(no subject)
Who: Ash and Pukamon
When: April 25th 2011, dawn (EST)
Where: A friend's apartment, Winter Garden, Florida
What: Two Australians in Florida remember.
Notes: One F-bomb. "Advance Australia Fair" by Peter Dodds McCormick; "In Flanders Fields" by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae; the "Ode of Remembrance" from Laurence Binyon's "For the Fallen"; "Waltzing Matilda" by Banjo Paterson.
Being scheduled to work the day after a twenty-two hour journey had whacked Ash's internal clock into Eastern Standard Time far quicker than he had expected. His jetlag had been awful when he'd first come to Florida; he'd expected the same would happen again, especially without the extra day to try and recover from it. He was grateful for it, as not only did it mean he hadn't racked up any late points this year (yet) even with all the opening shifts that had been thrown at him, but it also meant he was able to wake up before dawn on April 25th, though he was careful not to wake his temporary flatmate. The guy was letting him stay with him rent free (though Ash insisted on chipping in for food and gas); waking him up early would be a dick move.
Pukamon had been set up in a bed originally bought for an ex-girlfriend's cat, but he wasn't there when Ash checked, and his small blanket had been neatly tucked back into place.
Ash found him on the balcony fence. Early spring in Winter Garden was warm enough at dawn for him to join him outside in his sweatpants and sleeping T-shirt.
"Morning," Ash said.
"Hey," Pukamon greeted him. "Collingwood beat Essendon by five."
With last night's closing shift, Ash hadn't been able to catch the traditional Anzac Day AFL match, but Pukamon had stayed up streaming it.
"Fuck Collingwood," Ash said. It was a bit early for him to put any heart into it, but Collingwood's humiliating his team in last year's final was, even this year, enough to make him really swear instead of replacing it with a certain cartoon mouse.
"Yeah," agreed Pukamon.
They watched a neighbor getting in her car for a moment in companiable silence.
"Must have been cold at St. Kilda's dawn parade," Ash remarked.
"Yeah," Pukamon agreed.
"It feels weird."
The neighbor backed into a bush.
"Get into Look," Pukamon said suddenly, drifting up to Ash's eyeline.
"What?"
"Get into Look," Pukamon repeated. "Not your costume, just, Look gear, I know you packed it."
"Why?"
"We're having our own service. Look, it's not the gun salutes and the bagpipes that matter, it's the thought. And we were at Disney Land on Australia Day..."
Ash raised an eyebrow. While he had carted Pukamon along to the odd service over the years (if he had to get up that early and suffer the bagpipes, so did his partner damnit), he hadn't thought of Pukamon as particularly patriotic for Australia, especially after his blog posts about missing the digital world.
"Why do you care?"
"Because Australia might as well be my home too," Pukamon said, eyes blazing (and all these years Ash had thought that phrase was just a stupid cliche), "and if you're going to keep me from fighting, we should honor those who do fight."
He could tell by now that Pukamon had been trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. The digimon had mostly succeeded, but not quite.
"I'm sorry," Ash said, voice low.
"Get changed," Pukamon said, glaring, "and bring that spare poppy."
Ash had brought only the more casual side of Disney Look, the company's exacting standards for business wear, but he pinned a poppy to his breast anyway, and, in a stroke of genius, pinned the spare poppy for Pukamon on a spare tie.
He returned to the balcony to find Pukamon fiddling on his iPod. As he fastened the tie around Pukamon's neck, he had a peek at what his partner was looking up.
"You really listen at those services," Ash commented, impressed.
"Not much else to do," Pukamon shrugged.
They faced the rising sun.
"Australians all let us rejoice..." Pukamon began, slightly out of key.
"For we are young and free," Ash joined in, and they finished the first verse of the Australian national anthem together.
"I don't know the second verse," Ash admitted.
"Neither. So, um..."
Pukamon cleared his throat and held up his iPod for cue cards.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
They were silent for a moment, before Ash recited the only poem he knew by heart.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
"We will remember them," Pukamon repeated.
Neither of the pair were religious enough to feel comfortable making any prayers as was usually done at their service, and they didn't have a wreath, so Ash moved onto the next thing.
"A minute of silence."
They stood, Pukamon remembering the he had come to the real world with who hadn't made it through Vamdemon's attack on Luna Park, Ash contemplating the relatives he had never known: His great-grandfather on his mother's side, who had returned to Australia wounded; his great uncle on his father's, who had been wounded on home soil at Darwin; his great uncle on his mother's side who had been killed in Borneo. He couldn't, wouldn't let Pukamon go the same way. Both their thoughts turned eventually to the year's disasters: The Queensland floods, the Christchurch earthquake, Japan's earthquake and tsunami. They had given weekends to help out while others were doing more; in the first couple of weeks after Japan's earthquake, Ash's host mother had only taken breaks from her work when she was told to.
Pukamon glanced down at his iPod to check the time. Finding a minute had passed, he broke the silence: "Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong."
"That's not Anzac-y!" Ash protested.
"Under the shade of a coolibah tree! It's Australian! They died so we'd keep having fun."
Ash eyed him for a moment, then joined in.
[BLOG]
My temporary flatmate has introduced us to Peeps. Americans, your candy is weird. So weird that even Pukamon doesn't particularly like them, and he loves candy. Why do they keep their shapes in the microwave?
(OOC: I'm switching the way I put in Ash's vocab differences. So there aren't separate sections for English and Japanese, what is displayed is what the Japanese would translate into; if something is underlined, what he would actually write in English will appear when you mouse over it. Let me know if this doesn't work in your browser, or even if you think this is dumb and you think my old method of splitting a bracketed note in text was better.)
When: April 25th 2011, dawn (EST)
Where: A friend's apartment, Winter Garden, Florida
What: Two Australians in Florida remember.
Notes: One F-bomb. "Advance Australia Fair" by Peter Dodds McCormick; "In Flanders Fields" by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae; the "Ode of Remembrance" from Laurence Binyon's "For the Fallen"; "Waltzing Matilda" by Banjo Paterson.
Being scheduled to work the day after a twenty-two hour journey had whacked Ash's internal clock into Eastern Standard Time far quicker than he had expected. His jetlag had been awful when he'd first come to Florida; he'd expected the same would happen again, especially without the extra day to try and recover from it. He was grateful for it, as not only did it mean he hadn't racked up any late points this year (yet) even with all the opening shifts that had been thrown at him, but it also meant he was able to wake up before dawn on April 25th, though he was careful not to wake his temporary flatmate. The guy was letting him stay with him rent free (though Ash insisted on chipping in for food and gas); waking him up early would be a dick move.
Pukamon had been set up in a bed originally bought for an ex-girlfriend's cat, but he wasn't there when Ash checked, and his small blanket had been neatly tucked back into place.
Ash found him on the balcony fence. Early spring in Winter Garden was warm enough at dawn for him to join him outside in his sweatpants and sleeping T-shirt.
"Morning," Ash said.
"Hey," Pukamon greeted him. "Collingwood beat Essendon by five."
With last night's closing shift, Ash hadn't been able to catch the traditional Anzac Day AFL match, but Pukamon had stayed up streaming it.
"Fuck Collingwood," Ash said. It was a bit early for him to put any heart into it, but Collingwood's humiliating his team in last year's final was, even this year, enough to make him really swear instead of replacing it with a certain cartoon mouse.
"Yeah," agreed Pukamon.
They watched a neighbor getting in her car for a moment in companiable silence.
"Must have been cold at St. Kilda's dawn parade," Ash remarked.
"Yeah," Pukamon agreed.
"It feels weird."
The neighbor backed into a bush.
"Get into Look," Pukamon said suddenly, drifting up to Ash's eyeline.
"What?"
"Get into Look," Pukamon repeated. "Not your costume, just, Look gear, I know you packed it."
"Why?"
"We're having our own service. Look, it's not the gun salutes and the bagpipes that matter, it's the thought. And we were at Disney Land on Australia Day..."
Ash raised an eyebrow. While he had carted Pukamon along to the odd service over the years (if he had to get up that early and suffer the bagpipes, so did his partner damnit), he hadn't thought of Pukamon as particularly patriotic for Australia, especially after his blog posts about missing the digital world.
"Why do you care?"
"Because Australia might as well be my home too," Pukamon said, eyes blazing (and all these years Ash had thought that phrase was just a stupid cliche), "and if you're going to keep me from fighting, we should honor those who do fight."
He could tell by now that Pukamon had been trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. The digimon had mostly succeeded, but not quite.
"I'm sorry," Ash said, voice low.
"Get changed," Pukamon said, glaring, "and bring that spare poppy."
Ash had brought only the more casual side of Disney Look, the company's exacting standards for business wear, but he pinned a poppy to his breast anyway, and, in a stroke of genius, pinned the spare poppy for Pukamon on a spare tie.
He returned to the balcony to find Pukamon fiddling on his iPod. As he fastened the tie around Pukamon's neck, he had a peek at what his partner was looking up.
"You really listen at those services," Ash commented, impressed.
"Not much else to do," Pukamon shrugged.
They faced the rising sun.
"Australians all let us rejoice..." Pukamon began, slightly out of key.
"For we are young and free," Ash joined in, and they finished the first verse of the Australian national anthem together.
"I don't know the second verse," Ash admitted.
"Neither. So, um..."
Pukamon cleared his throat and held up his iPod for cue cards.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
They were silent for a moment, before Ash recited the only poem he knew by heart.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
"We will remember them," Pukamon repeated.
Neither of the pair were religious enough to feel comfortable making any prayers as was usually done at their service, and they didn't have a wreath, so Ash moved onto the next thing.
"A minute of silence."
They stood, Pukamon remembering the he had come to the real world with who hadn't made it through Vamdemon's attack on Luna Park, Ash contemplating the relatives he had never known: His great-grandfather on his mother's side, who had returned to Australia wounded; his great uncle on his father's, who had been wounded on home soil at Darwin; his great uncle on his mother's side who had been killed in Borneo. He couldn't, wouldn't let Pukamon go the same way. Both their thoughts turned eventually to the year's disasters: The Queensland floods, the Christchurch earthquake, Japan's earthquake and tsunami. They had given weekends to help out while others were doing more; in the first couple of weeks after Japan's earthquake, Ash's host mother had only taken breaks from her work when she was told to.
Pukamon glanced down at his iPod to check the time. Finding a minute had passed, he broke the silence: "Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong."
"That's not Anzac-y!" Ash protested.
"Under the shade of a coolibah tree! It's Australian! They died so we'd keep having fun."
Ash eyed him for a moment, then joined in.
[BLOG]
My temporary flatmate has introduced us to Peeps. Americans, your candy is weird. So weird that even Pukamon doesn't particularly like them, and he loves candy. Why do they keep their shapes in the microwave?
(OOC: I'm switching the way I put in Ash's vocab differences. So there aren't separate sections for English and Japanese, what is displayed is what the Japanese would translate into; if something is underlined, what he would actually write in English will appear when you mouse over it. Let me know if this doesn't work in your browser, or even if you think this is dumb and you think my old method of splitting a bracketed note in text was better.)