FIC: Memento Mori
Fandom Life on Mars
Characters: Sam, Annie, Gene, and the TCG
Rating: PG-13ish
Word Count: 1,650
Warnings: Poetry, mild zombie related gore, character death (of sorts), poetry, and a few lines of Latin. Oh, and poetry.
Summary: A mysterious message appears on a blackboard, the dead rise from their graves, and Sam’s world is inexplicably rendered in verse.
Notes: For the Zombie Challenge at 1973flashfic. This is probably the strangest thing I’ve ever written.
There was a man, whose name was Sam
And he came from the land of What I Am
To the land of What I’ll Be
He loved the girls and he loved the boys
And he loved to play with all their toys
Running too fast, making too much noise
In the land of What Should Be
But Sam didn’t know - couldn’t know - wouldn’t know
Of things that were stirring deep down below
All ready to reap what he did sow
In the land of Feel To Be
Even here there are rules -
For kings, for fools
There are rules for here and there
There are rules for you and rules for he,
Rules in the sea of memory
Lost in a fall through the air
*
Sam instructed Ray to escort their prisoner back to his cell, fully aware that Ray would probably throw him in on his head and kick it in for good measure, and not caring in the slightest.
It had not been a good day.
He stood for a moment at the door to Lost and Found, rubbing his eyes with his fingertips, going over the crime scene in his mind’s eye, searching for whatever scrap of evidence they might have missed.
It was time to go bounce some ideas off Gene; hopefully, Gene’s earlier bad mood had dissipated enough that he wouldn’t try to bounce Sam off anything. He set out for Gene’s office.
Gene, however, was not in his office, and his current mood was entirely unreadable. He was staring at a blackboard that had been rolled out in front of the rows of desks. For a moment, it looked like Gene was in the midst of setting up a presentation on police methodology, contemplating the board with arms crossed, fag sticking out the corner of his mouth. Though if that was the case, then the day had taken a turn from bad to what was technically referred to as bizarro upside-down world.
Then he noticed what was written on the board.
“What’s this, then?” he asked, frowning at the words.
“Weren’t there a minute ago. Just appeared,” said Gene, pulling the cigarette from his lips and blowing smoke across the freshly laid chalk.
videris esse tu mortuus, at mortuus es non.
Si non mortuus es tu, nemo est. omnis vivent *
“What do you think it says?” Sam asked.
“Do I look like some noncy public school tosser? You’re the resident know-it-all. You tell us what it says.”
“No idea,” Sam snapped. “I’ve never studied L-”
Sam’s mouth was still open, but no words were coming out.
“Well, spit it out, Lucretia.”
Sam stopped, and stared, and stared some more
His heart froze cold with dread
For though he could not read the words,
He still knew what they said
What game was this? What sorcery?
What whispered in his head?
As apprehension dawned within
He turned his heel and fled
*
Annie nearly bumped into Sam in the hall - or rather, he nearly ran straight into her, without so much as an ‘excuse me.’
What had got into him this time?
She opened the door he had just flown out of like a bird escaping a cat, only to find the Guv standing there, hand reaching for the knob.
“Oh! Sorry, Sir. Didn’t know you were there.”
“Didn’t stop him, then,” he said, pulling his hand back and glaring at her, like it was her fault Sam had done something mental again.
“Should I have?” she asked, cautiously.
“Who can tell with him. God knows I never know what to do with the mouthy sod.”
“Did you, er, have a disagreement again, sir?” she asked, even more cautiously. Everyone in CID knew by now that it was best to stay out of the famous Tyler-Hunt squabbles, unless absolutely necessary.
“Didn’t even get started,” said the Guv. Abruptly, he turned and strode back across the room, leaving Annie scurrying in his wake. “One minute, we’re trying to work out what ponce left this bit of nob graffiti, next, he’s tearing out of here like his arse is on fire. He said he couldn’t even read the bloody thing!”
“Well,” said Annie, examining the message, “I think it says something about death.” She caught Gene’s eye and blushed. “It was - I mean - it’s been a while, sir. I don’t remember very much.” Then, “I remember that old poem better than any of the actual Latin.”
“Poem?” said Gene, stony-faced. Annie felt her blush deepening.
“You know. ‘Latin’s a dead language, dead as dead can be. First it killed the Romans, now it’s killing me.’”
“Don’t know about killing, but someone’s going to get a good kicking if I don’t work out what’s going on, right quick.”
“Er, I’ll just go after Sam, then, shall I? Maybe calm him down enough to tell us what spooked him?”
“Yeah, nice calming game of hide the gladius, I’ll wager,” he said, leering. “Tell him if he wants to be a real detective one day, he’d best stop being frightened by chalk.” His tone was light but beneath the glare he looked rather - he looked - worried. She was almost sure of it.
“Yes, sir,” she said, turning to leave. Then she paused. “Gladius, sir?”
“You and Tyler aren’t the only ones who know how to read around here, Flash-Knickers. Just don’t go spreading it about.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Guv.”
*
Out of the door and down the hall
Trip, push, and down the stairs
Dizzy and woozy and breathing hard
Filled up with fearful cares
He knew not where he was heading
Though it did pull and call
Like a voice in the darkness crying
‘Sam, help us! Help us all!”
The test card fiend appeared in flesh
Beside him on his way
She smiled a smile that locked his limbs
And only then did say:
solitarius es, tamen solitarius es non
perdebas tuos amicos, appariebas **
Her words were like a gushing wound
That blackened as it bled
For though he could not speak the words
He knew what she had said
Before he could say anything
She’d left without a sound
But she’d stopped him here with reason
He turned and looked around
For every headstone, every cross
His head did throb and ache
Every thought hurt him like a knife
For this was no mistake
And as the truth clawed into his eyes
The earth began to shake
*
Picking up Sam’s trail wasn’t too difficult, at first. He wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. It was all, “DI Tyler? Saw him running down the stairs not a moment ago,” and “Short-haired bloke? Quite the speed-demon?”
Then she found herself outside, blinking in the sunlight. Sam was nowhere to be seen.
“Bugger,” she said.
Something tugged her jacket, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Sorry, love,” she said, looking down at the small hand, and the small, blonde, red-clad little girl it was attached to. “I didn’t see you there. You haven’t seen a man run past here, have you?”
The girl grinned at her. For some reason, she had to stop herself from shuddering.
“I know where he said he’d be!” said the girl. “He’s going to the cemetery!”
A chill ran up her spine. “Thank you,” she said. It felt like a lie.
Annie could feel the girl smiling behind her, but she dared not turn back to check.
*
Two skeleton hands pulled at his feet
The first to rend the earth
Two bodies slithered from the mud
A parody of birth
Mr. and Mrs. Williams stood
Before him, rags and bones
While noise all ‘round him plagued his ears
Squelches and cracks and groans
“The life you live is not your own,”
Said a voice thick with decay
Sam Williams headed up the horde
Skin smooth but cold as clay
The smell lay dense in the rotten air
As dead men lumbered through
Mouths choking on maggots and dirt and slime
And dripping with grimy goo
Closer and closer, and all around
Staggering closer still
Reaching and grasping to slash and tear
He felt their frightful chill
Suddenly Annie tore through the mob
Yelling “Sam, is that you I see?
We’ve got to run or we’re surely done
So please, Sam, come with me!”
But it wasn’t he that reached the hand
With which he might not drown
He could only witness, horrified
As Sam Williams dragged her down
The crowd closed in, Sam’s knees gave out
He gave an anguished cry
As teeth sank in, nails scratched and clawed
And Sam lay down to die
*
“Oi! Dosy Dolores! Get up you lazy git.” He felt a jolt, as if the couch had just received a hard kick. “Does this look like a tart’s boudoir to you?”
“If you were a tart, Guv,” Sam observed, blinking blearily up at him, “you’d have tossed me out by my knackers before I even got my eyes closed.”
He sat up, stretched, and yawned - not necessarily in that order.
“On the job and all,” said Gene. “And you’re the one who’s always going on about ‘professionalism.’”
“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t sleep well.”
Sam stepped out of Gene’s office, heart still hammering like it wanted to be let outside. To his relief (stupid, really), the blackboard was nowhere in sight, and Annie was sitting at her desk poring over case files.
Hello, Annie,” he said, greeting her more warmly than the situation warranted, but resisting the impulse to hug her.
She returned his smile.
“I’m glad you’re up now, Sleepy-head
We’ll need your firm resolve
A family of three has turned up dead
And we’ve a case to solve!”
*
Here ends our story of Sam I am
And whether this tale be truth or sham
And whether he’s saved, or whether he’s damned
I shall leave it up to you.
Finis
Notes on the Latin: I attempted to write the messages in dactylic hexameter verse, though I’m not entirely sure I succeeded. It has, I admit, been about a year since I last took a Latin course, and it’s amazing how even after as many years as I’ve taken it (quite a few) I seem to immediately forget everything the second I stop taking classes on it. As such, feel free to offer corrections if you have any, on either the grammar or scansion. I will not be offended. :)
* You seem to be dead, but you are not dead. If you are not dead, no one is. Everyone will live. [Back]
** You are alone, nevertheless you are not alone. You are losing your friends, you are obtaining them. [Back]
Oh, and a gladius is a sword.
Characters: Sam, Annie, Gene, and the TCG
Rating: PG-13ish
Word Count: 1,650
Warnings: Poetry, mild zombie related gore, character death (of sorts), poetry, and a few lines of Latin. Oh, and poetry.
Summary: A mysterious message appears on a blackboard, the dead rise from their graves, and Sam’s world is inexplicably rendered in verse.
Notes: For the Zombie Challenge at 1973flashfic. This is probably the strangest thing I’ve ever written.
There was a man, whose name was Sam
And he came from the land of What I Am
To the land of What I’ll Be
He loved the girls and he loved the boys
And he loved to play with all their toys
Running too fast, making too much noise
In the land of What Should Be
But Sam didn’t know - couldn’t know - wouldn’t know
Of things that were stirring deep down below
All ready to reap what he did sow
In the land of Feel To Be
Even here there are rules -
For kings, for fools
There are rules for here and there
There are rules for you and rules for he,
Rules in the sea of memory
Lost in a fall through the air
*
Sam instructed Ray to escort their prisoner back to his cell, fully aware that Ray would probably throw him in on his head and kick it in for good measure, and not caring in the slightest.
It had not been a good day.
He stood for a moment at the door to Lost and Found, rubbing his eyes with his fingertips, going over the crime scene in his mind’s eye, searching for whatever scrap of evidence they might have missed.
It was time to go bounce some ideas off Gene; hopefully, Gene’s earlier bad mood had dissipated enough that he wouldn’t try to bounce Sam off anything. He set out for Gene’s office.
Gene, however, was not in his office, and his current mood was entirely unreadable. He was staring at a blackboard that had been rolled out in front of the rows of desks. For a moment, it looked like Gene was in the midst of setting up a presentation on police methodology, contemplating the board with arms crossed, fag sticking out the corner of his mouth. Though if that was the case, then the day had taken a turn from bad to what was technically referred to as bizarro upside-down world.
Then he noticed what was written on the board.
“What’s this, then?” he asked, frowning at the words.
“Weren’t there a minute ago. Just appeared,” said Gene, pulling the cigarette from his lips and blowing smoke across the freshly laid chalk.
videris esse tu mortuus, at mortuus es non.
Si non mortuus es tu, nemo est. omnis vivent *
“What do you think it says?” Sam asked.
“Do I look like some noncy public school tosser? You’re the resident know-it-all. You tell us what it says.”
“No idea,” Sam snapped. “I’ve never studied L-”
Sam’s mouth was still open, but no words were coming out.
“Well, spit it out, Lucretia.”
Sam stopped, and stared, and stared some more
His heart froze cold with dread
For though he could not read the words,
He still knew what they said
What game was this? What sorcery?
What whispered in his head?
As apprehension dawned within
He turned his heel and fled
*
Annie nearly bumped into Sam in the hall - or rather, he nearly ran straight into her, without so much as an ‘excuse me.’
What had got into him this time?
She opened the door he had just flown out of like a bird escaping a cat, only to find the Guv standing there, hand reaching for the knob.
“Oh! Sorry, Sir. Didn’t know you were there.”
“Didn’t stop him, then,” he said, pulling his hand back and glaring at her, like it was her fault Sam had done something mental again.
“Should I have?” she asked, cautiously.
“Who can tell with him. God knows I never know what to do with the mouthy sod.”
“Did you, er, have a disagreement again, sir?” she asked, even more cautiously. Everyone in CID knew by now that it was best to stay out of the famous Tyler-Hunt squabbles, unless absolutely necessary.
“Didn’t even get started,” said the Guv. Abruptly, he turned and strode back across the room, leaving Annie scurrying in his wake. “One minute, we’re trying to work out what ponce left this bit of nob graffiti, next, he’s tearing out of here like his arse is on fire. He said he couldn’t even read the bloody thing!”
“Well,” said Annie, examining the message, “I think it says something about death.” She caught Gene’s eye and blushed. “It was - I mean - it’s been a while, sir. I don’t remember very much.” Then, “I remember that old poem better than any of the actual Latin.”
“Poem?” said Gene, stony-faced. Annie felt her blush deepening.
“You know. ‘Latin’s a dead language, dead as dead can be. First it killed the Romans, now it’s killing me.’”
“Don’t know about killing, but someone’s going to get a good kicking if I don’t work out what’s going on, right quick.”
“Er, I’ll just go after Sam, then, shall I? Maybe calm him down enough to tell us what spooked him?”
“Yeah, nice calming game of hide the gladius, I’ll wager,” he said, leering. “Tell him if he wants to be a real detective one day, he’d best stop being frightened by chalk.” His tone was light but beneath the glare he looked rather - he looked - worried. She was almost sure of it.
“Yes, sir,” she said, turning to leave. Then she paused. “Gladius, sir?”
“You and Tyler aren’t the only ones who know how to read around here, Flash-Knickers. Just don’t go spreading it about.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it, Guv.”
*
Out of the door and down the hall
Trip, push, and down the stairs
Dizzy and woozy and breathing hard
Filled up with fearful cares
He knew not where he was heading
Though it did pull and call
Like a voice in the darkness crying
‘Sam, help us! Help us all!”
The test card fiend appeared in flesh
Beside him on his way
She smiled a smile that locked his limbs
And only then did say:
solitarius es, tamen solitarius es non
perdebas tuos amicos, appariebas **
Her words were like a gushing wound
That blackened as it bled
For though he could not speak the words
He knew what she had said
Before he could say anything
She’d left without a sound
But she’d stopped him here with reason
He turned and looked around
For every headstone, every cross
His head did throb and ache
Every thought hurt him like a knife
For this was no mistake
And as the truth clawed into his eyes
The earth began to shake
*
Picking up Sam’s trail wasn’t too difficult, at first. He wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. It was all, “DI Tyler? Saw him running down the stairs not a moment ago,” and “Short-haired bloke? Quite the speed-demon?”
Then she found herself outside, blinking in the sunlight. Sam was nowhere to be seen.
“Bugger,” she said.
Something tugged her jacket, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Sorry, love,” she said, looking down at the small hand, and the small, blonde, red-clad little girl it was attached to. “I didn’t see you there. You haven’t seen a man run past here, have you?”
The girl grinned at her. For some reason, she had to stop herself from shuddering.
“I know where he said he’d be!” said the girl. “He’s going to the cemetery!”
A chill ran up her spine. “Thank you,” she said. It felt like a lie.
Annie could feel the girl smiling behind her, but she dared not turn back to check.
*
Two skeleton hands pulled at his feet
The first to rend the earth
Two bodies slithered from the mud
A parody of birth
Mr. and Mrs. Williams stood
Before him, rags and bones
While noise all ‘round him plagued his ears
Squelches and cracks and groans
“The life you live is not your own,”
Said a voice thick with decay
Sam Williams headed up the horde
Skin smooth but cold as clay
The smell lay dense in the rotten air
As dead men lumbered through
Mouths choking on maggots and dirt and slime
And dripping with grimy goo
Closer and closer, and all around
Staggering closer still
Reaching and grasping to slash and tear
He felt their frightful chill
Suddenly Annie tore through the mob
Yelling “Sam, is that you I see?
We’ve got to run or we’re surely done
So please, Sam, come with me!”
But it wasn’t he that reached the hand
With which he might not drown
He could only witness, horrified
As Sam Williams dragged her down
The crowd closed in, Sam’s knees gave out
He gave an anguished cry
As teeth sank in, nails scratched and clawed
And Sam lay down to die
*
“Oi! Dosy Dolores! Get up you lazy git.” He felt a jolt, as if the couch had just received a hard kick. “Does this look like a tart’s boudoir to you?”
“If you were a tart, Guv,” Sam observed, blinking blearily up at him, “you’d have tossed me out by my knackers before I even got my eyes closed.”
He sat up, stretched, and yawned - not necessarily in that order.
“On the job and all,” said Gene. “And you’re the one who’s always going on about ‘professionalism.’”
“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t sleep well.”
Sam stepped out of Gene’s office, heart still hammering like it wanted to be let outside. To his relief (stupid, really), the blackboard was nowhere in sight, and Annie was sitting at her desk poring over case files.
Hello, Annie,” he said, greeting her more warmly than the situation warranted, but resisting the impulse to hug her.
She returned his smile.
“I’m glad you’re up now, Sleepy-head
We’ll need your firm resolve
A family of three has turned up dead
And we’ve a case to solve!”
*
Here ends our story of Sam I am
And whether this tale be truth or sham
And whether he’s saved, or whether he’s damned
I shall leave it up to you.
Finis
Notes on the Latin: I attempted to write the messages in dactylic hexameter verse, though I’m not entirely sure I succeeded. It has, I admit, been about a year since I last took a Latin course, and it’s amazing how even after as many years as I’ve taken it (quite a few) I seem to immediately forget everything the second I stop taking classes on it. As such, feel free to offer corrections if you have any, on either the grammar or scansion. I will not be offended. :)
* You seem to be dead, but you are not dead. If you are not dead, no one is. Everyone will live. [Back]
** You are alone, nevertheless you are not alone. You are losing your friends, you are obtaining them. [Back]
Oh, and a gladius is a sword.