#Tarpaulin Sky Press
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Okay, I'm still not making much headway on chapter four of HYH, but I needed to write something or I was going to explode. So have a little bonus scene for the first story instead. :D It takes place somewhere after the mineshaft adventure but before the meteor shower.
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"And that one's the Gilded Goose," said Scott, pointing up at the sky with one hand while the other entwined with Jimmy's. "She's only visible at the height of summer. Then she moves on, and when winter approaches its peak the Red Wolf takes her place."
Jimmy gazed up at the pattern Scott pointed out in the stars, his thumb absently moving over the back of Scott's hand. "I can't believe how many there are," he said. "I bet if you combined every story from every place, there wouldn't be a single star left that wasn't part of something bigger."
"No, probably not," agreed Scott. It was one of the many things he liked about traveling; every region he visited saw the same stars in a different way, and every story he collected made the tapestry above that much richer. "Are there any that you know?"
"Just that one," said Jimmy, pointing in another direction. "I don't know any stories, but it's called the King. There's his sash, and over there is his crown."
"Oh, wow," said Scott, recognizing part of the constellation. "He overlaps with the Ocean Queen. You can't see the full pattern from here, but she's the most recognizable thing in the sky if you're near the Shallow Sea. They share a crown, I guess."
Jimmy laughed. "Maybe they were in love. Be a strange pair, though, a king of the mesa and a queen of the ocean."
Scott smiled. "Maybe they were." He lay his head on Jimmy's shoulder. "And now they get to dance together for eternity."
"Sounds kinda nice," said Jimmy, and pressed a kiss to Scott's hair. "Speaking of dancing, I'm sorry you didn't get a chance to when we went to town."
"Eh, it's alright," said Scott, then smirked. "I enjoyed what we did get to do much better." He didn't raise his head to see if Jimmy's ears were turning red, but he assumed they were from the squeak Jimmy made, and he laughed softly.
"Still," said Jimmy, "you said you like dancing. I just think it's a shame you didn't get to do something you – oh!" He sat straight up, the movement dislodging Scott from his comfortable position. "Wait, I forgot! There should be - " He jumped to his feet and darted over to the barn. Scott followed, curious, and watched as Jimmy dug around a corner where it seemed a variety of objects had been stored out of the way.
"Here it is!" Jimmy lifted a tarpaulin to reveal an old phonograph, then opened a chest below it and took out a record. "Let's see, how did this work again?" he muttered to himself, and after a moment of fidgeting with it, music filled the barn and spilled out into the night air as he successfully got the disc in place and spinning.
Jimmy grinned triumphantly, then went to where Scott stood in the doorway and offered his hand. "I, uh, don't actually know how to dance," he said as his grin turned sheepish. "But would you do me the honor of being my partner?"
Scott laughed, delighted by the music and Jimmy's eagerness. "I would love to," he said, and took Jimmy's hand. "Come on, I'll teach you."
He guided Jimmy through the steps of a simple waltz, and it didn't take long before they were swaying together in a comfortable rhythm. Once Jimmy had an idea of what was expected, his hold on Scott was confident and strong, but never lost its gentleness. Scott watched the moonlight slide across his face as they turned, and the way Jimmy gazed at him made him feel like his heart would drift away to dwell with the stars above if it got any lighter.
Scott's smile dimmed as a realization settled against his ribs. I can't do this to him.
Jimmy was not the first person to look at Scott like they were holding the entire world in their arms. It was another of the things he liked about traveling; sometimes when he found someplace to stay for a while, he got lucky and also found a pretty boy to have a little fun with. He would spend a few weeks pretending to be swept away by flattery and attention, until his admirer conveniently revealed the location of a hidden stash of gold or gems, and Scott's visit conveniently came to an end.
It should have been as simple as it always was. Jimmy should have been just like every other lover swept away by Scott's charm. Scott never dreamed anyone would be able to sweep him away in turn.
The record ended, and Scott and Jimmy drifted to a stop. "How was that?" asked Jimmy with a grin. "Was I okay?"
Scott smiled, feeling a pang in his chest at how easily his arms slipped around Jimmy's neck and Jimmy's arms slipped around his waist. "You were wonderful," he said softly.
Jimmy's grin brightened at the praise, and he pulled Scott into a kiss. Scott leaned into him, fingers caressing the nape of his neck, and he never wanted to let go.
He needed to let go.
In the end, Jimmy made the decision for them. "It's getting late," he said as he pulled away. "Let me get that back where it goes, and we'll go to bed."
Scott stepped back and watched Jimmy disappear into the barn again. "Thank you for the dance," he said when Jimmy returned, and their hands found each other again as they headed back to the house.
"You're welcome," said Jimmy, and pulled Scott's hand up to his lips. "I'll be your dance partner whenever you want. I can't imagine ever wanting to dance with anyone else."
Scott laughed, and he blamed the weakness of it on the late hour. "I'm sure you'll have plenty of dance partners in the future, and better ones than I am."
Jimmy's laugh was far warmer. "Impossible," he said, dropping to a near whisper as they entered the quiet house. "You're everything I could ever want."
series masterpost
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hosting a reading in this amazing record store (Bric A Brac Records in Chicago) on Saturday from 2p-5p! Stop by, hear some poems, grab some vinyl ❤️
w/ Parker Young, Daniel Borzutzky, Mallory Smart, Johannes Göransson, Nathan Hoks, Zachary Swezy, & Evan Williams
[feat. presses X-R-A-Y x Maudlin House x Future Tense Books x Coffee House Press x Black Ocean x Action Books x Tarpaulin Sky Press]
#poetry#reading#chicago#event#record store#bric-a-brac#music#saturday#free event#live event#fiction#indie press#diy
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『ゼペット』レベッカ・ブラウン作、カナイフユキ絵、柴田元幸訳
『体の贈り物』『若かった日々』『家庭の医学』などで知られるアメリカの作家、レベッカ・ブラウンの小品「ゼペット」を、柴田元幸の翻訳、カナイフユキの絵によって、絵本にしました。
レベッカ・ブランが夢見なおした「ピノキオ』です。
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人間になんかなりたくない、命なんかほしくないと言い続けるピノキオを抱えた老人のお話。
その悲しみと優しさに、カナイフユキの色彩が寄り添います。
不器用で、弱く、失敗して負けていく人、周縁化されていく人のために、そういう人たちが孤��ではないんだと思えるように描いているカナイフユキと、レベッカ・ブラウンによる、「祈り」にも似た絵本が誕生しました。
--
レベッカ・ブラウンの「ゼペット」（“Geppetto”）は、2018年に刊行されたNot Heaven, Somewhere Else（『天国ではなく、どこか別の場所』、Tarpaulin Sky Press刊、邦訳なし）に収められている。この物語集には、「三匹の子ぶた」を踏まえた“Pigs”、「赤ずきんちゃん」を踏まえた“To Grandmother’s House”をはじめ、ヘンゼルとグレーテル、ハンプティ・ダンプティなど、さまざまな伝統的物語やキャラクターがレベッカ流に語りなおされた物語が並んでいる。語り直しの切り口は作品によってさまざまで、単一のメッセージに還元できない、豊かな「サイクル」が出来上がっている。100ページに満たない小著だが、怒りと希望をシンプルな文章で発信しつづけるレズビアン作家レベッカ・ブラウンの神髄が伝わってくる。
「ゼペット」は厳しさと優しさが並存していて、中でもとりわけ味わい深い。
柴田元幸
--
タイトル：『ゼペット』
著者：レベッカ・ブラウン
翻訳：柴田元幸
絵：カナイフユキ
装幀：横山雄（BOOTLEG）
判型：w148×h196mm 並製本＋両雁だれ
ページ数：28ページ カラー
本体価格：1,600円＋税
ISBN：9784600010539
Cコード：C0797
発行：ignition gallery
発行所：twililight
カタログ番号：ign-011
刊行日：2022年9月20日
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《著者プロフィール》
レベッカ・ブラウン
1956年ワシントン州生まれ、シアトル在住。作家。翻訳されている著書に『体の贈り物』『私たちがやったこと』『若かった日々』『家庭の医学』『犬たち』、ナンシー・キーファーとの共著に『かつらの合っていない女』がある。『体の贈り物』でラムダ文学賞、ボストン書評家賞、太平洋岸北西地区書店連合賞受賞。
柴田元幸
1954年、東京生まれ。米文学者、翻訳家。『生半可な學者』で講談社エッセイ賞、『アメリカン・ナルシス』（東京大学出版会）でサントリー学芸賞、『メイスン&ディクスン（上・下）』（トマス・ピンチョン著、新潮社）で日本翻訳文化賞、2017年には早稲田大学坪内逍遙大賞を受賞。文芸誌『MONKEY』の責任編集も務める。
カナイフユキ
長野県生まれ。イラストレーター、コミック作家
個人的な体験と政治的な問題を交差させ、あらゆるクィアネスを少しずつでも掬い上げ提示できる表現をすることをモットーに、イラストレーター、コミック作家として活動しつつ、エッセイなどのテキスト作品や、それらをまとめたジン（zine,個人出版物）の創作を行う。
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発行所であるtwililightのオンラインショップでも販売中です。
＊お取り扱い店舗募集中です。本屋、カフェ、雑貨店など業種は問いません。ご興味のある方は、お気軽に[email protected]までお問い合わせください。
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You're bearing witness to the dawn
to see what golden fires deck the sky.
The sun lies splayed out on the lawn
just for the ghost behind your eye
to see and be ashamed of what
you saw because you liked it.
I cannot find my clothes and sunset
blushes scarlet all across
my white-hot breast.
Magnetic oceans buck and writhe,
resplendent in the middle
of your gaze.
You opened up my heaven like a sardine can.
You made me strip and dance for you
upon the holy skewer and
impale you on it
with me.
The whirring orb that you pried open
vomits light all over you.
A hedonistic yellow shines around you
as you're swallowed by
what you have done.
You aren't for being broken
and you bend around the fluid streams.
Allowing to be taken up into the sea.
What you have come to do is here
and it will be a joyful time
to live to witness this
if everyone would
just embrace it.
A sphere of light entombed in falling
sloshed you and you fell right in.
Unbolted its torrential rays
and let me cry!
I weep good water
pregnant with the lusty salt.
Effused in pulses, you collect
the tears into a silver jar.
We took the brine together
deep and shameful where
the holy smoke crawled
over these two bodies
O my my, you drank
my sacred milk
so ardently.
Are you
ok?
This cyan palace flying windy high, my home.
its breeze a thief of skirts and pride; seafoam,
and whispered memories of angry swans.
they, flying far, sing of their homes
that they'd forgotten long ago;
of Light, and Nazareth and Rome,
and being buried in the wet, dark loam
to be a charm of love invoking Astarot.
Who would be held her sister lover,
mirroring her jurisdiction;
plucking chickens
and dying
a lot.
When we in the ruby pool remembering,
they beat the drum that made us
that their song would join
a mountains' song
of countless
million
years.
Looking down into the well,
we see the water drumming rains
and a comfy shiver washes over us.
Old grass and the smell of tarpaulin
slept in our noses.
We press them together.
We are holding bone and rock
as a wrathful echo's good refrain
shakes everything to a conclusion.
Singing songs before the world
a song of that which laid me
in the heart of satan's child.
Ahead of stillness, holding hands
and down the arms spill salty tears.
We drink the amber weepings
as the licking fire leaps, a sea
of orange ghosts, the fire nymphs;
the seafoam of the universal burning.
We are scared but we made this
and we leap into the conflagration.
Standing here with me see that
Our God has broken promises
and chosen to unmake us once.
Our lust is pure and holy, joyful
breaths electrify our hearts.
A deluge of the birth-water
sweeping over everything.
Of fire and blood and light,
of wrath and death and birth,
weeping, blood, and flowers up
on Mount Golgotha. But now, lo!
It starts to rain. and rain. and rain.
Emerged from man, in blinding light,
I scream in understanding that the
locked box must be broken into.
Ecstatic fires, emerald light
is burning in the breast of night
along with he and I and lucky you.
The sun of joy explodes across the sky.
Every wall collapses with us,
and forever we are left to wonder
at the threshold where the blood
rolled thunderously.
Unforgotten cries of millions unified together
never die, oh my, they'll shine forever-
heaven, hell, and the fleshy river.
Out beyond the white death
the sweet well lies still.
Love ya █. I hope
to c u again.
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Centre for Poetry and Poetics Presents: A Reading with Laura Joyce and Honor Gavin
Note: this is an in-person event but there is an online option. Please -re-register if interested in the latter on: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/322289054237
Laura Joyce has published a novella, The Museum of Atheism (Salt, 2012), and a horror-experiment in prose poetry The Luminol Reels (Calamari Press, 2014). Her book Luminol Theory (Punctum, 2017), examined images of violent death in literature using the metaphor of crime scene investigation. Her short fiction, poetry, and criticism have appeared in Spork, PLINTH, The New Gothic, Murmurations, 3am, Entropy, Succour, Metazen, Montevidayo, Common Salt, and Tarpaulin Sky, and on BBC Radio 3. She works as a freelance editor at Occult Writers.
Honor Gavin is a writer from Birmingham whose work moves between fiction, theory, and forms of creative criticism. Funny Queer, a hand-sewn limited edition collection of stories and short texts, was published by the Aleph Press in 2021. Their novel Midland: A Novel Out of Time (Penned in the Margins, 2014) was shortlisted for the 2015 Gordon Burn Prize and their short story, 'Home Death', was longlisted for the Galley Beggar Press Short Story Prize 2019/20. They are also the author of a critical monograph on the encounter between early twentieth-century literature and silent film, Literature and Film, Dispositioned: Thought, Location, World (Palgrave, 2014), and currently teach in the Centre for New Writing at the University of Manchester.
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She is one person. I think this is how this story must begin. Questions, a reckoning… One death.
Yes, the micro to macro. A dying planet. A dead girl in the woods.
More importantly, I ask myself— what is the necessary point? Who have I killed to write this down? How long do we have left?
from Ars Necrotica: Technicolor Death Dress by M. Forajter, published in Tarpaulin Sky Press
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New month, new SPD Staff Picks! 20% off w/code SPDPICKS!
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The New York Public Library partners with us to collect chapbooks, small-print periodicals, avant-garde zines, and hand-bound books from readings, book fairs, and shops worldwide. These are often handmade or printed in extremely limited runs and document the small-press activity of the late 20th and early 21st centuries.
This display showcases items in The New York Public Library’s Ugly Duckling Presse Chapbook and Zine Collection that were collected outside of New York. The texts come in a variety of eye-catching formats, from matchbook scrolls to accordion-style pamphlets, and were authored by poets at different stages of their careers, from well-established writers to up-and-comers.
NYPL has partnered with Ugly Duckling Presse for over five years, and our Chapbook and Zine Collection in their care now spans more than 1000 items.
The display includes items from the Press at Colorado College, Small Fires Press (NOLA), Tarpaulin Sky (Grafton, VT), Minutes Press (MA), Nor By Press (Northampton, MA), Poetry Salon (Pittsburgh, PA), Burning Deck (Providence, RI), Alien Corn Books (Australia), Effing Press (Austin TX) and more!
Open now. Ends January 12th, 2020.Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. More info here.
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From Jeanne Morel's chapbook, Jackpot "Probing the thin veil of supposed reality, this collection of poems covers the earth, turns its eye on the Columbia Gorge, then swiftly travels to Kompong Cham. “Birthday Parties are Pluperfect” exclaims one of her titles, then the poem asks, “Why did the balloon float over the fence.” Morel explores the gap between words and meaning, the irony of attaching to any prevailing narrative. Everything in this collection escapes its boundaries, establishes a narrative then moves to the next bright revelation." -Dion O’Reilly, author of Ghost Dogs Jeanne Morel is the author of the chapbooks "I See My Way to Some Partial Results" (Ravenna Press) and “That Crossing Is Not Automatic” (Tarpaulin Sky Press). Her poem, “Loss & Other Forms of Death,” was selected by Leila Chatti for the 2021 Fugue Poetry Prize. Jeanne holds an MFA from Pacific University and has been nominated for a Pushcart in both poetry and fiction. She lives in Seattle. #poetry #bottlecappress #amwriting #instapoets #writing #smallpress #chapbook #chapbooks #writersofinstagram #writersofig #independent #diy #zine #zines #bookstagram #books #poetrycommunity #poem #poems #poetrygram #poetrycollection #writerscommunity #writingcommunity #poemsofinstagram #poetsofinstagram #newbooks #bookclub https://www.instagram.com/p/CXSHpH1Jd-B/?utm_medium=tumblr
#poetry#bottlecappress#amwriting#instapoets#writing#smallpress#chapbook#chapbooks#writersofinstagram#writersofig#independent#diy#zine#zines#bookstagram#books#poetrycommunity#poem#poems#poetrygram#poetrycollection#writerscommunity#writingcommunity#poemsofinstagram#poetsofinstagram#newbooks#bookclub
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GLOWING IN THE DARK #1 | The Punisher - Billy Russo
not my gif!
.•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•.
Author’s Note: Thank you so so much for the wonderful reactions to the first part of this series! I’m so happy you’re enjoying it and are interested in reading more! I honestly wasn’t expecting that! I hope you enjoy this part as well! I know it’s a bumpy ride: English is not my first language, I’m slowly trying to ease myself back into writing and this wasn’t beta-read. So please excuse the horrible mistakes!
Also: As I’ve been asked I’m now including a taglist for this series at the bottom. If you want to get added to it just shoot me a message! (:
word count: ~ 3k
summary: A few years after making the deal with Frank Y/N arrives on a new base and promptly runs into a handsome dark-haired man, or rather he into her, as a game of British Bulldog is played.
warnings: suggestion towards rape (if I forgot anything, please tell me!)
| previous part | - | next part | - | series masterlist |
.•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•.
The silence was almost deafening and the cold humid air a relief after sitting in the loud helicopter, earmuffs could only do so much, and the hot dry air the rotators and motors brought to you for the past four hours. You were the first one out the helicopter, the rest of your crew with the exception of the pilot following suit.
"Welcome home... I guess?" Kosky, your crew chief, threw you your bag from the helicopter.
You heard a desperate sigh and turned around to see Dane, the co-pilot, poking at the ground. “That’s… that’s sand-like. Where the hell are we and how long are we going to be here? I didn’t pack for… whatever the hell this is,” he complained.
“Don’t be like that Dane,” Garth muttered as he leaned out the pilot door of the helicopter. “Don’t you have beauty products for all kinds of environments in your bag? Anyway, nothing to worry about. I’m sure Y/L/N will lend you some of hers if your sensitive skin breaks out or something.”
You snorted, closing the door behind him as he stepped out of the helicopter. “You’ll better be glad if I find an old, still usable Chapstick in the depths of one of my pockets. That will be the best thing I can offer you.”
“Anyway,” Kosky tried to bring your attention back to him, “I’ll go and talk with the commanding officer of this base and try to figure out why we were stationed here and if we’re going to be the only ones or if others will follow later. You guys try to find someone to show you around.”
“Sure, I’ll just quickly-,“ you started to say while you moved towards the helicopter again to get your mechanic kit, but shut your mouth when you felt, and then saw, Kosky glare at you.
"No. Pete's been a good boy. He deserves his rest and so do you. One that involves a good shower and some food. Let's go!"
x-x
Freshly showered and in clean clothes you made your way around the camp, catching some of the last sunrays of the day. You had lost Garth and Dane after running into a fellow Marine that showed you around and left you in front of the showers. Seeing as there were no other women on the base, and therefore, no need for separate showers the boys had proposed to stand guard while you showered after them. Why or when they decided to leave you alone was a mystery to you.
Braiding your wet hair, you walked around trying to recognize or remember anything you were shown or told during your quick tour. However, you only managed to catch a glimpse of Pete through the tents. ‘Better than nothing. Might as well quickly check him out and then go find someone. Who knows? Maybe someone will find me.’
As if your thoughts had manifested him a tall man with slicked-back dark hair and a rather well-groomed beard appeared from the other side of Pete. “They told me I’d find you here.” He gave you a once-over and chuckled. “Well, this certainly explains their usage of ‘she’ and ‘her’. Come on. You’re probably just as hungry as them.”
You followed the man quietly through the different tents until you started to hear noises. They grew louder and you finally realized that you were hearing voices and the clinking of kitchen utensils. A nice scent filled your nose the moment you entered the dining tent and almost immediately your stomach let out a loud grumble.
“Yeah, that’s what I guessed. Don’t worry. There’s still plenty of food. We eat in shifts and you’re just in time for the last one.”
You turned to face the man beside you and saw that he was already smiling down at you. ‘His eyes are just as dark as his hair. But they can’t actually be black, right? I’ve never seen such a deep brown in my life. They’re beautiful.’
“Y/L/N. Nice to see you found your way to us as well. I guess I’ll have to talk to Jandro and Dane tomorrow about team spirit and human manners. They’re back there,” he pointed to the back of the tent where you could make out Danes blond hair and a man with his face deep in his food, who was looking like he’d be eating his plate as well. Probably Garth. “They’ll show you to your tent. You three are roommates. I’ll brief you tomorrow about everything. Have a nice evening.” Leaving the tent, he nodded at the dark-haired man and disappeared from your view.
“Damn, a whole tent for just three soldiers? Normally I’d be jealous but seeing what nice friends you have there I’m not so sure anymore. I prefer knowing they got my back and don’t run away at the first sign of food.”
You laughed and waved that comment away. “You see the guy who’s currently almost eating his plate as well? That’s Jandro, but we all call him Garth, which is short for Garfield. I’m used to food being chosen over me. Hey, I don’t think I caught your name-”
“Y/N!” Dane and Garth shouted simultaneously over the heads of the soldiers as they saw you. “We’re so sorry! We were going to wait, but then someone passed by and told us it was dinner time. You’re a big girl, so we weren’t afraid of you drowning in the shower.”
Letting out an exasperated sigh you rolled your eyes as every last head in the tent turned towards you. Great. Pressing your lips together you just gave them two awkward thumbs-ups and thankfully everybody turned their heads back to their food.
“Come on, looks like they’re going to eat me next if I don’t finally deliver you.” The man pushed you through the space between the tables until you were seated next to Garth who pushed a full platter in front of you. Eyeing this gesture the man faced you one last time before disappearing somewhere in the dining tent. “Name’s Billy by the way. I’ll be around if you ever… decide on upping your friend game.”
x-x
After dinner, the boys showed you to your tent. Dane started to do his nightly routine while you and Garth decided to enjoy the early night exploring your new temporary home for the time being.
“I’ll go search for some of the guys who were sitting at our table. Don’t," he grabbed your wrist and raised his index finger to emphasize his words, “go checking on Pete.”
Walking around the base you once again saw Pete in the distance, crossed paths with familiar faces from dinner, to whom you nodded politely and even passed the showers. It would take you one or two days and seeing the base in broad daylight, but you knew you’d soon be able to find your way around.
A familiar tune caught your attention and you followed the sound of a guitar being played, accompanied by an oddly familiar, but really beautiful, singing voice.
“Blackbird singing in the dead of night
Take these broken wings and learn to fly
All your life
You were only waiting for this moment to arise.”
Without any second thoughts, you pushed aside the plastic tarpaulin covering the entrance of the tent and stepped inside. The first thing you saw where the lined-up beds on either side of the tent. Somewhere occupied with men reading or writing something, but most of them were vacant, as their owners were sitting together either on or around two beds towards the end of the tent, creating a circle.
And then you saw him. There, leaning carefully against the tent wall, his trusted guitar in his hands, was Frank. But he wasn’t the one singing. Your eyes slid over the flock of men until they rested upon the dark-haired man – Billy – who was sitting on the bed beside Franks and just finishing the song.
An old memory shot through your head. Maria, Frank and you sitting in a car going to the airport. ‘That's why you've been pestering me into introducing her to Billy.’
Frank’s voice brought you back to the present. “You always have a guitar in deployment. Sit around, you got time to, uh, you know, learn new songs, come up with new shit."
Smiling you decided to make yourself known and stepped forward. "Yeah. You were always really good at the shit part. Though honestly? Where the hell do these new guitar skills come from? This actually sounded good!"
Frank’s head shot up and a smile took over his facial features. "Y/N!"
"She’s just being honest here, Frankie boy. This was by far your best- Wait, hold on. You guys know each other?"
But before either of you could answer Billy or anybody else could say something as well, Frank had thrown his guitar into the lap of the guy next to him and himself around your neck. “I knew it! When they told us a UH-1Y Venom with the callsign Blackbird would be arriving shortly I thought it might be you. But I didn’t want to get my hopes up. And then I saw the helicopter but couldn’t find you at dinner…” He had led you back to his bed and waved the guys away who begrudgingly dispersed back to their own beds or left the tent altogether.
“Billy, this is Y/N. The marine friend I told you about. She was a foot soldier as well but betrayed us for the sky. Not that I think it’s any better up there. Down here you can be naïve and only see what’s right in front of your nose, but up there… well. Anyway, met her through Maria. She was actually one of the women who had the guts to laugh at my excellent guitar skills. Y/N, this is Billy-”
“The guy you’re only allowed to introduce me to if you beat me in a round of friendly combat. At least as far as I remember.”
Billy smiled at that exchange and looked at Frank. “Ah yes, the deal. I heard stories about that. Didn’t think there’d actually be any truth to that though. I guess it’s a good thing we already met. You can’t possibly think of ignoring your knight that saved you from starvation by leading you to the glorious dining tent, sweetheart.”
“No, but I could try to arrange for you to be eaten by my boys if you keep calling me sweetheart.”
Raising his hand in surrender Billy turned around to lay completely on his bed and grabbed a book from the ground. “She’s got fire Frankie boy, gotta give her that.”
You got a quick glimpse of the title page of the book. The Picture of Dorian Gray. ‘A man that knows his literature, interesting. Would not have given him that one’.
“Though, sweetheart,” Billy said as he lazily opened the book and flipped through it, searching for the right page, “As much as I think I could handle your boys. We wouldn’t want that, would we now? God made me this way for a reason. Would be a real shame if I weren’t able to share the complete wealth anymore.”
‘Ah well, there it is. Never mind. Just another dude who is full of himself.’
Sensing your eye-roll from a million miles away Frank turned you towards him. “We like to call him ‘Billy the Beaut’. He still has to grasp the ‘quality over quantity’ concept. And! Before you ask, because I know you will, Maria hoped you’d become the quality. Frank leaned closer and shot a quick glance at Billy who kept on reading, “Deep down Billy’s a great guy. It’s just his defence mechanism.”
Sighing you stretched your arms into the air to relieve your back of some of the tension accumulated by the long flight and you didn’t even realize that your shirt raised a little bit to reveal the skin underneath. You did feel the looks the other men gave you though and felt how Frank quickly pulled the shirt back down.
“Watch it!” His tone made Billy look up from his book and take a confused look around. “This ain’t a space for a woman. They’re hungry, like feral dogs. Not that I like to think like that about my fellow Marines, but we are surrounded by war. Wouldn’t be the worst thing they do.”
“Fine…,” you stood up and faced the rest of the tent. “If you’re such dogs, let’s play fetch! This way I can show you that you shouldn’t cross my path… or of my boys.” You added that part specifically for Billy. “But don’t worry, we’ll go easy on you.”
You moved to face Frank again. “After all. You do kinda still owe me a friendly round of combat.”
“Tell us. What did you have in mind kid?”
x-x
It had started to rain in the time it took you to gather the majority of the base, including Garth and Dane. Laughing you shook your head, spread your arms and greeted the cold and heavy rain on your warm skin.
Garth, Dane and you were positioned opposite to the rest of the men (thanks to your big mouth), or where you guessed they would be. The dying light and lack of any other light source in addition to the rain didn’t make this an easy game. But a fun one.
“The rules are simple!” Frank’s voice boomed over the playing field and not even the rain was able to quiet him down. “Only one bulldog per player – we’re all grown-ups and do not need help or serious injuries – and to turn a player into a bulldog they have to be restrained to the ground for three full seconds. Be it on their back or their stomach, both count! Ready? Set. GO!”
At first, the splashing caused by multiple boots running across the playing field was the only thing you heard. Then came the first shout, shortly followed by another. Out of the corners of your eyes, you saw Garth and Dane crashing into two soldiers, taking them down with them and just in front of you, you were able to make out a shadow running straight towards you.
With a yell, Frank dove to the ground and knocked your legs out from under you. Creating a splash, you fell on your back, already trying to flip yourself to the side to have more possibilities to block anything Frank might throw your way. But Frank wasn’t there anymore.
Confused you stood up, blinking against the merciless rain trying to find Frank. Around you, several silhouettes were fighting each other. Some were still standing, others rolled around on the ground. Lone shoes and some t-shirts were spread on the playing field, almost undetectable under the rising level of water on the ground.
You heard him too late. With another yell Frank sprang on your back, making your knees buckle under you due to his weight. With a groan you hit the ground face first, his large body covering yours, making it impossible for you to move.
“Last time I checked I was the bulldog,” you panted, spluttering on the horrible muddy water accumulating in your mouth.
“Last time I checked you were the one who wanted a friendly round of combat. Obviously, I won, but don’t worry, you’ll get another chance.” And then he was gone again, and you gasped for air.
x-x
You had no idea how long the game had been going on. If it was still going on. Due to the conditions, it was impossible to know who was still a player and who had been already turned into a bulldog. Soon the others had taken you and Frank as an example and the game had turned into several friendly combats.
Just as you were contemplating asking around if the game was over, a body slammed into yours and took you straight to the ground with him. Automatically your legs went around his waist to try and flip you both around with the momentum, but the mystery man grabbed your throat lightly and put his elbows and part of his weight on your chest. You were trapped.
“What was this big speech about not crossing your path, sweetheart? I don’t see any actions following your words.” His breath and touch were scalding hot on your skin.
You weren’t even given the possibility to answer as a new voice boomed over the playing field. “Alright! That’s enough boys! To bed with you!”
In an instant, Billy let you go, stood up and disappeared in the darkness.
“Hey! We weren’t done yet!” you shouted through the sound-dampening rain.
“Give it up. You’ve been a helicopter gunner for way too long, you’ve lost your touch,” Billy answered from only a few feet away, grabbing some forgotten items to bring back to the soldiers. “It’s late and we’re frozen to the bone. We do have better things to do than catching pneumonia, you know?”
You huffed, almost swallowing a mouthful of water while foolishly trying to wipe the wet hair out of your face. "Like what? Reading literature and complaining about beans in your food and the unavoidable fart fest in your tents? No. You know what I think? I think you’re glad it ended. You’re afraid that I could actually kick your butt."
Billy smirked as he turned around to you. "I’d let you do much more to my butt than just kick it. I mean…," he stepped closer, leaned down until you could feel his breath on your neck and whispered, "If you want to see my backside, there are other - less violent and more pleasurable - possibilities to get what you want. All you gotta do is ask."
.•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•..•´¯`•.
Taglist:
@blackbirddaredevil23
#billy russo x reader#billy russo oneshot#billy russo one shot#billy russo#the punisher x reader#the punisher one shot#the punisher oneshot#the punisher#my writing#viascribbles
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The Escape
A little continuation of a previous one shot - Snow264 (you’ll have to read that one first for this one to make sense)...
The woman doesn’t like talking to him. She’s still afraid, Jon thinks. There’s no trust in her eyes when she looks at him and it’s a sensation he’s not used to. As a Crow, Jon must rely and be relied upon by his brothers. They are trained from childhood to trust their fellow soldiers, trust their superiors and doubt only The Outside and the enemy.
Jon has given the nice looking woman his word that he will help her escape, but this is not enough for her. It perplexes him immensely.
He has been given his hours with her only once since first laying eyes on her campfire hair and her sky eyes and those special curves on her chest. She barely talks to him. Only asks questions about the bunker – how many guards, building layout, nearest exit. She must have experience with tactical movement on The Outside.
He wants to ask her lots of questions too, but he doesn’t think she would like that. Mostly, she gives him commands or sits on her cot with her arms wrapped around herself while ignoring his existence. Jon doesn’t mind her commands so much – they are different to when his generals holler at him during training or combat; softer but dripping in fear. He wants to tell her to not be afraid. Fear is not good for a soldier and Jon has had it beaten out of him.
He would never subject the nice woman to that though.
Jon wants to tell his bunkmates about her - to tell them that a woman’s body is smaller and softer and that they smell different.
She smells so good. The whole room that they keep her in smells of her and Jon would very much like to spend more time with that smell. It makes him wrinkle his nose at the scent of his own bunk.
He cannot tell anyone, of course. Not only has he been ordered to stay quiet about the new breeding programme, but he suspects his chances of helping her escape would be greatly hampered if he should tell his bunkmates of how nice women really are and how babies come to be and how he knows all this new information.
He thinks about all that new information he’s learned when he’s alone in his cot. The bunk lights are out and he feels the need to wrap his hand around himself while he thinks... while he... pictures things in his mind. He makes a mess and wipes it up with his undergarments. Normally, he’ll fall asleep pretty soon after the act, but recently he’s had trouble sleeping – trouble with disengaging his thoughts.
Broken sleep before a mission is not helpful to a soldier.
“What is your identifier?” Jon asks on this, his final visit before he makes his attempt at her escape.
She looks up at him, broken from her habit of pretending he is not there. She blinks. No words.
Jon steps closer, not liking the way fear rounds her eyes as he nears. “If I’m to risk my life for your escape, I would like to know what to call you before we do this.”
The corner of her mouth twitches. Her lips look soft. He’s almost overcome with the urge to brush his fingers against them. “Alayne,” she says. “My name is Alayne.”
The sound of it echoes in Jon’s skull. He simply nods. “Be ready,” he tells her. “Tonight.”
***
The nearest exit from where Alayne is being held is the supplies and deliveries depot. Jon had never been there before but he’d asked General Yoren what was there. Yoren was not quick to suspect or punish for curiosity - unlike some of this other commanders - so Jon had simply explained that he’d heard noises coming from that direction and wanted to be sure the bunker was secure – especially now they have a civilian on site. Yoren had snorted derisively. “Just where all yer food, uniform and gear gets brought in, lad. The noises yer hear are delivery trucks.”
This was useful.
Yesterday he’d managed to swipe a security card from one of the men in white coats. The man had left the room for a moment, clipboard in hand and never once suspecting that one of their obedient crows would rifle through his drawers while he was gone. Jon’s heart had been pounding in his ears. He’s never gone against protocol like that before.
His brother crows were deep in slumber when Jon slipped from his cot. He’d memorised as many security codes as he could from watching General Yoren intently the past few days. He ducks into the arms room before going to get her, feeling the need to at least have a SIG on him for this dangerous mission. The doors to Alayne’s room whoosh open and she’s already there, standing, her make-shift shiv pointing in his direction. She’s alert and clever. Jon wonders if this is a trait in all women. “Come,” he says, leading the way.
They find their way to the depot. Jon had expected the place to be empty at this time of night; expected to use the security card and swipe their way out. There were people – not many. Deliveries continued through the night, it seems. Ducking down behind a large crate, Jon peeks out to watch the truck now arriving – sacks and sacks of oats and grains. Five men help unload. Jon’s pulse is drumming in his ears. He needs to treat this like any other campaign on The Outside. Stay calm, stay alert. He glances behind him at Alayne. She’s clutching her shiv as she crouches beside him. Why does this feel so much more important than any mission he’s been on with The Watch? “We might be able to get in the back of that truck,” he whispers.
Alayne nods.
They have their chance a few moments later when the depot workers invite the delivery driver to sit with them for refreshment. “Come on,” Jon whispers. He helps Alayne up into the back of the truck. It’s the only time he’s touched her since that first day when she’d held his hands and begged him to help her. There’s electricity in her touch. Do civilian men feel that too when they touch their women? There’s not much time to ponder on it – they can hear the workers returning. “Here,” he says, hastily grabbing some of the sheets of tarp piled at the back of the truck. He tucks her under it and joins her there.
They are close – closer than Jon has ever been to a civilian. The colour of the tarpaulin is making her look blue. Jon doesn’t like her looking blue. He likes the warm colour of her cheeks and the fire of her hair. Her breathing is not steady, he can feel her hot breath on his face. She’s scared. They listen to the men. Someone has stepped onto the back of the truck with them. Jon can hear his workboots as he walks. He reaches for his SIG as they wait. He looks at Alayne, hoping she can see that he won’t let them take her again without a fight. All he sees is her fear and it twists his guts in knots.
The man merely bundles more tarp on top of them, the material crinkling as he folds it and tries to make it one, rather messy pile in the corner of the truck. Jon would be reprimanded if he’d left his uniform or bunk in half this state.
The footsteps retreat and they can hear the man pull down the shutter on the truck. A few seconds later, the engine starts with a rumble and Jon and Alayne breathe a sigh of relief. Part of him wants to stay here, huddled close to her for the rest of the journey – so close that he’s surrounded by that really nice smell of hers. But he cannot. He needs to stay alert – as soon as the truck stops, they will make a run for it. He hopes this plan will work.
***
It isn’t even an hour on the road and the truck has come to a stop. They stand there, listening to the driver alight his cabin and come ‘round to the back; hear the clink-clunk of him unlocking the shutter, he with his gun and she with her sharpened shard of plastic. The hatch goes up and a flood of light comes in, blinding them both. The driver shouts and Jon aim’s his SIG at the most offensive light. Glass shatters. The light is out but they’re not in the dark yet. Quickly assessing the surroundings, they seem to be at the back of a warehouse. Pallets of more sacks await to be loaded into the back of the truck. Jon jumps down and points his gun at the driver. “Back away!” he commands. “Hands up high!” He hears the light thud of Alayne’s shoes hitting the ground behind him. More men come out of the building, Jon points his weapon at them. None of them are armed. “Hands up, all of you!” They comply. “No one move and no one gets hurt!” He glances back at Alayne but she is gone. Panic rises. The last time he’d felt like this was when he was shot in the chest. Frantically, he looks for her, all while keeping an eye on the workmen.
“Hey, man,” one of them says, “ain’t you a crow?”
“Shut up!” Jon hollers back, turning his head to see where she’s gone.
“What are you doing out of the training camp?”
“Hands up where I can see them!” Where is she?!
It’s then that he spots her – a retreating form running from the warehouse into the surrounding black forest. She’s almost at the treeline. Jon’s heart beats painfully.
“Hey, yo. We got a problem at the loading b-“ one of the workmen had disobeyed his order and was radioing for backup. Jon shot at the ground by the man’s feet. He almost jumps a mile. His face pales as Jon continues to point his weapon at all of them.
“Don’t come after us,” he said, aiming at the remaining light illuminating the back of the warehouse before fleeing after Alayne. His breaths were loud here in the dark of The Outside as he ran and ran, his eyes fixed on the white of her top, the only patch of lightness in the dim of the early dawn. She disappears into the dark fingers of the forest and Jon presses himself to move faster than he ever has before.
Entering where she had, he unclips the small torch from his belt. She’d left tracks. “Alayne!” he calls, getting nothing in return. He’s breathing hard as he follows the tracks, his brow is moist with sweat. Jon stops every now and again, switching off his light and standing still, trying to calm his breathing so he can just listen – listen to the forest, listen for anyone who might be after them, listen for her. Nothing. His torch is on again and he continues his hunt.
Her tracks come to an end. Right in the middle of the forest - they completely disappear at the base of a tree. Looking up, Jon’s just in time to see her jump down from a branch, knocking him to the ground amongst the pine needles and spent leaves.
“Alayne,” he says again but as quick as a rabbit, she’s up and fleeing again. “Alayne!” He’ll not let her get away this time. He makes chase and soon is tackling her to the ground with a thud. She fights him – ineffectively, Jon will admit, but she is only a civilian lacking proper training so the odds are tipped against her. “Alayne!” he huffs sternly, pinning her down to the ground. The both of them breathe heavy as they stare at one another. “Why did you run from me?” She’s bathed in moonglow, filtered down through the trees. She has twigs and leaves in her nice campfire hair.
Alayne only stares up at him, chest rising and falling as she tries to calm her breathing. Her look becomes defiant. “Go on, then,” she spits. “Get on with it and then let me go.”
“Get on with what?”
“You want to fuck me, don’t you? You’ve played the hero and now you expect a reward.”
He does not understand her meaning. The only context he’s heard this word ‘fuck’ in is when General Thorne bellows at them that they need to ‘fuck up’ their enemies or in training when someone fails to meet target and the whole squad is told to ‘do the whole fucking circuit again’. Both of those sound negative to Jon.
“Alayne,” he says, “I don’t want to fuck you.”
She blinks up at him. In the light of the dawn her eyes look like deep, dangerous pools. “Really?” she asks. “Then, what’s this?” Her wrist slips out from under his hold and she reaches down between them to cup him through his fatigues. Jon hisses, his hips bucking forward into her touch. She finds him swollen hard down there and Gods, is there anything more pleasurable than this?
She strokes him through the fabric – barely anything at all but Jon feels like he might explode out of his own skin from the feeling of it. His breath is jagged and though he’s still on top of her, here in the dark of the forest, it is she who holds the power over him because just one intimate touch from her and he is utterly wrecked with pleasure. “Alayne,” he pants, his panted breath moving her hair. “Alay-“ Her smell, her soft curves beneath him, her hand where no-one had touched him before. It was too much. “Uhhnnn.” Jon saw little white sparks behind his eyelids as he screwed his eyes shut and made his sticky mess in his fatigues. He rolled off Alayne, lest he crush her from his weight as he collapsed, feeling both heavy and light all at once.
She sat up, looking down at him as he tried to level his breathing. The moon was caught in her hair. “That... that was... quick.”
He doesn’t know what to say to that. It’s true though – whenever he performs the act upon himself it takes him a lot longer to complete. Alayne smirks at him and he wonders what’s so funny? Was that wrong? That it had taken hardly anything at all for her to unman him? “Don’t run away from me,” he finds himself saying.
She studies him before she stands, brushing off the forest debris from her clothes. “I need to get back to my camp. My brother is there, and my boyfriend. Neither of them would take kindly to me bringing home a crow.”
Jon stands. “You can talk to your brother and this boy. I’m no threat to your camp, Alayne. I swear it.”
Again, her lips twitch into a smirk and again Jon is not aware of what caused it. “He’s not a boy. He is a man.”
“But, you called him-“
Alayne began walking. “My boyfriend, yes.” Jon followed. “Or, at least he was my boyfriend, before his stupid mistake got me captured by your lot.”
Jon said nothing for a while, walking beside her with a mess in his undergarments as they made their way through the forest together. “This... boy-friend. What-... what does that mean exactly?”
Alayne laughed. The sound – oh Gods! The sound! – it made Jon’s chest feel strange. “You don’t know?” Jon shook his head. Alayne laughed again – quieter this time, but no less lovely. “It means... it means he is special to me and... well, we are intimate together.”
“Intimate?”
“Yes... we... make each other feel good.”
“Like before? When you-”
“Yes,” she answers before he could finish. “Like that.” She turns away and Jon wonders if he had been wrong to mention it.
“Does that mean that I am a boy-friend?”
“What? No!” She stops to face him. Jon turns toward her too. “Look, if you’re going to help me get back to my camp and stand any hope of being allowed to stay with us, you need to not mention that, ok?”
His mouth was open. He closes it and nods his head. He may be forbidden from mentioning it, but Jon can already tell that he’ll never forget it.
Her eyes are glinting like moonlight on a lake. They bore into his before faltering. “Just... help me get back and I’ll try to convince them to let you stay.” Jon nods his head. Alayne begins walking again. “And you can call me Sansa now.”
Civilians are so confusing.
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Lightning Bugs in July | I
THE END
Description: When it rains in Virginia, it is absolute -- the storm, the heat, the humidity. A rainstorm in September is the same as a firestorm in Europe.
Fandom: Band of Brothers
Pairing:
Joseph Toye/Reader
Word Count:
4.2k+
Warning(s): Derogatory Language. Nothing you wouldn’t see in the show.
When you close your eyes, you comfort yourself with your last easy memory. You'd been standing out on a gravel bank with your pants rolled up, up to your calves in the cool waters of the Potomac. Your eyes were closed, face turned up towards the twilit sky, and you'd let the cooling Virginia heat crawl off you like the setting sun.
You remember thinking distantly of your home, which wasn't so distant at the time, and remember wondering idly if you'd end up regretting enlisting. Your thoughts were quickly carried away by the river current, however, and so you took a deep breath and thought instead on how you'd break the news to your family.
When you finally opened your eyes, it was to the intermittent flashing of lightning bugs over the river, lazy and at the mercy of the breeze, in July.
xxx
This is one thing you know for certain: Joe Toye does not taste like love.
Love tastes different on every person; it can be the flavor of caramel popcorn and sweet, sweet starshine from atop a ferris wheel, or the rosemary in fresh pancakes. It can ache like the sweet of iced tea, or stick in your mouth like a secret meant to be kept.
Sometimes, it tastes like a quiet, earnest promise. Sometimes, the flavor fades into the taste of a broken one.
These are two things you know for certain: Love tastes different on every person, and Joseph D. Toye does not taste like love when he presses his lips to yours -- but you kiss him anyways.
His eyes are ardent, they gleam in the twilight like twin lightning bugs, and the rest of him is kind in that he is unyielding. Every inch of space you give, he fills without preamble. There is something innate in him that overwhelms common sense.
Ten minutes ago, you'd been deliberating over whether it would be wise or not to take a page out of Lieutenant Nixon's handbook and get your hands on some alcohol. You might not have found alcohol, but you found Joe, the cherry of his cigarette flashing in the dark alley behind Easy Company's makeshift barracks.
It's as if he knows you need this, to be held down and held together. He kisses you in a way that insists you keep all your attention on him, that you forget about mortar rounds, the whites of eyes turned red, and machine guns.
You forget all about machine guns.
You think you could live with yourself if this was all there is to the world, kissing Joe Toye behind some half-shelled shed you both figured no one in the battalion would bother with. You might even be able to live with yourself in a world without the taste of love, so long as you could taste instead Lucky Strike cigarettes in his mouth, and let him handle you in the single, heart-breaking moment before you fall apart in the face of another angry artillery barrage.
Joe's hands slide down your sides, then he grabs a handful of ass and thigh and lifts you up just enough to wedge you onto the pseudo-worktable on the far side of the shed.
The collision is rough, edging on desperate, but neither of you claim to be perfect and both of you are soldiers caught in a war you only cared about fighting until you actually fought it -- but there's something -- God, damn it -- there's something here, between the two of you, but it's just not --
Joe bites down, just left of hard, on your shoulder, and your reaction is immediate and helpless: Neck scrunching to the side, eyes widening, hands grabbing fitfully at his shoulders and a half-bitten noise rushing from your lips.
Joe mutters an apology, then kisses the spot, tenderly. You sigh at the feeling of him questing up the column of your neck with a series of chaste pecks. Then he kisses your lips, tenderly.
But Joe Toye just does not taste like love.
You ruin his hair with your dirty fingers and try and bury every thought bouncing around in your head with your lips, in his mouth. His jaw is rough under your hands -- when was the last time he had a chance to shave? -- and he pins you with his body, pressing closer until there's no space between you, until you're melding and melting into one another, becoming something entirely different and unstable.
His hands ruck up your shirt. His hands are calloused and dangerous. His hands are greedy. His hands are reverent. His hand tangles itself into the back of your grown-out hair and tugs your head back so it thumps against the wall, baring your neck to him.
His eyes are ardent, dangerous -- they are breathtaking, like the lightning bugs in July.
Your tongue lashes out at the back of your teeth, and you taste him. Lucky Strike Cigarettes.
He drags his mouth down your throat, then loses the pretense of kissing once he latches onto the skin below the collar of your uniform.
You stare up at the darkening sky without seeing, lips parted as you try to understand this feeling building in your chest.
Joe Toye does not taste like love.
Joe Toye does not taste like love.
Please, God -- you squeeze your eyes shut when they burn with tears like memories -- Joe Toye cannot taste like love.
xxx
You're both sitting on the cold dirt, slumped against the shed wall, and in the silence of the night. Joe drags his cigarette up to his lips and inhales; you unwrap the foil from a stick of chewing gum and hold it between your teeth, burning your tongue with the concentrated spearmint.
Across the river -- there are too many rivers in Europe, you're learning -- a German flare is shot straight up into the overcast sky. You track the light with your eyes as it begins to arch, and squint when it flashes too brightly. The flare falls, falls, it falls, then drops into the river beside the blown-out bridge. You stare at the krauts, and they stare back.
"I better go. I've got watch soon," you say without moving an inch to stand. Your sweat is turning cold on your skin, and you dip a hand into your open jacket to scratch at your stomach. Your dog tags are sitting on your bare sternum, and they clink when you brush up against them.
Joe hums suddenly then, in acknowledgement, but his heavy eyes remain trained across the river. Beside you, he is completely topless, his bare skin caressed softly by the waning moon. Your eyes trace the fuzzy outline of his face, then down to where his dog tags hang, just beside his beating heart. You fist your own tags in your hand, then pocket selfishly the vision of him in this moment, subdued and satiated. A statue left standing in a battlefield.
His stomach is bunched up, and idly you watch the way the muscles under his skin move when he takes another drag from his cigarette or swallows down whatever words he might have shared with you instead. You wonder what it would feel like to lay your hand just over his heart, to feel it beat, or to hold it in your hand and understand the warmth of him.
He's built like Flash Gordon, that space-faring hero who ends up without a shirt more often than not. This is not the first time you've thought of the comparison, but it makes you laugh all the same -- a quiet, lighthearted huff.
Joe glances at you from the corner of his eye, with a slight turn of the head, and raises a single eyebrow. "What's so funny?"
You shake your head and look back out over the river. Another flare rises up into the night sky. For a moment, you forget about the war, and are instead struck by the beauty of the scene. It is alien, devastating, and beautiful. The German flare rises up, up, it arches, then falls behind the bridge and dips into the river. It is haunting.
You sigh, then slowly stand and begin pulling on your uniform, piece by piece. You feel Joe's eyes on you, but don't comment or turn to look at him. You can't bring yourself to, and you can't understand why.
When you shoulder your rifle, you hear Joe grunt, then shuffle in the dirt. "Hey," he calls after you, too loudly, too quickly, too warmly, and for a moment, you are truly afraid. Of what, you're not sure, but as you grip the strap of your rifle, your stomach falls into a pit of dread. You squeeze your eyes shut and try to remember that beach, those lazy lightning bugs, but the memory fights and refuses to be reeled to the surface -- all you can picture are his eyes, ardent, the way they shine.
It is embarrassingly silent. You shudder when you realize Joe is waiting for a response.
Slowly, you force yourself to face him, only to find him staring up at you, holding out your helmet for you to take. You realize you'd left it somewhere between the door and the worktable Joe fucked you on.
His eyes are earnest, his mouth is set in a thin, worried line. You pull on a wobbly smile like you would a camouflage tarpaulin, but can't hide behind it and it does nothing to make you feel safer. You take the helmet silently and tuck it under your arm.
Joe blinks, then directs his eyes to the ground. The laugh he forces out is awkward, and sounds as if it was skimmed off the top of his chest. "What would you ever do without me?"
The air tastes sour. Humor is the only weapon either of you have in your arsenals to mask the flavor. "Get my brains blown out by a Kraut, Joe."
"That's right," he rasps, and then he takes a drag from his cigarette. "And don't forget it."
You stare at the dark shape of his slumped over form for a second longer than you should, but he's retreated into himself, staring blankly into the night, across the river at the Krauts. If he notices your hesitation, he doesn’t acknowledge it.
You swallow thickly, then take your leave, aware of the way the heat of his eyes brand your back until you turn the corner and disappear from sight. The night is cold after that.
xxx
But wars end eventually. This is something you never thought hard enough about.
You close your eyes and will yourself to remember that beach, that twilight, those floating lightning bugs on the Potomac. Now you are standing out on that gravel bank, shaped and reshaped by the river, and that moment is nowhere to be found.
The river is beneath you, too warm from the sun; the sky is above you, bluebird and soft; and that easy, stolen moment is gone. All that's left is the damp notion of an autumn rainstorm passed.
But wars end eventually, and now you are fresh off the train, delaying your eventual homecoming and staring blankly across the river, wondering if there are any Germans in Virginia to stare back. You pick up a flat river rock and skip it across the slow moving water, counting five jumps before it sinks below the surface.
But wars end eventually, and now you are left standing, still standing, in your uniform. It is wrinkled. Every moment longer you spend in it, you want to tear each patch off. They make your skin burn. You whip another flat rock out across the water, but it wobbles and only skips twice before suddenly sinking.
"Shit."
But wars end eventually. Maybe you always knew this -- what's confused you is that you never expected to survive it.
All this time you spend longing for home, yearning for some perfect memory, and the reality of it is exactly the same and forever changed instead. The sky is too blue, the river too warm, you are not the same person. You pick up another flat rock and scrub a wet leaf off it with your thumb. What's worse, though, is that you feel nothing staring at this beach; no relief, not even nostalgia. The thought makes agitation flare hot and settle in your chest like heartburn.
You close your eyes and try to picture those lightning bugs, but the only memory your subconscious offers is the glow of Joe Toye's eyes. "Shit!" You throw the rock at the ground hard enough for it to bounce. The sound is like a gunshot. The chewing gum in your mouth is like paste. You clench, unclench your fists and blink away the burn settling behind your eyes, then reach down and tear into your rucksack.
The Krauts you imagine to be across the river watch as you pull out your bronze and silver stars, along with your purple heart. You rip open the cases of each one, glare shamefully at the contents, then pitch them as far as you can across the river.
xxx
When it rains in Virginia, it is absolute -- the storm, the heat, the humidity. A rainstorm in September is the same as a firestorm in Europe.
The air hangs heavy and low to the ground. The world grows quiet as the skies open up, thunder rolling like a wave over the countryside.
All the windows and doors in the house are propped open, and the air is restless as it paces about the house. You sigh, breath iced by spearmint, and drag your nails over your scalp. Something in this storm makes your hair stand on end. There is a restless energy in your muscles that winds and winds without release.
Lightning flashes. thunder claps. Rain falls. Downstairs, the dog whimpers.
When it rains in Virginia, it is absolute.
When it rains in Virginia, it is absolute.
xxx
Home for you is a three bedroom house at the end of an uneven, unpaved road. The roof leaks in three different places, the stairs are missing a banister, and the front door only shuts if you twist the knob the right way. It is also filled to the brim with your brothers and sisters. Including you, there are twelve.
Eustace was the oldest, but you don’t remember him very well because he ran off to Sacramento as soon as he turned eighteen. You were nine at the time.
Beth was second born and is more of a mother to you than your actual mother has ever been. She’s run the household since she was five.
Cecily is a secretary for a law firm in Richmond and sends what she can of her paycheck home at the end of every month.
Lip enlisted with the army in 1939, and caught a bullet in North Africa around the time you jumped for Operation Market Garden.
Tommy is only a year younger than you, and broke his leg jumping from a tree when he was ten. It never healed right.
Dog was halfway through basic training when Hitler shot himself. He patrolled the streets of Berlin a couple times before he was sent home, and still has the itch for war.
Norma is a year from graduating high school and all she wants is to make movies.
Jim-boy is a sophomore in high school and on the baseball team as a pitcher.
Pat is in middle school and runs your old paper route.
Ulysses is eleven and trying his very best to get kicked out of elementary school.
Em is as sweet as a pea and everyone who knows her thinks she’s just the most darling girl in all of the south.
None of you share a last name, but it doesn’t matter because you’re family regardless. It’s a bond you understand well, and one you carried with you to war.
Love tastes like blood in your mouth just as much as it does of saltwater taffy on a crisp fall day.
xxx
It's early enough for the sun to just barely be peaking over the gray horizon. Sometime in the night the rain finally broke, and so now you're left in its result; the countryside is warm, damp, and quiet except for the hum of the cicadas.
There are five of you sitting around the kitchen table, barefoot and in various states of undress. Upstairs, the floorboards creak under the three teenagers in the house as they mill about getting ready for the day. Beth is at the stove, slaving over a batch of potato pancakes. They're your favorite, and you know that's why she's making them.
Beth throws a cautious look over her shoulder, and you pretend to be too heavily invested in the back of the newspaper Tommy's holding up to notice. But you can make out the way her eyebrows knit in worry, and how the lightning bug glow of her eyes cradles you as if you were china.
You appreciate the gesture.
Some days are more difficult for you than others, and so you appreciate the gesture.
You appreciate the gesture, but you stare down at the pancakes on your plate and all they do is remind you of that one time in who-the-fuck-knows-where, France when you'd pan-fried potato pancakes for the guys under the beginnings of an artillery barrage.
Skip had traded in some fresh, army-issue loaves of bread with Fox Company for a sack of half-bad potatoes; you and Liebgott had stumbled across a half-shelled herb garden with a bushel of rosemary half-intact; and Alton More had sat for half an hour grating potatoes by hand, biceps bulging and quivering by the time Malarkey and Toye ran in with a half-basket of eggs.
It was half a feast. The lot of you had inhaled the food in a root cellar while the town you were occupying was shelled. You remember shoveling piping hot pancakes into your mouth -- barely chewing -- while the wooden door to the cellar bounced and leaped into the air with every shell impact. All you could think about was how it would be better to die on a full-stomach than an empty one.
But wars end eventually. You stab a pancake on your plate and take a bite. Your eyes fall shut as you chew. Beth's pancakes taste better than anything you could have dreamed of in Europe -- and the rosemary she used isn't even singed by hellfire.
You wash the pancake down with a sip of bitter coffee and work your jaw around a phantom piece of gum. You're quickly finding that your home is exactly the same and forever changed, like that long-gone beach of memory. The front door is still guarded by a carpet of shoes, Norma still hums when she brews iced tea, and your chair at the kitchen table is still in the same spot, next to Lip's empty one -- but there are new, loosened floorboards that you don't know to avoid, Tommy has taken up reading the newspaper in the mornings, and Ulysses no longer sits perched on a stool, but instead on a little blue chair wedged between Dog and Em.
"What was it like?" Ulysses asks, and Beth shushes him as she sets another plate of pancakes on the table. The question does not take you by surprise. Ulysses is as gung-ho when it comes to the idea of war as most eleven year-olds are. All he and his friends talk about are Krauts and Nips and who's turn it is to pretend to be John Basilone, the war hero.
"Dangerous," Dog says, "there were Krauts everywhere, and not enough bullets to shoot 'em."
You roll your eyes. There were Krauts everywhere because Dog was deployed straight to Berlin as a replacement. You have a suspicion that the most he shot his gun in Europe was at a couple of bottles lined up on a fence.
"It was cold." You shiver as he says this. He has no fucking clue. "And artillery is loud -- louder than you think it could ever be. When the big guns go off, the whole ground rattles like you're standing right next to a moving train." Dog doesn't know. He doesn't understand -- no one here understands because they weren't there.
"They called me Hawkeye, because I was the best shot out of my group."
Dog doesn't know what it's like to huddle in a shallow foxhole -- not the way you do. He doesn't know what it's like to have your thoughts shelled, to hold one of your best buddies while he bleeds out in your arms, begging you and god alike to not let him die.
"You should have heard the way the Krauts shout in German, all high-pitched and garbled, like they've got potatoes in their mouths--" You slam your mug down on the table hard enough for the sound to snap through the still, morning air. Coffee sloshes out and over your hands, and Beth jumps a foot in the air, then rushes over to you with a kitchen rag. She tries to catch your eyes with hers, but you shake your head and stare down at the table, feeling queasy.
You think of Lip -- not your lieutenant, but your brother, Phillip -- and wonder if he would have understood. He spent three years in North Africa before he was killed in combat. Maybe he would have known the way it feels to scrub and scrub your hands, only to have the dirt and the blood stain them permanently, like memories, like tears you can’t forget.
Sweet Em, who's been quiet this whole time, turns to you, then. "What did they call you?" she asks, peering up at you with such big, brown eyes; the childish question floats innocently from her lips while you fight the urge to cringe away from her.
Beth is watching you, eyes worried and sad. You suck in a chestful of brave air and put on your biggest, unaffected smile for the sake of your sisters. "Gunner." You quickly turn away and begin reaching around the table, collecting empty plates to stack them on top of yours.
"Why's that?" Ulysses asks, leaning forward over the table in interest.
"Because it's what you call a machine gunner -- a good one," Dog says proudly, and you force yourself to let out a laugh -- much like the one Joe Toye had offered you a year ago, in France; one skimmed off the top of your chest.
"Yea," you say plainly. You move to take the stack of dishes to the sink, but Beth swats at your hands and collects them instead. "Now you sit, sergeant, until it's well time for you to leave." She might not be your mother; your actual mother growing up was more often than not shacked up across town, drunk off her ass and falling into the arms of some beau; but Beth is the closest thing you have to a maternal figure.
The scene moves on, and the quiet of the morning returns, along with the hum of the cicadas. Only a couple months until their chirping gives way to the dead silence of winter.
Tommy snickers into the morning paper at the exchange, shooting you a disarming look from over top the sports section, and you find yourself smiling a little more honestly.
You continue to drain what's left of your rapidly cooling coffee over the course of the next couple of minutes. They are mundane. The conversation at the table has long since left you behind, and you're content to linger in your own quiet. Sometimes, you find yourself overwhelmed by just how normal everything still is.
When you're done with your coffee, you push the mug away from you and shuffle until you can pull a pack of gum from your pocket. The familiar taste of spearmint floods your mouth.
"Were you a good machine gunner?" Em asks suddenly, and you nearly bite through your tongue.
"Em!" Beth scolds, "enough questions. Now go and get your shoes on. You're fixin' to be late the longer you dawdle. You too, 'Lysses." She shoos the kids from the table, not looking at you, and you find yourself scratching at a carving you'd made a couple years ago with your nail on the wood of the table: A crude, little lightning bug.
One by one, the kids file out of the house, off to school. You and Tommy sit at the table as the morning rush swarms around you, him reading, you staring at that lightning bug. Beth is washing the dishes. Dog clears out, saying he's going fishing with some friends. Then comes the muffled rumble of an engine, and tires rolling slowly over gravel; the drawn-out whine of brakes, then the toot of a car horn.
"That's us." Tommy shuts the paper and tosses it onto the table as he stands. "Ready to go?"
"Fine, Tommy." You make it all the way to the door before Beth is tugging on your sleeve.
"Forget your cap, Buggy?" Beth says suddenly, holding out your cap for you to take -- and you don't know what strikes you more: the sudden use of your childhood nickname, or the way she's holding out your hat like Joe Toye had all those times before her. They’ve got the same lightning bug eyes.
"Thanks." You offer Beth a small smile as you take the cap, and she brushes a bit of your hair from your forehead, then smiles back, eyes just a bit more tired than you remember them to be.
xxx
But wars end eventually, and when it rains in Virginia, it is absolute.
It rains in Virginia all through September.
Masterlist | Posting Schedule
#bob#band of brothers#band of brothers imagine#joe toye#joseph toye#joe toye x reader#joe toye imagine#joseph toye x reader#joseph toye imagine#bob imagine
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Tuesday, April 13, 2021
Biden’s Infrastructure Push Spurs a Flurry of Lobbying in Congress
(NYT) Members of Congress have begun a frenzy of lobbying to ensure that their pet projects and policy priorities are included in President Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan, eager to shape what could be one of the most substantial public works investments in a generation. Officials across the country are dusting off lists of construction projects and social programs, hoping to secure their piece of a plan aimed at addressing what the administration estimates is at least $1 trillion worth of backlogged infrastructure improvements, as well as economic and racial inequities that have existed for decades. “My phone is blowing up,” Pete Buttigieg, the transportation secretary, said in an interview. Nearly every lawmaker “can point to a road or a bridge or an airport” in his or her district that is in dire need of repair.
Truck seized over ‘munitions of war,’ 5 forgotten bullets
(AP) Gerardo Serrano ticked off the border crossing agents by taking some photos on his phone. So they took his pickup truck and held onto it for more than two years. Only after Serrano filed a federal lawsuit did he get back his Ford F-250. Now he wants the Supreme Court to step in and require a prompt court hearing as a matter of constitutional fairness whenever federal officials take someone’s property under civil forfeiture law. The justices could consider his case when they meet privately on Friday. It’s a corner of the larger forfeiture issue, when federal, state or local officials take someone’s property, without ever having to prove that it has been used for illicit purposes. Since 2000, governments have acquired at least $68.8 billion in forfeited property, according to the Institute for Justice, a libertarian public interest law firm that represents Serrano and tracks seizures. The group says the number “drastically underestimates forfeiture’s true scope” because not all states provide data. Serrano’s troubles stemmed from some pictures he took along the way of a long trip from his home in Tyner, Kentucky, to visit relatives, including a dying aunt, in Zaragosa, Mexico. The photo-taking attracted the attention of U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents in Eagle Pass, Texas. When Serrano refused to hand over the password to his phone, the agents went through the 2014 silver pickup truck in great detail. They justified its seizure by saying they found “munitions of war” inside—five forgotten bullets, though no gun. Told to park the truck, he said, he complained a bit before one agent reached into the pickup, opened the door, unfastened Serrano’s seat belt and yanked him out of the vehicle. “I got rights, I got constitutional rights and he snaps back at me, ‘You don’t have no rights here. I’m sick and tired of hearing about your rights.’ That took me aback,” Serrano said.
Should the U.S. boycott the 2022 Winter Olympics in China?
(Washington Post) As if there aren’t enough sources of Sino-U.S. friction already, an emerging new irritant may soon outpace the rest: the growing calls for a boycott of Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympics. The games are still 10 months away. But it’s not too early for the event to turn into a flash point. Critics of China’s ruling Communist Party—including a coalition of more than 180 human rights organizations—argue that the regime’s record of human rights abuses and geopolitical malfeasance ought to deprive it of the right to burnish its image with a spectacle like the Olympics. “Beijing won the right to host the 2022 Olympics in 2015, the same year it cracked down on lawyers and activists across China,” Chinese human rights lawyer Teng Biao wrote earlier this year. “Since then, it has detained journalists; harassed and attacked activists and dissidents even outside China’s borders; shut down nongovernmental organizations; demolished Christian churches, Tibetan temples and Muslim mosques; persecuted, sometimes to death, believers in Falun Gong; and sharply increased its control of media, the Internet, universities and publishers.” An Olympic boycott has become a popular cause among Republicans. Major sporting events—and especially international spectacles like the Olympics—always bear a political dimension.
‘Huge’ explosion rocks St. Vincent as volcano keeps erupting
(AP) La Soufriere volcano fired an enormous amount of ash and hot gas early Monday in the biggest explosive eruption yet since volcanic activity began on the eastern Caribbean island of St. Vincent late last week, with officials worried about the lives of those who have refused to evacuate. Experts called it a “huge explosion” that generated pyroclastic flows down the volcano’s south and southwest flanks. “It’s destroying everything in its path,” Erouscilla Joseph, director of the University of the West Indies’ Seismic Research Center, told The Associated Press. “Anybody who would have not heeded the evacuation, they need to get out immediately.” The ongoing volcanic activity has threatened water and food supplies, with the government forced to drill for fresh water and distribute it via trucks. “We cannot put tarpaulin over a river,” said Garth Saunders, minister of the island’s water and sewer authority, referring to the impossibility of trying to protect current water sources from ongoing falling ash.
Colombia’s cartels target Europe
(The Guardian) At 5 am on a chilly Tuesday morning last month, 1,600 police officers and balaclava-wearing special forces, bristling with arms and battering rams, were ordered into action around the Belgian port city of Antwerp. More than 200 addresses were raided in what was the largest police operation ever conducted in the country and potentially one of the most significant moves yet against the increasingly powerful narco-gangs of western Europe. An incredible 27 tonnes of cocaine have been seized on Antwerp’s quays, in container ships and safe houses, with an estimated value of €1.4bn (£1.2bn), and many arrests have been made. It has been hailed as a mighty blow against what Belgian federal prosecutor Frédéric Van Leeuw calls “a world where morality has totally disappeared”, but Operation Sky has also highlighted a chilling development. Europe has eclipsed the US as the Colombian cartels’ favoured market, because of higher prices and much lower risks posed by European governments in terms of interdiction, extradition and seizure of assets. Jeremy McDermott, a former British army officer who is now executive director of the thinktank InSight Crime, said a kilogram of cocaine in the US is worth up to $28,000 wholesale but that rises to $40,000 on average in Europe, and nearly $80,000 in some parts of Europe. “It is more money for less risk. I see a deliberate decision by some of the top-level Colombian traffickers, based on sources who sat in a series of meetings in 2005-6, where the business decisions were made,” McDermott said. “It is a business no-brainer.”
Conservative Ex-Banker Headed to Victory in Presidential Election in Ecuador
(NYT) Guillermo Lasso, a 66-year-old conservative former banker, was set to win Ecuador’s presidential election and beat out Andrés Arauz, a 36-year-old leftist handpicked by former President Rafael Correa. With more than 94 percent of the votes counted after 10 p.m., Mr. Lasso had 52 percent compared with Mr. Arauz’s 47.32 percent, according to the Electoral Council official counting system in Ecuador. Mr. Arauz conceded defeat. The vote signaled a desire, at least among some, to shift right following years in which Mr. Correa has held sway over the country.
England reopens with pints pulled, shopping sprees and hair cuts
(Reuters) People queued up outside retailers across England on Monday to release their pent-up shopping fever and some grabbed a midnight pint or even an early haircut as England’s shops, pubs, gyms and hairdressers reopened after three months of lockdown. After imposing the most onerous restrictions in Britain’s peacetime history, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said the reopening was a “major step” towards freedom but urged people to behave responsibly as the coronavirus was still a threat. Getting people spending again is crucial for Britain’s recovery after official data showed that 2020 was the worst year for its economy in more than three centuries with a 9.8% decline in gross domestic product.
Tropical Cyclone Seroja flattens Australian town
(Washington Post) A tropical cyclone battered Australia’s west coast Sunday night and into Monday, destroying homes and leaving thousands without electricity. Severe wind gusts of up to 105 miles per hour tore houses apart and sent debris flying all over Kalbarri, a coastal tourist town of 1,350 people in Western Australia. Authorities estimated some 70 percent of the town’s buildings were damaged. Drone footage from the scene showed dozens of homes with their roofs ripped off. Power lines were down and roads were littered with shards of metal and other debris. Cyclone Seroja made landfall as a category three storm at about 8 p.m. local time on Sunday between the towns of Kalbarri and Gregory. Cyclones of such intensity rarely travel this far south in Australia, and towns outside the cyclone belt are not usually built to withstand the devastating conditions.
Muslims navigate restrictions in the second pandemic Ramadan
(AP) For Ramadan this year, Magdy Hafez has been longing to reclaim a cherished ritual: performing the nighttime group prayers called taraweeh at the mosque once again. Last year, the coronavirus upended the 68-year-old Egyptian’s routine of going to the mosque to perform those prayers, traditional during Islam’s holiest month. The pandemic had disrupted Islamic worship the world over, including in Egypt where mosques were closed to worshippers last Ramadan. Ramadan, which begins this week, comes as much of the world has been hit by an intense new coronavirus wave. For many Muslims navigating restrictions, that means hopes of a better Ramadan than last year have been dashed with the surge in infection rates though regulations vary in different countries. A time for fasting, worship and charity, Ramadan is also when people typically congregate for prayers, gather around festive meals to break their daylong fast, throng cafes and exchange visits. Once again, some countries are imposing new restrictions.
Iran blames Israel for sabotage at Natanz nuclear site
(AP) Iran on Monday blamed Israel for a sabotage attack on its underground Natanz nuclear facility that damaged the centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium there, warning that it would take revenge for the assault. The comments by Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh represent the first official accusation leveled against Israel for the incident Sunday that cut power across the facility. Israel has not directly claimed responsibility for the attack. However, suspicion fell immediately on it as Israeli media widely reported that a devastating cyberattack orchestrated by Israel caused the blackout. If Israel was responsible, it would further heighten tensions between the two nations, already engaged in a shadow conflict across the wider Middle East. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who met Sunday with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, has vowed to do everything in his power to stop the nuclear deal. According to US intelligence officials, it could take more than nine months to resume enrichment in the nuclear facility.
Abductions and Torture Rattle Uganda
(NYT) Armed men in white minivans without license plates picked up people off the streets or from their homes. Those snatched were taken to prisons, police stations and military barracks where they say they were hooded, drugged and beaten—some left to stand in cellars filled with water up to their chests. The fear is still so palpable in the capital, Kampala, that many others have gone into hiding or left the country. Three months after Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, won a sixth five-year term in office in the most fiercely contested election in years, his government appears to be intent on breaking the back of the political opposition. His principal challenger, Bobi Wine, a magnetic musician-turned-lawmaker who galvanized youthful crowds of supporters, is now largely confined to his house in Kampala. Mr. Wine’s party said on Friday that 623 members, supporters and elected officials have been seized from the streets and arrested in recent weeks, many of them tortured.
Prince Philip’s mourners in the South Pacific
(Foreign Policy) The death of Prince Philip, the husband of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, triggered mourning rituals across the country over the weekend. The mourning is not only reserved for the United Kingdom—on one of Vanuatu’s islands, Tanna, hundreds of members of a local tribe have long venerated Prince Philip as akin to a god, and are preparing to mourn his passing. Although it’s unclear how the Prince Philip Movement began, it is believed to have taken root in the 1970s—given life by the royal couple’s visit in 1974. Key to the movement is the belief that Prince Philip is one with the tribe, and fulfilled a prophecy of a tribesman who had found a powerful wife overseas and “would return some day, either in person or in spiritual form,” Kirk Huffman, an anthropologist, told the BBC.
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Fog and Ice
Rating: Gen
Summary: In the dark, everything seems a lot worse than it is. Come morning, and an old friend to help you on your way: Lee is offered a choice that he couldn't ever refuse.
WARNINGS: Spoilers for episode 7
Read on Ao3
The balloon shuddered violently, nearly tossing Lee over the edge. Iorek spotted his loss of balance from his precarious position – half hanging out in a failed attempt to catch Lyra – and grabbed the back of his jacket, hauling him to safety. Another surge of turbulence dislodged Lee from Iorek’s grip, sending him flying into the altimeter. His left shoulder slammed into an errant lever and he let out a strangled groan at the jagged bolt of pain that shot through his arm from his old bullet wound.
By the time Lee blinked the stars from his eyes, he noticed that he and Hester were alone in the balloon. His stomach lurched in fear. “Iorek!”
He scrambled towards the loose panel, looking for a sign of his friend’s survival. And the absence of others meant that the kid, Roger was missing too. Guilt sent him reeling for a moment before Hester snapped, “Lee, the panel!”
Of course, think about the next thing he could fix. He grabbed the anchor and tossed it over the edge of the panel, allowing the rope to snap taut as it caught over the metal with a screech that made him wince. He ignored the biting cold, the pain in his arm, the ache in his heart, and pulled hard. Luckily, the balloon rocked back and eased the process, though it sent Lee falling back against the fur-coated floor with a grunt. He stumbled towards the panel and bolted it shut.
They entered the eye of the storm, and Lee leaned out over the basket as he looked for Iorek. His eyes stung, from tears or the cold he didn’t know, and he shouted into the silence once more. “Lyra! Iorek! Roger!”
A piece of tarpaulin flew, rough and stinging, right into his face. He recoiled with a cry, feeling the ache in his shoulder return with it. “Hester,” he croaked, sinking to the floor. His beloved dæmon was there for him, as she always was, even when she didn’t exactly approve of his decisions. This was something that went well past the sacred bond between a human and their soul, this was what true partnership was, unbreakable and firm as sky-metal from the love that had been part of it since its beginning.
Hester said nothing for once. There was nothing she could have said, because she felt the same Aurora of exhaustion and grief as he did. She did look up at him with her bright golden eyes, though, and said, in a voice full of concern, “Lee, you’re bleeding.”
He met her gaze with a glassy one of his own. “Pass me that cloth,” he said shortly. She did, and he pressed it to his forehead. That was where the tarpaulin had struck him. She stayed close to him, offering physical comfort as they waited out their passage from the eye of the storm. Lee stroked her fur absently, slipping into a timeless haze of grief and guilt. He should have taken better care of Lyra, he should have kept Iorek safe, should’ve ensured that Roger was not in any danger.
Logically, he knew that he couldn’t have predicted the storm or the cliff-ghast attack, and he had fought off those creatures entirely. That didn’t stop him from thinking of Lyra’s fall, she must have felt so cold and there was no way she would have survived a night this far North, even if she had survived the fall somehow. Her furs were of the highest quality, but even they would not keep out the cold for so long.
He inhaled raggedly and pressed his palms to his eyes. The gas-engine sputtered a bit, and his head shot up in alarm. No, this couldn’t be happening now. The gas valve spun loose, and they dropped. Lee swore and shot to his feet, barely holding on to the rail as they crashed into a cliff.
He ducked and curled into himself – Hester close to his chest, safe from any debris – and waited for the impact to hit. It jarred his balance heavily, and once everything settled, he was shaky on his feet as a new-born foal.
“Wish I had some bloodmoss,” he muttered. The cut on his forehead stung a bit, but at least it had stopped bleeding. Hester hopped out of his arms outside the balloon, and Lee surveyed the damage before them. It was no good trying to fix it in the dark, he decided, after abandoning his effort to find the small anbaric torch he always had on him. He staggered out and slipped into a small nook between snow-covered rocks that could protect him from direct breeze. He pulled his coat closer around him, protecting his and Hester’s warmth, and slept.
In the morning, when Lee woke, he felt slightly better, and decided to salvage the balloon, which soon proved to be beyond his ability. He swore loudly and tossed a dented part over his shoulder. And another.
And another.
“Hey!”
He ignored Hester’s indignant cry, though he sent an apology in her way. He started to hum an old melancholic tune he remembered – from where, though, he had no idea. He started going off-key at some point, of that he was sure, but he frankly couldn’t care less, so long as it took his mind off the looming predicament he found himself in.
“I’m not sure I like that song anymore,” Hester said dryly.
“I have to sing when I’m nervous, you know that,” he replied flatly, gingerly stepping over the overturned basket. “Think she’s busted?”
“Of course not,” she said calmly, “we just need to get out of here so someone can take a look at her.”
“And how do you suppose you do that?” The ordeal of the previous day caught up to him again, and anger surged within him. “She’s our only means of travel!” The last word was a shout, punctuated by the clang of machinery he tossed aside bitterly.
He exhaled, getting himself in control again. Now, what the hell was throwing a tantrum supposed to do for him?
“Maybe I can be of some assistance,” said Serafina. He swiveled around.
“When did you – I didn’t-” he stumbled over his next words, completely flummoxed by her appearance. “I didn’t expect-”
She interrupted him rather kindly. “One of my sisters managed to track your movements. You’re important to us, Mr. Scoresby.”
Damn, there it was again, the reminder of the abysmal turn of events last night. “But I failed you,” he said in a small voice. A lump formed in his throat as he added, “and her.”
He looked up at Serafina, his vision glassy with barely held-back tears. “I lost Lyra.”
“You didn’t fail me in the slightest,” the witch-queen said gently. “Or her. You fought for her, and now her fate is in another’s hands.”
His heart flipped. It might have missed a beat, in light of this new information. “She’s alive?” Then he remembered, he’d had other passengers too. “And Roger and Iorek.”
“Kaisa brings word that they all live, and all thrive.”
The tension he hadn’t known he’d held left him in a single exhale of relief. But that wasn’t the end of it, no, quite far from it.
“Iorek, with Lyra’s help, has reclaimed the throne of Svalbard.”
He burst into slightly hysterical laughter. “Yes!” He thought his heart would burst with pride. He glanced at Hester.
“Well, isn’t that something?” He whooped with joy, stopping himself in the nick of time as he remembered that last night’s storm might well have left him in danger of an avalanche.
“I believe this is yours,” she said solemnly, and handed over his revolver to him. He stared at it in disbelief and back at her.
“Where did you – how did – oh.” Of course they’d need him to fight again.
“The battles are just beginning. The great War is coming soon-”
“A’right, no more fancy talk,” Lee cut her off, never quite comfortable with the mystical, obscure ways of prophecies. It was the only thing that reminded Lee that his old acquaintance was not entirely human. “I’m just a hustler, I played my part.”
Which might have been more convincing if it hadn’t been an utter lie. Serafina knew as well as he did that he would have torn apart the world to protect Lyra, even though he wasn’t sure where this sudden fatherly instinct had come from. And yet, he persisted.
“I was useful for a piece, but… I’m no use to you now.”
She laid a hand on his heart, though her expression held a certain amount of disbelief at his words. “You’re wrong. And it’s Lyra who will need you.”
“So this is still about fate.”
“Of course it is.”
“She needs me.”
Serafina met his gaze with empathy. “She needs all of us,” she said.
With that, Lee had already made up his mind. “Then I hope I’m strong enough.” He slid the revolver into the holster at his hip, and energy coursed through him. Well, he wouldn’t be able to visit Lyra after this, he had no idea where she was headed now, but he could assure her protection some way…
Serafina was watching him carefully. When he pointed this out, she only said, in an echo of a conversation from years ago when they’d first met, “In all the time I have lived, Mr. Scoresby, I must confess I have never met another man like yourself.”
The contexts might be vastly different, but he thought it was just as ridiculous a thing to say now as it was then. Sure, he might have made a choice not many others would have, but it seemed right to do so. Still, he couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that someone else in his position might not give his dominant arm to protect a wonderful child like Lyra. He did know a few people up North who looked out for themselves first, and found himself wondering if what Serafina had just said really made sense.
Anyway, he had a job to do. For once, since choosing to be an aeronaut, a job of his heart: to protect Lyra.
#lee scoresby#hester#serafina pekkala#hdm#hdm spoilers#sil's stories#hdm fic#sorry guys this isn't serafina/lee bc I don't ship them#but I do think they were friends in the show#before they spoke on the balloon in ep 6
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I shared about a few lovely / hard / needed books for Tarpaulin Sky Magazine’s "What I'm Reading" series.
Mini reviews of Syncope by Asiya Wadud (@uglyducklingpresse), Grief Sequences by Prageeta Sharma (Wave Books), 1919 by Eve Ewing (@haymarketbooks), Litany for the Long Moment by Mary-Kim Arnold (Essay Press), and Setting the Wire by Sarah Townsend (@letteredstreetspress).
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8 SPD Books Regarding Fragments
IN THIS MONTH'S SPD CLICKHOLE
By Lizzy Lemieux
Qualms from my most recent movie theater experience: I could hear the entire soundtrack to the Aretha Franklin movie next door, the snackbar did not sell snowcaps, and the ˜film˜ I was actually there to see was formulaic. Sometimes it feels like I'm watching the same story over and over. And over. And if they're recycling storylines, can't I just recycle my ticket and stop shelling out 12 dollars for each show?
Sometimes I just want a story that breaks the mold. Which conveniently brings us to this month's SPD handpicked theme: FRAGMENT. These 8 handpicked books beat up linear narrative and stuff it in the trunk. They abhor the teachers 'one person speaks at a time' rule. They spurn every plot-hole ridden time travel film. They tell stories in broken pieces. They raise their multiple voices until it's a cacophony sans a single narrator. The go back and forth in time without almost having sex with their mother and disappearing from family photos.
Moon: Letters, Maps, Poems (Tarpaulin Sky Press, 2018) begins with storytelling as it existed at its inception: as myth. Dedicated to "mythical women of [her] childhood". Jennifer S. Cheng writes, "In the story of the Lady in the Moon, there is only one ending: to live out her nights as a captive, over and over, as if some necessary penance, as if a sorrow to see a woman paper-thin against the lesser light." Cheng pushes this singularity into multiplicity, presenting all possibilities for the lady in the moon's departure from earth, exploring the question of feminine independence and love freed from "penance". "A woman is a builder...if the lady in the moon were to ask questions of construction, if she were to ask for tools and then drown the blueprint", muses Cheng. In many ways, Moon: Letters, Maps, Poems has drowned the blueprint for linear narrative, choosing instead to explore myths of fragment, told from multiple perspectives, and from multiple beginnings, middles, and ends.
Butcher Paper (Scablands Books, 2017), a graphic novel by Simeon Mills, tells the story of a father's endeavor to teach his teenage son to read, if only to prove his ex-wife that he is a capable caretaker. The larger, alcohol-tinged narrative gives way to bizarre fragments of school-supplied "readers" filled with animal-human hybrids and grotesque supernatural manifestations of masculinity, relationships and loss.
Sightings: Selected Works 2002-2005 (1913 Press, 2001) A collection of Chin Yu Pai's concrete poems on love hotels, gymnasiums, and food. Each poem reimagines concrete form, from eye tests, to playwriting, to nutritional facts on snack labels, fragmenting the idea of form. Line breaks create innuendo, sexuality and politics surfacing in the mundane details: hairpins are aligned with rubbers through branding, and a personified Wells Fargo converses with Sam Wong, although translation barrs true communication.
American Romances: Essays (City Lights Publishers, 2009) Irreverent nostalgia fuels Rebecca Browns essays, which use pop culture icons as trail markers while Brown traipses through American lineage, from Hawthorn and Puritanical Salem to Ellen as the girl next door ideal which Brown asserts is, and always has been, "a big old chummy dyke." Brown traces facets of modern culture back to their predecessors, revealing American strengths and flaws are not new but simply repackaged. "Witnessing" returns as as-seen-on-tv (and social media) oversharing returns as Brown's personal narrative in American Romances. It is a true romance for, as Brown writes, "Everytime you read a book you read what you desire".
ESL or You Weren't Here (Nightboat Books, 2017) frames Aldrin Valdez's story, of immigration from the Philippines to New York, in terms of language, weaving filipino and english together until their double meanings fractures cultural understanding. As Valdez writes, "And even if/ I didn't have polio/ my family in the Philippines/ still used the word/ to name/ my inability/ to walk or to walk without/ pain./ Just as we used/ Colgate/ to refer to any tube of toothpaste." Voices are split at the syllable, the page is re-oriented horizontally, turning over and over "forced migration", "vestiges of colonialism", sickness, death, and mourning.
What We Must Remember (Bamboo Ridge Press, 2017) is a Renshi, a form of Japanese linked poem, in remembrance of the rape of Thalia Massie and the subsequent charges brought against five Hawaiian men which lead to the kidnapping of Horace Ida and the murder of Joseph Kahahawai. In his introduction, John P Rosa writes, "And to remember is more than just to call to mind. It is to re-remember, to put pieces together in an attempt to make things whole." This renshi, a collaboration between four artists, Christy Passion, Ann Inoshita, Juliet S. Kono, and Jean Yamasaki Toyama, envisions 'pieces' in varying forms, including epistolary, persona, and dialogue poems, held together by "historical realities".
Flarf: An Anthology of Flarf (Edge Books, 2017) Google Search: What is Flarf? Result: “a kind of corrosive, cute, or cloying, awfulness. Wrong. Un-P.C. Out of control. ‘Not okay.’" Or: a form of protest poetry from post 9/11 America designed to force examinations of 'good taste' in art and politics. Search: What is Flarf: An Anthology of Flarf? Result: an inexplicable collection of 21st Century avant garde-poetry, which sourced material from the web during its "wild west" infancy. This dada-esque movement appropriates jargon readers might remember from 200's chain emails, chat rooms, and suggested searches, and collages digitally-sourced fragments to create comic, vulgar, and comically vulgar poems.
Concordance (Kelsey Street Press, 2016) Like much of Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge's work, Concordance began with a resonant image: a dandelion. This collaboration between Berssenbrugge, Kiki Smith, and Ann McKeown explores the transitory properties of nature and writing, as in "The way milkweed filling the space above a field is 'like' reading." For Mei-Mei, the writing process itself is fragmented. Working from "altered" and appropriated texts, she takes notes of resonant images encountered while reading, cuts out the notes, and rearranges the clippings until their proximity to each other forges new connections. She says: "Usually I consider all fragments the same as the whole, like holograms. But one day, looking at the horizon in Utah, I said: 'Where sky touches the ground is not the same as the whole.'"
This month’s #SPDhandpicked books are 20% off all month w/ code HANDPICKED!
#spdclickhole#clickhole#spdhandpicked#handpicked#Kelsey Street Press#Edge Books#Bamboo Ridge Press#Nightboat Books#City Lights Publishers#1913 Press#Scablands Books#Tarpaulin Sky Press
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