Brigit's Flame -- "Craft"
Prompt: "craft"
Wordcount: 1,166
Warnings: some violence
Author's Note: Thank you so, so much to eltea for helping me brainstorm this one intensely (and for editing at a wretched hour!). This is going to be my last-ever brigits_flame entry, so thank you all for being so wonderfully supportive -- readers, editors, community mods, all the people on my F-list who put up with these. ♥
"CRAFT"
The world slips into dead, white silence but for the crumble of dust in the wake of his shallow breath.
The boy’s knees ache from crouching here, gazing unseeing at the sandbags layered aboveground, waiting as if for a sign, and the screams of the artillery and its targets ring in his ears. He splays his hand on the butt of his .30 M1 Carbine and tries to think of another craft that trades in destruction.
The exhaustion folds around him. He leans his forehead against the packed dirt of the wall and closes his itching eyes, only to open them again as he hears a rumbling. But this isn’t the swelling thunder of tanks; not the roar of jeeps’ engines as their tires churn the dust-the bottom of the pit around him has begun to collapse into itself. He scrambles back, pressing himself against the wall, but there’s nowhere to run.
In seconds, the whole structure drops away, and he tumbles down the foxhole.
-
Something smells overpoweringly sweet.
Groggily he sits up, scrubbing at his eyes, to find himself in the soft bed that inhabits this portion of the small, homely cottage.
He’s not alone.
A wizened old woman sings softly as she fills a tray with huge, flaky pastries fresh from the tremendous oven that dominates the space. Curling wisps of silver steam rise from the tray, and his mouth waters as the woman gathers herself creakily to her feet and totters towards him, blue eyes brighter compared to the faded red kerchief over her hair.
Smiling, she sets the tray in his lap, and he’s too hungry to ask questions-he smiles back to give his thanks and tears into the warm, buttery flesh of the first pastry he can grab, turning the flavors over and over on his tongue, then swallowing hastily to take another bite. He goes through two, through three-each one is better, is richer, is even more delectable than the last, and the pure delight is dizzying. He licks his fingers, closing his eyes to push the flavors to every corner of his mouth, and takes a fourth, a fifth; he loses count. Every bite makes him hungrier, but the pastries never seem to run out, and he could stay here, keep eating, keep filling and overfilling his clamoring belly, for the rest of his life.
The old woman smiles again, watching him, and her bright eyes gleam.
He drops the half-eaten pastry in his hands, and her smile disappears.
He scrambles out of the bed, stomach turning, legs weak, and the orange glow of the vast oven blurs at the corners of his eyes. She reaches for him, gnarled fingers clawing at his uniform, but he shoves her hard and runs-staggers out the door, races down the path, and dashes to the forest, leaving a little house with icing at the windowsills and a peppermint doorknob behind.
In the dappled half-light in the middle of the woods, his knees give way, and he retches and vomits and spirals back into sleep.
-
There’s a teacup in his hand.
The Hatter wears a musketeer’s hat with a cream-colored plume, and the stirring spoon rattles like machinegun fire at the uncontrollable trembling of his hand.
He laughs, nervously, and the March Hare’s ears twitch.
“We’re not mad,” he whispers. “It’s the world that’s mad. It’s the Queen that’s mad. It’s the orders we’re given, not the fact that we follow them.”
The boy shifts and reaches for the sugar dish.
“It’s salt,” the Hatter idly remarks.
The boy withdraws his hand and sips his tea, but it doesn’t taste right-not at all.
The Hare’s ears bat and swivel, and his whiskers flick.
“It’s coming,” he says. “I hear it now.”
The boy wants to ask What, but the dark red liquid in his teacup overflows.
-
The child is rubbing at his nose.
“What’s ‘real,’ anyway?” he asks.
The boy shrugs and then smoothes his uniform, feeling out of place. He wishes they’d told him that the party was black-tie; he would have gone home, risking his mother’s rages and his father’s silence, if it would have meant he had something formal to wear. He would at least have liked a chance to clean his battledress. He rubs furtively at a prominent stain, but it only seems to get bigger beneath his fingertips.
There’s a round man with a heavy face standing at the head of the stairs, conversing with a straight-backed, mustached colleague and another man with glasses, who sits. Their tense smiles draw new lines on aging faces, and they don’t seem to notice that there’s another stairway behind them, leading further up and back, red and white and black streamers drawn across.
On the floor below, men in tuxedos drift in clusters, marigolds in their buttonholes, and make jerky gestures with their flutes of champagne. Their eyes are glassy, and their laughter sounds like bullet casings raining to the ground.
The boy straightens his uniform and tries to stride with confidence. As he approaches the nearest group of men, black moth bowties wrapped around their throats, their movements intensify, and pearly champagne splatters on the marble floor. In moments, he’s close enough to see that they are made of wood.
He freezes, heart pounding under the hand he’s spread to hide the stain, but they’ve seen him-and, all together, in an instant, they topple lifeless to the floor.
He barrels for the door, but it seems to be shrinking, and cobweb threads in white and silver hiss outward and coil around him, constricting, until they hold him fast, his body going numb. When there are knotted strings around his wrists and ankles, someone starts to tug.
-
The Queen has cat’s eyes and a serpent’s smile.
They’ve stripped him of his uniform to sew a heart-shaped patch onto his arm.
She hands him an axe and points to a dozen cloth-bodied mannequins, the type he saw in shop windows as the cavalcade drew through the streets of Paris, but that these lie dully in a row on the ground.
He takes the weapon and goes over to obey. They all have red felt hearts on their stuffed biceps, hearts like his.
He raises the axe and brings the gleaming blade down on one neck, then another, and another-it cleaves through coarse fabric, and faceless heads roll everywhere.
When he’s finished, panting, leaning on the haft, their features begin to surface.
They have mouths first, then ears, then noses, then eyes.
The Queen laughs daintily, black hair twisting into strange and sharply-angled shapes, and as he clenches both hands around the handle of his axe, he sees that it’s a bayonet.
He buries it to the hilt in her empty chest.
-
He doesn’t wake to the distant roar of tank treads rolling. He won’t wake when they’re closer.
He sleeps with his rifle cradled in his arms as dust and gunsmoke whiten out the sky.
Wordcount: 1,166
Warnings: some violence
Author's Note: Thank you so, so much to eltea for helping me brainstorm this one intensely (and for editing at a wretched hour!). This is going to be my last-ever brigits_flame entry, so thank you all for being so wonderfully supportive -- readers, editors, community mods, all the people on my F-list who put up with these. ♥
"CRAFT"
The world slips into dead, white silence but for the crumble of dust in the wake of his shallow breath.
The boy’s knees ache from crouching here, gazing unseeing at the sandbags layered aboveground, waiting as if for a sign, and the screams of the artillery and its targets ring in his ears. He splays his hand on the butt of his .30 M1 Carbine and tries to think of another craft that trades in destruction.
The exhaustion folds around him. He leans his forehead against the packed dirt of the wall and closes his itching eyes, only to open them again as he hears a rumbling. But this isn’t the swelling thunder of tanks; not the roar of jeeps’ engines as their tires churn the dust-the bottom of the pit around him has begun to collapse into itself. He scrambles back, pressing himself against the wall, but there’s nowhere to run.
In seconds, the whole structure drops away, and he tumbles down the foxhole.
-
Something smells overpoweringly sweet.
Groggily he sits up, scrubbing at his eyes, to find himself in the soft bed that inhabits this portion of the small, homely cottage.
He’s not alone.
A wizened old woman sings softly as she fills a tray with huge, flaky pastries fresh from the tremendous oven that dominates the space. Curling wisps of silver steam rise from the tray, and his mouth waters as the woman gathers herself creakily to her feet and totters towards him, blue eyes brighter compared to the faded red kerchief over her hair.
Smiling, she sets the tray in his lap, and he’s too hungry to ask questions-he smiles back to give his thanks and tears into the warm, buttery flesh of the first pastry he can grab, turning the flavors over and over on his tongue, then swallowing hastily to take another bite. He goes through two, through three-each one is better, is richer, is even more delectable than the last, and the pure delight is dizzying. He licks his fingers, closing his eyes to push the flavors to every corner of his mouth, and takes a fourth, a fifth; he loses count. Every bite makes him hungrier, but the pastries never seem to run out, and he could stay here, keep eating, keep filling and overfilling his clamoring belly, for the rest of his life.
The old woman smiles again, watching him, and her bright eyes gleam.
He drops the half-eaten pastry in his hands, and her smile disappears.
He scrambles out of the bed, stomach turning, legs weak, and the orange glow of the vast oven blurs at the corners of his eyes. She reaches for him, gnarled fingers clawing at his uniform, but he shoves her hard and runs-staggers out the door, races down the path, and dashes to the forest, leaving a little house with icing at the windowsills and a peppermint doorknob behind.
In the dappled half-light in the middle of the woods, his knees give way, and he retches and vomits and spirals back into sleep.
-
There’s a teacup in his hand.
The Hatter wears a musketeer’s hat with a cream-colored plume, and the stirring spoon rattles like machinegun fire at the uncontrollable trembling of his hand.
He laughs, nervously, and the March Hare’s ears twitch.
“We’re not mad,” he whispers. “It’s the world that’s mad. It’s the Queen that’s mad. It’s the orders we’re given, not the fact that we follow them.”
The boy shifts and reaches for the sugar dish.
“It’s salt,” the Hatter idly remarks.
The boy withdraws his hand and sips his tea, but it doesn’t taste right-not at all.
The Hare’s ears bat and swivel, and his whiskers flick.
“It’s coming,” he says. “I hear it now.”
The boy wants to ask What, but the dark red liquid in his teacup overflows.
-
The child is rubbing at his nose.
“What’s ‘real,’ anyway?” he asks.
The boy shrugs and then smoothes his uniform, feeling out of place. He wishes they’d told him that the party was black-tie; he would have gone home, risking his mother’s rages and his father’s silence, if it would have meant he had something formal to wear. He would at least have liked a chance to clean his battledress. He rubs furtively at a prominent stain, but it only seems to get bigger beneath his fingertips.
There’s a round man with a heavy face standing at the head of the stairs, conversing with a straight-backed, mustached colleague and another man with glasses, who sits. Their tense smiles draw new lines on aging faces, and they don’t seem to notice that there’s another stairway behind them, leading further up and back, red and white and black streamers drawn across.
On the floor below, men in tuxedos drift in clusters, marigolds in their buttonholes, and make jerky gestures with their flutes of champagne. Their eyes are glassy, and their laughter sounds like bullet casings raining to the ground.
The boy straightens his uniform and tries to stride with confidence. As he approaches the nearest group of men, black moth bowties wrapped around their throats, their movements intensify, and pearly champagne splatters on the marble floor. In moments, he’s close enough to see that they are made of wood.
He freezes, heart pounding under the hand he’s spread to hide the stain, but they’ve seen him-and, all together, in an instant, they topple lifeless to the floor.
He barrels for the door, but it seems to be shrinking, and cobweb threads in white and silver hiss outward and coil around him, constricting, until they hold him fast, his body going numb. When there are knotted strings around his wrists and ankles, someone starts to tug.
-
The Queen has cat’s eyes and a serpent’s smile.
They’ve stripped him of his uniform to sew a heart-shaped patch onto his arm.
She hands him an axe and points to a dozen cloth-bodied mannequins, the type he saw in shop windows as the cavalcade drew through the streets of Paris, but that these lie dully in a row on the ground.
He takes the weapon and goes over to obey. They all have red felt hearts on their stuffed biceps, hearts like his.
He raises the axe and brings the gleaming blade down on one neck, then another, and another-it cleaves through coarse fabric, and faceless heads roll everywhere.
When he’s finished, panting, leaning on the haft, their features begin to surface.
They have mouths first, then ears, then noses, then eyes.
The Queen laughs daintily, black hair twisting into strange and sharply-angled shapes, and as he clenches both hands around the handle of his axe, he sees that it’s a bayonet.
He buries it to the hilt in her empty chest.
-
He doesn’t wake to the distant roar of tank treads rolling. He won’t wake when they’re closer.
He sleeps with his rifle cradled in his arms as dust and gunsmoke whiten out the sky.