(Wondering anon from above)Please forgive any typos, commentboxed. The snow has already thawed and messed up the streets in great dirty rivers. Now that is gone as well. All that remains is the sharp bite of cold in the air. Winter has already gone, but spring is not quite here. His people hurry all around him, cheeks red from the cold but faces twisted into grimaces of uneasiness - Winter always comes too soon, but spring doesn't seem to come at all. And maybe that is why so many of his people leave for places where the air doesn't cut like a knife and the only flowers that will bloom for most of the year are flowers of ice. Or maybe it is just him, him that people are glad to be free of. They hate the cold and can't stand him any longer. He hates the cold, too, and he is not too sure he can still stand himself. His steps take him past the riches and the squalor of his capital, past cars longer than a room and decorated with gilt, past homeless men that have frozen under their single blanket. They take him to a neighbourhood which is not quite rich and not quite poor, grand houses faded from age and patched in too many places. A cap is on his head and his head between his shoulders, and his scarf is wrapped around all of it. He doesn't really see or hear anything, he just wants to be left alone, and he wants people not to run away from and he doesn't know- He stops. He's stopped dead in his tracks and only when he has he realizes why. From a hundred feet away, a tune approaches, carried on the lips of a young woman bundled against the cold so much he can barely see her face. The tune is one of his own, as are the words, and she sings them in a way that tells him her mother sang it at her bedside every night, and her grandmother before. It isn't just a sweet melody and pretty words, though. The melody and the words are old, from times that don't bear thinking about, from times before even the church had arrived. A lullaby that speaks of white snow and red berries, woods of dark trees green even in winter and the shapes of animals moving at dusk. It is an old lullaby, old enough that he has heard it sung in his mother's voice, and this young woman is singing it, she knows it, knows a part of him he's almost forgotten. When she steps past him, light on her feet, the song finished but still hanging in the air, she gives him a small, vaguely embarrased smile and a nod. "My mother used to sing it to me." she says, and he just gives her a smile back, and she is on her way, past the faded splendor of the houses. And when she is gone far enough, he rests against the cracked plaster of the wall, the smile still on his face and the voice, the words, the melody still in his head, and there are tears streaming down his face even though he's so happy he has heard it again, or maybe because of it. The sun is a bit brighter now, or his mood might be, because it certainly seems brighter. Wiping the tears away with an end of his scarf, he continues on his not-quite-as-aimless-as-before way, and says to the thin air and the unnamed woman who has left, but who hasn't really as she is a part of him - "Yes, I know. So did mine."
I liked this, anon! I love Russia interacting with his people, even though in this one he's more observing and less interacting.
I see citizens almost as a nation's children, like parents nations are always proud of their citizens' accomplishments and ashamed of their wrongdoing. So your idea that the woman is a part of Russia is an interesting point of view for me. I guess they kind of are part of the nation.
That lullaby must be, like, super-old if it was there before the church! Because Russia became Orthodox a long, long, long time ago.
Maybe more people will see this if you put it on the fills list.... it's kind of unnoticeable with no title, no offense... The only reason I saw it was because I checked the thread specifically to see if anyone else had commented on my fill down below ^__^
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(Anonymous) 2010-10-02 09:38 am (UTC)(link)The snow has already thawed and messed up the streets in great dirty rivers. Now that is gone as well. All that remains is the sharp bite of cold in the air. Winter has already gone, but spring is not quite here.
His people hurry all around him, cheeks red from the cold but faces twisted into grimaces of uneasiness - Winter always comes too soon, but spring doesn't seem to come at all. And maybe that is why so many of his people leave for places where the air doesn't cut like a knife and the only flowers that will bloom for most of the year are flowers of ice.
Or maybe it is just him, him that people are glad to be free of. They hate the cold and can't stand him any longer. He hates the cold, too, and he is not too sure he can still stand himself.
His steps take him past the riches and the squalor of his capital, past cars longer than a room and decorated with gilt, past homeless men that have frozen under their single blanket. They take him to a neighbourhood which is not quite rich and not quite poor, grand houses faded from age and patched in too many places. A cap is on his head and his head between his shoulders, and his scarf is wrapped around all of it. He doesn't really see or hear anything, he just wants to be left alone, and he wants people not to run away from and he doesn't know-
He stops. He's stopped dead in his tracks and only when he has he realizes why. From a hundred feet away, a tune approaches, carried on the lips of a young woman bundled against the cold so much he can barely see her face. The tune is one of his own, as are the words, and she sings them in a way that tells him her mother sang it at her bedside every night, and her grandmother before. It isn't just a sweet melody and pretty words, though. The melody and the words are old, from times that don't bear thinking about, from times before even the church had arrived. A lullaby that speaks of white snow and red berries, woods of dark trees green even in winter and the shapes of animals moving at dusk. It is an old lullaby, old enough that he has heard it sung in his mother's voice, and this young woman is singing it, she knows it, knows a part of him he's almost forgotten.
When she steps past him, light on her feet, the song finished but still hanging in the air, she gives him a small, vaguely embarrased smile and a nod.
"My mother used to sing it to me." she says, and he just gives her a smile back, and she is on her way, past the faded splendor of the houses.
And when she is gone far enough, he rests against the cracked plaster of the wall, the smile still on his face and the voice, the words, the melody still in his head, and there are tears streaming down his face even though he's so happy he has heard it again, or maybe because of it.
The sun is a bit brighter now, or his mood might be, because it certainly seems brighter. Wiping the tears away with an end of his scarf, he continues on his not-quite-as-aimless-as-before way, and says to the thin air and the unnamed woman who has left, but who hasn't really as she is a part of him -
"Yes, I know. So did mine."
Not OP
(Anonymous) 2010-10-04 12:06 am (UTC)(link)I see citizens almost as a nation's children, like parents nations are always proud of their citizens' accomplishments and ashamed of their wrongdoing. So your idea that the woman is a part of Russia is an interesting point of view for me. I guess they kind of are part of the nation.
That lullaby must be, like, super-old if it was there before the church! Because Russia became Orthodox a long, long, long time ago.
Maybe more people will see this if you put it on the fills list.... it's kind of unnoticeable with no title, no offense... The only reason I saw it was because I checked the thread specifically to see if anyone else had commented on my fill down below ^__^