Visit (779 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.72 on 30 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Circe (View user info) at 2009-04-05 23:29:10 EDT
We listen to Emilie Autumn way too loud on the way to the hospital. "Thank god I'm pretty," we scream at the top of our lungs (screaming, yes, but in harmony, because we've been singing together for going on thirty years and it's impossible not to harmonise), "the occasional free drink I never asked for..."
We like angry women.
She's giving me directions to a place I know better than she does, but she's only doing it because she's scared... and so am I, so I don't yell at her too much. They're the wrong directions, though, so it takes an extra half-hour to get there. The smell of the river is strong with salt and sharp with rotting seaweed and heady with nostalgia and
("Come at them from the side," he told me as another blue crab evaded my clumsy net. "They run sideways, so he'll either run right into it or you'll catch him up in a straight line." So the next time, I swept the net along the thick silt of the bottom in one smooth stroke and lifted it, suddenly heavy out of the water, with its cargo of angry blue legs and snapping claws and bright black little eyes. "There you go," and he was smiling at me, his eyes gas-flame-blue in the reflected light off the water, and it didn't matter that my thighs were aching from walking through the knee-deep estuary for hours, or that my ankles ached from trudging in the thick, sucking mud. He was proud of me, this flawed deity of my childhood, and everything was right with the world.)
and we find parking close to the entrance and we're making jokes as we walk in. The gift shop is right near the front doors and we make a beeline for it, and my sister holds up a stuffed puppy and says "Think he'd like this?" I laugh, because Dad isn't much for puppies, but there's a stuffed gorilla behind her and I tell her how they shaved off his chest hair for the surgery and we should give him something to aim for in the painful regrowing process. We buy the gorilla, and a pink foil balloon on a stick that says "Beautiful baby girl" because, hey, it's all about us, and we're giggling like kids as we wait for the elevator
(He was so angry when she got pregnant. She was too young, she was still a baby, and he was angry because he hadn't stopped it and couldn't fix it and couldn't change her mind. He didn't speak to her for the entire pregnancy, but when her baby girl was born he showed up at the hospital with flowers and a balloon, and his big hands were gentle as he held his granddaughter... bricklayer's hands, abattoir worker's hands, my father's hands... he held her against his slab-muscled chest and wouldn't give her back for an hour. His love was like his laughter... it was hard to reach but when you did, it was huge and it filled a room and it made you smile even when you didn't want to.)
and we press for the sixth floor and argue about which room he's in as we wander down the hallway.. bickering, playfully insulting each other's looks and intellect and memory and age, and we're still bickering when we walk in and see the old man, bare-chested and pale, fragile and quiet. I offer the gorilla and she offers the balloon and our funny gifts seem so stupid now, whistling past the graveyard, the hollow offerings of frightened children, and we're ashamed of them and we both wish, silently, that we'd bought him a huge vase of flowers and all the get well balloons in the gift shop, that we'd bought him every harmlessly adorable puppy they had, that we'd been brave enough to take this seriously.
He makes room for us, playing the host even in this cheerless little room, and as we sit I hear a watch in a drawer somewhere... broken, by the sound of it, the batteries going flat, because it doesn't tick right.. or evenly... tick...tick...tick, tickticktick....... tick. He asks us how we are and we say fine, and we ask how he is and he says he'll be well enough to go home soon and we tell him that we're glad to hear it. And we're silent. And then my sister asks how the new valves feel and he brightens a bit, takes her by the hand and leads her to the window and
(He had been working fifteen hour shifts for a week, and the last thing in the world he needed was a five-year-old girl who had suddenly become afraid to sleep. Overactive imagination, shapes in the dark, and I was crying in my room when he got home from the abattoir with the smell of blood and death in his clothes - not crying loud enough to wake anyone, but crying nonetheless. He came into my room and picked me up, and he carried me into the study and sat in his armchair and held me against his chest and I listened to the slow, steady thud of his heart, reliable, ever-present, underpinning my whole world with the solid strength of its rhythm, and I fell asleep.)
he says "Can you hear that? Some people can't, something about the frequency... some people can hear it clear as day." She puts her head close to his chest and says "Oh! Kind of like.. a watch?" "Is THAT what that is?" I ask, glad to have placed that insidious, maddening ticking. "I thought it was a watch with a flat battery, because it's all out of whack and sounds like it's about to..." and I shut up and can't meet his eyes.
And we sit until it's time to go.
[GIS for "dad"]
User Reviews
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2009-05-18 16:18:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I just came back from visiting my father in hospital.
reminded me of this.
Submitted by johnny.b.dumb (user info) at 2009-04-07 04:14:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
"i may well be a dumbass, a pretentious douchebag, or whatever the fuck"
and? being kind by being cruel, are you? Well, that's ok. As long as your hatred is genuine.
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2009-04-07 03:36:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
actually, i take that all back. ive drunk too much coffee and have been too busy wrting stuff and jumped the gun. i did the exact same thing originally by saying 'didnt do much for me' (or whatever it was) - an unconstructive comment.
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2009-04-07 03:28:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
maybe you should, snark. maybe then circe would get a genuinely useful comment which she can use to help further herself in what is apparently now something she gets paid to do.
i may well be a dumbass, a pretentious douchebag, or whatever the fuck, but at least i do the right thing by the people who post on this site i like by telling them when i think theyve written something that i dont think much of. i may be wrong about it, but at least it provides more then 'OMG u r teh best and i luv u'.
circe does the same for me, and its something ive always appreciated.
Submitted by BranDo (user info) at 2009-04-07 01:55:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked it a lot. Thanks.
Submitted by TheGoat (user info) at 2009-04-06 07:54:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Quite good especially the ending, but what does GIS stand for. Does it mean anything? I have seen it before on one of your other posts.
Google Image Search
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2009-04-06 14:12:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2009-04-06 07:21:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
because if i want to see someones head jammed completely up someone's arse, ill look on 4chan.
it wasnt that well written. its ok (and certainly of a higher overall standard than others i could mention), but really, its dry and a bit dull.
fanboi comments do the author a disservice.
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I see.
Thanks God of Literature. I'll make sure to ask your opinion prior to making up my own.
Dumbass.
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2009-04-06 14:10:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Dug the format and AUTO +2 for Emilie Autumn.
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2009-04-06 13:40:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by munkeypants (user info) at 2009-04-06 13:03:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Formulaic or not I love it for its content and sentiment.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2009-04-06 10:46:44 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Ducky (user info) at 2009-04-06 10:40:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Spam (user info) at 2009-04-06 10:26:35 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
I'm with Idddq here. this was pretty bland and formulaic and I loathed the way it was formatted. It's cool to switch strands of the tale every other paragraph but mid-sentence? No.
Also: Neeeeigggghhh!!
Submitted by Merlina (user info) at 2009-04-06 10:01:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Doodles (user info) at 2009-04-06 08:47:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I enjoyed this, but it took me three times to correctly read the last paragraph.
I almost understand why you didn't break up the speech, but honestly, Having to analyze the mechanics of a sentence to see exactly who says what sort of removes you from the story.
+1, didn't make me smile
Submitted by SgtHartman (user info) at 2009-04-06 08:43:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I know a guy from my hometown, his name is Jeremy. He would be considered "special", not retarded but special. He is quite possibly the scariest person I have ever encountered in all my 28 years. He's "No Country for Old Men" axe murderer scary.
He's korean and his sponsor family since we were kids has done everything they can to take care of him...
About a year ago, his sponsor mother wouldnt let him go to a party with a girl, he threatned to stab her and cut her head off. He now lives in a group home and wanders the streets all day chain smoking ciggarettes and staring at people who walk by in his trench coat and tie. Strangely enough he dresses quite dapper for someone who I think is capable of mass murder.
My best friend on this earth works at a bar/hotel that his parents own, and Jeremy comes by there frequently, no to drink, or play pool, nothing like that just...VISIT.
My friend says every day that Jeremy walks into the lobby at the hotel and they have the same conversation EVERY SINGLE DAY...
FRIEND: "Hey Jeremy, what are you up to?"
JEREMY: "VISIT"
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Your title just reminded me of that. +2 for that.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2009-04-06 08:07:15 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I try to ignore my helpless admiration and rate Circe honestly. The closest I can get is to not rate something if I am not sure I Iike it.
There is nothing dry about this. It feels soulful and honest., maybe a touch numb in the way that pain/sorrow can make you numb.
Submitted by TuTs (user info) at 2009-04-06 08:06:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
("Come at them from the side," he told me as another blue crab evaded my clumsy net.
--------------
Serpentine? or the estuary?
Submitted by TuTs (user info) at 2009-04-06 08:03:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
("Come at them from the side," he told me as another blue crab evaded my clumsy net. "They run sideways, so he'll either run right into it or you'll catch him up in a straight line." So the next time, I swept the net along the thick silt of the bottom in one smooth stroke and lifted it, suddenly heavy out of the water, with its cargo of angry blue legs and snapping claws and bright black little eyes. "There you go," and he was smiling at me, his eyes gas-flame-blue in the reflected light off the water, and it didn't matter that my thighs were aching from walking through the knee-deep estuary for hours, or that my ankles ached from trudging in the thick, sucking mud. He was proud of me, this flawed deity of my childhood, and everything was right with the world.)
--------------
Serpentine? or the estuary?
Submitted by TheGoat (user info) at 2009-04-06 07:54:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Quite good especially the ending, but what does GIS stand for. Does it mean anything? I have seen it before on one of your other posts.
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2009-04-06 07:21:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
because if i want to see someones head jammed completely up someone's arse, ill look on 4chan.
it wasnt that well written. its ok (and certainly of a higher overall standard than others i could mention), but really, its dry and a bit dull.
fanboi comments do the author a disservice.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2009-04-06 06:59:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2009-04-06 04:40:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2009-04-06 04:24:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
So well written it made me ache a little.
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oh, jesus fucking christ. gross.
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How so?
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2009-04-06 04:45:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
i get scared about commenting on your posts after what you said on KK's post!
but here goes!
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2009-04-06 04:40:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2009-04-06 04:24:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
So well written it made me ache a little.
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oh, jesus fucking christ. gross.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2009-04-06 04:24:19 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
So well written it made me ache a little.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2009-04-06 03:35:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by redskieslookfake (user info) at 2009-04-06 03:05:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by X54 (user info) at 2009-04-06 00:39:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nice.
Submitted by johnny.b.dumb (user info) at 2009-04-06 00:17:16 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by iddqd (user info) at 2009-04-06 00:14:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
didnt grab my attention.
what was the link you msn'd me the other day? (it didnt work)
Submitted by Coyote (user info) at 2009-04-05 23:34:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2