ds_flashfiction | Window challenge by Lipstickcat

title: Now Close the Windows
Author:

lipstickcat
Rating: G
Pairing: Fraser/Victoria
Words: 173, excluding poem

***

Now close the windows and hush all the fields:
If the trees must, let them silently toss;
No bird is singing now, and if there is,
Be it my loss.

It will be long ere the marshes resume,
I will be long ere the earliest bird:
So close the windows and not hear the wind,
But see all wind-stirred.

- “Now Close the Windows” by Robert Frost

----

The nurse kept opening the window while he was sleeping. He’d wake, hurting inside and out as if someone had torn him open and wrenched out his heart. And then the cool breeze would brush over his face like the tears he couldn’t shed and he’d remember; yes, someone has.

He hated waking to the open window, to the sounds of life going on in the world below his room. The birds sang an unfamiliar tune. All he could hear in their warbles was her voice, sweet, pleading, inviting, loving. He could close his eyes and see her mouth shaping the song-pleas. He could taste the dusky-rich colour of her lipstick, the flavour of her kisses sitting at the back of his throat. The rustle of the trees moving in the wind swept her name like a harsh gasp into the sky.

All he could do once he awoke was count the minutes, count the summons formed on berry-blood lips, until Ray would arrive and shut the window for him. Lock out the gale in his heart.

***END***

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

xtricks.livejournal.com

ooh, very nice.

I always think that Fraser has a somewhat poetic mindset but figuring out how to weave that into what I also see as a very matter-of-fact way of thinking... somehow this bit seems like that to me.

lipstickcat.livejournal.com

Thank you!

charashi.livejournal.com

I love the "and he'd remember" part, because that's so sadly accurate :( he really does give off the impression of constantly reminded and kind of blown away by what happened during that episode, at least to me.

That's my favourite part as well! I do wonder, though, who he thinks wrenched out his heart - Ray or Victoria....

keerawa.livejournal.com

Moving. Poor Fraser. I particularly liked this image: taste the dusky-rich colour of her lipstick

ruthless1.livejournal.com

Me too! I was just typing that up when I glanced at your comment. It really is quite evocative.

^_^ Thank you!

Thank you ^_^

kill-claudio.livejournal.com

Gosh, that's so beautiful. I particularly like the idea of the birdsong being unfamiliar, as though the world was a different place after Victoria. But really, the whole thing had a lyrical simplicity I just love. And I'm a Robert Frost fan too, so that made it even better. :)

Thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed.

I get a poem in my inbox everyday, and when that one arrived a couple of days ago I knew I had to do something with it.

(Just looked at your journal, have friended you 'cause you seem cool and you're DS fen in the UK. Don't feel any obligation to friend back though ^_^)

Hooray! *friends you back*

I get a bit over-excited about other DS-fen in the UK. It's a sort of, 'wow, someone who doesn't live on the other side of the world!'

Plus, your journal is pretty. And OMG you have a lot of pets.

nos4a2no9.livejournal.com

This was very, very nicely done. And quiet haunting, too - something about that Frost poem always evokes WH Auden and "Stop All the Clocks" and it sends me on a twisty little journey of sad, understated death-poems. Your story was the perfect compliment to all that, and I love what you did with the window prompt. That last line is absolutely perfect: "Lock out the gale in his heart." I just...you know how there are lines and then there are lines? And it's something you really wish you were capable of writing? That right there is a closing line that makes me envious. Wonderful little fic. Thanks for posting!