Ficlet, GO
Untitled Drabble
Summary: Another very old GO drabble-thing. 1500 words. A viola, a newspaper, a fight, a little death.
Note: I re-read this and had only a vague idea of its purpose…anyway, I’m pretty sure it’s set in NY during some past war.
…
A bright noise filled the air, the reedy plaintive notes of an old familiar instrument.
"I hate the violin," Crowley said glumly, shoving his hands deeper into his coat pockets.
"Of course you do, dear," the angel beside him said absently, "And it's not a violin. It's a viola."
"Well I hate the viola too. And the rest--the entire family of stringed instruments, in fact. They're too--” He broke off and shot a look at the blonde figure beside him, but the angel hardly seemed to be paying him any attention.
"Hm?" The angel murmured absently. Crowley sighed and blew air through his lips.
"Doesn't matter," he said darkly. Aziraphale "mmm"-ed again.
And there was that damned violin--sorry, viola. And what an instrument it was, the kind of thing utterly unconceived of by God or demon. And in the end, wasn't that what bothered him the most? Its terrible sadness, and all its coarseness. Because he could hear all the things the humans couldn't hear, all the ragged edges around the pure sweetly swelling notes, like the first drying of petals curling inward, breaking and splintering yet, still, somehow, terribly tender.
Like this street. Filthy. Ugly. Full of rot and decay. The sort of things that caused the poets to open their mouths and say, "But--!" sharply and brightly into the cold bitter air. Only Crowley knew things about that word. Its wasn't in spite of the coarseness. That didn't make the strings on the man's viola sing. And it didn't make them break, in the cold, as he knew they would. As certainly, in the end, they all knew that they would.
"Aren't you tired of staring yet?" The demon nudged his companion out of whatever distant reverie he'd fallen into. Aziraphale started and Crowley followed his gaze, to the steps of a nearby building of some kind. Children stood there. Not crouching. Not staring with wide pitiable eyes. One of them was smoking a cigarette and they had the coarseness of the world already in their chapped hands and dried lips, and the pitiless-ness of their eyes.
"Why did you want to come here?" Crowley asked, "I can do my work alone."
"I thought it was time to see the world," the angel said mildly.
"Let's take a walk then," Crowley nudged the man-shaped blonde into an ambulatory mode and they moved down the street. Snow failed to fall from the sky. It was an overcast and cold day, but hardly Dickensian in its quality. No. The world would hardly oblige him that.
As they passed the man playing the viola all the strings inexplicably snapped.
*
"Why did you do that?" the angel asked him later. He took his hat off and hung it on the rack by the door, and Crowley shrugged.
"I don't know. It seemed like the thing to do at the time."
"And you didn't think about the fact that that poor man will have to buy new strings now? Do you think at all about the consequences of your actions?"
Crowley showed a row of uncharacteristically sharp teeth.
"Of course I do. And if a few broken strings are the worst of his worries then he's a lucky man."
"I suppose." The angel pulled his scarf off and shrugged out of his coat. "Are you going back out?"
"I do have to work," the demon said mildly. "Feel free to think of this as a sort of vacation, if you want."
The angel pursed his lips. "I don't think I'll be taking you up on that offer," he demurred. Crowley shrugged.
"Oh well. Worth a shot anyway. But I think you owe me a running start, at the very least."
"I suppose." The angel sank down on the edge of the bed. He turned his back to the demon and rummaged in the small carrying case he'd brought along, and after a moment withdraw an appropriately ancient book, complete with cracked leather binding and the sense that it might in fact disintegrate completely if Crowley, or for that matter anyone suitably unholy, looked at it directly.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked. The angel looked at him.
"About what?"
"That...thing. Is it even, you know, meant to be handled? It looks more like--"
"Like what?"
An idea. "I don't know. It looks like it's going to fall apart any minute now." Aziraphale looked at the book, then back up at him.
“Is that what you think?”
Crowley backed out of the room.
“I’m leaving. I’ll see you later.”
*
And some people died. Only it wasn’t his fault, he protested later, into Aziraphale’s look. Although it wasn’t the sort of look a person could really defend himself against.
person?
It was simply resignation. Or not. Perhaps it was something else. Expectation? No. But a combination of those things.
So he left. And stood outside the hotel on the stoop and ignored the people passing, their hard souls against the hard world. Tried to ignore them, anyway. Tried hard. After that he went and bought a newspaper.
That was how Aziraphale found him, sitting in a small disreputable restaurant drinking coffee and reading about the war.
“So, what happened, then, if it wasn’t your fault?”
“Nothing happened,” he said bitterly into his coffee. “There was a fight. I was…just there. That’s all.”
And the knife?
“And what about-”
“Nothing happened, already. I mean, they do it to themselves. Mostly. It’s just my job to…help.”
“Cause a little trouble?”
He looked up into a sort of smile, met the angel’s eyes, and averted his gaze.
“No,” he whispered.
“Crowley-”
“It can’t all be great things. Terrible things. Always the things people remember. Sometimes it just happens that way. I’ve seen it. You’ve seen it. Doesn’t take any special evil, anything bright and terrible. Just blood on the streets. You know. And in your clothes sometimes.”
“Crowley-”
He knew that he was rambling.
“It gets on…everything.”
“And what is your point?”
He folded the newspaper sharply an set it on the table. He stood up.
“Nothing. I have no point. There is no point.”
He left.
*
“Just a fight?”
“A brawl. A fight. He got stabbed.”
“Who?”
“Goggle-eyes-” He met the angel’s gaze and remembered that seeing an event was wholly different than hearing about it. And he hadn’t known their names but he knew who they were. In his own mind, who they were. They were people to him. Alive. And then, suddenly, not.
“There’s a war on, though. Shouldn’t you be, well,” the angel waved vaguely in the direction of the Atlantic, of which they were on the wrong side, “Wreaking some havoc abroad? Why are you here? Why are we here?”
“Because,” Crowley said, “It’s in the little things you find real evil. A man died today. Got…stabbed in the stomach. I saw it. And you know, worse things happen in war.”
The angel looked closely in his face. “Did it bother you?”
“Well. I knew him.”
“Did you?”
“For a few minutes.”
“Why are you here, Crowley?”
“Because evil comes in the small spaces, in the cracks in between. As much as it comes in greatness and horror, and all the hell on earth. You know? And that’s where they invent the new horrors, here, in the small places. That’s how it should be done. As minutiae.”
The angel was looking at him and for the first time Crowley saw a look in his eyes he’d never seen there before. Barely a glimmer, the way the first star shines on a very bright cold night. Betrayal. Almost.
“Angel, where did you think it came from?”
*
“I didn’t think about it at all.”
He found him on top of some old church looking very modern and very empty. But Crowley remembered the bombed-out cities he’d already seen and considered that this country knew little of the true nature of war. Only in distant places their youth were dying. But there would be no children wandering through the rubble. Not here, on these unassailable shores.
“What do you mean? How could you not think about it?”
“It’s a job. We do our jobs. I don’t need to know the whys and wherefores. It’s just how it is.”
“And you feel nothing?”
The angel looked at him, his face in stark relief against the winter blue sky. His hair did not shine. It was soft.
“I feel. I do. I have to. You can’t love and not feel.”
“And you do.”
The angel smiled. “People and lives. And-”
“Books.” In spite of himself Crowley smiled. “Things that break, and yet you keep trying to hold onto them.”
The angel looked at his feet. Far below the city moved. “I suppose so. What does that say about me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you hate them, Crowley?”
The demon didn’t answer. After a while he said,
“That’s a stupid question.”
_________________________
...but a bit of their love remains on them
like the primitive decorations on ancient urns
--Yehuda Amichai
_________________________
I was re-reading this and had no idea what it was about. All I could remember was that there was a viola in it.
Summary: Another very old GO drabble-thing. 1500 words. A viola, a newspaper, a fight, a little death.
Note: I re-read this and had only a vague idea of its purpose…anyway, I’m pretty sure it’s set in NY during some past war.
…
A bright noise filled the air, the reedy plaintive notes of an old familiar instrument.
"I hate the violin," Crowley said glumly, shoving his hands deeper into his coat pockets.
"Of course you do, dear," the angel beside him said absently, "And it's not a violin. It's a viola."
"Well I hate the viola too. And the rest--the entire family of stringed instruments, in fact. They're too--” He broke off and shot a look at the blonde figure beside him, but the angel hardly seemed to be paying him any attention.
"Hm?" The angel murmured absently. Crowley sighed and blew air through his lips.
"Doesn't matter," he said darkly. Aziraphale "mmm"-ed again.
And there was that damned violin--sorry, viola. And what an instrument it was, the kind of thing utterly unconceived of by God or demon. And in the end, wasn't that what bothered him the most? Its terrible sadness, and all its coarseness. Because he could hear all the things the humans couldn't hear, all the ragged edges around the pure sweetly swelling notes, like the first drying of petals curling inward, breaking and splintering yet, still, somehow, terribly tender.
Like this street. Filthy. Ugly. Full of rot and decay. The sort of things that caused the poets to open their mouths and say, "But--!" sharply and brightly into the cold bitter air. Only Crowley knew things about that word. Its wasn't in spite of the coarseness. That didn't make the strings on the man's viola sing. And it didn't make them break, in the cold, as he knew they would. As certainly, in the end, they all knew that they would.
"Aren't you tired of staring yet?" The demon nudged his companion out of whatever distant reverie he'd fallen into. Aziraphale started and Crowley followed his gaze, to the steps of a nearby building of some kind. Children stood there. Not crouching. Not staring with wide pitiable eyes. One of them was smoking a cigarette and they had the coarseness of the world already in their chapped hands and dried lips, and the pitiless-ness of their eyes.
"Why did you want to come here?" Crowley asked, "I can do my work alone."
"I thought it was time to see the world," the angel said mildly.
"Let's take a walk then," Crowley nudged the man-shaped blonde into an ambulatory mode and they moved down the street. Snow failed to fall from the sky. It was an overcast and cold day, but hardly Dickensian in its quality. No. The world would hardly oblige him that.
As they passed the man playing the viola all the strings inexplicably snapped.
*
"Why did you do that?" the angel asked him later. He took his hat off and hung it on the rack by the door, and Crowley shrugged.
"I don't know. It seemed like the thing to do at the time."
"And you didn't think about the fact that that poor man will have to buy new strings now? Do you think at all about the consequences of your actions?"
Crowley showed a row of uncharacteristically sharp teeth.
"Of course I do. And if a few broken strings are the worst of his worries then he's a lucky man."
"I suppose." The angel pulled his scarf off and shrugged out of his coat. "Are you going back out?"
"I do have to work," the demon said mildly. "Feel free to think of this as a sort of vacation, if you want."
The angel pursed his lips. "I don't think I'll be taking you up on that offer," he demurred. Crowley shrugged.
"Oh well. Worth a shot anyway. But I think you owe me a running start, at the very least."
"I suppose." The angel sank down on the edge of the bed. He turned his back to the demon and rummaged in the small carrying case he'd brought along, and after a moment withdraw an appropriately ancient book, complete with cracked leather binding and the sense that it might in fact disintegrate completely if Crowley, or for that matter anyone suitably unholy, looked at it directly.
"Are you sure about that?" he asked. The angel looked at him.
"About what?"
"That...thing. Is it even, you know, meant to be handled? It looks more like--"
"Like what?"
An idea. "I don't know. It looks like it's going to fall apart any minute now." Aziraphale looked at the book, then back up at him.
“Is that what you think?”
Crowley backed out of the room.
“I’m leaving. I’ll see you later.”
*
And some people died. Only it wasn’t his fault, he protested later, into Aziraphale’s look. Although it wasn’t the sort of look a person could really defend himself against.
person?
It was simply resignation. Or not. Perhaps it was something else. Expectation? No. But a combination of those things.
So he left. And stood outside the hotel on the stoop and ignored the people passing, their hard souls against the hard world. Tried to ignore them, anyway. Tried hard. After that he went and bought a newspaper.
That was how Aziraphale found him, sitting in a small disreputable restaurant drinking coffee and reading about the war.
“So, what happened, then, if it wasn’t your fault?”
“Nothing happened,” he said bitterly into his coffee. “There was a fight. I was…just there. That’s all.”
And the knife?
“And what about-”
“Nothing happened, already. I mean, they do it to themselves. Mostly. It’s just my job to…help.”
“Cause a little trouble?”
He looked up into a sort of smile, met the angel’s eyes, and averted his gaze.
“No,” he whispered.
“Crowley-”
“It can’t all be great things. Terrible things. Always the things people remember. Sometimes it just happens that way. I’ve seen it. You’ve seen it. Doesn’t take any special evil, anything bright and terrible. Just blood on the streets. You know. And in your clothes sometimes.”
“Crowley-”
He knew that he was rambling.
“It gets on…everything.”
“And what is your point?”
He folded the newspaper sharply an set it on the table. He stood up.
“Nothing. I have no point. There is no point.”
He left.
*
“Just a fight?”
“A brawl. A fight. He got stabbed.”
“Who?”
“Goggle-eyes-” He met the angel’s gaze and remembered that seeing an event was wholly different than hearing about it. And he hadn’t known their names but he knew who they were. In his own mind, who they were. They were people to him. Alive. And then, suddenly, not.
“There’s a war on, though. Shouldn’t you be, well,” the angel waved vaguely in the direction of the Atlantic, of which they were on the wrong side, “Wreaking some havoc abroad? Why are you here? Why are we here?”
“Because,” Crowley said, “It’s in the little things you find real evil. A man died today. Got…stabbed in the stomach. I saw it. And you know, worse things happen in war.”
The angel looked closely in his face. “Did it bother you?”
“Well. I knew him.”
“Did you?”
“For a few minutes.”
“Why are you here, Crowley?”
“Because evil comes in the small spaces, in the cracks in between. As much as it comes in greatness and horror, and all the hell on earth. You know? And that’s where they invent the new horrors, here, in the small places. That’s how it should be done. As minutiae.”
The angel was looking at him and for the first time Crowley saw a look in his eyes he’d never seen there before. Barely a glimmer, the way the first star shines on a very bright cold night. Betrayal. Almost.
“Angel, where did you think it came from?”
*
“I didn’t think about it at all.”
He found him on top of some old church looking very modern and very empty. But Crowley remembered the bombed-out cities he’d already seen and considered that this country knew little of the true nature of war. Only in distant places their youth were dying. But there would be no children wandering through the rubble. Not here, on these unassailable shores.
“What do you mean? How could you not think about it?”
“It’s a job. We do our jobs. I don’t need to know the whys and wherefores. It’s just how it is.”
“And you feel nothing?”
The angel looked at him, his face in stark relief against the winter blue sky. His hair did not shine. It was soft.
“I feel. I do. I have to. You can’t love and not feel.”
“And you do.”
The angel smiled. “People and lives. And-”
“Books.” In spite of himself Crowley smiled. “Things that break, and yet you keep trying to hold onto them.”
The angel looked at his feet. Far below the city moved. “I suppose so. What does that say about me?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you hate them, Crowley?”
The demon didn’t answer. After a while he said,
“That’s a stupid question.”
_________________________
...but a bit of their love remains on them
like the primitive decorations on ancient urns
--Yehuda Amichai
_________________________
I was re-reading this and had no idea what it was about. All I could remember was that there was a viola in it.