On Mon, 24 Jan 2000, Vincent Seifert wrote:
Fair Warning - The interlude is of a more serious vein than most of the
story so far; more in the tone of the prologue.
This was well-considered. My comments may be spoilers, for those
who care about such things.
Doesn't everyone read the end of detective novels first? ^_-
Comments, as always, are appriciated.
Not much to say this time, but not because I didn't feel anything about
it, just that I couldn't think how to express it. I'm better at
flippancy.
Flippancy can be fun. ^_^
Pastpresent, Interlude One - Verlorenseele
{ Good title. }
Yes. Now for the barrage of people asking me what it means... ^_-
Stretching, I peeled myself off the fake wood top of my
big impressive desk, replaced the carved cherrywood plaque
with my name on it - Genma had made it for me as a
housewarming gift - and slowly made my way towards the
door. I realized I had nothing on above the waist before I
opened it,
{I wonder if she embossed herself with her name in reverse by sleeping
with her front on the plaque? :) }
Now THAT would be embarrassing! ^_^
I have very definite views. I like Sinatra, and I worship
Dean-sama, and whoever invented the combustion engine has
the internal combustion engine {?}
Whoops.
my heartfelt admiration.
I dropped the guy... he bled on my porch, I noticed, which
meant I was going to have to repaint it for sure... and turned to
{Suggest emdashes rather than ellipses.}
You might be right.
face the last punk. He had a bloody knife and a real scared look
on his face, which was the first sign of intelligence he'd
shown since he'd brightened my life with his existence.
{ Or darkened her doorstep... :) }
Or stained her doorstep, anyway.
He yelped and ducked, which was what I had expected
he'd do. It's hard to reliably hurt someone with a thrown knife;
{suggest} expected him to do.
half the time the hilt or the flat bit just bounces off of them.
On the other hand, no sane person likes having razor sharp
razor-sharp
Nod.
objects thrown in their face. So he dove, and I swung, and his
head made a nice meaty cracking noise as the rail hit it.
He dropped the knife, which was good, and made a
gurgling noise. Hard head. I thought about saying something
cool and cold, then decided that it would hurt too much, and
kicked him in the stomach instead. A mistake. All sorts of
interesting stuff went from his mouth to my porch.
{ "interesting"? Yuck. I hope she's being sarcastic...}
Kiri's almost always sarcastic. ^_^
"You shouldn't get drunk."
"My head's been telling me that every since I got up."
ever since
Whoops.
"That's a problem, then." It was, for him. It's hard enough
trying not to piss off the wrong people yourself without
making sure your family doesn't either.
{ Odd thing for her to say, since she's an orphan... hmm.}
She has experience with surrogate family, and has learned from
observation.
"Yeah." His eyes brightened. "You really kicked their ass
asses {?}
It was a collective ass. ^_-
good."
distance between himself and the customer, and I don't like
carrying anything on me that's obviously a weapon. If the cops
decide to see what it has in its pocketses,
{heh. Tolkien on the shelves? :) }
Yup. ^_^
and they find a
wrench or a tire iron on a mechanic, there's not a whole lot
they can say. If they find a knife or a pocketful of shuriken, on
the other hand...
"In our area? I wish." I took a notepad out of my jacket
and consulted a row of numbers labeled 'Tires.' "We saw an
initial jump in sales following the big drug laws the diet
the Diet
passed at the beginning of the year, followed by a decline in
some areas and growth in others." The notepad went back in
my jacket. "I don't know how the others are doing. I hear
Wasoda has been having problems with a neighborhood
program."
"Nah, there was only two representatives," Docco said.
I thought about this, thought about the three bikes,
decided that I didn't like it, and pushed into the hall at a run.
{Yeah, it's even more impossible for two guys to ride three motorcycles
than it is for one guy to ski through a revolving door. :) Very
cunning.}
Drat. I'd better cut the scene in Tourism 3 where Genma skis through a
revolving door...
He looks young, have you noticed? Well, youthful, like he
ain't able to grow a real beard yet. There's a reason, though I
didn't know it at the time.
{ Aha. }
Oho.
I glared at the two heavies. "Yeah. I wanna ask their
friend something."
{ Oh, subtle. :) }
Never her strong suit.
He pulled off my jacket and overshirt, examined the
area, and sighed. "I'm afraid you've been grazed, Kiri-kun. Hito,
gauze, now please."
{suggest} gauze. Now, please."
"Inasmuch as being shot is good, yes. It looks like it took
{suggest} "Insofar as
some skin off. I'm afraid you have a hole in your jacket."
He dropped the manga, pulling back and looking at me
with a vaguely offended expression. "Hey Kiri. I like your
"Hey, Kiri.
place."
He did touch things, but only because I let him. I
instructed him to, actually, since it's nice to have someone
pass you tools when you're slung under a cycle with oil in your
face and a heap of parts on your chest.
{Yup. I love that scene in AMG OAV3 where Keiichi is working on the bike
and Belldandy holds the musubi for him. :) Been there, give or take a
goddess...}
Well, the kid is hardly Belldandy. ^_^ She doesn't get an
honest-to-goodness kami til later.
For one thing, the war was gearing up. Inji was not
happy. He had decided that the soon-to-be-late Mr. Hayasho
was going to be dealt with, and that he was going to do the
dealing personally. This was partly because he was very angry
- that is, outwardly irritated - and partly because he was the
{Your formatter bit you: the dash should be at the end of the previous
line.}
Whoops.
best suited to do the deed.
You people just don't know how damn surprised I am that
Nodoka's lived this long.
{heh. She's one of the specially lucky ones, a quality Ranma appears to
have inherited from her rather than from Genma.}
With luck like this...
Ryoji dropped by every day, and I let him have the vast
and solemn privilege of handing me tools. Well, yeah, and I let
him do some of the simpler jobs, with supervision. It's a fact
that mechanics are created solely because older mechanics
want to show off.
{Yup again. Been there, done that, both sides, several fields.}
"Look. Am I not cool?"
He was holding an ugly statue of something with a lot of
tentacles and eyes when I came in, but set it down to talk to
me. "Good morning, Kiri-kun. Bright eyed and bushy-tailed?"
Bright-eyed
{"Or bushy-eyed and bright-tailed?" :) }
Or even bright-bushy and tail-eyed?
"Huh." An awful stupid communist. Hito can be fairly
awfully {?}
intimidating when he wants to be.
"Are you going to hurt my sister?" Ryoji asked, and his
voice trembled. It hadn't done that after those punks had
beaten him up.
{Would you believe that this took me completely by surprise? I mean, no
idea at all. I actually and physically slapped myself in the forehead
for not seeing it coming, because this sets up as ugly a
rock-and-hard-place situation as I have imagined for some time, and that
makes it inevitable.}
I was sort of ashamed for sticking this part in, simply because it seemed
so obvious and inevitable - the proverbial gun over the mantle in Act 1.
^_^ Luckily, it seems to have taken people by surprise anyway.
So I had to say yes, because that was my job, that was
what I did, and that was what I had chosen to do.
"No," I said. "I'm not."
{oh boy.}
And Kiri does the Right Thing, and is hating herself for it. ^_^
If anyone, anyone had used that tone of sheer contempt
with me I'd have broken their nose.
me, I'd
I looked into the red mirror of the bottle, and a drug
dealer and thug and almost killer looked back.
Yeah, it was me. I was comfortable with it.
But now I didn't want to be.
{Nicely sketched.}
The part between meeting Ryoji's sister and waiting for Inji to blow up
was a late addition; the prereaders persuaded me more needed to be put
there.
He handed me a glass of water, which I gulped. "I wasn't
really expecting you to. Very well. You may run your garage, if
you like. I won't steer you anyone, but I won't have you
blacklisted either. As far as I'm concerned, you and your
business don't exist."
I nodded. That was far more than I'd expected.
{Me too. Inji is... interesting. What an inadequate word.}
Inji isn't all bad. Just mostly. ^_^
"I felt very bad, once I heard. Her younger brother will be
going to a very nice home in Hokkaido that takes poor children
and grooms them for college. He now has a scholarship. I had
this back pay for you, and it seemed a shame to waste it."
{Very interesting indeed.}
Of course, Microsoft gives scholarships too... ^_-
Genma was hanging around when I got home, and he knew
something was wrong. He didn't ask me what. I'm forever
thankful to him for that. I'll also never forgive him for that.
{Damned if you do, and damned if you don't...}
That's Genma's life, yup. ^_^
I dealt in stolen machines, hot cars, gang bikes... things
of life and energy, things that would be used by some alive and
unruly young punk who really didn't give a shit about law and
society. Things that were bright and sharp, not dull and glazed
and poisoned. And I'll keep on doing it, at least until I get tired
of it.
{Hmm... Suspecting who she is, I wonder how she died...}
Assuming, of course, that she does.
So here. Here I am. I'm baring myself like this because I
can cry, and need people, and love, and that last, Soun, is why I
---
There was a page missing, and as hard as Akane looked,
she couldn't find it.
{But I think she's got a pretty good idea what's on it...}
*whistle*
She returned, and Ranma opened the book again, and they
resumed reading.
Ready for some levity, I imagine, and so am I... that was very skilfully
painful, as I imagine you intended it to be. Still, it was very
illuminating of the characters of some of our comic, or not-so-comic,
heroes, and I expect that it will turn out to be obvious that this is
the right place for it.
There will probably be other interludes later focusing on some of the
other characters... but not for a while
For some reason, I am reminded of Vlad Taltos...
Nice work.
Thank's for the comments! ^_^
Thanks for writing and sharing.
Vince Seifert Fanfic Analyst FFIRC Frog
Prime: seifertv@csus.edu
Backup: seifertv@myrealbox.com
Techie: http://webpages.csus.edu/~seifertv/
Fanfic: http://www.csus.edu/indiv/s/seifertv/toth/
Ideas are worth their weight in gold.
- Susan Doenime
Brisbane, U of Q
"I hit the streets / They watched me in the monitor..."