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Thread: she drinks the dark

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    Inactive Member blackbox's Avatar
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    <center>She was not widely known. Her name was whispered in the streets followed by confused shrugs or wary glances; the police knew her description by heart but never seemed to catch sight of her. She was physically forgettable. Nothing remarkable to pick her out from the busy city streets, blending in the busy business crowds with ease and little care. Her calling card, however, was becoming well-known and brought nothing but downcast glances and cold winds.


    pascalcard</center>

  2. #2
    Inactive Member blackbox's Avatar
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    He found it tucked under the windshield wiper of his card and dialed the number with jittery fingers.

    "H-- hello? Is this P-pascal?"

    "Yes."

    "Is this some kinda advertisement or somethin'? 'Cause I do--"

    "No, it is not an advertisement, Mister Fitzgerald."

    He could feel cold fingers traveling up his spine and the moisture disappear from his mouth. "Who the hell are you?"

    "Your daughter is growing quite sick, Mister Fitzgerald."

    "H--.. how do you know? Do you work for the hospital? Is she all ri--"

    "Does the name Ornias mean anything to you?"

    "..No."

    "I suggest you look it up, for your daughter's sake."

    "What do you me--"

    "Goodnight, Mister Fitzgerald."

    Pascal disconnected the phone and sat back against her desk, fingers splayed out against the old books and papers in front of her. Past the dusty windows, she could see the man slowly hang up the phone and drive away, leaving the calling card out in the rain.

    <center>pascal2</center>

  3. #3
    Inactive Member blackbox's Avatar
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    <center>pascaleyes


    This luck you can't buy
    Won't touch you this time
    One day this dirty stool pigeon will fly

    Halos and charmed lives
    I'll help you next time
    One day this dirty stool pigeon will fly

    Your luck has run dry
    Caught in the bulls-eye
    Today this pretty little birdy will die
    Will die
    Will die

    (no singing tonight)
    </center>

  4. #4
    Inactive Member blackbox's Avatar
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    in esse, kyrie eleison


    ---


    She was still young then, a private detective who delved deep into the underground, buried in the obscure; her name was not so whispered and it came with a prettier ring that she forgot later on and her frigid nature had yet to set in. Dressed in a well-cut suit and a less fitting trench coat, Pascal tried not to stare at the old vulture in front of her.

    He was dying; perhaps he was already dead, but his veins were filled with gold and that's all that mattered. His old skin was already pocked with cancer; his eyes were webbed with cataracts, sunken deep into his skull until it was all that the skin clung to. "Inesse-Kyrie Pascal," he breathed, a reek of dust and rot. "Interesting name. What does it mean?"

    "It's latin," she explained with a vague hesitance, ignoring the urge to draw up her face in a scowl from the stench. "My mother had a fetish for classical studies. I prefer Pascal."

    "As you wish, Pascal," he exhaled, washing her face with the smell of decay. "You work for me now."

    Her eyebrows jumped up. She swayed backwards with a cutting edge of disdain in her voice. "Excuse me? We haven't even discussed what you called me for. You haven't even told me your name."

    He laughed; it sounded like a chorus of old pages in the breeze from an ancient book she would never read. It made cold fingers curl around her spine, choking. "Oh, Pascal, little Pascal-- you don't have a choice. Your child, Pascal. The thread of his life lays within my palm and there are scissors in the other hand."

    Inesse's expression flinched. She felt her stomach curl into knots and crawl up her throat. "You're lying."

    "Am I?" His eyebrowless brow raised, ridges of wrinkles furrowing across his skull. "Kenneth Pascal, age five. He goes to the arcade in the evenings with the other boys, plays soccer in the park. I hear his coach thinks he'll be a rising star, Pascal. His teachers think he should be sent to the finest priv--"

    "That's enough," she snapped hotly, fingers digging red crescents into her palm. He could see her will hang on the balance in the doe-brown of her eyes.. and slowly tip over the edge. "..What do you want me to do?"

    He smiled, but there were no teeth to show. Only a dark, foul hole.

    "Have you ever heard of demonology, Pascal?"

  5. #5
    Inactive Member blackbox's Avatar
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    <center>Emilee Hill


    In the cemetary, all the white crosses stood in rows, neat chalk marks on a giant scorecard. I paid my respects quietly, without fuss. Edward Morgan Blake. Born 1924. Forty-five years a comdedian, died 1985. Buried in the rain. Is that what happens to us? A life of conflict with no time for friends, so when it's done only our enemies leave roses. Violent lives, ending violently. The cops, the detectives, the suits-- we never die in bed.

    Something in our personalities, perhaps? Some animal urge to fight and struggle, making us what we are? It's unimportant. We do what we have to while others bury their heads between the swollen teats of indulgence and graitification, piglets squirming beneath a sow for shelter-- but there is no shelter, and the future is bearing down like an express train.

    Blake understood-- treated like a joke, but he understood. He saw the true face of the twentieth century and chose to become a parody of it. A reflection. No one else saw the joke. That's why he was lonely.

    I heard a joke once. A man goes to the doctor, says he's depressed. Says life seems harsh and cruel, feels like he's all alone in a threatening world where what lies ahead is vague and uncertain. The doctor says: "The treatment is simple. Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up."

    The man bursts into tears. He says: "But doctor.. I am Pagliacci."

    Good joke. Everybody laughs. Roll on snare drum. Curtains.


    (excerp taken&adapted from watchmen.)

  6. #6
    Inactive Member blackbox's Avatar
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    It hummed.

    The black glass marble hummed a major chord she couldn't define, something just beyond her level of hearing. It sat perfectly centered on top of her desk where she had found it, barely reflecting the dull afternoon light; when she breathed, the marble seemed to shiver just a touch more as if it was too delicate to even be touched by her air. It reeked of the abnormal-- either angel or devil, she couldn't define its power. Neutral. Empty.

    "What the hell is this about," she murmured hotly, lips curling back from her teeth in a bare scowl. The marble only hummed. "I'm going to break you." It shivered hard, even moved of its own accord just barely rolling an inch before shuddering to a stop again. As if it was a bomb, Pascal moved delicately, slowly parting the air with her fingers and reaching to open the top drawer of her desk; they curled around the small vial of holy water. If it was devil, she would find out now.

    In one swift movement, her hand snapped between herself and the marble, spraying water. The marble didn't hum-- it screeched and writhed in discordic pain until it reached well beyond her level of conscious hearing. "Fuck!" She grimaced and squeezed her hands over her ears, gritting her teeth until she could swear that tears were rolling down her face and she was bleeding. Pascal crumpled onto the floor as the harmonies swept up to a climax that shattered her hearing-- then all fell silent.

    The silence clung seconds, minutes. It was the sound of a sigh that wasn't her own that broke the fasting. Pascal didn't look up-- she didn't dare see what she unleashed. She heard footsteps carefully edge around her desk and slowly a hand appeared in her line of vision. A human hand, but pale. Scarred.

    His voice was low and coarse, near monotone. "Kyrie, kyrie."

    <center>a716a638</center>

  7. #7
    Inactive Member blackbox's Avatar
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    "What are you?"

    "I am what you see."

    "Who are you?"

    "Names are only temporary."

    "Why are you here?"

    "To be what I am not."


    Pascal's rigid features broke into a jagged scowl, sharp as shards of glass. "This is ridiculous. Stop answering every question with existenial bullshit." Tied to the chair as she was, she found some room to slump her shoulders against the raised back and loll her head to stare at the ceiling, frustrated.

    He ashed his cigarette onto her floor mindless to join the fine dusting of ash and cigarette butts he had spread over it in the last week. Exhaling in gray, he smiled something mirthless, but not without some sardonic humor. "Last time I checked, I wasn't the one tied to the chair." Rolling his shoulders back stiffly, he walked slowly toward her paper-strewn desk, cocked his hip against the edge. "Your employer was fascinated with the occult. I'm surprised you didn't indulge me."

    "I did. You're still here."

    "You tried to shoot me, Pascal."

    "I did shoot you." She picked up her head long enough to give a pointed look to his uninjured body. "Devil or angel? There's nothing in between."

    He looked toward her with sincere interest. "How do you know?"

    Her lips peeled back in a vague snarl and she spat her words like venom. "Because that's where we are! In between!"

    The man-- the something, the man-shaped thing-- had no reply for her. He flicked the stub of his cigarette over his shoulder and stared out her foggy office window. "I'll be done soon, Pascal. Then you can get on with your miserable life in solitude. You can continue to sit in your office day after day, mourning your daughter, mourning all ruin and curse the wild world when you're part of that world. Inesse." He rolled his gray, gray eyes toward her. "There's nothing here. The city is dead. The living are replacements for the dead. Nothing moves in this town. You haven't got a thing. None of us have got a thing. You're only going in circles. Only going around and around. You're going nowhere."

    He leaned forward and her skin prickled at his warm, very alive breath. "You're going nowhere fast."

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