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edenfallingSummary: Jade English calls her little brother one week before his birthday. (825 words)
[ETA: the slightly revised and expanded final version is now up on AO3! (950 words)]
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In Spite of Time, and Death, and the Space Between the Stars
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Jade calls her little brother one week before his birthday.
She thinks it's a terrible idea as soon as she finishes dialing. He's going to die in a week. Rose has seen it. She's seen it, through viewscreens in the Medium. What's the point of reestablishing contact when she's only going to lose him for good and for keeps in a handful of days? Besides, they'll end up fighting -- they always do -- and she doesn't want her last memory of him to be voices raised in anger.
The phone rings five times before he picks up. She's about to push the 'end call' button on her latest cell phone when the tinny fake bell cuts out and she hears his voice, a little wavery and cracked around the edges with age but still familiar down to her bones.
"Hello?" he says.
"Hi, John," Jade says. "Long time no see."
"Yes," he agrees. "Two years for any real contact, and it's been a few months since I even glimpsed you in passing down in LA. I've been forced to rely on newspapers and television for any information on your health and whereabouts, and they can be so enthusiastically misguided. Is it true that you're setting up a super secret South Pacific volcano island lair from which to pursue your goals of worldwide technological dominion? Or are you simply taking a long-deserved vacation?"
"Secret lair, I'm afraid. Complete with my own midget henchman, muahaha," Jade says, glancing over at Jake, who is sitting on damp sand and slapping at each new incoming wave with cross-eyed determination.
"Aha! Speaking of whom! I know your press release was a bunch of bullshit -- you're not the sort to abandon any secret love children -- but I don't care. Any child you claim as family is my family too, no questions asked. Your grandson seems a promising young lad. Why not bring him to meet me?"
"John--"
John clicks his tongue at her. "Oh, don't start that again. I'm not asking you to bring him home to Mother. I know you and she don't get along. But you and I manage despite that--"
"--if you call brief encounters separated by years of angry silence 'managing'--"
"--manage despite that," John repeats, loftily ignoring Jade's interruption, "and I see no reason I can't get to know my grand-nephew. I've been wanting a child to spoil rotten. Since my own son doesn't seem inclined to provide me one, the least you can do is let me mooch off of your good fortune."
Jade sighs.
"It can be my birthday present," John wheedles. "Come on, best beloved big sister of mine, you know you can't resist forever."
Jake wobbles over and plants his wet, sandy hands on Jade's thigh. "Gamma!" he says. "Gamma up!" He shoves awkwardly at her elbow, tries to climb into her lap.
"One second," Jade tells John. She sets aside her phone and places her hands under her grandson's arms, lifts him to sit on her shoulders. "Hold on tight!" she says. Then she picks up the phone and stands, careful to keep her free hand on Jake's leg in case he lets go of her hair or loses his balance.
"Sorry, piggyback ride emergency," she says to John.
He laughs, but there's a wistful note in his voice when he says, "I'd pay good money for a picture of that. Do you remember when we used to give each other piggyback rides in Mother's saltwater pool and bet who was stronger? You could hold me up a few seconds more than I could hold you -- which I still say is because you cheated -- but we always fell over and then bet who could hold their breath longer."
"And you always won that part, and I said you cheated too." Jade closes her eyes, tries not to remember that in many ways her childhood was happy between the moments of violence and horror. John focuses on the pretty veil of lies, but no amount of candies and riches and sweet, syrupy dreams can make up for that fact that their mother is an evil alien conqueror, who kept Jade and her brother as pets instead of seeing them as people.
But she doesn't want to fight with John. Not here, and not now. She wants her last memory of him to be happy.
And maybe that's what he's wanted all along, for her. Maybe that's the missing piece she's never understood, that keeps him from discarding their mother's illusions, that pushes him to make people smile and laugh and imagine the world is a friendly, kindly place. Maybe he just wants everyone to be happy.
She can't save his life, but she can give him that.
"Where are you this week?" she asks.
"Washington," John says. "Why?"
"I'll fly over tomorrow. You can take that picture yourself."
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Inspired by the 2/16/14![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
15_minute_ficlets word #185: hiatus
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I am trying to fight depression via creation. Result: I did indeed create a story, but the story is incredibly depressing. I'm not sure the plan is working...
The title of this story is taken from the closing words my childhood minister, the Rev. David E. Bumbaugh, used at the end of every service. The full quote goes as follows: "[We/This church/This community] [is/are] dedicated to the proposition that behind all our differences, beneath all our diversity, there is a unity that makes us one, and binds us forever together in spite of time and death and the space between the stars. We pause now in silent witness to that unity."
[ETA: the slightly revised and expanded final version is now up on AO3! (950 words)]
---------------------------------------------
In Spite of Time, and Death, and the Space Between the Stars
---------------------------------------------
Jade calls her little brother one week before his birthday.
She thinks it's a terrible idea as soon as she finishes dialing. He's going to die in a week. Rose has seen it. She's seen it, through viewscreens in the Medium. What's the point of reestablishing contact when she's only going to lose him for good and for keeps in a handful of days? Besides, they'll end up fighting -- they always do -- and she doesn't want her last memory of him to be voices raised in anger.
The phone rings five times before he picks up. She's about to push the 'end call' button on her latest cell phone when the tinny fake bell cuts out and she hears his voice, a little wavery and cracked around the edges with age but still familiar down to her bones.
"Hello?" he says.
"Hi, John," Jade says. "Long time no see."
"Yes," he agrees. "Two years for any real contact, and it's been a few months since I even glimpsed you in passing down in LA. I've been forced to rely on newspapers and television for any information on your health and whereabouts, and they can be so enthusiastically misguided. Is it true that you're setting up a super secret South Pacific volcano island lair from which to pursue your goals of worldwide technological dominion? Or are you simply taking a long-deserved vacation?"
"Secret lair, I'm afraid. Complete with my own midget henchman, muahaha," Jade says, glancing over at Jake, who is sitting on damp sand and slapping at each new incoming wave with cross-eyed determination.
"Aha! Speaking of whom! I know your press release was a bunch of bullshit -- you're not the sort to abandon any secret love children -- but I don't care. Any child you claim as family is my family too, no questions asked. Your grandson seems a promising young lad. Why not bring him to meet me?"
"John--"
John clicks his tongue at her. "Oh, don't start that again. I'm not asking you to bring him home to Mother. I know you and she don't get along. But you and I manage despite that--"
"--if you call brief encounters separated by years of angry silence 'managing'--"
"--manage despite that," John repeats, loftily ignoring Jade's interruption, "and I see no reason I can't get to know my grand-nephew. I've been wanting a child to spoil rotten. Since my own son doesn't seem inclined to provide me one, the least you can do is let me mooch off of your good fortune."
Jade sighs.
"It can be my birthday present," John wheedles. "Come on, best beloved big sister of mine, you know you can't resist forever."
Jake wobbles over and plants his wet, sandy hands on Jade's thigh. "Gamma!" he says. "Gamma up!" He shoves awkwardly at her elbow, tries to climb into her lap.
"One second," Jade tells John. She sets aside her phone and places her hands under her grandson's arms, lifts him to sit on her shoulders. "Hold on tight!" she says. Then she picks up the phone and stands, careful to keep her free hand on Jake's leg in case he lets go of her hair or loses his balance.
"Sorry, piggyback ride emergency," she says to John.
He laughs, but there's a wistful note in his voice when he says, "I'd pay good money for a picture of that. Do you remember when we used to give each other piggyback rides in Mother's saltwater pool and bet who was stronger? You could hold me up a few seconds more than I could hold you -- which I still say is because you cheated -- but we always fell over and then bet who could hold their breath longer."
"And you always won that part, and I said you cheated too." Jade closes her eyes, tries not to remember that in many ways her childhood was happy between the moments of violence and horror. John focuses on the pretty veil of lies, but no amount of candies and riches and sweet, syrupy dreams can make up for that fact that their mother is an evil alien conqueror, who kept Jade and her brother as pets instead of seeing them as people.
But she doesn't want to fight with John. Not here, and not now. She wants her last memory of him to be happy.
And maybe that's what he's wanted all along, for her. Maybe that's the missing piece she's never understood, that keeps him from discarding their mother's illusions, that pushes him to make people smile and laugh and imagine the world is a friendly, kindly place. Maybe he just wants everyone to be happy.
She can't save his life, but she can give him that.
"Where are you this week?" she asks.
"Washington," John says. "Why?"
"I'll fly over tomorrow. You can take that picture yourself."
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 2/16/14
15_minute_ficlets word #185: hiatus---------------------------------------------
I am trying to fight depression via creation. Result: I did indeed create a story, but the story is incredibly depressing. I'm not sure the plan is working...
The title of this story is taken from the closing words my childhood minister, the Rev. David E. Bumbaugh, used at the end of every service. The full quote goes as follows: "[We/This church/This community] [is/are] dedicated to the proposition that behind all our differences, beneath all our diversity, there is a unity that makes us one, and binds us forever together in spite of time and death and the space between the stars. We pause now in silent witness to that unity."
