(treat) A rose by any other name - for wojelah
Monday, 4 July 2011 12:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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junetideTitle: A rose by any other name
Gift for:wojelah
By: [anonymous]
Gift type: fiction, ~ 2400 words
Genre: modern, slightly supernatural
Rating: PG
Warnings: implied violence, weirdness
Summary: lost and traveling down a deserted road, a girl wanders with nothing but an old book and fragments of memory to try to piece together how she got there.
Giftcreator's notes: The prompt was: “Something that starts with a person walking down a road, carrying a book.” This story started out being one thing, and ended up something completely different… Everything in the story is implied, with an embarrassing use of wordplay and puns. The actual story is hidden in there, though, if you can tease out the meaning (I hope!).
She stared down at the leather-bound volume in her hands. It was getting heavy, and the sun was beating down relentlessly on her uncovered head. The road stretched, dusty and desolate, for miles in either direction. It’d probably been a good three hours since she’d had to ditch the car, and she’d been walking at a decent pace ever since. No one had passed her.
With a sigh she trudged onward - tired and thirsty, but resolute. She tried to remember what had brought her to this point. A glimmer of it came back to her – the heat was wrecking havoc with her memory. Something about a painting. And a crime. And… oh yes, that was how it had started. With that stupid creative writing class. With that journal.
The assignment had been simple. Write a story about an actual historical event, but put a twist on it. And she, of course, had decided to take it a step further. Her art background had combined with her creative writing to produce a decent replica of a 19th century journal, written by none other than Jack the Ripper. Imagine her surprise when she’d flunked the class. Not because the journal hadn’t been good, no, because it had been too good. They accused her of trying to pawn off an authentic historical artifact as her own work. Never mind why on earth someone would be daft enough to submit a priceless relic for a grade in a community college class. Apparently they thought she was that stupid. But a quick story about one too many drunken parties and finding the journal in her parent’s attic (in a box from her Great Aunt Helen’s estate, who lived in England most of her life) and they let her off with just a failing grade.
But Neil had gotten wind of it, and convinced her to try again. And she did, this time with a small painting that could have been by John Trumball. Neil had a friend who had a friend who had a friend that got them a sizeable amount of money after it was authenticated and sold at auction. A neat trick, since she’d painted it on a canvas bought at Hobby Lobby and paints she’d had from a high school art class.
And so they’d gone on. She should have stopped long ago, but it had been just harmless fun and games until now. Okay, maybe not harmless, though who is to say who or what was harmed by her… could you call them forgeries? It’s not as if she set out to make a forgery; she didn’t even try to make them authentic, and yet they were. Every test they put them through proved that they were authentic, even though she knew she’d created them the week before. From the ‘journal’ of Jack the Ripper she’d written in an old tattered journal with a cheap Bic pen as a creative writing exercise had been ‘authenticated’ as 19th century ink and paper to then the modern paints and canvases that experts swore were decades – even centuries – old. All fetched sizeable sums at auction, and even though she’d only received a portion, after all the middlemen had been paid, she was now set for life. At the young age of twenty-two. Set for life, and yet she kept making them. Letters, journals, paintings… it was difficult to keep them down to a level that was believable. How many long-lost treasures can you believe just ‘turn up’ in a year?
She tried to comfort herself that it hadn’t been within her control. The urge to write, to create, had been strong enough to call it a compulsion. Maybe she could have fought it. Maybe she couldn’t have. But she could have tried. And if she had, maybe Neil and Karen and Jeff wouldn’t be… dead. Wait, what? They were dead? She strained her memory, but it was hazy. The idea that they were dead hung in there, but there wasn’t anything to support it. They’d been having a dinner party. A small dinner party, just the four of them. And then something happened. Something bad. She tried to picture the scene, but ridiculously, an image of ninja penguins swam into view. Ninja penguins with very big, shiny… horses? No, that wasn’t the right word. Young horses. Young male horses…
Her train of thought was interrupted by the faint sound of a motor. In the distance she saw a dark sedan approaching fast, kicking up dust in its wake. She hesitated a moment, then threw herself in the shallow ditch along the side of the road, behind a small boulder, not really sure why she did it. They’d probably already seen her. The road was wide open with only a few large chunks of rocks and scrub trees lining the edges. Even so, it seemed imperative that she hide. She couldn’t explain it any more than she could the bad feeling she had about her friends.
Crouched behind the rock, sweat trickling down her back, she watched the sedan approach. It continued at a constant speed, not slowing at all as it passed her hiding place. She breathed a sigh of relief, then caught sight of the young punks in the front seat. They were familiar, and not in a good way. Greasy hair and black t-shirts with… were those faux tuxedo shirts? With red roses pined to them? No, not roses, red blooms. Growing red blooms. She shook her head. It made sense, if only she could remember. What had happened, how she had ended up on this road. She’d been fleeing something, that much she was sure of. And she was going somewhere. Somewhere that was at the end of this road. How did she know this road? She’d never been here before.
Long after the car had faded into the distance, she climbed back onto the road and continued her journey, her pace slightly slower than it had been before. There was more uncertainty in her steps now, less confidence in what her subconscious was telling her was the right thing to do.
It was very hot out here, and she did have a long way to go. She cursed herself for not being more prepared. Yes, she had hurried away from something, had to… steal a car? No, that wasn’t right. She’d been in a vehicle, yes, but not a car. And she hadn’t been driving. She’d called the car to come pick her up. And she’d left her purse and money behind because she’d been in a rush. Still, she could have done something to prepare herself for her trip down this road. Panic was no excuse for shoddy planning.
That rambling line of thought brought her up short for a moment, but the memory slipped away like a slime eel on a metal table. And just where had that stupid analogy come from? Her English teachers must be rolling their eyes in disgust at her right now. Or would be, if they knew. Next thing you know, she’d be writing a romance novel where the male lead whips out his screaming spice weasel to plunge into… no, no, she wasn’t even going to go there.
She stumbled onward, pushing herself until she could see the shimmering wreck of the car just past the two stone pillars that marked… what? They stood seven feet tall on either side of the road, and appeared to be completely plain. Not a mark on them. She cautiously approached, and stretched a hand out gingerly until it just broke the plane between them. Was that a slight tingling feeling, or was she imagining it? She took a deep breath and stepped through, and nothing happened. Nothing at all, except a weird feeling of having passed a test. Kind of like that thrill she got every time one of her creations had been authenticate. One little victory.
The car was about five feet away. It looked undamaged, but was steaming slightly from under the hood. She tentatively walked up to it.
Thank god for small favors, she thought as she got to the driver side door and found there was no blood, no bodies. There was a half-finished Big Gulp in the cup holder, and with a small shiver of distaste at sharing drink with a stranger, she downed the remaining sickly sweet soda. Cooties were a small price to pay to not die of dehydration. She searched the rest of the car but found nothing of interest, and turned to continue down the road, just as the car shimmered and disappeared in the heat of the day.
It took another three hours to get to the dilapidated cottage at the end of the road, and the sun was finally, mercifully, sinking below the horizon. The heat remained oppressive, though it was somewhat more bearable without the sun beating down. She’d give anything for that run-down cottage to have a clear, shimmering pool in the backyard, she thought. And as she thought it, she swore she saw a small flash of light come from the overgrown back garden. With a frown, she unlatched the side gate and threaded her way through the overgrown vines and skirted past rambling rosebushes that tried to snag her clothing until she got to the center of the yard where, sparkling in the rapidly-diminishing sunset, a pristine pool of water was nestled between a rhododendron and an old oak tree. It was just as she’d imagined it in her mind’s eye, with the exception of the small wood nymph that was perched on the edge of the water.
“Hello,” the nymph said brightly.
“Hello,” she responded cautiously. “May I ask…”
“You can ask anything you want, but you already know the answers,” the nymph said. “Or I wouldn’t know them. So it seems rather pointless, but go ahead.”
She thought about this for a moment. “So you’re just a figment of my imagination?”
The nymph nodded, swished her feet in the pool of water. “As is this pool, and the house, and the road. No, not the road. Well, sort of. The journey is real. The road is your imagining.”
“And the ninja penguins?” she asked.
“You got me. Maybe they were real, because you were dabbling in some ancient freaky magic. Maybe your brain is remembered incorrectly. Maybe they were just hoodlums, and there is no such thing as magic. Maybe, maybe, maybe.” The nymph giggled. “Maybe you can’t really remember anything about your life, after all.”
She thought about that for a moment, and panicked as she found her mind completely empty of memories. What was it she had been remembering on her trip down the road? Something had happened, something big and important. She had known it then. But now… nothing. Nothing but… “Did you say ninja penguins?”
“No, you did.”
“I did?”
“Well, technically we did, as I am you and you are me, so yes.” The nymph trailed a hand in the water, the ripples spreading out and forming pictures on the surface. The moon had risen and it looked giant and luminous in the water’s surface. The waves distorted it and twisted it into impossible shapes and images. A silver pendant. A candle. An old leather book.
A book. She’d had a book. She looked down at her hands, empty now. But she was sure there had been a book.
“I had a book,” she said, looking up at the nymph.
“So you do,” the nymph agreed.
She looked down, though she needn’t have bothered. The book was once again heavy in her hands. “And there was… “ She shook her head. “Something. I had something important. Shiny. Metal. Something…”
“Loud?” the nymph asked.
“Yes, loud. Shiny and silver and loud.” She nodded, though it didn’t make sense. It was like some demented riddle. What is shiny and silver and loud and oh so important that it was… life and death. It was life and death. And those two boys on the road. She’d seen them before, too. She’d hidden from them on the road. Uncomfortable and sticky and peering out from behind the sofa. Sofa?
“You don’t really want to remember. Let it go,” the nymph said. “Let it go and stay here.”
“Here? Why would I want to stay in a…” She turned to gesture at the shack with a hand, but found herself looking at a neat, clean cottage. Perfect and pristine. Cozy. A place she could stay and be happy. With a garden no longer overgrown, but well-tended and blooming in the moonlight.
“Your dream house?” the nymph suggested.
“Yes, my dream house.” She chewed on her lip. It was her dream house. Perfect in every way. “I’m dreaming. It’s not magic, just my subconscious. And this isn’t a book of magic, it’s…”
“It’s what?” the nymph asked.
“I don’t know. But it’s important.” She opened the pages, but there was nothing there. Faint scratches of ink hinted at something once written, but it was too faint and in a language she couldn’t decipher, anyway. It wasn’t something she was supposed to read. But it was something she was supposed to have.
“Well, why don’t you just set it down and have a dip in the pool?”
“No.”
“C’mon, you’re hot and you’re tired and your shoulder is killing you.”
“I… wait, why does my shoulder hurt?” She rubbed at it with her free hand.
“Probably from carrying that heavy book. Set it down, rest awhile,” the nymph coaxed.
“No,” she said firmly. “No.”
She transferred the book to the other arm and turned to walk out of the garden, back to the endless dusty road.
“Where are you going?” the nymph yelled after her.
“Back. Back down the road.”
“But it’s dark out,” the nymph whined, no longer sounding so friendly.
“The moonlight is enough,” she said, and walked out of the garden, stopping to latch the gate behind her.
Gift for:
wojelahBy: [anonymous]
Gift type: fiction, ~ 2400 words
Genre: modern, slightly supernatural
Rating: PG
Warnings: implied violence, weirdness
Summary: lost and traveling down a deserted road, a girl wanders with nothing but an old book and fragments of memory to try to piece together how she got there.
Giftcreator's notes: The prompt was: “Something that starts with a person walking down a road, carrying a book.” This story started out being one thing, and ended up something completely different… Everything in the story is implied, with an embarrassing use of wordplay and puns. The actual story is hidden in there, though, if you can tease out the meaning (I hope!).
She stared down at the leather-bound volume in her hands. It was getting heavy, and the sun was beating down relentlessly on her uncovered head. The road stretched, dusty and desolate, for miles in either direction. It’d probably been a good three hours since she’d had to ditch the car, and she’d been walking at a decent pace ever since. No one had passed her.
With a sigh she trudged onward - tired and thirsty, but resolute. She tried to remember what had brought her to this point. A glimmer of it came back to her – the heat was wrecking havoc with her memory. Something about a painting. And a crime. And… oh yes, that was how it had started. With that stupid creative writing class. With that journal.
The assignment had been simple. Write a story about an actual historical event, but put a twist on it. And she, of course, had decided to take it a step further. Her art background had combined with her creative writing to produce a decent replica of a 19th century journal, written by none other than Jack the Ripper. Imagine her surprise when she’d flunked the class. Not because the journal hadn’t been good, no, because it had been too good. They accused her of trying to pawn off an authentic historical artifact as her own work. Never mind why on earth someone would be daft enough to submit a priceless relic for a grade in a community college class. Apparently they thought she was that stupid. But a quick story about one too many drunken parties and finding the journal in her parent’s attic (in a box from her Great Aunt Helen’s estate, who lived in England most of her life) and they let her off with just a failing grade.
But Neil had gotten wind of it, and convinced her to try again. And she did, this time with a small painting that could have been by John Trumball. Neil had a friend who had a friend who had a friend that got them a sizeable amount of money after it was authenticated and sold at auction. A neat trick, since she’d painted it on a canvas bought at Hobby Lobby and paints she’d had from a high school art class.
And so they’d gone on. She should have stopped long ago, but it had been just harmless fun and games until now. Okay, maybe not harmless, though who is to say who or what was harmed by her… could you call them forgeries? It’s not as if she set out to make a forgery; she didn’t even try to make them authentic, and yet they were. Every test they put them through proved that they were authentic, even though she knew she’d created them the week before. From the ‘journal’ of Jack the Ripper she’d written in an old tattered journal with a cheap Bic pen as a creative writing exercise had been ‘authenticated’ as 19th century ink and paper to then the modern paints and canvases that experts swore were decades – even centuries – old. All fetched sizeable sums at auction, and even though she’d only received a portion, after all the middlemen had been paid, she was now set for life. At the young age of twenty-two. Set for life, and yet she kept making them. Letters, journals, paintings… it was difficult to keep them down to a level that was believable. How many long-lost treasures can you believe just ‘turn up’ in a year?
She tried to comfort herself that it hadn’t been within her control. The urge to write, to create, had been strong enough to call it a compulsion. Maybe she could have fought it. Maybe she couldn’t have. But she could have tried. And if she had, maybe Neil and Karen and Jeff wouldn’t be… dead. Wait, what? They were dead? She strained her memory, but it was hazy. The idea that they were dead hung in there, but there wasn’t anything to support it. They’d been having a dinner party. A small dinner party, just the four of them. And then something happened. Something bad. She tried to picture the scene, but ridiculously, an image of ninja penguins swam into view. Ninja penguins with very big, shiny… horses? No, that wasn’t the right word. Young horses. Young male horses…
Her train of thought was interrupted by the faint sound of a motor. In the distance she saw a dark sedan approaching fast, kicking up dust in its wake. She hesitated a moment, then threw herself in the shallow ditch along the side of the road, behind a small boulder, not really sure why she did it. They’d probably already seen her. The road was wide open with only a few large chunks of rocks and scrub trees lining the edges. Even so, it seemed imperative that she hide. She couldn’t explain it any more than she could the bad feeling she had about her friends.
Crouched behind the rock, sweat trickling down her back, she watched the sedan approach. It continued at a constant speed, not slowing at all as it passed her hiding place. She breathed a sigh of relief, then caught sight of the young punks in the front seat. They were familiar, and not in a good way. Greasy hair and black t-shirts with… were those faux tuxedo shirts? With red roses pined to them? No, not roses, red blooms. Growing red blooms. She shook her head. It made sense, if only she could remember. What had happened, how she had ended up on this road. She’d been fleeing something, that much she was sure of. And she was going somewhere. Somewhere that was at the end of this road. How did she know this road? She’d never been here before.
Long after the car had faded into the distance, she climbed back onto the road and continued her journey, her pace slightly slower than it had been before. There was more uncertainty in her steps now, less confidence in what her subconscious was telling her was the right thing to do.
It was very hot out here, and she did have a long way to go. She cursed herself for not being more prepared. Yes, she had hurried away from something, had to… steal a car? No, that wasn’t right. She’d been in a vehicle, yes, but not a car. And she hadn’t been driving. She’d called the car to come pick her up. And she’d left her purse and money behind because she’d been in a rush. Still, she could have done something to prepare herself for her trip down this road. Panic was no excuse for shoddy planning.
That rambling line of thought brought her up short for a moment, but the memory slipped away like a slime eel on a metal table. And just where had that stupid analogy come from? Her English teachers must be rolling their eyes in disgust at her right now. Or would be, if they knew. Next thing you know, she’d be writing a romance novel where the male lead whips out his screaming spice weasel to plunge into… no, no, she wasn’t even going to go there.
She stumbled onward, pushing herself until she could see the shimmering wreck of the car just past the two stone pillars that marked… what? They stood seven feet tall on either side of the road, and appeared to be completely plain. Not a mark on them. She cautiously approached, and stretched a hand out gingerly until it just broke the plane between them. Was that a slight tingling feeling, or was she imagining it? She took a deep breath and stepped through, and nothing happened. Nothing at all, except a weird feeling of having passed a test. Kind of like that thrill she got every time one of her creations had been authenticate. One little victory.
The car was about five feet away. It looked undamaged, but was steaming slightly from under the hood. She tentatively walked up to it.
Thank god for small favors, she thought as she got to the driver side door and found there was no blood, no bodies. There was a half-finished Big Gulp in the cup holder, and with a small shiver of distaste at sharing drink with a stranger, she downed the remaining sickly sweet soda. Cooties were a small price to pay to not die of dehydration. She searched the rest of the car but found nothing of interest, and turned to continue down the road, just as the car shimmered and disappeared in the heat of the day.
It took another three hours to get to the dilapidated cottage at the end of the road, and the sun was finally, mercifully, sinking below the horizon. The heat remained oppressive, though it was somewhat more bearable without the sun beating down. She’d give anything for that run-down cottage to have a clear, shimmering pool in the backyard, she thought. And as she thought it, she swore she saw a small flash of light come from the overgrown back garden. With a frown, she unlatched the side gate and threaded her way through the overgrown vines and skirted past rambling rosebushes that tried to snag her clothing until she got to the center of the yard where, sparkling in the rapidly-diminishing sunset, a pristine pool of water was nestled between a rhododendron and an old oak tree. It was just as she’d imagined it in her mind’s eye, with the exception of the small wood nymph that was perched on the edge of the water.
“Hello,” the nymph said brightly.
“Hello,” she responded cautiously. “May I ask…”
“You can ask anything you want, but you already know the answers,” the nymph said. “Or I wouldn’t know them. So it seems rather pointless, but go ahead.”
She thought about this for a moment. “So you’re just a figment of my imagination?”
The nymph nodded, swished her feet in the pool of water. “As is this pool, and the house, and the road. No, not the road. Well, sort of. The journey is real. The road is your imagining.”
“And the ninja penguins?” she asked.
“You got me. Maybe they were real, because you were dabbling in some ancient freaky magic. Maybe your brain is remembered incorrectly. Maybe they were just hoodlums, and there is no such thing as magic. Maybe, maybe, maybe.” The nymph giggled. “Maybe you can’t really remember anything about your life, after all.”
She thought about that for a moment, and panicked as she found her mind completely empty of memories. What was it she had been remembering on her trip down the road? Something had happened, something big and important. She had known it then. But now… nothing. Nothing but… “Did you say ninja penguins?”
“No, you did.”
“I did?”
“Well, technically we did, as I am you and you are me, so yes.” The nymph trailed a hand in the water, the ripples spreading out and forming pictures on the surface. The moon had risen and it looked giant and luminous in the water’s surface. The waves distorted it and twisted it into impossible shapes and images. A silver pendant. A candle. An old leather book.
A book. She’d had a book. She looked down at her hands, empty now. But she was sure there had been a book.
“I had a book,” she said, looking up at the nymph.
“So you do,” the nymph agreed.
She looked down, though she needn’t have bothered. The book was once again heavy in her hands. “And there was… “ She shook her head. “Something. I had something important. Shiny. Metal. Something…”
“Loud?” the nymph asked.
“Yes, loud. Shiny and silver and loud.” She nodded, though it didn’t make sense. It was like some demented riddle. What is shiny and silver and loud and oh so important that it was… life and death. It was life and death. And those two boys on the road. She’d seen them before, too. She’d hidden from them on the road. Uncomfortable and sticky and peering out from behind the sofa. Sofa?
“You don’t really want to remember. Let it go,” the nymph said. “Let it go and stay here.”
“Here? Why would I want to stay in a…” She turned to gesture at the shack with a hand, but found herself looking at a neat, clean cottage. Perfect and pristine. Cozy. A place she could stay and be happy. With a garden no longer overgrown, but well-tended and blooming in the moonlight.
“Your dream house?” the nymph suggested.
“Yes, my dream house.” She chewed on her lip. It was her dream house. Perfect in every way. “I’m dreaming. It’s not magic, just my subconscious. And this isn’t a book of magic, it’s…”
“It’s what?” the nymph asked.
“I don’t know. But it’s important.” She opened the pages, but there was nothing there. Faint scratches of ink hinted at something once written, but it was too faint and in a language she couldn’t decipher, anyway. It wasn’t something she was supposed to read. But it was something she was supposed to have.
“Well, why don’t you just set it down and have a dip in the pool?”
“No.”
“C’mon, you’re hot and you’re tired and your shoulder is killing you.”
“I… wait, why does my shoulder hurt?” She rubbed at it with her free hand.
“Probably from carrying that heavy book. Set it down, rest awhile,” the nymph coaxed.
“No,” she said firmly. “No.”
She transferred the book to the other arm and turned to walk out of the garden, back to the endless dusty road.
“Where are you going?” the nymph yelled after her.
“Back. Back down the road.”
“But it’s dark out,” the nymph whined, no longer sounding so friendly.
“The moonlight is enough,” she said, and walked out of the garden, stopping to latch the gate behind her.
no subject
Date: 2011-07-04 04:24 am (UTC)