Bar gave Kaidy the key, but the room's been made for Clay.

The walls, the floor, the ceiling - all is made of wood. Smooth and silke but still with a faint scent of timber and beneath that sap and rain and soil and sky.

The windows let in what seems likely late summer, late afternoon sunlight.
Hazy and warm.
It pools around the bed (large, wooden framed, simple), turning the sheets and blankets to liquid honey.


There's a cupboard at one side of the room.
Two small bedside tables.
A bottle and a couple of glasses on one, a bowl of fruit on the other. Not a centerpiece, but small and gnarly apples and pears.

Describe your worst failure.

The chair.

Only answer – the chair.

I got it in my head that I would make a chair for Ma. Not just any old chair, mind. A perfect chair. She’d get achy knees sometimes, not that she’d mention it. You could just tell by the way she held herself, standing at the kitchen sink. The way she sat down a little more slowly.

That’s the way it happens, isn’t it?
Your body starts to have these little aches. Things move slower. And one day – one day, you realize that you’ve grown up. And that your parents are growing old.

Not feeble, mind. Not Ma. She was all oak and iron. Blood.
Brimstone.

Just – older.

Anyway, I decided I’d make her a chair. Just like one of those in the catalogue at the general store. The one you could order from if you wanted something they didn’t have themselves.

Where everything was – not just for sitting on, or for putting your arms on or anything like that. But where every part, everything that made up that chair – was to be looked at. Just because it was beautiful.

Now, I knew Ma was not happy about frivolity and beauty without a cause, well, that’s just that. But I figured – I guess I wanted it to show how much I loved her. For her being my mother and birthing me and feeding me and teaching me about God and sin.

Maybe I just wanted her to think I was clever.

Maybe I wanted her to smile at me.

Whatever the reason I went ahead and made that chair.

It was –

Perfect.

The armrests were like swans. Not that I made them to look like swans, but the way they curved made me think of cool, crisp mornings down by the lake, and the swans gliding on it. Like they weren’t swimming at all. No effort. Just – grace.

I’d carved a travelling vine all over the back. Every leaf. Every tendril. Down the legs too.

It was just the right height. On the hard side when it came to the seat, but Ma wouldn’t have liked a soft chair. Soft chairs invite laziness.

The thing was, I made that as a gift. But I made it because I wanted something. So I stopped thinking about what Ma wanted and instead I gave her what I thought she’d want. So she’d give me whatever it was I was hoping for.

You shouldn’t do that. If you give, you shouldn’t think of yourself. You should just – give.

She didn’t burn it.

She never used it either.


Count: 430
Muse: Clay
Fandom: Misc. Movies – Passion of Darkly Noon

Betrayal

He was there when I got home.

I’d been out, walking in the forest. It had been time for a walk in the dark for me, but I had come back. I always came back. I’d even thought to pick flowers, even though I almost dropped them when Callie jumped into my arms.

We lived in the forest, me and Callie, you see. In a house. It was a good house.

Jude had been by and dropped him off. Darkly. Darkly Noon. Weird name but the boy couldn’t help that.

In reality, I’m not sure the story of Darkly and how he tried to kill us – kill me – fits what the story here is supposed to be about. Not properly, anyways.

I mean – if you have to betray someone, you have to have pretended to be different than the case is? To fool them?
I’m not sure Darkly ever did that.

And it has to be something you do because you want to. I think. That may not be the way you’re supposed to think, I don’t know anything about that. But in my mind, the way I see it, to betray someone you have to make a decision to do so. You have to want it.

Callie didn’t want to deceive me. She just couldn’t help loving him. Them. So she didn’t, because she didn’t plan on it. She didn’t mean it. Not really.

Anyway, I came back home and there was this kid there. Or – young man I guess I should say. He’d been hurt pretty bad and he seemed confused and alone and when Callie asked me if he could stay, I let him. Of course I did. You do that.

Only – I shouldn’t have. Or – I should have seen where it was headed.

The way he looked at her.

The darkness madness in his eyes.

He met my Ma out in the forest. Listened to her lies. Wrapped himself in barbed wire like one of her dumb and dead birds.

Maybe the story should be about her? About Ma. She was the one who betrayed us by telling lies. Turning the towns folk against us. Saying that Callie was a witch, that she’d murdered Pa and put me under her spell and other crazy stuff.

Maybe it should be about Pa? Who took a girl home to us, just so he could try and have his way with her. And she didn’t want it. She was just this little scared thing that I wanted to pick up and hold – and I did. After he’d died.

Maybe it should be about Callie. About saying ‘I love you’ to another man. About seeing the darkness in someone’s eyes and not doing anything about it …

Maybe – maybe the story should be about me.

I swore I’d love her always. Always. That I’d protect her and take care of her and bring her flowers and pretty things. That I’d dance with her in the kitchen and eat all the butter beans, even though I hated them – because she had cooked them for my dinner. For us. I swore that I’d make the house beautiful for her and get her pretty things from town, those summer dresses that are soft to touch and billows out when a girl spins.

And I do love her. But the house burned down and Darkly almost killed us – and I left and went away in the night. Because she’d said –

I betrayed her. By promising something and not keeping it.

In my mind, that’s betrayal. Because you know that what you do is wrong – and yet you do it anyhow. Because it seems easier.

I don’t think it was ever easy on Darkly. Or Ma, for that matter. She’d cry so hard when she saw me. When I told her to go away.

Maybe it was easy for Pa. I don’t know.

It wasn’t easy leaving. I am not saying that. But it was easier than staying. Than lying awake at night, thinking about what Jude had said.

Maybe we all betray trust. Maybe we have to. But I still think that you can’t really blame someone who doesn’t know that they do that. So I can’t say that Darkly betrayed me. Because he just did what he believed was right.

I’d still kill him if I saw him though.


Slowly.



Count: 727 words
Muse: Clay
Fandom: Passion of Darkly Noon (Misc. Movies)

challenge response

I don’t know. Maybe –

I can still remember the first carving I ever did. I can’t have been more than a handful of years, seven at the most, and I had worked at it for days. It was not the first thing I had ever carved, mind, just the first proper one.

It was a mouse. A tiny little mouse. Fit in the palm of my hand as if it belonged there. I would go sit in the spot I liked, away from the house but close enough that I could hear it if Ma called for me to come home. I’d hurry up, gathering kindling, so I’d have time. Time that wasn’t for work or sleep or prayer. Time that was for me.

And I made a mouse.

I knew I couldn’t take it with me. The good book says you shouldn’t make things that look like things and Ma was very strict with that. Besides, it was just a wooden mouse. It wasn’t useful. It couldn’t do anything. Not even feed the barn cat.

I put it down next to the log I’d been sitting on and told it to be a good mouse. Even if it wasn’t a proper mouse. It couldn’t squeak for one.

When I got back there, a while later, it was gone. Maybe the Forest took it. I don’t know. For a while I thought that maybe – it’d become alive and run off, like a real mouse would. Squeaking. But that don’t happen. Not when it couldn’t to begin with.

I was proud of the house too. The things I didn’t know how to do I figured out and when it was storming outside and you sat indoors you knew it was a good house.

I was proud whenever I made Callie smile. Especially the first time. She was so pretty. And I felt proud every time I looked at her. Because she lived with me. And I could make her smile.

But see – there’s the catch. There’s always one in these questions. Maybe they think I don’t catch on to them, because I never went to school. But I do.

They say it has to be one moment. And that isn’t right with these, cause there isn’t one moment when a carving just is. You make it and all the while you work with the wood is part of that carving in the end.

And the storm isn’t any particular storm. It’s more the idea of one. Like when you remember bad winters and they’re all bad winters you’ve ever seen and then some. In your head.

And even if I say I remember the first time I made Callie smile – you can’t just go and make years with someone into a moment.

So I think I have to say that I don’t know.

Ma believed in God. And her God was a vengeful and jealous God indeed. You weren’t supposed to play on Sundays, not even just a little. You weren’t to take His name in vain and he would know, even if you only thought it. Playing cards was wrong, dancing was wrong, and if you ran with scissors you’d end up in the part of Hell reserved for naughty boys who didn’t pay attention and made their mothers cry.

Ma’s God would give me back my voice if I was a good boy, washed my hands, ate my greens, and didn’t look at the girls in their summer cotton dresses.

Callie’s God was love, she said. Once. Letting others be who they were. Going to dance in the rain because it was beautiful and fun and you’d have to get naked in front of the stove after to dry properly. She said that God smiled when we kissed. Much more than when people sang hymns. That kisses were hymns, only more so.

I told David I didn’t believe in God. He didn’t like me saying that.

It wasn’t true.

I do believe.


My God is in the emptiness between the stars and the darkness in the deep heart of the forest. My God rests in the silence right after every heartbeat and in the distance between people walking the streets at night.

My God knows of no hymns, no kisses, and no Hell.

But it hardly matters. My God waits, patiently, till there is nothing but the silence. And until that happens, I work and sleep and eat. Sometimes I play. Smile. I let my hands lure out the hidden animals inside the wood I carve. And I’ll run with scissors if I damn well please.



Count: 295
Muse: Clay
Fandom. Passion of Darkly Noon (Misc. Movies)

1. Tell me one thing you love about me.
2. Tell me two things you love about yourself.
3. Look through the comments... when you see someone you know, tell them three things you love about them.
4. Do this in your journal so I can tell you what I love about you.

Clay had cleaned. He was quite proud of himself. And he had cooked. And it hadn't burned. Much.

He'd had the day off work and the time suddenly seemed so very very long.

Darth Maul was asleep on the couch and he had just finished making coffee.

I don’t know much about commitment really.

I mean I understand what it is and all and I think it’s a good thing. But – I don’t think I’ve ever done anything that showed commitment.

Like the thing with Callie. I’m sticking by her and have done even when things got rough, back when we lived in the forest. When Ma yelled at me and people didn’t want me to work for them no more. But that’s not commitment. I’m doing it because there is nothing else I can do. It’s not a decision I make – I’m not saying “I’m going to do this instead of something else.”

But I’m not saying that I don’t have a choice like it’s a bad thing, mind you. It isn’t. If I had a choice I’d still have done the same. Still do the same. All I am saying is that as of now I’m not really making a choice. I’m just – being who I am. That’s not commitment.

As far as friendships go, you just don’t abandon friends. Not if you’re a decent person. So staying true to your friends isn’t really about commitment either. Or, it is but not as a thing on its own. It’s just part of being a friend. At least, that’s how I see it.

Then there’s work. That you’re timely and through and all. But that’s just part of doing a good job. I want to be able to look people in the eye when they’ve paid me for doing a job. And I can if I know that I’ve done the best job possible. With the materials and the time. So that’s about being a craftsman. Not about commitment.

Maybe it’s because it’s been singled out. I don’t really think that commitment makes much sense like that. Because it’ll just be me yapping on about it. Like love or some such. I never really know what to say about things I can’t hold in my hand. I can do them but I don’t really know how to talk about them. And I don’t see why you should. They make no sense on their own. Only in connection with other stuff. People.

It’s like – I do it but I don’t know about it. I can’t walk around it and describe it and tell you all about why it matters. But if you’re my friend I’ll stand by you. And if you pay me to do a job for you it’ll get done. And well.


Muse: Clay
Fandom: Passion of Darkly Noon (Misc. Movies)
Count: 417

I had a coin. This big, heavy one. Jude gave it to me one of the first times he stopped by with The Undertaker. He said it was a Spanish coin. From a pirate treasure. Jude was full of it a lot of the time but he might have been telling the truth.

I lost it at some point coming here. Maybe someone saw it and stole it. As I said it was really big. Shiny too. Maybe I just dropped it.

I regret losing that.

Jude was never really a friend. He was a bit afraid of me I think. He’d always jump away from Callie whenever I came out of the barn. If they’d been talking. But he was nice enough in his own way. And he did give me that coin.

I do coin tricks, see?

I’m quite good. And I used this to practice new ones with because it was bigger and heavier. Then, when I had the movements right, I’d move on to smaller coins.

I’ve lost a lot of things. But this one I lost through carelessness so that bugs me. More than the house and all because – we couldn’t just have turned Darkly away. He was ill when Jude brought him. And Callie wanted him to stay.

Now, you all thought I was gonna say I regret losing Callie the most.
Wrong.

For one, you can’t lose a person. Because you don’t have them. It’s not like tools or houses or something like that. It’s like the forest. You don’t own the forest. Some people may think they do. And say they do. Make money on it even. But they are wrong.
I don’t know of any forests that believe themselves to be owned. But then again, most trees are smarter than people.

“What about when people die?” you say.

We still don’t lose them. If anything they pay more attention to what we say. Sure, they don’t say much. But most people prefer to talk anyway.
It’s true.
Everybody loves a good listener. And nobody surpasses the dead when it comes to listening.

And as for Callie being with – someone else. That’s her choice. I can still love her. It doesn’t take that away from me. But he doesn’t understand that.
I bet he says he owns forests too.
Idiot.

I regret things I’ve done. Things that have brought us here, to where we are right now. But that is different. Those are actions. And I did them because I thought they were right. So I only regret them up to a point. The only thing I lost was what might have been if I hadn’t done them. And I don’t know anything about that. I can guess, but I will never know.

So – yeah – I regret losing that coin. It was a good coin. For practicing.


Muse: Clay
Fandom: Passion of Darkly Noon (Misc. Movies)
Count: 475