[FIC] 1150 words of simple description [G; Daredevil]
So.
A minimum thousand words due, under deadline, about a character with whom my previous acquaintance may be represented by the existence of exactly two trade paperbacks (subject to availability in the local and not so local libraries, respectively), to be depicted in a scenario incompatible with my devising and set in a particular historical time period, of which the specified locale and situation are not ones I would ever choose to revisit, accompanied by details of a form of music I do not care to hear, on account that it is often infested by trite and repetitive verse, without refrain.
Exactly 100 words above. Parsing left as an exercise for the reader.
Let's try to get inside his head before we have it shat upon by pteranodons, shall we?
After a long day, Matt looks forward to his apartment. It's in a nice, quiet area in as good a neighbourhood as Hell's Kitchen ever gets.
It's not quite quiet enough for him, not with his super-senses.
But there are ways around that. He spent the first month after he bought it sleeping on Foggy's couch, while the contractors he'd hired ripped out the floors, ceiling, and walls, installing a thick layer of acoustic tiling and insulation on every surface before covering them again.
Triple-glazed windows help cut down sounds from outside. With white noisers scattered throughout, what remains on the inside is no more than a gentle background murmur.
There are potted plants scattered throughout. Boston ferns, peace lilies, bamboo palms; all chosen for their ability to freshen the air while removing pollutants from the surroundings. He'd rather breathe in their clean scents than those of trash, or smog, or any of the thousand other volatile chemicals that make up every lungful of city air.
While he's away, carbon filters further scrub the air. In an enclosed environment, the aroma of concentrated greenery can get more than a little overwhelming.
Also floating around his home in absentia is a housekeeping robot, purchased three years ago for $4000 at the Baxter Building gift shop, and a sum he considers well-spent.
It's a small robot and can't lift his furniture to get at dust bunnies, but it beats any cleaning service hands down. It never moves a single object, using only mini-vacuums to suck up dirt, and tiny scrubbers and dryers to take care of its pre-programmed list of washable items.
Matt usually heads straight for the bathroom once he gets home. There's nothing like a nice, relaxing shower, sometimes followed by a soak in the tub.
Even in the fashion capital of America, it was hard to find a proper brand of non-irritating, unscented personal hygiene products, but he finally settled on using Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser, dermatologist-recommended for sensitive skin, in lieu of shower gel. He goes through a bottle a week, the 600 mL size bought in batch lots straight from the manufacturer, shipped down from the factory in Ontario due to the favourable exchange rate. He follows it up with the accompanying moisturizer, plus the SPF 15 sunscreen, applied to any patch of skin that shows.
The sunscreen goes unused. It's nighttime, and he's spending the evening in.
In the centre of the sitting room is an extremely comfortable recliner. It was custom built to fit him many years ago. Surrounding it is one of the world's finest audiophile setups; a collection of amplifiers, tweeters, woofers, and subwoofers, all positioned into an irregular circle which Foggy has dubbed “Speaker-henge”.
Matt likes to listen to recordings. Not just music, but also plays, poetry, and other performances. He's got a large collection, some still on vinyl. Say what you want about digital fidelity, but sometimes, nothing beats the warmth and nostalgia of a crackly old record.
He makes himself a bowl of snack foods. All soft items, nothing crunchy to interfere with the sound.
He gets organic fruits and vegetables delivered daily, straight from the farms, picked at their peak and rushed into the city, guaranteed to be perfectly ripe and delicious, or your money back.
It's a horribly expensive service and Foggy, who keeps his accounts, occasionally complains.
“A dollar per tomato, Matt,” he'd said mournfully, contemplating the fruit in question as though it were Yorick. “And it's not even a large tomato.”
“They do taste better,” Matt had replied, munching contentedly. “Try one, you'll see.”
Foggy had shaken his head. “Too rich for my blood.” And he'd tossed the tomato over to Matt, who had caught and eaten it, still feeling the warmth of his friend's fingers upon its skin.
Foggy's responsible for his home office setup.
Most blind persons, even blind lawyers, would not have kept even a low-end braille embosser at home, due to the cost. His is a top of the line, state of the art model from Stark Industries, capable of dual-printing both as a laserjet and as an impact printer. It's surplus from the office, deducted once as a business expense, then the second time as a charitable donation.
He uses it to print out origami instructions, gathered from the internet.
Origami is his latest hobby. The easily “readable” diagrams, the myriad textures of the available papers, the sheer, tactile sensuality of the practice of folding them; all make for a thoroughly enjoyable pastime.
Diagrams are set down in a simple, visual language of solid, dotted, and dashed lines, occasionally punctuated by directive arrows, all of which translate beautifully into their embossed equivalents.
Matt can hold a half-completed piece in one hand and trail his fingers along the raised forms of each successive fold, following the difference in the intersections which represent the stages of a flattened model, feeling for the next step.
It's very Zen.
When he gets tired of folding, sometimes he reads.
Sometimes he reads from the internet, via a refreshable braille display which feeds his fingers classics from Project Gutenberg, or articles from the better organized and more accessible news sites. Science news he likes to have spoken to him. It takes longer, but he gets a kick out of having Stephen Hawking's synthesized voice read him the latest from Nature.
Sometimes he surfs for pictures. He has the latest prototype of an experimental device sitting on his desktop. It's made of blunt metal pins, set into a flexible rubber backing threaded with mesh, enabling it to raise and lower the pins to represent contours of light and shadow, or tint and hue. A further refinement warms and chills the pins to represent greater detail under his hands. He enjoys perusing the National Gallery, and other museum collections.
He still prefers physical books. One in particular is his favourite. It was a gift from Foggy.
It's a slim volume of poetry, illuminated in the manner of a medieval manuscript. It was made by an student at Empire State University, as an art project.
The letters are dark and slick, ink mixed with shellac to provide a hard, shiny contrast to the soft, slightly rough surface of the vellum. He can trace with his fingers the raised surfaces of the gilded ornaments on the capitals and borders; anodized aluminum foil rather than true gold, but still pleasantly cool to the touch. The accompanying illustrations were outlined in gesso and gouache and filled in with egg tempera, resulting in a cloisonée effect, flat areas of colour separated by contrasting borders standing out in relief.
Foggy had paid for a professional service to convert the text into Grade 2 Braille. The artist incorporated it into her work, glazed dots of dried glue providing an interlinear translation between the lettered rows.
Well, there's 1150 words of simple description. Next iteration: incorporating dialogue.
A minimum thousand words due, under deadline, about a character with whom my previous acquaintance may be represented by the existence of exactly two trade paperbacks (subject to availability in the local and not so local libraries, respectively), to be depicted in a scenario incompatible with my devising and set in a particular historical time period, of which the specified locale and situation are not ones I would ever choose to revisit, accompanied by details of a form of music I do not care to hear, on account that it is often infested by trite and repetitive verse, without refrain.
Exactly 100 words above. Parsing left as an exercise for the reader.
Let's try to get inside his head before we have it shat upon by pteranodons, shall we?
After a long day, Matt looks forward to his apartment. It's in a nice, quiet area in as good a neighbourhood as Hell's Kitchen ever gets.
It's not quite quiet enough for him, not with his super-senses.
But there are ways around that. He spent the first month after he bought it sleeping on Foggy's couch, while the contractors he'd hired ripped out the floors, ceiling, and walls, installing a thick layer of acoustic tiling and insulation on every surface before covering them again.
Triple-glazed windows help cut down sounds from outside. With white noisers scattered throughout, what remains on the inside is no more than a gentle background murmur.
There are potted plants scattered throughout. Boston ferns, peace lilies, bamboo palms; all chosen for their ability to freshen the air while removing pollutants from the surroundings. He'd rather breathe in their clean scents than those of trash, or smog, or any of the thousand other volatile chemicals that make up every lungful of city air.
While he's away, carbon filters further scrub the air. In an enclosed environment, the aroma of concentrated greenery can get more than a little overwhelming.
Also floating around his home in absentia is a housekeeping robot, purchased three years ago for $4000 at the Baxter Building gift shop, and a sum he considers well-spent.
It's a small robot and can't lift his furniture to get at dust bunnies, but it beats any cleaning service hands down. It never moves a single object, using only mini-vacuums to suck up dirt, and tiny scrubbers and dryers to take care of its pre-programmed list of washable items.
Matt usually heads straight for the bathroom once he gets home. There's nothing like a nice, relaxing shower, sometimes followed by a soak in the tub.
Even in the fashion capital of America, it was hard to find a proper brand of non-irritating, unscented personal hygiene products, but he finally settled on using Cetaphil Gentle Skin Cleanser, dermatologist-recommended for sensitive skin, in lieu of shower gel. He goes through a bottle a week, the 600 mL size bought in batch lots straight from the manufacturer, shipped down from the factory in Ontario due to the favourable exchange rate. He follows it up with the accompanying moisturizer, plus the SPF 15 sunscreen, applied to any patch of skin that shows.
The sunscreen goes unused. It's nighttime, and he's spending the evening in.
In the centre of the sitting room is an extremely comfortable recliner. It was custom built to fit him many years ago. Surrounding it is one of the world's finest audiophile setups; a collection of amplifiers, tweeters, woofers, and subwoofers, all positioned into an irregular circle which Foggy has dubbed “Speaker-henge”.
Matt likes to listen to recordings. Not just music, but also plays, poetry, and other performances. He's got a large collection, some still on vinyl. Say what you want about digital fidelity, but sometimes, nothing beats the warmth and nostalgia of a crackly old record.
He makes himself a bowl of snack foods. All soft items, nothing crunchy to interfere with the sound.
He gets organic fruits and vegetables delivered daily, straight from the farms, picked at their peak and rushed into the city, guaranteed to be perfectly ripe and delicious, or your money back.
It's a horribly expensive service and Foggy, who keeps his accounts, occasionally complains.
“A dollar per tomato, Matt,” he'd said mournfully, contemplating the fruit in question as though it were Yorick. “And it's not even a large tomato.”
“They do taste better,” Matt had replied, munching contentedly. “Try one, you'll see.”
Foggy had shaken his head. “Too rich for my blood.” And he'd tossed the tomato over to Matt, who had caught and eaten it, still feeling the warmth of his friend's fingers upon its skin.
Foggy's responsible for his home office setup.
Most blind persons, even blind lawyers, would not have kept even a low-end braille embosser at home, due to the cost. His is a top of the line, state of the art model from Stark Industries, capable of dual-printing both as a laserjet and as an impact printer. It's surplus from the office, deducted once as a business expense, then the second time as a charitable donation.
He uses it to print out origami instructions, gathered from the internet.
Origami is his latest hobby. The easily “readable” diagrams, the myriad textures of the available papers, the sheer, tactile sensuality of the practice of folding them; all make for a thoroughly enjoyable pastime.
Diagrams are set down in a simple, visual language of solid, dotted, and dashed lines, occasionally punctuated by directive arrows, all of which translate beautifully into their embossed equivalents.
Matt can hold a half-completed piece in one hand and trail his fingers along the raised forms of each successive fold, following the difference in the intersections which represent the stages of a flattened model, feeling for the next step.
It's very Zen.
When he gets tired of folding, sometimes he reads.
Sometimes he reads from the internet, via a refreshable braille display which feeds his fingers classics from Project Gutenberg, or articles from the better organized and more accessible news sites. Science news he likes to have spoken to him. It takes longer, but he gets a kick out of having Stephen Hawking's synthesized voice read him the latest from Nature.
Sometimes he surfs for pictures. He has the latest prototype of an experimental device sitting on his desktop. It's made of blunt metal pins, set into a flexible rubber backing threaded with mesh, enabling it to raise and lower the pins to represent contours of light and shadow, or tint and hue. A further refinement warms and chills the pins to represent greater detail under his hands. He enjoys perusing the National Gallery, and other museum collections.
He still prefers physical books. One in particular is his favourite. It was a gift from Foggy.
It's a slim volume of poetry, illuminated in the manner of a medieval manuscript. It was made by an student at Empire State University, as an art project.
The letters are dark and slick, ink mixed with shellac to provide a hard, shiny contrast to the soft, slightly rough surface of the vellum. He can trace with his fingers the raised surfaces of the gilded ornaments on the capitals and borders; anodized aluminum foil rather than true gold, but still pleasantly cool to the touch. The accompanying illustrations were outlined in gesso and gouache and filled in with egg tempera, resulting in a cloisonée effect, flat areas of colour separated by contrasting borders standing out in relief.
Foggy had paid for a professional service to convert the text into Grade 2 Braille. The artist incorporated it into her work, glazed dots of dried glue providing an interlinear translation between the lettered rows.
Well, there's 1150 words of simple description. Next iteration: incorporating dialogue.