Title: Landscape of Memory Fandom/original: Original Characters: 2 original Rating: G Word count: 212
When I remember you from before, you loom over me; as long and tall as the shadows in the afternoon. I am tiny, couldn’t touch your shoulders if I jumped, but I am complete in myself. Not afraid. This is the most comfortable I will ever feel in my own skin.
What I’ve tried so hard to forget is how diminished you were in your hospital bed. Your skin was sallow and loose on your bones, skin cool to touch, limbs thin in their long atrophy. They’d shaved your beard. It made your face look even emptier, not even the illusion that you were somewhere still in that shrunken body.
What I try to remember is that day on the beach, the first time I saw the ocean. You taught me how to swim in the waves, told me not to swallow the water or I’d get sick. I remember standing amidst the breaking waves, my hands holding on to your shoulders. A tiny child and her tiny father standing at the edge of the vast sea.
The wave took us both by surprise, knocked you off your feet, tossed us carelessly underneath the surface. I held on with both hands, confidant you’d bring both of us back into the light again.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2007-11-30 08:47 pm (UTC)Fandom/original: Original
Characters: 2 original
Rating: G
Word count: 212
When I remember you from before, you loom over me; as long and tall as the shadows in the afternoon. I am tiny, couldn’t touch your shoulders if I jumped, but I am complete in myself. Not afraid. This is the most comfortable I will ever feel in my own skin.
What I’ve tried so hard to forget is how diminished you were in your hospital bed. Your skin was sallow and loose on your bones, skin cool to touch, limbs thin in their long atrophy. They’d shaved your beard. It made your face look even emptier, not even the illusion that you were somewhere still in that shrunken body.
What I try to remember is that day on the beach, the first time I saw the ocean. You taught me how to swim in the waves, told me not to swallow the water or I’d get sick. I remember standing amidst the breaking waves, my hands holding on to your shoulders. A tiny child and her tiny father standing at the edge of the vast sea.
The wave took us both by surprise, knocked you off your feet, tossed us carelessly underneath the surface. I held on with both hands, confidant you’d bring both of us back into the light again.