(no subject)

[flagg]

Friends. Countrymen.

[ A smiling man, a man lowering the hood of his jacket. A man with a U.S. army coat over that, old jeans, worn cowboy boots, and a beat up Boy Scouts backpack. He's almost like anyone but for a touch of something antiquated about his clothes and the way he talks.

That and the smile. ]

Will you tell me a story? A joke or two to while away the time? I am a man for wanderin', but this seems like a fine place to pull up a chair and take a breather. A fine, safe place, where a story or two could do no harm at all.

And if you like, why, I'll tell you one right back. That's only fair.

Comments

[norea]

[ By contrast, the young lady nearby is dressed impeccably: heels, white pencil dress with glossy pearl buttons. Her head tilts just slightly, regarding the strange man with a mixture of something like surprise and unbridled curiosity. She does not touch anything around herself, though, and her hands are still at her sides. ]

All right. I'd love to. Are you ready?

[ A ghost of a smile, there, before she launches into her retelling. It's not her own story by any means, but she embellishes it, changes things to suit her own narrative. Now she becomes more animated, not quite brazenly theatrical, but she is an actress. It's hard not to inject more warmth at certain points, to drawl or pause when the moment suits. ]

A man encounters his former apprentice, once a future watchsmith, while out with his daughter. His former apprentice, Owen, who has been in love with the daughter for many years, overhears the man say to her that Owen has become obsessed with a project of some kind, and that it is an endeavor that will never come to anything; instead, the man praises the local blacksmith. Owen is briefly waylaid from his efforts by these comparisons, and resumes his former watchsmith apprenticeship, going on to become successful.

As the years pass, he returns to his secret project, becoming defensive and hostile, like a hermit. The other man's daughter visits him, and Owen briefly believes that she is different from the townsfolk who don't understand his mysterious work, but she marries the blacksmith. Owen separates from society completely, and well after her marriage, returns to town only once he has finished his invention.

He subsequently presents it to the watchsmith's daughter, now the blacksmith's wife, as a late wedding gift. By then, she has had a child, a boy. Together, they open the gift, and discover it is a perfect mechanical butterfly that flutters just like the real thing. It lands on the woman, and she stares at it in amazement for some time.

Her child reaches for it. Owen doesn't even mind, doesn't even try to stop the boy with his little fist wrapping around the delicate wings, and watches while the child accidentally crushes it in his hand. The longevity of the butterfly wasn't his dream, only that it ever existed.

[flagg]

[ The way his eyes alight, the quickness, the liveliness of it, is somewhere between animal and mental patient, and not any better for retaining a self-aware focus quite unlike either of those. ]

Thank you kindly, sister. I'm ready, yes.

[ Flagg leans upon the podium like a teacher intent on a misbehaving student, the smile lingering as he watches her perform. The stare could come out of a zoo cage or at the footlights of a strip club's stage. Behind it too is the Eye, but this place inhibits him; all that insistent, obnoxious sense of sanctuary is beyond his ability to undo. He can only be himself, which is in some ways more than enough.

He is an involved audience as well. The story invokes in certain places a minor call and response reaction, a word she says echoed in mutter here, an odd syllable of acknowledgment to punctuate her story there. Never too loud. Never fully intrusive, or at least, no more intrusive than his stare, which she as an actress must be accustomed to. At the end he inhales slowly, then whistles in cartoonish amazement, giving the podium a light thwack with his fist. ]

Now that was a story. It had everything. And it was true, very true in the way stories can be. Truer than life, which is after all full of lies. Did you come up with this story, sister? Or did you hear it on your travels?