Fic: Glass of Water
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clocketpatch
Here's my contribution to the ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif){kind=small}
eleven_romana ficathon.
It will probably be up on the teaspoon at some point as well, but for now it's here.
Title: Glass of Water
Word Count: 2223
Warnings: None
Title inspired by the song Glass of Water
***
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who lived in a big, empty house.
She wasn’t always alone; she had many aunts and uncles and cousins who would look in on her. Sometimes they would take her out on trips, or read her stories, or scold her when she did something wrong. But she didn’t have any parents.
She didn’t even know what parents were. And she felt alone, even when she wasn’t. Sometimes, she felt so lonely; it was like the entire universe had ceased to be and her along with it.
The house she lived in wasn’t “her house”. It wasn’t anyone’s house. It was filled with mazing corridors and doors you only saw from the corner of your eye. It was a very clean house. All of the dust and cobwebs were regularly swept away, but the little girl never saw who did the sweeping. That house consumed all of the various little left-behinds that came with a home; the clutter, the mess, the mug left out on the counter overnight. It was a very cold house and very dark.
The little girl wasn’t afraid of darkness and she wasn’t afraid of ghosts. She knew that the spooky noises she sometimes heard at night came from the house’s old wooden beams and steel struts settling, from the floorboards swelling and shrinking. She knew it was all down to shifts in temperature and humidity. If she had the right instruments she could probably predict every creak and moan. She believed in science and math and exact certainties. She knew the difference between voices and the wind.
The little girl was very rarely afraid.
But, one day, there was a crack in her bedroom wall and that scared her, because it wasn’t scientific and it was wrong. She could feel that it was wrong and she didn’t know why.
Like any good girl, she told her aunts and uncles and cousins about the crack. They examined it and came away very concerned. The crack was plastered over. The little girl’s room was bricked closed. The little girl was sent away and her memories were edited so that she would not remember the ghastly thing which had grown and grinned on the wall above her bed.
*
One upon a time, there was a little girl. She was newly eight, but she wasn’t happy. She hadn’t received any toys for her birthday; no party, no candy, no cake. Instead, she’d been sent away to school. And, before school, to The Test.
The girl lay on her new bed. She buried her face into the crisp, white sheets, trying to escape the stink of incense that still clung to her skin and hair. She closed her eyes tight and tried not to think about The Test and what they’d made her look at. She could only remember bits and snatches, but she remembered the fire and it hurt.
Her room was very small and very white. There was a bed and small table, and a glass of water on that table in case she was thirsty. There was tap in case she was thirstier still.
It wouldn’t be permanent. She’d be gone from here before the morning, before the end of the next hour, probably.
There were cameras in the ceiling and one-way glass on the walls. The girl knew that she was being observed. Her cousins and uncles and aunts were trying to see if she was worthy of being taught. She tried to be strong for them. She unburied her head and sat strong and straight on the edge of her bed. Her dark, long hair fell across the back of her white robe. The robe she’d been given after she’d climbed out of the initiate’s pool. She’d dived in hoping it would drown away the ash and the incense and the burning. Her hair was still damp but the smell wouldn’t leave.
The girl told herself that she was not afraid, but she was. She felt like there was another presence watching her. She thought she could hear someone laughing. She did not bunch her sheet between her small fists, though she wanted to, because that would be the wrong reaction and her audience beyond the one-way glass would judge.
They already judged, she thought, because she had tried to hide, because she had buried her face like a child. She uncurled herself and sat as still as she dared on the edge of her bed. She would be strong and good and proper.
She saw it in her mind first. It burned in the fire. Then it burned over her bed and the light seared the too small, too white room. The water in the glass did not ripple. The air did not move.
The girl knew that she was not alone. She knew that she was being watched by so, so many people through the cameras and the one-way glass. She knew that those people wanted only the best for her (she had potential, they said). She knew that they would not let her come to harm.
But she felt alone and exposed. The room dimmed. The electric lights went out, but the burning light spilling from the crack prevented the room from going dark. There was a smell, stronger than the lingering incense, of burning wires and distant storms. Thunder fractured reality.
The little girl screamed.
When she opened her eyes again, the room was normal, the crack was gone, and there was a man crumpled on the white tiled floor beside her bed. He wore funny brown trousers and a funny brown jacket, and he had a funny red sash tied in a bow around his neck. The little girl had never seen anyone dressed like him.
The man groaned and sat up. His funny clothing was all ripped and charred from the light. His face was smudged with ash. He looked very surprised.
“What are you doing in my room?” the little girl asked.
“Good question,” the man said. He wriggled his fingers and examined the leather patches covering the elbows of his funny jacket. He ruffled his hair and touched his nose and his ears. “Everything seems to be intact at least,” he said. “I escaped, again, I am good. I think.”
He looked at the little girl, quite intently. “I am good aren’t I?” he asked.
“Who are you?” the little girl asked.
“Who am I?” the man asked. He jumped to his feet abruptly. “Why, I am –” He stopped mid-sentence and did a half turn on his toe. He bent over so that he stared directly into the girl’s eyes and their noses were almost touching.
“Who are you?” he asked. Then he jerked backwards with a cough and kept coughing. He held his chest tight with both arms and wheezed.
The girl took advantage of the distraction and scurried backward across the sheets, away from the strange man. She stopped in the middle because, much as she wanted to get away, she didn’t want to go too close to the wall either, even if it was smooth and plain now; she didn’t trust it.
“This is my room!” she said.
The man held up one finger and grabbed the glass of water from the table. He downed it in a gulp. Then he filled it from the tap and drank again, slower. He set the glass down half-full. It went click against the too-white table top.
“No it isn’t,” the man said, looking at the water in the half-empty glass. He spoke very matter-of-factly. “Clean white walls and clean white sheets, cameras and one-way glass – this is no one’s room. Certainly not a nice little girl’s room. There’s no closet with clothes for tomorrow. There’s no calendar. There’s no toys. No colouring books. No reading books either. This is a ward or a cell. Which is it? A prison; or a recovery room? Somewhere they put people to observe them anyway. Like fish in a bowl.”
“I’m not a prisoner!” the little girl said.
“No.” The man half-smiled. “I don’t think you are. And I highly doubt you’re at all aquatic, but it does beg the question…” He tapped one of the high-up cameras. He wasn’t especially tall, but his arms were long and gangly. So were his legs. He looked funny, standing all splayed like that. He tapped the camera and he tapped the one-way glass. “I don’t think anyone’s watching you either,” he said. “It’s all gone kaput.”
The little girl tucked her knees up to her chin. “So I’m all alone.”
“No,” said the man. “I’m here. At least, I think I’m here. I’m reasonably sure you’re here too. It’s all a bit confused though and I’m not entirely sure why I’m here or how. Not complaining though. Not for one second. Though, you know, I did really like this jacket and now look at it!” He poked a finger through a hole in his sleeve and wriggled it. “This is the second one I’ve lost! Or maybe it’s the third. I’m not completely sure.”
He pulled out his finger and sighed. He gave the little girl a very serious look. He scooted up onto the bed beside her.
“You’re alone and you’re afraid,” he said. “You’re eight years old and they’ve just made you look into eternity and it hurts.”
“Does it stop?” the little girl asked.
“Hurting?” said the man. He seemed to ponder that for a moment. “Some people try to make it stop. They make everything numb and they never feel or think or dream again. It becomes a thick callus on their souls, but underneath it goes on hurting, hidden and ignored. That’s life for you, it doesn’t stop no matter how much you ignore it, it’s the one game you can’t sit out, and the universe is always going to be out there, well, until it isn’t… but it’s best to embrace it in the meantime. You never know when it’s going to end and you don’t want to be caught with your pants on your head… though, that would be rather a way to go…”
The little girl hugged her knees tighter. “I don’t want to.”
“Go with your pants on your head? No, I agree, that would be stupid.”
The man paused.
“It’s okay to be afraid,” he said softly. “It’s better to be afraid than to be numb. Right now I’m terrified, completely petrified, but that’s okay. That’s just a part of it.” He put a hand on the girl’s shoulder.
“I’m not afraid,” the little girl said defiantly. “Not of you.”
“I should hope not!” the man said. He laughed and the girl laughed too. She wasn’t sure what was funny, but it was. It was the first time she’d laughed in a long time and the man told her that the smile looked good on her serious little face. That she should smile more. Then, as fast as a film flips between frames, he was serious again.
“It never stops,” he said. “But you will go out into the universe and you will live in it. You will breathe the free air and you will fight so that others can breathe it with you.”
“All I saw was fire,” the girl said.
“And that too,” the man said. He looked sad. He looked old. The little girl had never seen anyone look like that before. He looked tired, like he could sleep and never wake up.
“I don’t want to die,” the girl said.
The man looked away from her. He looked off into far away. He was getting a bit faint at the edges. He didn’t have a shadow. The girl wondered why she hadn’t noticed that before.
“Maybe you won’t have to,” the man said. “The universe is rewriting itself. Maybe this can be rewritten too.”
The faintness spread until he was finely transparent all the way through. Then he turned to look at her at her for the last time. The girl could tell that he was speaking loud and clear, but his voice came through as a whisper, crackling at the edges with years and seconds and eons running backwards:
“Think about life. Remember your life and know that it was good. Live in the sun and live in the dark. Run across the sky and dance on the head of a pin. Know that you were the best you could be. Know that you were the best of them all.”
And, as he said it, she did remember things: laughter, a long scarf, a fractured key, fire, trees covered in pale pink blossoms, another hand in hers, a blue box and a starry sky.
“Who are you?” she asked.
He was very faint then. Barely an outline in the air. The scent of the storm was fading.
“I’m the days that might’ve been,” the man said.
Then he was gone.
*
Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She went to school and graduated first in her class. She got a decent city job. She sat at a desk. She stared at a screen. She grew up.
Until one day she started to feel herself going numb.
So she stole a magic box and ran away.
She lived.
fin
Seize one moment by ~Clocketpatch on deviantART
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My.
Word.
Because Romanadvoratrelundar can never die, not really... and Time can be rewritten, and rebels can rise from the ashes, and life, always, will out.
This is beautiful. I adore it more than you can imagine.
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