V A R I A T I O N S
- Dim Aldebaran –
Quickie notes: The time and such for this aren't that important since it's an abstraction. Also, my characterizations are more liberal than they ought to be; with each of the variations, Arty is influenced by that particular sin. These are listed from least to greatest, as according to Dante (SO cool) and his The Divine Comedy. Read it. Très choutte.
Oh, and in the first variation, Juliet is the 'she' in bold. In my original it was more obvious since 'Gluttony' explained who she was. But then I learned my err, and had to change the order. Désolé.
Enjoy!
:i:
The harbor. Dublin bridge.
Night; with a side order of rain.
All he knew was that she had a rope.
I. Lust
His lips hurt, but he should hardly complain: hers bled.
She had read the email. Then she had kissed him.
He would have no memory of tonight, only a fated blur of heat and need.
She was coiled in his arms, a cat. "'s she that maid chick?" Her lipstick had smeared long ago. She looked almost ugly.
"Dead," he whispered into her ear, and nibbled the lobe. Her dangles were cold against his chin. "She wasn't my type."
"Am I 'your type'?" Her voice had that ghetto twang to it.
He leaned in for a kiss. She made it longer, and longer. He didn't mind.
They released, gasping. He wiped the mingled saliva from his mouth. She did so with the back of her hand, spreading the Sassy Strawberry red further. Her mascara had smeared in a smoky manner, and her skin had been painted pale. She looked like a vampire, fresh from the hunt, still panting, breasts heaving. Her eyes were dark, pupils dilated.
The message blinked, inquiring, like the fluttering of lashes before tears.
She saw his glance and frowned. "She's just tryin' to get your attention."
"And you aren't?" he asked. Her eyes widened in insult. In penance, he pressed his body against hers. His hands found her bra clip—then his shirt, breaking the kiss as he wrenched it over his head.
It wasn't as if Mother and Father cared. They never did.
II. Gluttony
He was making assumptions. How could he guess at her purpose?
I can't, he confessed to the beer bottle. His reflection draped itself like a drowsy lover across the glass, colored Crayola's 'copper-green,' as if puking ripe.
Later, he was. His aim was off, but he wasn't planning on using his briefcase again. Dangerous evidence, you see. Butler would have it burned in the morning.
His mind wandered back to the computer screen; the shadows cast flickered with unattended pop-ups. The message lingered, in that small, neat black font that seemed so out of character, so out of place. His mind, reeling in unashamed fantasies, saw it carved with a knife tipped in blood. Yeah, that was it.
The thought was a cymbal-crash to the chaotic percussion of his mind. His head hurt.
He saw his reflection again, framed with dried rivulets of spittle and Irish whiskey. A second image was cast on the alcohol within, quaking as his fingers drummed to the song of the banshees.
She's gonna die.
Add a mental ellipse to that; the thought trailed, failed.
You know how it ends.
One more, he promised himself, for luck.
III. Greed
He didn't stare, his disbelief as poignant as Ragnorak.
Artemis Fowl did not stare.
He laughed.
Guilt would come later, he knew—he'd cry at her funeral, he'd yearn for her touch—but, years later, he'd think about that treasured email and laugh.
It had been sent at ten. It was midnight.
She'd be dead by now.
He smiled as he deleted the message. No more scanning her arms for those pink-ribbon scars, no more desperate talks with Dom, no more rant-red crying faces, no more, no more…
The relief sang and ran and rang and danced through him: a thousand balls in a racquetball court, hurtling at impossible speeds.
He turned the computer off, its aura fading like the light of Heaven. In his mind, the glow was still there as he flopped onto his bed, smiling crazily at the darkness in general.
Her body would be hanging beneath the bridge.
Maybe it already was.
The wind would move her, begging its partner to dance, and she would, twirling in slow pirouettes like a cold, distant Prima Donna.
…anxiety. The racquetballs deaccelerated, sans intensity.
He remembered—kissing her when no one was looking—her smile, lightning in a snowstorm—the feel of her back: warm, smooth, gloriously living wood—gold hair, running his fingers through it—
He remembered—silent, pleading eyes—seeking embraces—insults, masquerading as banter—shouting—crying—screaming—
He smiled again. His life, his own. He felt… free.
She was gone.
(finally)
IV. Sloth
Who else knew?
She had friends. None like her, none that told, none that knew, but still friends. Maybe she was going for le mort dramatique; she would have told.
Makes sense.
He yawned. She shouldn't have sent him an email at ten and expected him to react anyways. Savants needed their sleep.
Yet she knew he wouldn't sleep; he worried, she knew, he knew. Silly, the circles thoughts went in—like the Sphere of Death, haha, with the whirling motorcycles, round and round they go, where they'll stop, nobody knows! Was this not an idyllic circus, complete with the trapeze act beneath the bridge?
It was showing soon, after all.
A yawn; he made a perfect lion. All roar and no rending the Almighty circusmaster to fine dining.
The computer's screensaver turned on. He wondered if he would dream about flying through the Milky Way, trapped in a staring contest with the bloodshot eye of Taurus for the hand of Virgo, the Virgin.
Bad thoughts.
Good dreams, though.
He stared at the screen. The circus was reputed to have unusually high suicide rates. In the back of his mind, he wondered why.
She wouldn't, he decided. She changed her mind last time.
At the last minute.
She still has the scars.
He wondered if Libra would appear in his dreams, weighing his soul.
He was an atheist. He didn't care: God have mercy…
He needed his sleep anyways. Aurem est potestas.
V. Wrath
His lip trembled. It didn't shake, like San Francisco, 1906—it simply trembled, near invisible and near meaningless.
That was the only indication of his anger; the other signs of the litmus test were gone, gone like stars on a cloudy night, out of place with their indistinct glare.
The light—why do computers have to fucking glow!—was giving him a headache.
He paused for a moment. Well…
It's probably the stress.
Her fault.
He clutched the mouse.
The thought came, slow, eventual, inevitable: She's going to die.
Nothing was real for five, ten minutes.
The email blinked, waiting for a response.
His teeth gritted. He wouldn't rant; his anger was not a kamikaze, not a suicide, not like her; and he didn't want to be lectured for staying up. Mother was especially prickly.
He remained rational.
He let go of the mouse, and, slowly, flipped the power button.
Complete dark; the moon was off.
Yet the sun remained, a hot, young core of anger.
"How… dare she!" he muttered, fierce and low. "She can't expect me to keep rescuing her! Why can't she ask Dom?"
The sun brightened. Noon.
He knew his room well. He bed even better. He pushed off his laptop, an unwanted lover, and flopped down.
The bed springs groaned as he shifted restlessly.
He wondered if it was this dark by the bridge; or darker still beneath it, the river Styx swirling with shadows,
Not that he cared or anything.
The hot, hot sun burned in the dark, consuming itself.
VI. Envy
(desperation)
He couldn't find anything. It took him ten minutes to gather a jacket and knife.
The next room over, Dom snored. He jumped, the not-so-proverbial kangaroo.
And… stopped.
Thoughts came, slow and sly like spring:
Why didn't she just ask?
Why does it have to be on my own part?
Does she… want me to come?
And the answer came—summer:
Yes.
She needs something.
She needs something.
Note: 'she needs something,' is not amongst his thoughts.
He had lost his power to her the first time they kissed.
What power she had had! She rationed her smiles like winter sunshine, making him beg for her happiness.
She had lost it.
A smile flowered on his face. He had power.
He liked it.
The jacket crashed to the parquet. He replaced the knife beneath the floorboards. He had never had power before. Not like… this.
Those without power couldn't abuse it.
She had abused it.
It didn't occur to him he was returning the favor.
VII. Pride
He should feel guilty for smiling.
He didn't care.
He had saved her from herself before. Maybe not by the bridge at midnight, maybe not with a rope, maybe not by the maid's own hands, and maybe not in a perverse variant of Clue.
He closed his eyes, imagining her at the top of bridge. No umbrella. Shivering; small; afraid; somehow evocative.
He imagined the hiss of the rope rubbing against wet concrete as pale hands tied too-familiar knots.
He imagined himself running down the causeway, savior, messiah, liberator—
No, he told himself, and grinned maniacally. Not yet. She must learn her lesson. She must ask—no, beg for help.
He imagined her, looping the noose around her neck, feeling he heavy weight on her flat chest and bony shoulders, her breath struggling to rise.
Accelerating heartbeat. Louder than rain. Quieter than sobs.
Staring at her hands—how blue they were, how cold, like glacial ice—
—seeing the river below, churning with rain—
—imagining Scylla and Charybdis, waiting below—
And stopping.
Slow hands, pulling the rope off.
The weight, off her chest.
Laughing.
Walking home in the rain, dark, cold, the rope tossed it to some Lorelei who had yearned for flesh.
Home to him.
Her reason.
He opened his eyes.
He typed a message. Something about meeting tomorrow in his room to talk.
She'll come, he reasoned later, twisted in knotted sheets, and felt the thrill he had always imagined a hero to have.
She'll come.
Fini
She made a lovely scarecrow until 10:07 the next morning. The mortician said she had died smiling: perhaps she bore her new sapphire-and-amethyst necklace too proudly. The rope had been such an enthusiastic suitor.
That day, Dr. Po cracked Artemis Fowl. He was… intriguing.
:i:
Yeah, that was weird. I wrote it in a mood. I hope you like it, regardless. Looking back, there's a lot of funky allusions (Am I the only person who knows what a banshee symbolizes? What a Lorelei is?) If the story was just downright confusing, could you elaborate on which parts? Merci. You guys rock. My other stories aren't quite as strange, if that's encouraging…
And yes, I know Artemis was out of character. That was the point of the variations. I know someone's going to slam me on it anyways, but oh well.
Please review. It'd make my day, and this needs work and I don't know what to do.