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witticaster1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten of these, then post them~.
1. You Won't Know - Brand New
She's never worried at night. The darkness has become a perverse friend for her--she knows the it like the back of her hand. She grew up filled with fear of the possibilities of the night, and she was broken and pieced back together in the pitch black of an underground prison. She thinks there are no more surprises to be had when her eyes are closed.
It's sunrise that leaves her shaking.
2. Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby - Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch
She can hear the piano like a cold, intricate lullaby, outside what must have once been his bedroom, where she lies sleepless and alert. The song is haunting and sharp sounding, less like a melody and more like the feelings of the player pouring out onto the keys. She's never heard music like it before. She never wanted to.
Twisting a hand through her curly hair, she turns over and tries to block it out, but she dreams of loss and her mother.
3. White Flag [radio edit] - Dido
It's in her posture, more than anything else--the way she stands up straight, chin up, in her thin brown jacket, jaw set against the early autumn chill (got to try and get a hat tonight, she tells herself). She walks with a purpose now, even when she's doing even more menial work than fetching tea for stars on the telly.
When the drunks say stupid things as she serves them their pints--when she catches wind of talking heads making mincemeat of the letter V--when she thinks she catches sight of the people she once rubbed elbows with--it's always a strong, quiet expression in her eyes.
She only really smiles in the very late evenings now, when she watches Edmond Dantes on the television the last tenant left behind.
4. Father and Son - Cat Stevens
She wakes up to the sounds of mellow guitar, the slight crunching sounds of fingers strumming strings. She was always something of a morning person, but in the Gallery, there's no way to know if it's still true. A man is singing, a tinny, desperate voice coming through the speakers of the jukebox, and another, richer voice is humming along.
She always feels disoriented, waking up without a glance outside the window for the look of the street outside. A month hasn't changed that at all, and so she wanders out into the kitchen with sleepy brown eyes half-closed, just in time to catch the words "I know I have to go."
5. My Funny Valentine - Lena Horne
She wonders what's under the mask.
That's no surprise--who wouldn't, having lived with a man for some time without seeing more of him than his raw hands? They blazed against his Fawkes ensemble, brilliant bright pain breaking out past a somber, deadened black.
And later yet, after feeling first-hand their strength, after nearly breaking beneath it...she's still furious with him, in a way. She doesn't know if she ever won't be, but she's fascinated despite herself.
There's something lurking beneath (within?) those burnt out black slits of eyes that never quite leaves her thoughts.
6. Where Have All The Flowers Gone? - The Kingston Trio
Sometimes, it feels like marriage.
A strange marriage, with separate beds and half a body's length between husband and wife. But there's cooking and cleaning and he brings home the bacon--Norsefire would have been proud, if it was anyone else.
They converse idly, sometimes about films, sometimes about what she's been reading. Occasionally, the government. It's all a strange and deceptively pleasant scenario, and one morning she wakes to find a single rose in a vase on her bedside table.
7. Wrappin' it Up - Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra
She thinks back on their dance together more often than she wants to admit. He held her carefully and played the gentleman while they moved across the floor--under a disco ball, of all things--and it...doesn't feel like him, when she thinks about that night. He was tense--understandably, on so many parts of it--and she wonders a bit, if they'd tried a different song, how things would be different.
8. National Brotherhood Week - Tom Lehrer
One night, she's reading in her (his) bedroom, having carefully pulled a book from the stacks surrounding her (his) bed, and a door slams, loud enough to startle her. Plinky piano, an old song she didn't know before living in the Gallery, with chortles between the verses. She's come to associate the tune with a mission well accomplished.
"Aaaaand everybody hates the Jews!"
He sounds manic singing it, and she wonders if he bothered to remove his probably blood-soaked leather gloves before sitting down to the piano this time.
9. Stand By Me - Oasis
Sometimes she pokes through the jukebox while he's gone, looking for something that strikes a chord of memory in her mind. It doesn't matter what song--any will do, if it's just one she knows the words to, because even unwilling accomplices to terrorism get nostalgic for childhood sometimes.
one day, he catches her at it, playing part of a song, changing her mind, and trying to pick something else instead. He's come home from a run for supplies, and she's learned not to wonder aloud where he's found strawberry jam that actually tastes like strawberry as she remembers it from age seven.
"Sing me something new," he says, in that tone that tells her it's a quotation, but she's got no idea what from and isn't in the mood to ask. They're half a room away from each other, with something slurred and somewhat indecipherable by The Clash filling the gap.
She turns around to face him guiltily, as though she's been caught stealing, and finds herself entirely wordless.
10. We are Nowhere and it's Now - Bright Eyes
One morning, after working all night, she buys the cheapest bottle of wine that can be had on her way home. Home to a flat that belonged to someone now dead, more likely than not--black-bagged, confided the landlord, trusting entirely her false ID (or more likely in this area of town, not caring that it's fake)--filled with the previous owner's old things and her few souvenirs from a life beneath the surface of the earth.
The birds' little songs sneak through the window, open just a crack, letting in the white noise of cars and people and city. Pale, watery light on her face as the sun rises and she sips white wine from a plastic cup from a fast-food restaurant. Too late to sleep, too early to drink, but this morning, the only one like it in her life thus far, she decides early is closer to punctual than late.
2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
4. Do ten of these, then post them~.
1. You Won't Know - Brand New
She's never worried at night. The darkness has become a perverse friend for her--she knows the it like the back of her hand. She grew up filled with fear of the possibilities of the night, and she was broken and pieced back together in the pitch black of an underground prison. She thinks there are no more surprises to be had when her eyes are closed.
It's sunrise that leaves her shaking.
2. Didn't Leave Nobody But The Baby - Alison Krauss, Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch
She can hear the piano like a cold, intricate lullaby, outside what must have once been his bedroom, where she lies sleepless and alert. The song is haunting and sharp sounding, less like a melody and more like the feelings of the player pouring out onto the keys. She's never heard music like it before. She never wanted to.
Twisting a hand through her curly hair, she turns over and tries to block it out, but she dreams of loss and her mother.
3. White Flag [radio edit] - Dido
It's in her posture, more than anything else--the way she stands up straight, chin up, in her thin brown jacket, jaw set against the early autumn chill (got to try and get a hat tonight, she tells herself). She walks with a purpose now, even when she's doing even more menial work than fetching tea for stars on the telly.
When the drunks say stupid things as she serves them their pints--when she catches wind of talking heads making mincemeat of the letter V--when she thinks she catches sight of the people she once rubbed elbows with--it's always a strong, quiet expression in her eyes.
She only really smiles in the very late evenings now, when she watches Edmond Dantes on the television the last tenant left behind.
4. Father and Son - Cat Stevens
She wakes up to the sounds of mellow guitar, the slight crunching sounds of fingers strumming strings. She was always something of a morning person, but in the Gallery, there's no way to know if it's still true. A man is singing, a tinny, desperate voice coming through the speakers of the jukebox, and another, richer voice is humming along.
She always feels disoriented, waking up without a glance outside the window for the look of the street outside. A month hasn't changed that at all, and so she wanders out into the kitchen with sleepy brown eyes half-closed, just in time to catch the words "I know I have to go."
5. My Funny Valentine - Lena Horne
She wonders what's under the mask.
That's no surprise--who wouldn't, having lived with a man for some time without seeing more of him than his raw hands? They blazed against his Fawkes ensemble, brilliant bright pain breaking out past a somber, deadened black.
And later yet, after feeling first-hand their strength, after nearly breaking beneath it...she's still furious with him, in a way. She doesn't know if she ever won't be, but she's fascinated despite herself.
There's something lurking beneath (within?) those burnt out black slits of eyes that never quite leaves her thoughts.
6. Where Have All The Flowers Gone? - The Kingston Trio
Sometimes, it feels like marriage.
A strange marriage, with separate beds and half a body's length between husband and wife. But there's cooking and cleaning and he brings home the bacon--Norsefire would have been proud, if it was anyone else.
They converse idly, sometimes about films, sometimes about what she's been reading. Occasionally, the government. It's all a strange and deceptively pleasant scenario, and one morning she wakes to find a single rose in a vase on her bedside table.
7. Wrappin' it Up - Fletcher Henderson and His Orchestra
She thinks back on their dance together more often than she wants to admit. He held her carefully and played the gentleman while they moved across the floor--under a disco ball, of all things--and it...doesn't feel like him, when she thinks about that night. He was tense--understandably, on so many parts of it--and she wonders a bit, if they'd tried a different song, how things would be different.
8. National Brotherhood Week - Tom Lehrer
One night, she's reading in her (his) bedroom, having carefully pulled a book from the stacks surrounding her (his) bed, and a door slams, loud enough to startle her. Plinky piano, an old song she didn't know before living in the Gallery, with chortles between the verses. She's come to associate the tune with a mission well accomplished.
"Aaaaand everybody hates the Jews!"
He sounds manic singing it, and she wonders if he bothered to remove his probably blood-soaked leather gloves before sitting down to the piano this time.
9. Stand By Me - Oasis
Sometimes she pokes through the jukebox while he's gone, looking for something that strikes a chord of memory in her mind. It doesn't matter what song--any will do, if it's just one she knows the words to, because even unwilling accomplices to terrorism get nostalgic for childhood sometimes.
one day, he catches her at it, playing part of a song, changing her mind, and trying to pick something else instead. He's come home from a run for supplies, and she's learned not to wonder aloud where he's found strawberry jam that actually tastes like strawberry as she remembers it from age seven.
"Sing me something new," he says, in that tone that tells her it's a quotation, but she's got no idea what from and isn't in the mood to ask. They're half a room away from each other, with something slurred and somewhat indecipherable by The Clash filling the gap.
She turns around to face him guiltily, as though she's been caught stealing, and finds herself entirely wordless.
10. We are Nowhere and it's Now - Bright Eyes
One morning, after working all night, she buys the cheapest bottle of wine that can be had on her way home. Home to a flat that belonged to someone now dead, more likely than not--black-bagged, confided the landlord, trusting entirely her false ID (or more likely in this area of town, not caring that it's fake)--filled with the previous owner's old things and her few souvenirs from a life beneath the surface of the earth.
The birds' little songs sneak through the window, open just a crack, letting in the white noise of cars and people and city. Pale, watery light on her face as the sun rises and she sips white wine from a plastic cup from a fast-food restaurant. Too late to sleep, too early to drink, but this morning, the only one like it in her life thus far, she decides early is closer to punctual than late.
