That final moment on the train, to me, always seemed like the eye of a hurricane. Oskar and Eli have left Blackeberg and all its troubles behind for good, but are headed right on the path to new turmoil one way or another. It's still a happy ending to me despite it all, but I always got the feeling that the two should enjoy the peace while it lasts - because nothing lasts forever. The first chapter is really meant to strike that emphasis between the happiness he feels when they are together, but the loneliness and anguish he feels when Eli must go away again. It's like he's been sucker-punched twice, maybe thrice over: Eli comes into his life, then has to leave. Eli returns into his life (and saves it!) and they run away together, but Eli again has to go away...for far, far longer than three days. It's Daisy and the Ball; Eli just keeps getting yanked away.gkmoberg1 wrote:Apologies for being such a sloth of recent. Greetings to you! And what a story! Such a terrific start. Your examination of Oskar's world, post Blackeberg, mirror lines that I've taken as well as of course all who've worked into the same whether on the discussion threads or here in the fanficzone.
I would love to learn your Oskar's reflection of those three silent days between Eli's first flight from Blackeberg and then his reappearance at the pool. That time, the stage being empty with the loss of the main character who had come so fully into his life. Yet, the sequences you have him work through - about what life with Eli would mean, examining the loneliness of his situation as well as Eli's, all this is terrific and a bit terrifying to put on one young child.
Do continue!
Oskar is stronger than he gives himself credit for, but he's still just a kid, especially in those flashbacks. A kid who knew what he was getting into, made his choice, but still can't help the pain that comes with it. How he learned to cope - and continue to cope, as the story progresses - is a major part of his character arc. It could be said to be the main theme of the story, for all three of our lonely 'heroes.' How to cope with loss, loneliness, how to love yourself and therefore better love others. That it's okay to hope for a better tomorrow, again and again, even if it never comes.
I like to imagine love as being a house that is always under construction. Sometimes it takes a wrecking ball and collapses, but then you go back in and start clearing the wreckage, making new rooms, piecing things together in new and old ways. Like Eli's puzzle egg: the right (or wrong) actions can break it apart, but time and dedication can reconstruct the pieces into something beautiful again. And at its heart, something priceless.
And now, the teaser for the next chapter. Meet Levi, another cursed youth who has yet to find his own Right One...
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Let the Long Night End
Part II
I’ve Got You Under My Skin
I’ve got you under my skin
I’ve got you deep in the heart of me
So deep in my heart
That you’re really a part of me
I’ve got you under my skin.
“In those days men will seek death and will not find it; they will long to die, but death will escape them.” – Revelation 9:6
∆
1983, Christmas Eve: Michigan
A young man sloughs through the snow, naked save for the travelling bag he kept secure on his shoulders. His breath fogged in the still, cold air, and although his skin was frost-bitten and stiff he did not deter from his course. The last light of the horizon was growing dimmer and dimmer, and soon it would be dark. He did not fear the dark, nor what lurked within it. But he did fear what this night’s darkness would bring.
The heavy snowfall did little to throw him off-course, despite the lack of visible footpaths or trails that he could take advantage of to guide him in warmer times. His senses were sharp, now, and he could smell the places where he had passed through before on the same arduous journey. Soon the trees will emerge into a small clearing, he thought. And at the center of the clearing...home. For tonight.
Indeed, he reached the top of the hill and found himself looking down on a small patch of forest unmarked by trees – he’d cut them down years ago, to better mark the place. Pointless in hindsight, now that he realized his senses were more than powerful enough to guide him where he needed to be. Looking at the beautiful, glittering snow ahead of him, he’s filled with a bitter parody of childish whimsy and decides to roll down the hill. The snow holds little chill to him at this point, even as it sticks to his skin and remains when his descent concludes. The tissue was all but dead anyways, and he wouldn’t need it for much longer.
Pressing onward, the naked man moves to the center of the clearing, where a patch of snow sits higher than the level ground around it. Slipping off his bag, the traveler lets it fall unceremoniously to the ground reaches into the pile, brushing the build-up aside with deft strokes. It exposes a wooden plank, which he slides off as well to peer into the depths. An old well, long since abandoned, dug deep into the earth, a classic bucket-and-rope design that had been stripped of the bucket and upgraded with heavy duty steel chain that extended all the way to the bottom. The traveler mournfully looks back, heart panging nervously as he realizes he cannot see the sun anymore.
But then, why would the sun want to shine on something like me?
A steady inhale. A shaky exhale. His fingers tremble, and his eyes sting. I don’t want to. I don’t… He whimpers, to his shame, as he grasps the chain and steadily climbs down into the darkness. Eventually, his feet meet ice – he’d reached the bottom. Down here, with the only source of light slipping away faster and faster above, he can barely see. But he can still smell, and the scent doubles him over, gagging. He can feel his soles stepping and squishing into the remains of a mess he is very grateful he doesn’t have to look at, and presses himself against the well walls, trying to hold his breath. The stench was appalling, rancid and vulgar. Worse than a skunk. Worse than shit. An ungodly smell, that’s what it was. Un-Godly.
All that was left now was to wait. He promises himself that he will not break this time. He won’t cry. He won’t beg. This night, he will keep his dignity even to the bitter end of it all, even when he ceases to know the meaning of the word – ceases to be himself at all. But already it is as before: the darkness, the knowledge of what was piled all around him in this pit, the awful smell…his hands shake ever more fiercely in anticipation of the horror to come.
It’s too hot down here. The cold kept him balanced, but in the depths of the well there was not enough exposure, no snow to cool his burning form. He itched all over, and bit his lip and clenched his hands, resisting the impulse to scratch and tear away the loose skin. He was molting – like a spider. The thought churned in his stomach, and bile exploded out from between his lips, hot and stinging. Coughing raggedly, the man can taste the iron on his tongue and knows he vomited more than stomach acids. His skin no longer itches: it sears, and he can’t help the hot tears that slip between clenched eyelids and roll down his cheeks.
”Daddy…” he sobs, curling into a ball, trembling. He can feel his ear pressing against something hard – a piece of bone. “Daddy. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I don’t want to. Please-!”
He screams in anguish as the convulsions begin, and his hands move to a will not his own. Fingers lengthened into claws, they dig into the loose shroud of flesh wrapped to his torso and begin to peel it away, exposing blood-matted black hairs. The sound is dry, almost like a wrapper removed from candy, but the pain is impossible to describe. The boy, no longer able to pass as a man, screams and sobs, choking on his howls when the claws finally reach up to rip away his face. The tatters of his flesh join their older cousins on the well bottom, fresh and sticky and steaming in the cold air.