audio | un: hidden

[matermali]

( cw; cannabis )

[ There is no softness to the voice that murmurs onto the network in the midst of the night when people should be sleeping. Those sweet souls are not her concern if they don't wish to hear. She offers no comfort, but a reminder of what's been lost—what can still be taken.

In doing so, the woman's raspy words creep out from beneath the shadows with a voice that drags—no, it crawls—over ceaselessly hot coals. In its shudder to whisper out a poem borrowed from home, there is a smolder always bordering on a choked gasp. But no hurry, no hurry. Where do you have to be? ]

Old Yew which graspeth at the stones...that name the under-lying dead; Thy fibres net the dreamless head, thy roots are wrapt about the bones.

[ To that, a pause that looms with omen. ]

The seasons bring the flower again, and bring the firstling to the flock; And in the dusk of thee, the clock beats out the little lives of men.

[ Now, a strange yearning nearly begins to dissipate the smoke that seems to scorch her throat.

Hush, take a moment. Take a breath; hold it. Feel the shiver of a fingernail at the nape of your neck, feel it trace the curve of your ear to borrow your attention. Only just. No, don't turn. Don't touch. Just listen; the whisper can still singe. ]

O not for thee the glow, the bloom...who changest not in any gale, nor branding summer suns avail, to touch thy thousand years of gloom.

And gazing on thee, sullen tree, sick for thy stubborn hardihood; I seem to fail from out my blood...and grow incorporate into thee.

[ For a time, it seems that may be all. Then, in the same hush she speaks with a more particular address: ]

I hear that we have been denied the ephemeral — to exist endlessly within a perverse mirror of God’s image. Here, nature should protest. Instead it menaces with its silence.

[ There is a silence of her own while Vanessa takes a drag to sigh out a thin stream of smoke into the evening air. Her voice now drops so low it grates and pinches too close, like gravel against tender feet. Tickling whispers are gone; they flee the weighted melancholy that persists. ]

We carry on within a dollhouse between worlds. Do not be tempted by its pretty trinkets, lest you truly be cursed to wander the demimonde forevermore.

[ Denial still rules paramount over the rumor of immortality, but the lack of bodies is an...unsettling implication. ]

...The graves lie empty.

Comments

[matermali]

Made, yes, but I believe it was crafted from the outside. I suspect withcraft at play, though I have yet to find the proof I need.

[ Oh, well, there's always time for a sprinkling of culture. Especially if it means there's something that connects another person to her world, if not her time. ]

I was. Do you know him from studies, or for pleasure?

[ It would be both for Vanessa. ]

[luciole]

From my studies, actually. Before finding myself here, I was too busy to read poetry or any other literature for pleasure, unfortunately.

[Esper Collective work came in bursts and sometimes they would be long-term bouts. Either way, she was mostly trying to get some sleep in between.

Lucinda makes no comment about the witchcraft though it does make her lips quirk. She was of the same mind but witchcraft in one world can mean something quite different in another.]

I suppose with the free time I'm presuming we're going to have, maybe reading can be a safe activity.

[matermali]

I have not had the time to read as often as I once did, but in my youth I was quite passionate about consuming anything that I could manage to find.

[ At least a certain type of literature, which is fortunately quite easy for her to find on a whim.

...Was. ]

On that matter, we would need to craft our own books. I have yet to find a page with any written word, beyond what was offered for...'tourists'.

[luciole]

It's a rather lacking city, isn't it? There are strong structures, but the details need to be fleshed out so to speak.

[And for her, rather than books...]

I'm wondering if there are any movies to watch as well. I've mostly been scrolling through this network that has all of us connected instead. If nothing else, we're a lively group of otherworldly visitors.

[matermali]

[ Yes, Vanessa can't stand much of the city's design. It bores her. There's no character. London may have had its faults, but the architecture was beautiful. There was always something interesting around every corner.

Here, this is only a lurking sense of dread. Something she carried with her in London, as well, but it was so much easier to find ways to drown it out there. ]

Movies?

[luciole]

Yes, movies! Motion pictures?

[Ah, it might be one of those cases.]

Think of it as a play captured by a camera and as implied by the name, all the audio and motion, and color is all there.

Are you from... A different time period? Is that presumptuous of me?

[matermali]

I know of moving pictures, yes.

[ Although what she's thinking of isn't quite as detailed as what this woman's describing. All the audio? ]

I suppose that would depend on what time period you are from. Is this city meant to represent a different time period as well?

[ She doesn't like the architecture, so that's unfortunate if so. Vanessa's heard of the concept since arriving, of course, but it simply doesn't occur to her when talking to people at first. It just seems strange that she would be the only one from her year to arrive here... ]

When last I checked the newspaper, it read eighteen ninety-one as the year of our Lord. But not you?

[luciole]

It's not an exact facsimile of the cities I've been to or the one I live in, but it does feel distinctly American. The boring and stripped-down parts anyway.

[It could have at least had the decency to be a bit more like Las Vegas; garish, loud, and bright, but it would have been interesting.]

1891... Wow.

I'm from the 2010s. That's quite the gap.

[matermali]

[ Now it's one thing to hear that people can be from different times, but another thing to actually hear it stated in such plain numbers. Vanessa knows it isn't a lie (what would be the point?) but it baffled even her, and she is one who has walked through worlds between worlds.

Contemplating what this could mean in regards to her theories of the City, she may as well take advantage of this woman's willingness to talk up such things. Easy, frivolous matters first, Vanessa. Isn't that how 'friendship' is made? She doesn't have many (or any) friends who are women, but that may be no accident. ]

Certainly not the America that I have heard tell of, so I have no choice but to believe you that it must mirror a different time. I would wonder which poets have become the most treasured in the year you arrived from, then.

[luciole]

[Lucinda's voice over the audio hums in contemplation before she replies.]

There are many other pastimes that take up the general public's attention other than poetry. But the appreciation for poets such as Tennyson, Emily Dickinson, and Edgar Allen Poe continues to reign and influence the arts.

For something a little more contemporary, Langston Hughes is quite lauded and many more, including children's poetry written by Shel Silverstein.

[It's nice, she thinks, to talk about such things as the major and minor details of culture then and now. It's something that lends great insight into another person and their attitudes when it comes to art and literature.]

[matermali]

[ If nothing else, it's a momentary distraction. She doesn't allow herself to entertain those for long, but everyone needs a break from their own melancholy. ]

Do you recall anything that Hughes penned?

[luciole]

Let's see... Many of his poems were very centered around the African American experience. In a sense, they were deeply personal.

I think this one poem though... It was simply called, "God." The last section of it really makes you think:

Spring!
Life is love!
Love is life only!
Better to be human
Than God—and lonely.

[matermali]

[ It certainly does make one think, and though Vanessa should be quick to argue that God loves most of all, she isn't really one to be making such a claim. Not honestly. His love is there, she believes it, but it is too far from her to feel it. ]

So much of what makes us human has been tarnished in this city, if I am to believe that death does not hold. What would that say to how we love, I wonder, with each new death? What should spring mean, then?