Brigit's Flame -- "Eternal"
Prompt: "eternal"
Word Count: 574
Warnings: existentialism
Summary: Let's get this straight, shall we?
Author's Note: I am fond of this one. Brainstorming and beta thanks to eltea, which tellingly almost rhymes. Originally here.
ETERNAL
I’ll bet your job sucks.
I’ll bet you hate it sometimes, hate it so much you just want to damn it straight to hell and be done with it.
I sympathize. Though my job wouldn’t take too well to the damning bit.
If it’s any consolation, I’ve been doing mine twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, midnight to midnight, since pretty much the dawn of time.
None of this nine-to-five business. God.
On second thought, let’s not go into that.
It’s funny, how people perceive death. It’s my personal theory-and perhaps it is a little vain; but honestly, what’s deadlier than vanity?-that everyone has a slightly different conception of it. Of me. I like that idea. I like it more every time I think about it, which is really saying something after a while.
But there are a couple things we ought to clear up, here, wouldn’t you say?
First of all, I’m not the shadow that darts just out of view when you glance in the bathroom mirror in the dead of the night. That’s probably your hair. Or maybe you’ve got some dust in your eye. Or maybe your shower curtain’s right by the heating vent; hell if I know, but it’s not me. You think I have time to go around scaring people shitless like some kind of blue-collar creep? Think again.
There’s a corollary to that point-eerie shadow is out. So’s the airplane seat when the turbulence starts jiggling your internal organs, and you start gripping the armrests until your knuckles look like bone. Hand down the garbage disposal? Nope. Psycho serial killer chasing you down the block? Unlikely. Computer-generated dinosaurs? Come on, Spielberg.
Yeah, I know it’s Crichton’s fault originally, but… really?
The summary is, I’m none of that shit, or not very often. No, I’m your foot on the accelerator as you stifle another yawn. I’m the cigarette you slide out of the pack or the razor at your wrist. I’m two and a half inches of water and the clots in your capillaries. I’m the super-sized fries you dropped thirty cents on, because what’s thirty cents in the grand scheme of things?
Or if you’re a little girl somewhere in Africa where the sun sears down with a vengeance, I’m the distended belly that swells from your wasted body like a tumor, and you can look at me all day long as you savor the familiar taste of nothing but your own thin saliva.
I’ve always found it kind of amusing that people think of death like this card game-right? There’s you, hunkered down on your folding chair, and right across the table is Death. And you think that as long as you keep playing, as long as you keep bluffing and betting and stay in that game, eventually you’ll win somehow. You think you know the rules, know the table, know the limits of your opponent.
Let me tell you a little secret. Come in close, now; I’m only going to say this once.
I’m not sitting on the other side of that table. I’m not even dealing.
I’m the cards, cowboy. And when your hand comes up, baby, there ain’t nothin’ you can do to stop it.
I laugh every time I think about that, which is really saying something after a while.
I suppose that makes me just the littlest bit cynical, doesn’t it?
Must be this job.
Word Count: 574
Warnings: existentialism
Summary: Let's get this straight, shall we?
Author's Note: I am fond of this one. Brainstorming and beta thanks to eltea, which tellingly almost rhymes. Originally here.
ETERNAL
I’ll bet your job sucks.
I’ll bet you hate it sometimes, hate it so much you just want to damn it straight to hell and be done with it.
I sympathize. Though my job wouldn’t take too well to the damning bit.
If it’s any consolation, I’ve been doing mine twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, midnight to midnight, since pretty much the dawn of time.
None of this nine-to-five business. God.
On second thought, let’s not go into that.
It’s funny, how people perceive death. It’s my personal theory-and perhaps it is a little vain; but honestly, what’s deadlier than vanity?-that everyone has a slightly different conception of it. Of me. I like that idea. I like it more every time I think about it, which is really saying something after a while.
But there are a couple things we ought to clear up, here, wouldn’t you say?
First of all, I’m not the shadow that darts just out of view when you glance in the bathroom mirror in the dead of the night. That’s probably your hair. Or maybe you’ve got some dust in your eye. Or maybe your shower curtain’s right by the heating vent; hell if I know, but it’s not me. You think I have time to go around scaring people shitless like some kind of blue-collar creep? Think again.
There’s a corollary to that point-eerie shadow is out. So’s the airplane seat when the turbulence starts jiggling your internal organs, and you start gripping the armrests until your knuckles look like bone. Hand down the garbage disposal? Nope. Psycho serial killer chasing you down the block? Unlikely. Computer-generated dinosaurs? Come on, Spielberg.
Yeah, I know it’s Crichton’s fault originally, but… really?
The summary is, I’m none of that shit, or not very often. No, I’m your foot on the accelerator as you stifle another yawn. I’m the cigarette you slide out of the pack or the razor at your wrist. I’m two and a half inches of water and the clots in your capillaries. I’m the super-sized fries you dropped thirty cents on, because what’s thirty cents in the grand scheme of things?
Or if you’re a little girl somewhere in Africa where the sun sears down with a vengeance, I’m the distended belly that swells from your wasted body like a tumor, and you can look at me all day long as you savor the familiar taste of nothing but your own thin saliva.
I’ve always found it kind of amusing that people think of death like this card game-right? There’s you, hunkered down on your folding chair, and right across the table is Death. And you think that as long as you keep playing, as long as you keep bluffing and betting and stay in that game, eventually you’ll win somehow. You think you know the rules, know the table, know the limits of your opponent.
Let me tell you a little secret. Come in close, now; I’m only going to say this once.
I’m not sitting on the other side of that table. I’m not even dealing.
I’m the cards, cowboy. And when your hand comes up, baby, there ain’t nothin’ you can do to stop it.
I laugh every time I think about that, which is really saying something after a while.
I suppose that makes me just the littlest bit cynical, doesn’t it?
Must be this job.