Post by Admin on Oct 15, 2016 2:18:11 GMT
If by any chance you read this on the overnight trip, let this sort of pirated tune accompany your travels: downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/samurai-champloo-impression/01-just-forget.mp3
First Foreboding Friday post. You can tell where the inspiration comes from on this one.
Yvonne
There once was a lonely little princess
Who was all alone in this world
Then one day, she received a letter from her royal Mother
That she never had and always wanted
The lonely princess came to a graveyard
Filled with fog and quiet and isolation
She had no choice but to pass through
Though she didn’t know she wasn’t alone
Walking down through the gloomy mist and unfamiliarity of the forest path, Yvonne sensed the graves before she saw them. The air felt emptier around the graves, and the feeling made her breathing slow and stop, although her feet continued to press on without her. She stepped past the first row of listless graves, sitting in lazy rows like toads on a log, and released a long held breath. Her feet, enveloped in threadbare shoes, didn’t sink into the mud of the burial ground, much to her relief. She had always harbored a deep childhood fear of graveyards. The idea of her sinking into the ground (or the grave rising up to take her – depending on the perspective) had always been a fear of hers and she didn’t know why. It was good to see her fear was unnecessary here.
Besides, things like that didn’t (Superstition. Humbug. Old wives tales. Immature, stupid- I’m too old to believe any of that.) happen.
Taking another couple steps on the trail cleaving through the foggy lot, Yvonne’s left shoe stuck itself firmly into the mud. Instant panic shot through her spine, an electric jolt waiting to happen. She promptly let a yelp slice the empty cemetery air. Her leg gave a hard yank with the force of sheer terror behind it, and her foot came easily free, as if the mud path were teasing her and she’d taken it too far.
She indeed took it too far, and down Yvonne went, tumbling to the moist ground in wild, flailing acrobatics.
“Oof!”
She was chastising herself before the shock of the impact even faded, and thoroughly disappointed in her clumsiness, Yvonne picked herself up and dusted herself off, glancing nervously at the faceless gravestones watching her.
It was no different than if she had fallen in the midst of the other children in Happy Haven. She didn’t want to risk further taunts from them. Just keep walking. Keep walking.
Then again, did picking herself up quicker stop their snickering and sneering in the orphanage? Never. Then why should it here? They had seen Yvonne in her weakness and vulnerability, and that was all it took.
“I don’t need you anymore. I’m… I’m going home. To my mother,” the dry and tasteless words slipped from her lips and disappeared into the fog.
Home… where? Mother… who?
Yvonne wasn’t in the orphanage. Not anymore. The past was gone. She didn’t have to worry anymore.
“I don’t have to worry anymore. I’m never going to see you again.”
So… why am I tingling all over? Why do I still feel like they’re watching me?
Because it had been her life. Her instinct. She knew that nothing would take away the skills that she had learned (all too slowly) though survival in that hellhole. Nothing would take it away, even if her greatest hopes were to come true in that castle.
“You’re not here. You’re not here.”
But memory wasn’t something sleep or time or even (she guessed) a mother could remedy. Their jibes and jeers would float to her again and again.
A flesh wound by day is a lethal laceration by night.
Those children would return. Poor Yvonne. A-weeping, a-clumsy, poor Yvonne!
“Stay back.”
They would be with her; oh god, they were still there; they were inescapable.
Nothing will change. They will always be there, reminding me-
“Go AWAY!” Yvonne cried out, flinging her head up to the monochrome sky and baying away at the clouded over sun. The words panged away at her skull like a second heartbeat.
Nothing will change nothing will change nothing will change
“Excuse me, miss?”
Yvonne practically fell over where she stood. Dazed and bewildered at the appearance of a dark robed man in the middle of her mental purge, she half stumbled backwards into a tombstone before uttering a barely intelligent, “Whao, what are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you, little miss,” the man mirrored her question with a slow smile that didn’t help calm Yvonne’s nerves much.
In fact, this smiling man in the dark trench coat and complimentary fedora held a vague, perhaps spooky quality that Yvonne couldn’t quite place. He seemed no older than 30, yet his eyes held much more than an average gentleman’s young ambitions. That wickedly sharp smile. Face tilted in her direction. Those light blue eyes (they’re more white than color, actually)… they were hungry. Though his attire was dull and dreary (perfect for a foggy afternoon such as this), the man’s smile was what caught and held Yvonne’s attention and curiosity like a spider web. She had nary seen someone brandish a near earsplitting smile like this stranger, and with the piercing eyes flashing in accompaniment to the grin, he seemed like a figure from a dream remembered only in some long buried inkling.
What’s more, Yvonne took a disliking to his answer to her inquiry.
He had purposefully avoided my question, hadn’t he? Yes, he had. Yes, he had.
Her mouth fought for words and finally settled for a sheepish, “I, uh, didn’t mean to yell. I was, um-“
“Caught up in the tombs, yes?” the man offered, missing her idea completely. Neither his smile nor staring eyes faltered. “Yes, yes. I find them most fascinating too. Whenever I come out here, I seem to lose myself a little as well. Something we both have in common, eh?”
She decided not to question the smiling man’s use of the word ‘they’ and instead modified the subject in an effort to understand this stranger (and perhaps take her leave), “Do you know anyone buried here? I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’ll be on my way.”
“Oh yes, I do know many of them. Most of them actually,” he said, fueled by her question, though his body and gaze did not move. She realized with slight unease that the smiling man was blocking her path forward, “But don’t feel obligated to leave on my behalf. Why not help me out with a small favor before you’re on your way?”
“Oh?”
“If the miss is willing, could she read me the name on the tomb?”
“What? Which tomb?” she asked, looking around, bewildered. If she didn’t see her way out of this place soon, she felt she was really going to ‘lose herself.’
“If I’m not mistaken, it’s the one you’re standing in front of,” he said politely. Yvonne gave a jerky sidestep. It was the stone she had nearly tumbled over like a… like a (a-clumsy, a-weeping, a-weeping, poor Yvonne)…
There was an awkward pause as the man stood there, looking at the mist above the grave marker where Yvonne had stood. The silence seemed to seep into the space between them for a moment. Then he promptly broke it, “Pardon. Are you literate, miss? Or is the name too worn away?”
“Well, I am literate, but why?”
“Because I’m blind, dear child,” the man explained, raising a worn glove to the space below his eyebrows as if caressing a tender treasure. Those eyes, shining bluish white, remained open to the world, but now Yvonne could see why (or at least partially why) he had seemed so alien. That stare wasn’t really seeing. It was just… there. “I have not had the ability to read for… well, since you were an infant. So in order to know their names, I must run my hand over the engravings. It is slow and taxing on time, and you and I both know time is money. Perhaps your eyes may serve us both today.”
In uneasy compliance, Yvonne half turned to the rugged, dark stone, simultaneously placing the man in her peripheral vision (if his eyes don’t leave me, mine won’t leave him). The name in question looked rough, hard to make out. With the chips and erosion wearing away the name, it would’ve been near impossible for a blind man to figure it out.
“John… Burroughs,” Yvonne read aloud, “Born at nine and dead at noon.”
His smile seemed to widen at the words, and his eyes gave a complimentary flash. The smiling man stepped to his left, implying an opened way forward.
But there was something that compelled her to stay a moment more. So she decided to confront the feeling, “You said, a moment ago… you haven’t been able to read since I was a baby? What makes you so sure… I mean, how would you know…”
Yvonne trailed off, embarrassed at her own senseless prying. But the smiling man only turned his head in the direction of her voice and rested the blind eyes on her again, much to her anxiety.
“Yes, I understand,” he nodded mechanically, “You feel as though I’ve grazed a pit in you that feels… open, empty.
“Your birth. Your ears heard something about
“your birth, and now your heart is outracing your mind, emotions overstepping thoughts, only wanting to know if that sensitive event of your past is somehow, impossibly connected to a stranger. You know there’s a chance, don’t you? You wanted to ask, and you did, didn’t you?”
“…”
The smiling man sighed and turned his face away, as if deep in thought and not wishing Yvonne to see his face fraught with any emotion other than that (false, fake) jovial mask. Perhaps that grin had even waned. Yvonne wondered briefly what he looked like without it.
He spoke again, but this time, his cadence abandoned its previous façade, “Pardon me. I seemed to have stepped too far from the true path with my speech. Sorry if I disturbed you.”
He stopped a second, perhaps waiting for an acceptance to his “apology” that never came. He continued, “’Twas a wild guess, miss. Judging by your voice alone, you seemed at least 15 years of age. 15… perhaps 16 years. The amount of time I’ve lived in darkness. Am I correct?”
Yvonne could find her voice again, “Y-yes, I’m 16.”
“See?” the smiling man said, whirling around like a magician in a cape. The grin was still in place, leading Yvonne to believe it had never left. Those eyes were still glimmering. “I really am good.”
“And as for your birth… you’re an orphan, correct?”
“You’re correct.”
“Ah, another thing we have in common?” he said, “Don’t worry. You’re in good company, my dear. I once had a mother until the time came when good things had to leave. Back in those days, I could fool everyone. Including her. Especially her. Ever since then, the screws in our jaws have never been tighter, and it’s all because of the naughtiness I stirred up in my prime. Ah, it’s times like these, reminiscing in camaraderie, that bring me back…”
“I’m sorry, I have to get going,” Yvonne stepped around the trench coat, keeping her eyes on his eyes. They followed her, pupils as formless as the fog.
“As do I, miss. But perhaps my mistress will not take offense if I stay among the tombs a moment longer. I understand that your time is a bit more stretched than mine,” he nodded. “Are you sure you don’t require an escort?”
“No thank you,” she said, backing her way down the path.
“Thank you kindly,” he replied, though for her reading assistance or for allowing him time alone with the graves, she did not know.
She shuffled along, not yet willing to turn her back. Quicker than expected, the mist obscured the smiling man, enveloping him in a gray film. Soon he became a hazy figure. Then a smudged pencil sketch. An outline standing next to the path. And for a brief second before he disappeared entirely, those eyes flashed one last time, imprinting deep blue-white pinpoints on Yvonne’s eyes.
He was gone. She turned and walked forward and sighed.
Her destination. She was close to it now. Close enough that she could feel something – a presence of something large and looming and something beautiful for reasons she didn’t know why. She just knew. And she knew that her dreams would be realized, and that thought brought a smile to her lips. Not a hungry, venomous smile, but one rich in anticipation. A simple smile.
Then she was crying, and she didn’t realize it until the tears began to descend down her cheeks like rivers. She wiped a stream away and two more took its place, blurring her vision till the gravestones around her became puddles in her eyes.
Just like… just like…
Poor Yvonne is a-weeping,
A-weeping, a-weeping,
Poor Yvonne is a-weeping
On a dull misty day-
First Foreboding Friday post. You can tell where the inspiration comes from on this one.
Yvonne
There once was a lonely little princess
Who was all alone in this world
Then one day, she received a letter from her royal Mother
That she never had and always wanted
The lonely princess came to a graveyard
Filled with fog and quiet and isolation
She had no choice but to pass through
Though she didn’t know she wasn’t alone
Walking down through the gloomy mist and unfamiliarity of the forest path, Yvonne sensed the graves before she saw them. The air felt emptier around the graves, and the feeling made her breathing slow and stop, although her feet continued to press on without her. She stepped past the first row of listless graves, sitting in lazy rows like toads on a log, and released a long held breath. Her feet, enveloped in threadbare shoes, didn’t sink into the mud of the burial ground, much to her relief. She had always harbored a deep childhood fear of graveyards. The idea of her sinking into the ground (or the grave rising up to take her – depending on the perspective) had always been a fear of hers and she didn’t know why. It was good to see her fear was unnecessary here.
Besides, things like that didn’t (Superstition. Humbug. Old wives tales. Immature, stupid- I’m too old to believe any of that.) happen.
Taking another couple steps on the trail cleaving through the foggy lot, Yvonne’s left shoe stuck itself firmly into the mud. Instant panic shot through her spine, an electric jolt waiting to happen. She promptly let a yelp slice the empty cemetery air. Her leg gave a hard yank with the force of sheer terror behind it, and her foot came easily free, as if the mud path were teasing her and she’d taken it too far.
She indeed took it too far, and down Yvonne went, tumbling to the moist ground in wild, flailing acrobatics.
“Oof!”
She was chastising herself before the shock of the impact even faded, and thoroughly disappointed in her clumsiness, Yvonne picked herself up and dusted herself off, glancing nervously at the faceless gravestones watching her.
It was no different than if she had fallen in the midst of the other children in Happy Haven. She didn’t want to risk further taunts from them. Just keep walking. Keep walking.
Then again, did picking herself up quicker stop their snickering and sneering in the orphanage? Never. Then why should it here? They had seen Yvonne in her weakness and vulnerability, and that was all it took.
“I don’t need you anymore. I’m… I’m going home. To my mother,” the dry and tasteless words slipped from her lips and disappeared into the fog.
Home… where? Mother… who?
Yvonne wasn’t in the orphanage. Not anymore. The past was gone. She didn’t have to worry anymore.
“I don’t have to worry anymore. I’m never going to see you again.”
So… why am I tingling all over? Why do I still feel like they’re watching me?
Because it had been her life. Her instinct. She knew that nothing would take away the skills that she had learned (all too slowly) though survival in that hellhole. Nothing would take it away, even if her greatest hopes were to come true in that castle.
“You’re not here. You’re not here.”
But memory wasn’t something sleep or time or even (she guessed) a mother could remedy. Their jibes and jeers would float to her again and again.
A flesh wound by day is a lethal laceration by night.
Those children would return. Poor Yvonne. A-weeping, a-clumsy, poor Yvonne!
“Stay back.”
They would be with her; oh god, they were still there; they were inescapable.
Nothing will change. They will always be there, reminding me-
“Go AWAY!” Yvonne cried out, flinging her head up to the monochrome sky and baying away at the clouded over sun. The words panged away at her skull like a second heartbeat.
Nothing will change nothing will change nothing will change
“Excuse me, miss?”
Yvonne practically fell over where she stood. Dazed and bewildered at the appearance of a dark robed man in the middle of her mental purge, she half stumbled backwards into a tombstone before uttering a barely intelligent, “Whao, what are you doing here?”
“I could ask the same of you, little miss,” the man mirrored her question with a slow smile that didn’t help calm Yvonne’s nerves much.
In fact, this smiling man in the dark trench coat and complimentary fedora held a vague, perhaps spooky quality that Yvonne couldn’t quite place. He seemed no older than 30, yet his eyes held much more than an average gentleman’s young ambitions. That wickedly sharp smile. Face tilted in her direction. Those light blue eyes (they’re more white than color, actually)… they were hungry. Though his attire was dull and dreary (perfect for a foggy afternoon such as this), the man’s smile was what caught and held Yvonne’s attention and curiosity like a spider web. She had nary seen someone brandish a near earsplitting smile like this stranger, and with the piercing eyes flashing in accompaniment to the grin, he seemed like a figure from a dream remembered only in some long buried inkling.
What’s more, Yvonne took a disliking to his answer to her inquiry.
He had purposefully avoided my question, hadn’t he? Yes, he had. Yes, he had.
Her mouth fought for words and finally settled for a sheepish, “I, uh, didn’t mean to yell. I was, um-“
“Caught up in the tombs, yes?” the man offered, missing her idea completely. Neither his smile nor staring eyes faltered. “Yes, yes. I find them most fascinating too. Whenever I come out here, I seem to lose myself a little as well. Something we both have in common, eh?”
She decided not to question the smiling man’s use of the word ‘they’ and instead modified the subject in an effort to understand this stranger (and perhaps take her leave), “Do you know anyone buried here? I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’ll be on my way.”
“Oh yes, I do know many of them. Most of them actually,” he said, fueled by her question, though his body and gaze did not move. She realized with slight unease that the smiling man was blocking her path forward, “But don’t feel obligated to leave on my behalf. Why not help me out with a small favor before you’re on your way?”
“Oh?”
“If the miss is willing, could she read me the name on the tomb?”
“What? Which tomb?” she asked, looking around, bewildered. If she didn’t see her way out of this place soon, she felt she was really going to ‘lose herself.’
“If I’m not mistaken, it’s the one you’re standing in front of,” he said politely. Yvonne gave a jerky sidestep. It was the stone she had nearly tumbled over like a… like a (a-clumsy, a-weeping, a-weeping, poor Yvonne)…
There was an awkward pause as the man stood there, looking at the mist above the grave marker where Yvonne had stood. The silence seemed to seep into the space between them for a moment. Then he promptly broke it, “Pardon. Are you literate, miss? Or is the name too worn away?”
“Well, I am literate, but why?”
“Because I’m blind, dear child,” the man explained, raising a worn glove to the space below his eyebrows as if caressing a tender treasure. Those eyes, shining bluish white, remained open to the world, but now Yvonne could see why (or at least partially why) he had seemed so alien. That stare wasn’t really seeing. It was just… there. “I have not had the ability to read for… well, since you were an infant. So in order to know their names, I must run my hand over the engravings. It is slow and taxing on time, and you and I both know time is money. Perhaps your eyes may serve us both today.”
In uneasy compliance, Yvonne half turned to the rugged, dark stone, simultaneously placing the man in her peripheral vision (if his eyes don’t leave me, mine won’t leave him). The name in question looked rough, hard to make out. With the chips and erosion wearing away the name, it would’ve been near impossible for a blind man to figure it out.
“John… Burroughs,” Yvonne read aloud, “Born at nine and dead at noon.”
His smile seemed to widen at the words, and his eyes gave a complimentary flash. The smiling man stepped to his left, implying an opened way forward.
But there was something that compelled her to stay a moment more. So she decided to confront the feeling, “You said, a moment ago… you haven’t been able to read since I was a baby? What makes you so sure… I mean, how would you know…”
Yvonne trailed off, embarrassed at her own senseless prying. But the smiling man only turned his head in the direction of her voice and rested the blind eyes on her again, much to her anxiety.
“Yes, I understand,” he nodded mechanically, “You feel as though I’ve grazed a pit in you that feels… open, empty.
“Your birth. Your ears heard something about
“your birth, and now your heart is outracing your mind, emotions overstepping thoughts, only wanting to know if that sensitive event of your past is somehow, impossibly connected to a stranger. You know there’s a chance, don’t you? You wanted to ask, and you did, didn’t you?”
“…”
The smiling man sighed and turned his face away, as if deep in thought and not wishing Yvonne to see his face fraught with any emotion other than that (false, fake) jovial mask. Perhaps that grin had even waned. Yvonne wondered briefly what he looked like without it.
He spoke again, but this time, his cadence abandoned its previous façade, “Pardon me. I seemed to have stepped too far from the true path with my speech. Sorry if I disturbed you.”
He stopped a second, perhaps waiting for an acceptance to his “apology” that never came. He continued, “’Twas a wild guess, miss. Judging by your voice alone, you seemed at least 15 years of age. 15… perhaps 16 years. The amount of time I’ve lived in darkness. Am I correct?”
Yvonne could find her voice again, “Y-yes, I’m 16.”
“See?” the smiling man said, whirling around like a magician in a cape. The grin was still in place, leading Yvonne to believe it had never left. Those eyes were still glimmering. “I really am good.”
“And as for your birth… you’re an orphan, correct?”
“You’re correct.”
“Ah, another thing we have in common?” he said, “Don’t worry. You’re in good company, my dear. I once had a mother until the time came when good things had to leave. Back in those days, I could fool everyone. Including her. Especially her. Ever since then, the screws in our jaws have never been tighter, and it’s all because of the naughtiness I stirred up in my prime. Ah, it’s times like these, reminiscing in camaraderie, that bring me back…”
“I’m sorry, I have to get going,” Yvonne stepped around the trench coat, keeping her eyes on his eyes. They followed her, pupils as formless as the fog.
“As do I, miss. But perhaps my mistress will not take offense if I stay among the tombs a moment longer. I understand that your time is a bit more stretched than mine,” he nodded. “Are you sure you don’t require an escort?”
“No thank you,” she said, backing her way down the path.
“Thank you kindly,” he replied, though for her reading assistance or for allowing him time alone with the graves, she did not know.
She shuffled along, not yet willing to turn her back. Quicker than expected, the mist obscured the smiling man, enveloping him in a gray film. Soon he became a hazy figure. Then a smudged pencil sketch. An outline standing next to the path. And for a brief second before he disappeared entirely, those eyes flashed one last time, imprinting deep blue-white pinpoints on Yvonne’s eyes.
He was gone. She turned and walked forward and sighed.
Her destination. She was close to it now. Close enough that she could feel something – a presence of something large and looming and something beautiful for reasons she didn’t know why. She just knew. And she knew that her dreams would be realized, and that thought brought a smile to her lips. Not a hungry, venomous smile, but one rich in anticipation. A simple smile.
Then she was crying, and she didn’t realize it until the tears began to descend down her cheeks like rivers. She wiped a stream away and two more took its place, blurring her vision till the gravestones around her became puddles in her eyes.
Just like… just like…
Poor Yvonne is a-weeping,
A-weeping, a-weeping,
Poor Yvonne is a-weeping
On a dull misty day-