Time challenge by kuwdora
Jun. 21st, 2007 11:23 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
kuwdora.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
ds_flashfictionTitle: The Inward Day
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kuwdora
Category/Character: Gen, maybe F/V pre-slash if you squint
Rating: G
Length: 1,830
Warning/Spoilers: None, but feels like it takes place somewhere late in season 2.
Disclaimer: Not mine, sad to say.
Author's Notes: Normally it's the poetry that is a springboard for my writing, but this time around I wrote a fic and found a title by way of Henry David Thoreau's The Inward Morning after I wrote the fic. Go figure. The poem is beautiful and quite fitting for the story, but not necessary to read. (But how can you really pass up Thoreau?)
Summary: The steady footfalls that mingled with the other sounds of the city, the idling cars at the stoplight, men and women in power suits speaking with authority into cell phones, and the distant cry of sirens washed over Fraser like an amalgamated tide of white noise.
The reverberating sound of St. Joseph’s bells unfurled like tendrils beneath the feet of pedestrians who breezed past Benton Fraser, the unblinking fixture on the sidewalk in front of the Canadian Consulate. The ninth strike of the church bell was descending upon the ears of the masses when Fraser noticed Mr. Kwan directly across the street. He was a gentleman who Fraser literally bumped into in front of a hardware store during his morning commute to the consulate. They’d had a lively 15-minute conversation about the aesthetics of wallpaper and dry wall when he’d learned that Mr. Kwan was picking up supplies in preparation for turning their spare room into a nursery. As they collected his scattered bags and tubes of wallpaper from the ground, Mr. Kwan had expressed his anxiety and joy awaiting the birth of his first child, a girl, to be born that winter. He just couldn’t wait to get started on the nursery, and had made sure to apologize profusely for running into Fraser.
Saddled with his morning purchases and what appeared to be a large Styrofoam box of his lunch tucked between his hip and arm, Mr. Kwan looked across the street and locked eyes with Fraser. He flashed him a grin of a man excited to inaugurate himself into the world of fatherhood by way of pink wallpaper and crates of stuffed animals and hurried down the street with his purchases.
By then Fraser counted the twelfth and final chime of the hour from St. Joseph’s as a woman wearing Chanel passed by Fraser, the scent of mustard and relish trailing behind in her hurried wake. And, he couldn’t be sure because she passed so quickly, but he believed she might have just stepped out of taxi or some other sort of automobile from the slight trace of the artificial pine scent that seemed to be a popular air freshener with American car-owners.
The steady footfalls that mingled with the other sounds of the city, the idling cars at the stoplight, men and women in power suits speaking with authority into cell phones, and the distant cry of sirens washed over Fraser like an amalgamated tide of white noise. He took several steps away from the static and settled down on the psychic sandbar, the busy water lapping at his boots and the hem of his tunic. Fraser stared at the ebb and flow of the water and followed the swirling foam as it tumbled over and over itself and reformed into a shapeless entity. He skimmed the surface with his eyes, leaving the cacophony of the shore behind, and began searching for the memory of the faux pine aroma in the deeper water until like an osprey above the placid waters, he saw it. He dove—
He and Diefenbaker were climbing into the Riviera after Ray had purchased such an air freshener, which hung innocently from the rearview mirror. Diefenbaker had made his protests regarding the offensive scent known immediately by sticking his sensitive lupine snout in Ray’s Italian features and poked the cardboard pine tree with a grumble.
“Hey, what are you doing? That’s only there because of you,” Ray said, batting the agitated half-wolf away. “Eau de wet wolf is not something that picks up the ladies, I’ll have you know.”
“He apologized about that yesterday,” Fraser said.
“I know, but if he keeps mucking up the back seat, I’ll never get the smell out,” Ray said.
“I don’t think you should be complaining, Ray. After all, Diefenbaker helped in apprehending the criminal,” Fraser said. The previous day had the three of them watching several men who were receiving yet another shipment of semi-automatic weapons to be distributed throughout the greater Chicago area. The frequency and severity of illegal arms trafficking in United States still managed to surprise Fraser, even as his stay in the country lengthened by the year.
“The day that wolf apprehends a bad guy without chasing him into Lake Michigan is the day I’ll eat that air freshener,” Ray muttered.
The following weekend Fraser and Diefenbaker had spent the night in the Illinois State Forest, one of their monthly out-of-the-city trips. In the midst of their training exercise, surrounded by tamaracks and Douglas fir, Fraser and Diefenbaker came to an agreement that Ray and the Riviera would benefit greatly from the real thing. The next time Fraser and Dief climbed into the car, Fraser replaced the fake cardboard tree with a string of small pinecones that dangled from the mirror.
“What the hell is that and what’s it doing in my car?” Ray asked, shifting from park. A muffled echo of a church bell tolling seemed to latch onto the Riviera as it pulled away from Fraser’s apartment.
“They’re pinecones, Ray. Using a natural product to freshen the interior space of—”
“You’re getting pine pieces on my dashboard! I am not cleaning that up,” he said and Diefenbaker gave an appreciative woof of support.
“Oh, come now,” Fraser said and scooped the very minute pinecone fragments into the palm of his hand. “This is certainly an upgrade and Diefenbaker agrees.”
The third chime of the bell made Fraser turn around in his seat, searching for the origin of the unfamiliar noise in his neighborhood.
“Right, the wolf sides with the Mountie. That’s new,” Ray said.
“Constable Fraser! Constable Fraser!” Fraser rolled down the car window when he heard the voice of a little girl calling him and he doesn’t understand why he’s not commanding Ray to stop the car immediately.
“Hi, Constable Fraser!” the young girl repeated, her voice now accompanied with another young girl. Pulled back from the recess of his memory, Fraser recognized their voices as Cynthia and DeeDee Pagule, sisters who attended P.S. 112; the elementary school located two blocks away from the consulate. They stood in front of his looming figure and waved, admiring him like he was the hood ornament of a foreign car they now knew how to identify as Canada.
“Guess what??” DeeDee said. In his peripheral vision, he noticed Cynthia tugging off her backpack and placing it next to his feet.
“Yeah, guess what!” Cynthia parroted, the excitement palpable in her voice. They knew better than to expect a reply, though, since he and Diefenbaker had visited their 4th grade class and educated them regarding his position as liaison to the Canadian Consulate and what his duties entailed during and after his guard duty shifts.
“Ms. Jenkins took Daniel Winters to the principal today!” DeeDee said.
“Yeah! He broke a window!” Cynthia said.
“Hey, I wanted to tell him!” said DeeDee.
Cynthia shook her head, “He didn’t want to sit and listen to Ms. Jenkins read Ralph’s Motorcycle aloud after lunch.”
“He threw his history book right through the window!” DeeDee said, dumping her backpack beside her sister’s and began to circle Fraser, hop-skipping into a pirouette. On previous occasions when DeeDee and Cynthia had waited for the arrival of their mother at 3:30, DeeDee invited Fraser to one of her numerous ballet recitals and, at Cynthia’s insistence to not be left out, invited Fraser to her upcoming communion. He had no chance to RVSP either event because the girls’ mother was prompt in picking up her children and taking them home, but that didn’t stop the girls from inviting him.
Cynthia dipped out of Fraser’s peripheral, but he heard the unzipping sound of her backpack and telltale rustle of papers being shifted about. “Constable Fraser, I drew this for you in art class.” She backed up on the sidewalk, and weaved in between the pedestrians who paid little heed to the little girl, and held the piece of artwork up for Fraser. He didn’t get a good look at it, for he didn’t let his eyes leave the fixed position he aimed them at across the street, but Cynthia knew better and shrugged. “I know you can’t look at it now.” She folded the drawing up and walked up to Fraser and slipped it beneath his sandbrown where he’d be able to retrieve it at the end of his shift.
A blue minivan pulled alongside the sidewalk. “There’s mom,” DeeDee said, scooping the straps of her backpack onto her arms without missing a beat.
The girls and their mother bade Fraser their farewell, Cynthia giving him a final wave before clambering in and sliding the side door behind her.
Fraser felt the layers of exhaust thicken with the impending rush hour, the streaming colors of cars and trucks flowing seamlessly through his line of sight. He was disturbed by the girls’ recent news of Daniel Winters. Their previous tales of the reclusive 9-year old were heart wrenching, and he noted from their collective stories an escalation of incidents and previous erratic behavior with the other schoolchildren that might indicate some form of abuse going on.
The familiar green Riviera pulled up and parked along the sidewalk by the second chime of 5’o’clock. When the fifth chime sounded, Fraser uncoiled his wrists from behind his back and stepped into the car.
“Benny.”
“Ray,” Fraser said, buckling himself and removed the folded drawing from his sandbrown.
“What’s that?” Ray asked as they pulled away from the Consulate.
Fraser refrained from answering until he unfolded and held towards the window, to get a better glimpse of it in the light.
Cynthia had drawn Diefenbaker wearing his Stetson and labeled him “DEEF” beneath. Beside Dief was what he presumed to be their family dog, perhaps a yellow lab from its yellow coloring, named “INDY”. He, too, wore a hat but it didn’t resemble a Stetson as much as it did a fedora, which Fraser found curious.
“It’s a drawing,” Fraser said, smiling and carefully folding the piece of art into fourths. “And a fine one at that.” He removed his Stetson and tucked the drawing inside. When he placed his hat on his lap, that’s when he noticed the new pinecone—from a white pine—different from the fir cone he brought those weeks ago, hanging from the rearview mirror.
“Ray is that—”
“I’m doing it for wolf,” he said dismissively.
“Understood,” Fraser said and shifted in his seat. He focused his gaze outside at the rolling landscape of neon storefronts that swept past in a cloud of pink and blue neon that only served as a reminder of Mr. Kwan’s unborn girl and the schoolchildren’s most recent tale of Daniel Winters. Fraser knew, as he cycled through earlier accounts when he asked Ray for help on side-matters such as these, that Ray would aid him in the venture.
Fraser watched the pinecone dangle from the mirror as car rolled over potholes and cut sharp corners. The resinous aroma was thick and woodsy, unwittingly coating the vintage interior with memories of days Fraser spent resting beneath ponderosa pine with Quinn back in the territories. But now newer layers of Ray bickering with Dief over wet fur insulated his older memories.
Author:
kuwdoraCategory/Character: Gen, maybe F/V pre-slash if you squint
Rating: G
Length: 1,830
Warning/Spoilers: None, but feels like it takes place somewhere late in season 2.
Disclaimer: Not mine, sad to say.
Author's Notes: Normally it's the poetry that is a springboard for my writing, but this time around I wrote a fic and found a title by way of Henry David Thoreau's The Inward Morning after I wrote the fic. Go figure. The poem is beautiful and quite fitting for the story, but not necessary to read. (But how can you really pass up Thoreau?)
Summary: The steady footfalls that mingled with the other sounds of the city, the idling cars at the stoplight, men and women in power suits speaking with authority into cell phones, and the distant cry of sirens washed over Fraser like an amalgamated tide of white noise.
The reverberating sound of St. Joseph’s bells unfurled like tendrils beneath the feet of pedestrians who breezed past Benton Fraser, the unblinking fixture on the sidewalk in front of the Canadian Consulate. The ninth strike of the church bell was descending upon the ears of the masses when Fraser noticed Mr. Kwan directly across the street. He was a gentleman who Fraser literally bumped into in front of a hardware store during his morning commute to the consulate. They’d had a lively 15-minute conversation about the aesthetics of wallpaper and dry wall when he’d learned that Mr. Kwan was picking up supplies in preparation for turning their spare room into a nursery. As they collected his scattered bags and tubes of wallpaper from the ground, Mr. Kwan had expressed his anxiety and joy awaiting the birth of his first child, a girl, to be born that winter. He just couldn’t wait to get started on the nursery, and had made sure to apologize profusely for running into Fraser.
Saddled with his morning purchases and what appeared to be a large Styrofoam box of his lunch tucked between his hip and arm, Mr. Kwan looked across the street and locked eyes with Fraser. He flashed him a grin of a man excited to inaugurate himself into the world of fatherhood by way of pink wallpaper and crates of stuffed animals and hurried down the street with his purchases.
By then Fraser counted the twelfth and final chime of the hour from St. Joseph’s as a woman wearing Chanel passed by Fraser, the scent of mustard and relish trailing behind in her hurried wake. And, he couldn’t be sure because she passed so quickly, but he believed she might have just stepped out of taxi or some other sort of automobile from the slight trace of the artificial pine scent that seemed to be a popular air freshener with American car-owners.
The steady footfalls that mingled with the other sounds of the city, the idling cars at the stoplight, men and women in power suits speaking with authority into cell phones, and the distant cry of sirens washed over Fraser like an amalgamated tide of white noise. He took several steps away from the static and settled down on the psychic sandbar, the busy water lapping at his boots and the hem of his tunic. Fraser stared at the ebb and flow of the water and followed the swirling foam as it tumbled over and over itself and reformed into a shapeless entity. He skimmed the surface with his eyes, leaving the cacophony of the shore behind, and began searching for the memory of the faux pine aroma in the deeper water until like an osprey above the placid waters, he saw it. He dove—
He and Diefenbaker were climbing into the Riviera after Ray had purchased such an air freshener, which hung innocently from the rearview mirror. Diefenbaker had made his protests regarding the offensive scent known immediately by sticking his sensitive lupine snout in Ray’s Italian features and poked the cardboard pine tree with a grumble.
“Hey, what are you doing? That’s only there because of you,” Ray said, batting the agitated half-wolf away. “Eau de wet wolf is not something that picks up the ladies, I’ll have you know.”
“He apologized about that yesterday,” Fraser said.
“I know, but if he keeps mucking up the back seat, I’ll never get the smell out,” Ray said.
“I don’t think you should be complaining, Ray. After all, Diefenbaker helped in apprehending the criminal,” Fraser said. The previous day had the three of them watching several men who were receiving yet another shipment of semi-automatic weapons to be distributed throughout the greater Chicago area. The frequency and severity of illegal arms trafficking in United States still managed to surprise Fraser, even as his stay in the country lengthened by the year.
“The day that wolf apprehends a bad guy without chasing him into Lake Michigan is the day I’ll eat that air freshener,” Ray muttered.
The following weekend Fraser and Diefenbaker had spent the night in the Illinois State Forest, one of their monthly out-of-the-city trips. In the midst of their training exercise, surrounded by tamaracks and Douglas fir, Fraser and Diefenbaker came to an agreement that Ray and the Riviera would benefit greatly from the real thing. The next time Fraser and Dief climbed into the car, Fraser replaced the fake cardboard tree with a string of small pinecones that dangled from the mirror.
“What the hell is that and what’s it doing in my car?” Ray asked, shifting from park. A muffled echo of a church bell tolling seemed to latch onto the Riviera as it pulled away from Fraser’s apartment.
“They’re pinecones, Ray. Using a natural product to freshen the interior space of—”
“You’re getting pine pieces on my dashboard! I am not cleaning that up,” he said and Diefenbaker gave an appreciative woof of support.
“Oh, come now,” Fraser said and scooped the very minute pinecone fragments into the palm of his hand. “This is certainly an upgrade and Diefenbaker agrees.”
The third chime of the bell made Fraser turn around in his seat, searching for the origin of the unfamiliar noise in his neighborhood.
“Right, the wolf sides with the Mountie. That’s new,” Ray said.
“Constable Fraser! Constable Fraser!” Fraser rolled down the car window when he heard the voice of a little girl calling him and he doesn’t understand why he’s not commanding Ray to stop the car immediately.
“Hi, Constable Fraser!” the young girl repeated, her voice now accompanied with another young girl. Pulled back from the recess of his memory, Fraser recognized their voices as Cynthia and DeeDee Pagule, sisters who attended P.S. 112; the elementary school located two blocks away from the consulate. They stood in front of his looming figure and waved, admiring him like he was the hood ornament of a foreign car they now knew how to identify as Canada.
“Guess what??” DeeDee said. In his peripheral vision, he noticed Cynthia tugging off her backpack and placing it next to his feet.
“Yeah, guess what!” Cynthia parroted, the excitement palpable in her voice. They knew better than to expect a reply, though, since he and Diefenbaker had visited their 4th grade class and educated them regarding his position as liaison to the Canadian Consulate and what his duties entailed during and after his guard duty shifts.
“Ms. Jenkins took Daniel Winters to the principal today!” DeeDee said.
“Yeah! He broke a window!” Cynthia said.
“Hey, I wanted to tell him!” said DeeDee.
Cynthia shook her head, “He didn’t want to sit and listen to Ms. Jenkins read Ralph’s Motorcycle aloud after lunch.”
“He threw his history book right through the window!” DeeDee said, dumping her backpack beside her sister’s and began to circle Fraser, hop-skipping into a pirouette. On previous occasions when DeeDee and Cynthia had waited for the arrival of their mother at 3:30, DeeDee invited Fraser to one of her numerous ballet recitals and, at Cynthia’s insistence to not be left out, invited Fraser to her upcoming communion. He had no chance to RVSP either event because the girls’ mother was prompt in picking up her children and taking them home, but that didn’t stop the girls from inviting him.
Cynthia dipped out of Fraser’s peripheral, but he heard the unzipping sound of her backpack and telltale rustle of papers being shifted about. “Constable Fraser, I drew this for you in art class.” She backed up on the sidewalk, and weaved in between the pedestrians who paid little heed to the little girl, and held the piece of artwork up for Fraser. He didn’t get a good look at it, for he didn’t let his eyes leave the fixed position he aimed them at across the street, but Cynthia knew better and shrugged. “I know you can’t look at it now.” She folded the drawing up and walked up to Fraser and slipped it beneath his sandbrown where he’d be able to retrieve it at the end of his shift.
A blue minivan pulled alongside the sidewalk. “There’s mom,” DeeDee said, scooping the straps of her backpack onto her arms without missing a beat.
The girls and their mother bade Fraser their farewell, Cynthia giving him a final wave before clambering in and sliding the side door behind her.
Fraser felt the layers of exhaust thicken with the impending rush hour, the streaming colors of cars and trucks flowing seamlessly through his line of sight. He was disturbed by the girls’ recent news of Daniel Winters. Their previous tales of the reclusive 9-year old were heart wrenching, and he noted from their collective stories an escalation of incidents and previous erratic behavior with the other schoolchildren that might indicate some form of abuse going on.
The familiar green Riviera pulled up and parked along the sidewalk by the second chime of 5’o’clock. When the fifth chime sounded, Fraser uncoiled his wrists from behind his back and stepped into the car.
“Benny.”
“Ray,” Fraser said, buckling himself and removed the folded drawing from his sandbrown.
“What’s that?” Ray asked as they pulled away from the Consulate.
Fraser refrained from answering until he unfolded and held towards the window, to get a better glimpse of it in the light.
Cynthia had drawn Diefenbaker wearing his Stetson and labeled him “DEEF” beneath. Beside Dief was what he presumed to be their family dog, perhaps a yellow lab from its yellow coloring, named “INDY”. He, too, wore a hat but it didn’t resemble a Stetson as much as it did a fedora, which Fraser found curious.
“It’s a drawing,” Fraser said, smiling and carefully folding the piece of art into fourths. “And a fine one at that.” He removed his Stetson and tucked the drawing inside. When he placed his hat on his lap, that’s when he noticed the new pinecone—from a white pine—different from the fir cone he brought those weeks ago, hanging from the rearview mirror.
“Ray is that—”
“I’m doing it for wolf,” he said dismissively.
“Understood,” Fraser said and shifted in his seat. He focused his gaze outside at the rolling landscape of neon storefronts that swept past in a cloud of pink and blue neon that only served as a reminder of Mr. Kwan’s unborn girl and the schoolchildren’s most recent tale of Daniel Winters. Fraser knew, as he cycled through earlier accounts when he asked Ray for help on side-matters such as these, that Ray would aid him in the venture.
Fraser watched the pinecone dangle from the mirror as car rolled over potholes and cut sharp corners. The resinous aroma was thick and woodsy, unwittingly coating the vintage interior with memories of days Fraser spent resting beneath ponderosa pine with Quinn back in the territories. But now newer layers of Ray bickering with Dief over wet fur insulated his older memories.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 05:46 am (UTC)“Constable Fraser! Constable Fraser!” Fraser rolled down the car window when he heard the voice of a little girl calling him and he doesn’t understand why he’s not commanding Ray to stop the car immediately.
I got lost here, stopped, went back a few paragraphs, reread, shook my head, and kept going. In retrospect, that's some good writing, since Fraser got lost at that point, as well.
Tiny typo: I think for wolf," should be for the wolf,"
no subject
Date: 2007-06-23 02:27 am (UTC)Ah! Thanks for pointing out the typo.
And I'm glad you like. I was kind of wondering if I could pull off the sort of in-and-out weirdness of memories and the present timeline. Kinda fretted, actually. And yes! Unresolved plots! But oh, flashfic deadlines!
no subject
Date: 2007-06-22 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-23 02:55 am (UTC)*twitters*
:-}
*huggles you and flits away*
no subject
Date: 2007-06-23 10:38 pm (UTC)Very nice!
no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 04:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-08 04:15 am (UTC)You make me want to collect pinecones myself. Alas, eau du Labrador!