shine. May or may not revisit. Comments welcome.
I watch too much tv and that is a fact. Raise your hand if you see the elements of this story pulled from Life, Earth 2, and Dollhouse.




( mistakes )

Another close call, another scar for the record he keeps on his back, on his chest, on his legs, on the lines of his face. Sometimes he forgets how long he's been stationed here. He forgets a lot, these days. He forgets that calling for Matthews summons only a ghost, that bullets have an even easier time outrunning him than they used to. He forgets that until it's too late.

He fumbles for the zipper on his jacket before remembering he already took it off. He shakes his head, sits on the edge of the bed when the world doesn't stop shaking when he's done. Images flash in his head of someone else in the bed with him, someone who traced his scars and gave each of them the name they bought back. Someone who traced the scars on his mind at the same time and feathered touches all the way back to sanity under ever-thinner hair. Someone who talked himself into death to save the rest of the team, shattering the sanity they'd worked so hard to sustain.

Delicate, his lover had always said, like a man carved from the first ice over a pond. Scar if a mosquito bit him wrong. If he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the fingers running gently over his shoulders, tracing the word into his skin as steadily as when they tracked the scars. He's been careful with his healing since the bed got colder, not wanting to bring any part of him to their eventual reunion that his lover didn't already know; no scars on his body, and only the one allowed to remain in his mind.

If he closes his eyes, he can feel the fingers spelling 'delicacy' instead, followed by the tongue that forced that last terrible scar.