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Friday, September 15, 2006
07:40 
Weird dreams
 A rather less prosaic post than usual, largely because I have to get to work and I haven't sorted out my lunch yet.
Had some odd dreams last night. I had an abortive personal tutorial with the Hollow Man, which was not good, especially as this means I have to go back and finish it and frankly I'd rather... I'd rather...
It's a bit like playing with a Chinese puzzle box in a room full of Cenobites. The part of your head that still has some sense remaining knows that it's a such a stupid, dangerous thing to do it's all you can manage not to scream out loud at your own fuckheadedness.
I'm not going to go into why the lesson was aborted.
Then I had a weird dream in which I turned on the computer and fired up LJ to find a post from Flagg saying that he had received 4000 emails in response to his post about letting him know if one is serious about wanting to send him something to cheer him up, and he was absolutely overwhelmed and touched by how many people out there were expressing care for him. There was a response from Thudthwacker along the lines of observing that it was hardly surprising, and I wish I could remember exactly what he said. It was all vivid enough that I was somewhat surprised not to read something of that ilk when I came over this morning.
After that was another odd dream in which I was driving somewhere with Mum and Dad and we passed a bunch of people in suits near a cemetery and they had massive skips in which they were burning. I stopped the car, even though it was the weekend and I didn't have my warrant card on me. Mum and Dad told me not to interfere, were quite irritated/concerned, but I went over there anyway, trying to work out whether dead bodies were classified as commercial waste and deciding you probably need a PPC licence for a crematorium (I know you need something like that for pet crematoria, not sure how human crematoria work). It was white smoke, so not a massive environmental risk, but the skips were large and they were all on fire. I spoke to a man and explained for whom I worked and that it was the weekend so I didn't have my card on me, but what he was doing was an offence and he really should put it out before someone came along and got official on him.
He was very nice. I think he was one of the members of Rotary Club.
There was also a dream about doing a coast-to-coast ride and being late so I arrived after nearly everyone else had already left for home. Fixed Wheelnut was there and a couple of other C+ types and they said they didn't think I was taking part because they hadn't heard from me in such a long time.
I need more sleep. I also need not to consume quite so many dairy products in one day. Bad diet days (that's diet as in stuff I can and can't eat, not I-want-to-lose-weight) always give me weird, stretchy dreams that are as vivid as work but aren't proper work at all.
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Wednesday, September 13, 2006
15:43
Lesson No. 1
 The Hollow Man rolls over onto his side, shadows forming like architecture in the cavity beneath his ribcage. His eyes glimmer like nocturnal predators in the shade of his hat. The rumpled raincoat slips off his hip behind him, revealing the loose waistband of his trousers and his navel-less belly. His feet are bare and almost yellowish, the toenails cracked and blackened, the toes filthy.
"Do I call you a good dog?" he inquires mildly.
Carrion lies on her back, staring at the orange sky, trying not to think about the tightness around her throat. She distracts herself by burrowing her awareness into the perpetual motion of the worms in the soil beneath her, feeling their incessant movement changing the form of the earth. It is like standing in the surf at the beach and feeling the sand being sucked out from beneath her feet, but if she concentrates on it, loses herself in it, it is all around her. She can feel it nibbling at the edges of her own form.
"Forgot to bring in the address. Didn't get it in the post. It's all ready to go, though. And I got my passport application in."
"That's a start, at least," the Hollow Man replies. "All fired up and raring to go, are we?" He runs one grave-thin finger down the centre of her torso, enjoying the way her outer shell quivers and ripples in response.
"Is that a euphemism?" Carrion asks him with tired sarcasm. "It'll take two weeks. Two whole fucking whole fucking weeks. At least."
"What will?"
"My passport!"
Some way distant the Jackal glances back to make sure she is okay. He and the Hollow Man are not the best of friends, although jealousy has nothing to do with it. They simply have never quite clicked. He knows that there are some perversions he just cannot provide his partner, and the Hollow Man is only too willing to step in and fill the breach, as it were. Now the Jackal is doing whatever it is that the Jackal does when he doesn't want to get too close but doesn't want to be too far, either. Just in case she needs him.
"That's hardly any time at all. For the next week you'll be more concerned with getting out from under the feet of the bags of meat and blood who ostensibly gave birth to you..."
"That's enough, Rupert!" she interrupts, scolding crossly.
"... then it's only another week after that. You'll still be working out whether you like the en suite shower or the one in the main bathroom best." His bony index finger traces a pattern over her solar plexus. He can feel the shift in her come alive in response, setting her flesh into that state of aching tension and barely-contained potential that he finds so delicious. She tries to shake off his influence, but he is an old friend and she doesn't want to hurt him so uses no more force than she would to brush a butterfly from her hand. As a result her efforts have no effect and so she lies there, unable to move, pinned by his simple desire.
"You'll have to let me know which one meets your preference," he murmurs in her ear.
He teases a single black tendril from her shell and provokes it into wrapping around his finger. It slithers upwards, exploring the digit like bindweed round a rose stem before moving on to taste the rest of his hand.
"Did you talk to him?" he asks her. He leans his face down and the tendril seems attracted by the movement. It quests upwards, drawn to the proximity of his features. Carrion is now exceedingly uncomfortable but still cannot move without exerting more force than her instincts tell her is reasonable; without the potential for a major diplomatic incident.
"I tried."
"And?"
"Oh, that went swimmingly." The sudden, sharp retort had stabbed into her with all the subtlety of a rusty nail. She had pulled back, retreating like a snail with poked eyes. Every single time she allows herself to be talked into talking, to be induced into sharing what she thinks she needs, what she feels, it is the same. They prod and poke her into revealing what she desires to reveal but does not want to, and invariably she is met with the same whip of backlash that causes her to retreat even further into her shell.
Scratches in the sand
They are all she should allow herself, no matter what anyone says. Good old reliable scratches in the sand. They never work, never get the message across, are never effective, but at least they make it seem to her that she's making some attempt to say something, and they can't upset anyone because no one understands them.
"Why do they always give guns to the stupid guys?" the Hollow Man murmurs rhetorically, letting the black tendril explore his thin lips. She cannot look. She could not look even if it were possible for her to move.
"Don't," she whispers, almost painfully. The tightness around her neck is almost choking. Slick tentacles reach out from the ground, wrapping through the D rings of her collar.
Stupid. So stupid. Merge with the earth and the earth merges with you. You let it into the ground, you stupid bitch. You know what happens in form slip. Now what are you going to do?
More tendrils emerge from the soil like newly-bursting shoots, wrapping around her arms. She wonders why the Jackal doesn't rush to her aid, why he's not there to save her.
"It's not his job to save you from yourself," the Hollow Man tells her. He has a single black feather in his hand. He draws patterns with it across the outer layer of skin that forms her glossy black shell. She tries to snatch it back.
"I don't think so," says the Hollow Man as the coils of black pull her arm firmly down and hold it there. "Finders keepers. I like my little memento."
"How are you doing this?" The collar is held so tightly against the ground that her eyes are thudding with the beat of her own heart and her voice box has been filled with sand.
"What has the how got to do with anything?" he asks her, surprised. "I know shifters. I know how they taste. I know how they work. I know what they like. I know what they need." He leans over her, eyes burning blood-red in the skull-deep sockets of his face.
"I think the question you should be asking is 'why?'"
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09:02
Vignette
 "Aw hell, Mac. Who done shot the bird, eh? Ye know that only makes her mad."
"Christ, Jackal, she just exploded outta there! Never seen anythin' like it. The noise... no human being should make a noise like that. Dmitri spooked, squeezed off a couple. She broke him. She just fucking broke him. We should get a disposal crew in here and rip her into so many tiny pieces it don't matter if she's a self-catalyst."
"What's first action on, bud?"
"But... She..."
"What's first action on?"
"Don't be a threat."
"Whose fault is this?"
"Dmitri's."
"Whose fault is this?"
"I... Mine, Jackal. It's my fault."
"That's right, Mac. They're your crew. If they're too squirrelly to be trusted to do as they're fucking told they got no business playin' around with the heavy weaponry an' you got no business lettin' them."
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Sunday, September 10, 2006
19:22
I have a dream
The dream is called Ravenbait's Home For The Old And Cranky. This will be a rest home for Gimps who have lived too long and seen too much for their gaze to be able to focus on the Real World [TM] in front of them and whose only goal in life is to be able to sit in the company of friends. These are the sort of friends who don't mind if someone is curmudgeonly and surly; chooses to spend hours in a corner with an MP3 player sitting on single-track repeat; or wishes to talk incessantly yet with aching hesitation about Shit No One Else Gets. This is a place where the Golden Rule of Don't Shoot The Messenger is framed and up on the wall; where the people don't need to be told whether someone is aching for physical contact or will be caused pain by it; where no one will contradict anyone's assertions regarding the terms of his contract but can nevertheless offer an alternate perspective where such a thing will be constructive.
In Ravenbait's Home For The Old And Cranky the drinks are free and the bar staff are all Collared and working out their retirement — a Gimp never stops work, just tapers down, for they are the professional athletes of non-con: eventually stopping the competitions but never really quitting the field. They can be treated as blind, deaf and mute if necessary.
The kitchens can cater for any diet, no matter how peculiar, and there is an entire team of techs on-call twenty-four hours a day, every day of the year for those little emergencies.
Visitors are welcome but there are some burly security guards on hand to usher them out should they upset one of the residents. The burly security guards will also sit on said resident until the visitor has been escorted out should it prove necessary and won't mind a bit about having to do so. There is a sign on the gate declaiming the fact that the management accept no responsibility for psychological or physical trauma suffered by visitors, and no resident will be prosecuted or persecuted for damaging visitors who should not have come if they were that fragile.
There is a lockdown suite for when a resident has just had too much and needs to be put in a safe place to cool off. It is well equipped.
Best of all the staff give great hugs, just when you need one and never when you don't.
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