(no subject)
Jul. 25th, 2006 09:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
destruction1_0This is not the Winnemucca road.
Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota, Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma, Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma, Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo, Tocopilla, Barranquilla, and Padilla, I'm a killer
Just as well. There's not enough in his pack to justify the verb 'to tote'.
Boston, Charleston, Dayton, Louisiana, Washington, Houston, Kingston, Texarkana, Monterey, Ferriday, Santa Fe, Tallapoosa, Glen Rock, Black Rock, Little Rock, Oskaloosa, Tennessee, Hennessey, Chicopee, Spirit Lake, Grand Lake, Devil's Lake, Crater Lake, for Pete's sake
It's pretty dusty, though.
Start asking yourself a couple of questions about entropy and things get a little overwhelming. Better to just stop paying attention. The world has moved on. Is still moving on.
He whistles, and bootheels clock on hardpan hellground. He's a tall man, an ageless stranger in faded, pegged jeans and a denim jacket and a Boy Scout knapsack. He's a walking dude.
This isn't Highway 51, though. Not even
(God said to Abraham, kill me a son)
Highway 61.
Not even some two-bit two-lane highway.
There are highways in hiding that are traveled by the poor and the mad, by the professional revolutionaries and by those who have been taught to hate so well that their hate shows on their faces like harelips and they are unwanted except by others like them, who welcome them to cheap rooms with slogans and posters on the walls, to basements where lengths of sawed-off pipe are held in padded vises while they are stuffed with high explosives, to back rooms where lunatic plans are laid: to kill a Cabinet member, to kidnap the child of a visiting dignitary, or to break into a boardroom meeting of Standard Oil --
Or maybe Citgo.
-- with grenades and machine guns and murder in the name of the people.
Louisville, Nashville, Knoxville, Ombabika, Shefferville, Jacksonville, Waterville, Costa Rica, Pittsfield, Springfield, Bakersfield, Shreveport, Hackensack, Cadillac, Fond Du Lac, Davenport, Idaho, Jellicoe, Argentina, Diamontina, Pasadena, Catalina, see what I mean
Mid-World is right up his alley.
He strides on at a steady, ground-eating pace, and there's something in the air: something is coming. It's a sooty hot taste that comes from
Pittsburgh, Parkersburg, Gravellburg, Colorado, Ellensburg, Rexburg, Vicksburg, Eldorado, Larrimore, Atmore, Haverstraw, Chattanika, Chaska, Nebraska, Alaska, Opelika, Baraboo, Waterloo, Kalamazoo, Kansas City, Sioux City, Cedar City, Dodge City, what a pity
everywhere, as if God is planning a cookout and all of civilization is going to be the barbecue.
The land's time of transfiguration is almost at hand, and he's on hand. He always is.
Everywhere.
He's been everywhere.
Reno, Chicago, Fargo, Minnesota, Buffalo, Toronto, Winslow, Sarasota, Wichita, Tulsa, Ottawa, Oklahoma, Tampa, Panama, Mattawa, La Paloma, Bangor, Baltimore, Salvador, Amarillo, Tocopilla, Barranquilla, and Padilla, I'm a killer
Just as well. There's not enough in his pack to justify the verb 'to tote'.
Boston, Charleston, Dayton, Louisiana, Washington, Houston, Kingston, Texarkana, Monterey, Ferriday, Santa Fe, Tallapoosa, Glen Rock, Black Rock, Little Rock, Oskaloosa, Tennessee, Hennessey, Chicopee, Spirit Lake, Grand Lake, Devil's Lake, Crater Lake, for Pete's sake
It's pretty dusty, though.
Start asking yourself a couple of questions about entropy and things get a little overwhelming. Better to just stop paying attention. The world has moved on. Is still moving on.
He whistles, and bootheels clock on hardpan hellground. He's a tall man, an ageless stranger in faded, pegged jeans and a denim jacket and a Boy Scout knapsack. He's a walking dude.
This isn't Highway 51, though. Not even
(God said to Abraham, kill me a son)
Highway 61.
Not even some two-bit two-lane highway.
There are highways in hiding that are traveled by the poor and the mad, by the professional revolutionaries and by those who have been taught to hate so well that their hate shows on their faces like harelips and they are unwanted except by others like them, who welcome them to cheap rooms with slogans and posters on the walls, to basements where lengths of sawed-off pipe are held in padded vises while they are stuffed with high explosives, to back rooms where lunatic plans are laid: to kill a Cabinet member, to kidnap the child of a visiting dignitary, or to break into a boardroom meeting of Standard Oil --
Or maybe Citgo.
-- with grenades and machine guns and murder in the name of the people.
Louisville, Nashville, Knoxville, Ombabika, Shefferville, Jacksonville, Waterville, Costa Rica, Pittsfield, Springfield, Bakersfield, Shreveport, Hackensack, Cadillac, Fond Du Lac, Davenport, Idaho, Jellicoe, Argentina, Diamontina, Pasadena, Catalina, see what I mean
Mid-World is right up his alley.
He strides on at a steady, ground-eating pace, and there's something in the air: something is coming. It's a sooty hot taste that comes from
Pittsburgh, Parkersburg, Gravellburg, Colorado, Ellensburg, Rexburg, Vicksburg, Eldorado, Larrimore, Atmore, Haverstraw, Chattanika, Chaska, Nebraska, Alaska, Opelika, Baraboo, Waterloo, Kalamazoo, Kansas City, Sioux City, Cedar City, Dodge City, what a pity
everywhere, as if God is planning a cookout and all of civilization is going to be the barbecue.
The land's time of transfiguration is almost at hand, and he's on hand. He always is.
Everywhere.
He's been everywhere.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 05:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 05:23 am (UTC)Minutes later, he comes out, and he's driving a Nazi fighter plane.
Read it and weep, kids.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 05:29 am (UTC)This particular model was a prototype; the F298 Habicht.
It's very fortunate that Patrick is scrawny, and the gunslinger is missing her legs; they wedge inside the rear seat with quit a bit of difficulty. God knows how the massive red-bearded man managed to fit himself behind the controls.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 05:44 am (UTC)Slippage, don't you know.
"Ready, Susannah-Mio?"
It's shouted. He's managed to drum up a leather cap and aviator's goggles -- maybe from his Boy Scout knapsack; their motto is be prepared, after all.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 05:46 am (UTC)Something else is nestled there now. She shrieks, which cannot possibly sound like yes, ready, let's get going.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 05:48 am (UTC)The plane picks up speed.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 05:52 am (UTC)The snake is not a happy snake; it strikes. So does she. Many's the time Detta Walker's been compared to a snake, in terms of speed and meanness; this is the test. One deft plucks the pencil from behind Patrick's ear before he can even yelp and plunges forward. Her fang strikes home before the viper's two can, punching under the shelf of its jaw and into its tiny reptile brain, and now Patrick is yelling as it flails in its deaththroes, ropy scaled tail thrashing around his already-ropeburned neck.
She throws the corpse over the side of the plane as it leaves the ground, still screaming over the engines: "--THINK YOU'RE DOIN YOU CRAZY MAHFAH?"
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 05:55 am (UTC)He flies away from the mountains, does Destruction. Has to gain altitude before he can wheel back over the mountains.
"OR WERE YOU ASKING THE SNAKE?"
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 06:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 06:02 am (UTC)WHUMPH. The plane shudders. Patch of turbulence. That's what happens when you fly over mountains.
"BUT THEN WHO'D FLY THE PLANE?"
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 06:21 am (UTC)(the rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain)
But although her hands curl into fists, and she twists within striking distance of the Endless--
(be ye mad or looney sane)
--she keeps her temper, conjuring up from memory Sophia, the doll she made with this bastard's younger sisters. Sophia means wisdom, she remembers, and that's some kind of trigger; some kind of handle on her rage.
(the planes in Spain fall mainly in the rain)
Her fury does not abate, but it allows itself to be restrained.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 06:39 am (UTC)And if Destruction sings -- it's 'Hey Jude', of course, loudly, and off-key -- there's no comment from the peanut gallery.
Then: the glittering sea.
No lobstrosities in sight.
Shame.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 06:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 06:47 am (UTC)If you're suicidal.
Isn't it nice being an anthropomorphic personification?
The landing is bumpy. It happens.
There's a parking brake on this aircraft; Destruction sets it.
And twists around in the seat.
Smiling.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 06:50 am (UTC)Instead she closes her eyes, and tries to breathe. "Thank you," she says, finally, her voice a little shaky and a little acerbic, but she means it.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 06:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 06:54 am (UTC)There's no way to be certain that she won't need it any further; this world is still dying, and there's no promise Eddie will be here or the doors will open. No promise but the one she made to herself.
She does believe in happy endings. She does.
She has to crawl out on the wing to let Patrick clamber out.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 06:56 am (UTC)More teeth than grin.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 06:59 am (UTC)(There's nothing ahead but empty nights huddled against the cold alone, and she knows it, deep down she does, that she'll never touch his face his hair his body again, it's long days all right and empty nights in frozen hell; the reprieve is over, and this is Empathica.)
"And may you have twice the number," she snarls back.
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 07:00 am (UTC)"I'd step away from the plane, if I were you. Going places. Wouldn't want you to get run over."
no subject
Date: 2006-07-26 07:07 am (UTC)By the time they reach the foothills and the paths leading into the mountains and towards the beach, Patrick is exhausted; he's unused to this kind of exertion.
Susannah lets him fall asleep, curled up at the side of the road, and drags herself the rest of the short distance to the golgatha. As the sky darkens she sits on a petrified log and waits for a dead man to come to her.
Just around full dark, one does.