Sunday sentences
Jun. 2nd, 2013 01:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
charlie_cochraneA bit of the WIP. Or, I should say, one of the many WIPs I have that need to be finished before I start working on something else. Did you hear that, muse?
This is top of the "to be finished and subbed" list.
Christopher put the phone down, but didn’t move from the hallway. Why couldn’t Mark have taken better care of himself or had it simply been the universe conspiring against them? Sudden rain on roads too long dry, cars going too fast, too close. Mark in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Christopher had tried not to mull over all the “what ifs”. What if he’d left work a bit earlier or a bit later, what if he’d gone a different way—as he sometimes did, avoiding the rat run—what if he’d stopped to pick up the milk he was supposed to be collecting on the way home?
What was the point of torturing himself? Nothing would change.
Maybe he should go down the garden and beat the crap out of some bushes, or do something else—anything—that would keep body and mind busy. He’d often said he wanted to prune that plum tree but it had never been the right time. What had Dad said it would get if you didn’t get your timing spot on? Silver leaf, that was it. Well, if he cut the whole bloody tree down that wouldn’t matter.
He’d got as far as the garage and rescuing the saw from under a pile of garden debris when the guilt hit.
Mark had loved this time of year and the earliest of the plums, barely waiting until they were edible, risking the tang and stomach ache to indulge in the summer’s first fruits. He had tasted and it had been good. Christopher had never cared for the things, not even in Mark’s signature dish of fruit crumble, and had had been on the verge of cutting the tree down and burning it before. Just at the very point Mark had stepped into his life. To cut the tree down now would feel like cutting another tie with the past, taking one more step away from the sort of wholly contented life he’d never known before and might never experience again.
He put down the saw; the plum tree would get a reprieve, even if Christopher was condemned to grief.
He went to the kitchen, took one of the cakes, felt the immediate response of his stomach—he’d not fancied more than a cup of coffee and a cigarette for breakfast and now it was protesting at the lack of proper grub. It tasted nice—no icing or fancy stuff, just little raisins in the mixture to add to the sweetness. His stomach welcomed it so much he had three, washing them down with another coffee. That would do for lunch, as well as making up for breakfast.
Maybe he’d make himself a proper meal tonight, rather than relying on bunging something from Waitrose in the microwave. If he was going to have a decent lunch next Sunday he should be trying to develop a bit of an appetite. It would mean a lot to the old man to have support and picking at his dinner plate was going to look like the worst sort of insult for the hours the bloke would be spending slaving over the oven.
Good for him to be casting his net out again.
Christopher wasn’t sure he’d ever reach that point. Everybody said that time was the best healer, but how long was needed to soothe the ache in your heart and make you want to fill the hole in your bed?
He went to the toilet then took a long, hard look in the mirror, straightening his hair and trying to remember if he’d had so many wrinkles when Mark was alive.
What a mess, what a God awful mess. And he didn’t just mean the face which stared back at him.
BTW, that muse of mine never listens. He gave me a great idea for a WWI story today. Just what I need - another story to not finish.
This is top of the "to be finished and subbed" list.
Christopher put the phone down, but didn’t move from the hallway. Why couldn’t Mark have taken better care of himself or had it simply been the universe conspiring against them? Sudden rain on roads too long dry, cars going too fast, too close. Mark in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Christopher had tried not to mull over all the “what ifs”. What if he’d left work a bit earlier or a bit later, what if he’d gone a different way—as he sometimes did, avoiding the rat run—what if he’d stopped to pick up the milk he was supposed to be collecting on the way home?
What was the point of torturing himself? Nothing would change.
Maybe he should go down the garden and beat the crap out of some bushes, or do something else—anything—that would keep body and mind busy. He’d often said he wanted to prune that plum tree but it had never been the right time. What had Dad said it would get if you didn’t get your timing spot on? Silver leaf, that was it. Well, if he cut the whole bloody tree down that wouldn’t matter.
He’d got as far as the garage and rescuing the saw from under a pile of garden debris when the guilt hit.
Mark had loved this time of year and the earliest of the plums, barely waiting until they were edible, risking the tang and stomach ache to indulge in the summer’s first fruits. He had tasted and it had been good. Christopher had never cared for the things, not even in Mark’s signature dish of fruit crumble, and had had been on the verge of cutting the tree down and burning it before. Just at the very point Mark had stepped into his life. To cut the tree down now would feel like cutting another tie with the past, taking one more step away from the sort of wholly contented life he’d never known before and might never experience again.
He put down the saw; the plum tree would get a reprieve, even if Christopher was condemned to grief.
He went to the kitchen, took one of the cakes, felt the immediate response of his stomach—he’d not fancied more than a cup of coffee and a cigarette for breakfast and now it was protesting at the lack of proper grub. It tasted nice—no icing or fancy stuff, just little raisins in the mixture to add to the sweetness. His stomach welcomed it so much he had three, washing them down with another coffee. That would do for lunch, as well as making up for breakfast.
Maybe he’d make himself a proper meal tonight, rather than relying on bunging something from Waitrose in the microwave. If he was going to have a decent lunch next Sunday he should be trying to develop a bit of an appetite. It would mean a lot to the old man to have support and picking at his dinner plate was going to look like the worst sort of insult for the hours the bloke would be spending slaving over the oven.
Good for him to be casting his net out again.
Christopher wasn’t sure he’d ever reach that point. Everybody said that time was the best healer, but how long was needed to soothe the ache in your heart and make you want to fill the hole in your bed?
He went to the toilet then took a long, hard look in the mirror, straightening his hair and trying to remember if he’d had so many wrinkles when Mark was alive.
What a mess, what a God awful mess. And he didn’t just mean the face which stared back at him.
BTW, that muse of mine never listens. He gave me a great idea for a WWI story today. Just what I need - another story to not finish.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-02 04:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-02 04:13 pm (UTC)You don't fancy writing the last few chapters, perchance?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-02 06:06 pm (UTC)*laughs herself silly*
Right.
Lovely snippet, by the way. Like like Christopher already.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-02 08:16 pm (UTC)On the other hand, best part of 600 words done on the story I told my muse I refused to write...
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-02 08:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-04 11:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-02 06:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-02 08:15 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-03 08:21 pm (UTC)I've just been writing an angsty Christopher too. Or rather an angsty Christophe, since he's being temporarily Dutch.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-04 11:05 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-04 11:21 am (UTC)The man -- seemingly a small time dealer in drugs and information on the basis of past meetings, although Edward suspected there was more to him than that -- went by multiple names, and just as many accents. He was John, or Pete, or Steve, and sometimes even Chris, from a range of London or Home Counties origins. He was Sean, or Pat, or Mick from one or other of the Irish counties. He most definitely wasn't Dutch despite the hint of an accent, and not that Edward knew more than a smattering of words in the language: few of those repeatable in polite company.
Any of those of help?
(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-04 11:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-06-04 01:58 pm (UTC)