kingdomsofrain | tfln open post

Wait you're in the bathroom?

I'm in the bathroom.

I'm staying in the bathroom because I can't get out. There's no doorknob.

Why isn't there a doorknob????

Uh oh.

I was going to. Put a sign up?

'Out of order do not close door' something like that?

Guess I forgot to put it up. :c

[ Actually, the sign says 'DON'T GO!!' and it's sitting pretty uselessly on the kitchen counter. A mistake was made. ]

There wasn't a sign :c

And also I can't pee with the door open. Who pees with the

Nevermind.

Hey. So I guess I live in the bathroom now?

There might be some Swedish fish under the sink? Also this fantasy novel Wallace's been reading.

...

Well, there are Swedish fish under the sink. So I have provisions. I can probably make them last a few days.

And there's water and a place to pee. I guess I'm set for surviving.

The novel is my novel, though. I wrote this. I already know how it ends. There's no entertainment in here.

[ Sad-faced selfie incoming, Katrina in the bathroom mirror with her pink-cased phone in one hand and both the bag of candy and her own goddamn novel in the other. ]

[ ... ... ... ]

What if I tell you a story?

An original Fish story.

[ He could also, you know. Scrape his ass out of bed and open the door. But standing sounds like a lot. A lot a lot. He'll get there; he just... needs a minute. ]

[ Look. She's been around enough to know how difficult it is for him to get out of bed.

This is not a Dire Situation; she's not going to imminently die, and honestly, she has nowhere to be. It's kind of inconvenient, maybe. More funny than inconvenient, though. ]

I definitely want an original Fish story.

But you have to promise to let me out of the Porcelain Palace Prison sometime today. Wallace is going to kill me if I eat all the fish.

Promise.

Extra promise.

Triple promise.

No murderous Wallaces on my watch.

I promise.

So many promises.

Hey.

Hey.

Is it obvious I'm stalling?

You don't have a story for me, do you?

I'm going to start rooting through the cabinets in here. You're going to have to explain all the weird Boy Stuff I find.

Like -

Okay it is really not a good idea to keep a bottle of whiskey next to a bottle of bleach. I'm going to move that to the kitchen.

Assuming I ever escape.

Fuck I forgot about the emergency bathroom whiskey. Katrina you can't move that what if I get locked in the bathroom? Kat you can't move it I'll die, I'll perish. :c :c

Hey if you let the whiskey stay in the bathroom, you can have a drink? Whiskey to go with your Swedish fish?

I WILL have a story I just. Need to wait for inspiration to hit. You know. For the muses to speak. Isn't that how it works?

~~What, like how I'm locked in the bathroom?~~

The bleach needs to move, then. You understand the problem with keeping whiskey and bleach right next to one another?

Just trying to keep you semi-safe, Fish.

Muses don't speak to me. When I want inspiration, I have to make a vegan sacrifice in the middle of Central Park on the night of a new moon.

Lots of writers out there making sacrifices of tofu and quinoa at midnight.

I don't think I want to wait that long for my story :c :c :c

...Put the whiskey by the mouthwash?

Pretty sure my idea was to put it somewhere I'd forget about it until I needed it, though.

Maybe I'll just move the bleach? Or get rid of the bleach, what the fuck, I don't use bleach.

Sounds like a lot of work for a few words.

Also I don't think I've ever seen tofu and I'm pretty sure I don't want to.

Okay.

Okay.

So.

So, fuck, all right. So you know how just after a storm, everything goes calm and still and it's like you're the last person on earth?

Tofu needs to be cooked right for it to be interesting.

Nevermind, that's not important

Yes. Is this a story intended to frighten me? Because I can handle EITHER a scary story OR being locked alone in a bathroom, but not both.

Hey, come on. We both know you're the master of horror writing here. No way I'm going to impinge on your territory. ;)

It's a good story. I promise.

...I think.

I think Stephen King would heavily contest losing his crown to me, but thank you.

Best husband. :)

Okay. Stillness after a storm. GO.

Hey, I don't care, I'll punch Stephen King in the face.

For my wife.

And also for all those nightmares I had after my brothers decided it'd be 'fun' to read Pet Semetary as a bedtime story.

Right. All right. The stillness.

It was like walking into a painting. Like he might disturb something deeper than the earth, only there was no protestation, no trembling, only a softness that seemed to welcome him in. Like inside - where he'd been all day, watching the storm pour itself out - was just a holding place, and this, this painting world was somewhere he was always meant to find.

[ It doesn't seem right to interrupt him, to comment any further on Mr. King or how much Pet Semetary creeped her out. Or how his brothers are horrible people.

There are certain moments that, when viewed in retrospect, seem pitiable in how they've been given so little attentiveness. How they demanded more regard than they were given, and were lost to half-memory. Katrina is lucky enough to recognize this one as it's coming; it's important to pay attention to this.

Treavor's storytelling is different from hers, less razor-sharp, erring more towards metaphor - and it's mesmerizing.

Odd as this moment strikes her - wearing his shirt, seated on the closed toilet, pack of Swedish gummies in her lap, her husband not able or yet willing to get upright and let her out of the bathroom - it feels almost sacred.

This is another glimpse of his soul. ]

Don't stop.

You sure? I was kind of hoping you'd give up on me after that.

Not me. Not me, I mean. The story. Shit.

Okay. Okay...

[ ... ... ... ]

There was nothing for five, ten minutes. Only the spring of wet grass, rise and fall of his own breath, and the sky gone purple and carmine. End of the world, he thought, only the notion didn't startle him, only if this was the end of the world, it wasn't such a terrible way to go. Everything was ease. Everything was settled.

The man didn't think what had happened. The man didn't wonder, or need to.

He sat on the grass, elbows propped upon his knees, letting the damp soak through him, and even that wasn't unwanted, even the damp reminded him of sitting half-submerged in a stream, memory from years and years ago, the water fresh and renewing in each moment, gracing him with some unspoken gift.

Another five minutes, ten minutes, who could count the time. The grass stayed where the grass was and the damp crept further through him and it all, still all felt right. Him and the world, just him in the world.

And then there came a sound.

[ She's. Still, and silent, and her hand covers her mouth as though to physically prevent her from interrupting. Speaking, texting, breathing more than shallow breaths might break the spell. Speaking might somehow jar him out of this rhythmic patter, which seems to Katrina to be the greatest possible tragedy.

He's awake.

He's sober.

And his storytelling is bewitching. Haunting. Has anyone ever seen this part of him? Has he ever taken the time for anyone else? Maybe Wallace, but she suspects even then, it was a drunken ramble or a half-remembered incident from a night gone by. No, this seems like something just for her, something just between a husband and wife - and doesn't she love subjects of morbid fascination? Monsters and ghosts and mystery, and stories with atmospheres akin to the end of the world?

Doesn't he know that?

She loves him. She loves every last thing about him, every layered flaw that happens to shroud this person, with his beautiful eloquence. ]

Still not giving up on you.

[ Or the story. ]

Working hard to make my life difficult, huh kid?

Well.

For you, I guess I'll endure it.

[ ... ... ]

At first the man scarcely noticed, felt the sound more than he heard it and the sound was no interruption, only one more layering of all the world around. It was a sound borne of silence, come from quiet and knowing quiet’s ways. A sound that wound itself in slow, no startling, no trespass to this moment, this long, lingered moment’s stretch.

A bird.

A bird, he thought, and he wasn’t alone, now not only the man and the grass but the man and the grass and this new, subtle bird.

The bird was dust and a flash of radiance. Ash blown over ember, a glowing heart within. A bird, but no bird that this man had seen, no fluttered browns no silver no jay blue or bright, bright red. Just quiet pulsing not-orange not-red glimpsed beneath the shuffle of its heavy gray. Blink away, and you might miss it. Stare too close, and you won’t see. Little ash bird that knows more than it utters.

Tilt of a small ashy head. The briefest flutter of wingtips.

“Have you been watching me,” the man asked, not minding, no not minding because if the bird had been watching, it was the most agreeable kind of watch, not intrusive not invasive not disrupting, not one bit.

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