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| I want a god that stays dead, not plays dead; [solo] | |
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| Topic Started: Jun 26 2013, 10:04 PM (167 Views) | |
| Trevor Fitzroy | Jun 26 2013, 10:04 PM Post #1 |
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June 2nd, Evening From Mutant Town to Brooklyn and Back The rain beat steadily down in the warm air. Rain in a city was so much different than rain in the country. There were a number of ways to tell if it would rain in the country. The cows would sit down in anticipation of a storm. Leaves on a tree would turn completely over in the wind if a storm was on the horizon. Even birds and spiders would act differently if rain were coming. It was something you knew to watch for, just as you could tell it in your achey shoulder or tender joints. Little hints and clues that you looked for before the television or radio ever got turned on. In the city, it was a lot less easy to tell. One thing you have in the city that isn’t abundant in the country is smog. No one who lives in a city realizes how much the air is really affected by all these people and all these vehicles and all these factories. But, come into the depths of the city, go to a part of town – like Mutant Town – and your lungs will hate you for it. Even transplanted smokers could feel it, it was that obvious. And that smog too often glared down into the streets, obscuring the real sky, the real weather. It was much easier to follow the forecasts on the news than to rely on old wives tales and your own ‘feelings’. This was the twenty-first century, man. There’s no country around here. The first sign of rain you’ll get is the faint smell of it before the clouds break with their wet blanket and rain on your parade. Wet asphalt has a very particular smell. Not exactly acrid, no, but it wasn’t pleasant like the green grass sopping up the rain in the countryside. It was a messy scent. It implied ‘Hot’. In the city, the rain hit the blackness and then splattered about. A sort of steam – well, it was steam – rose from the drops as well, making the entire place look a bit like a world built atop a dormant volcano waiting to wake. Umbrellas came up and people generally tried to avoid the very edge of the sidewalk where divots in the pavement caused water to gather, form a puddle, and then happily splash any walker when a car drove quickly by. Trevor hated that. He had never been a farmer. He had never been much of a small town person. But even he had relatives that were and visiting them was like going to another world. The more time he spent in this world, the more he hungered for that one. But places, like people, change and what he returned to could never be the same – especially without his wife and child there to share it with. He walked in the rain, letting it pour down his face and over his body. He wore what he usually wore, sans raincoat, and walked down the dirty street with a wet and soggy cigarette hanging from his lip. It had never been lit – why would he bother when it would have wilted either way? This was a special day, of course. The anniversary of a birth that could never be celebrated by its bearer. It wasn’t unusual for Trevor to celebrate it in his own way, but it usually passed by with his being drunk and barely breathing in his bed, waiting for the hours to pass until the clock hit midnight and he could return to being the same silly Scot that everyone knew and loved. This time, he was trying it without the drinking. It wasn’t going so well. He had first thought that he might simply go out and have a walk, try and decide what to do with the rest of the day as it progressed. But the rain came without much warning and he simply had kept walking. When his legs felt tired, he teleported. He stayed in the darker parts of the City where buildings that had been old tenements crowded in on each other. The main streets were a bit away from where he sloshed and that was fine with him. He didn’t care to see anyone else. The day had moved on and it was heading into evening when Trevor found himself stepping out of a portal right at the center of the pedestrian walkway on the Brooklyn Bridge. He moved quickly to grab at the railing and his cigarette was torn from his lips as he faced a wind that he hadn’t counted on. It forced the hair out of his face, which was good, but pressed forth the drops of cold water against his eyes and skin. He felt a chill deep within and squeezed his eyes shut. Out there, the world had its troubles. People killing people. People killing mutants. Mutants killing mutants. War. Famine. Whatever you’d like, it was out there. There wasn’t any peace. Neither was there any in Trevor’s heart. The burden he carried was not much of a burden compared to most others he knew and possibly everyone he didn’t know. He could not complain. He had no right to. But as he tried to look out over the City, the only thing he could think of was the fact that he had been left alone when his family died. Left alone – and for what reason? He didn’t believe in god anymore. He couldn’t. But, then, he couldn’t believe in the devil, either. So all this destruction? The dead people piling up around New York; the threats; the worry; all of it… All of it would continue to be something he stood outside of and peered in, like an observer from afar. A bit of his heart faded away that night his wife and son died, permanently lost. His new friends had helped distract him from all of it, but there were certain days a year that would pull at that phantom part so he’d feel the pain and know there was nothing to do to fix it. That pain beat within him as the rain and wind continued to pelt him, constantly reminding him that he was alive. He didn’t want that reminder. It was night time and road conditions were bad. Now and then, a car would honk at him – he thought it was at him – but nothing more. Sure, he was an idiot for being out in this weather, but New Yorkers knew well enough to keep their noses out of other people’s problems. He wasn’t thinking much when he decided to do it. Wasn’t thinking about the cars speeding by or the rain. He was only wondering what it would have felt like to go with them – his family. To be gone. It really didn’t even feel like anything other than something natural when he climbed over the railing and jumped from the bridge. So natural to fly. Man was meant to fly once in his life, usually the soul departing the body. He’d fly at least twice. Time means nothing to the dying man, to the man who knows he’s going to die, the man who accepts that he is going to die and opens his arms to embrace it. It means absolutely nothing. He could see his past stretch out in front of him as if he were walking a path, viewing each scene as an observer – like he lived his life now – seeing things from outside himself. It felt like an eternity had passed when he finally saw his parents and then a bright green light appeared and enveloped him. Trevor had been waiting to feel the water against him, hard as ice, tough as a rock. He didn’t know how it would feel to be hurt in every single bone and nerve in your body, but he thought it would feel different than an old mattress. The bed crashed down under the force of the fall, the posts cracking and dropping the box spring and mattress to the floor. His face felt warm. His body was aching. He was wet all over. But, of course, he was alive. At the last moment – or maybe not the last moment, but last enough – his trusty portal had opened itself and saved him. No, it wasn’t another mind that saved him, it was his own. No matter how much he had wanted to see his family and to shed himself of this mortal coil, his subconscious wouldn’t allow it. He turned over tenderly, looking up at the ceiling, and then burst into tears. The next day, Trevor started drinking again. |
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8:55 AM Jul 11