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TITLE: Today
AUTHOR: Nico
E-MAIL: stoprobbers@hotmail.comDISCLAIMER: Joss wouldn't write this. I wouldn't write the show.
TIMELINE: Future, post Season 6.
SPOILERS: The whole canon, I guess. Nothing explicit, a *LOT* implied.
SYNOPSIS: "I wanted more than life could ever grant me." Buffy POV, kinda.
DISTRIBUTION: LoD, obviously. Whoelse wants it can take it, just send me the
URL of where it's going.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: "Today" the song is by Smashing Pumpkins. This is a wierd
kind of Buffy POV, and it's Buffy centric. There is a mention of Angel, yes,
but it's a BUFFY piece.
FEEDBACK: Yes, please!!! stoprobbers@hotmail.com
RATING: R for very dark themes
Today
She likes sunlight. The kind that's too harsh and too hot for most people.
She likes the feel of it burning her bare shoulders and singing the tiny
blonde hairs that coat her arms. She likes how she can see her skin turn
from pale cream to caramel to deep red, and the ways she can watch the
shadows barely peek out from under the trees. She likes high noon.
She likes blue skies and white fluffy clouds, the kind that she sees every
day without fail. She likes it when they move slowly through the sky, only
the most imperceptible of breezes blowing them. She can't see the breeze,
but she can always feel it, like ice blowing through the warm light she
cherishes so much. The ice is too much for her, too cold and to hard, and
when the sun occasionally falls behind a cloud she can feel the tears build
up to burn in her eyes just like the heat does on her skin. She likes
daytime.
She likes bright and hot, and refuses to wear sunglasses even as the harsh
rays pummel her sensitive eyes, made for seeing in the dark. Tears drip from
under her lids, out of her control and by their own volition, wetting her
cheeks. The sun shines off those involuntary trails and sparkles like
diamonds. She can't stand reflections.
Today is the greatest
Day I've ever known
Can't live for tomorrow,
Tomorrow's much too long
I'll burn my eyes out
Before I get out
A lot of people look at her during the day, and whisper about her and what
she does. She's the sitting girl; the girl who is always sitting on the gate
of SunnyRest Graveyard, balanced on spikes that are too thin and too sharp
to be balanced on by any normal person. She's the girl who's always crying,
the girl who's always sunburnt and peeling. She's deeply tanned and
wild-haired and exotic in the unattractive way that makes parents cross the
street when they come to her resting spot. She's strong and silent, a tiny
amazon without the presence of mind to let out a Tarzan roar. Her once shiny
blonde hair that nipped at her chin has grown to a rope of gold tangle that
drifts down her back ungracefully. There is very little about her appearance
that brings to mind grace.
She is thin, too thin, and without the muscular definition that would speak
of her power. She looks something like Ghandi must have, she muses to
herself, in the hieght of his political fast. Although, she is rather sure
that Ghandi could never throw a punch like she can. Her face is drawn and
tight, dark bags under her eyes. She hardly sleeps anymore, and likes it
like that. She only closes her eyes when she absolutely has to; when the
burn of the sun gets too intense for her or when she's trying to use another
sense. Her body accepts energy from nonfood, as she stopped eating most
days, instead pulling power from whatever supernatural source she was chosen
to foster inside of her. She stopped asking questions years ago, when she
stopped feeling the need for sleep. She never seemed to get a straight
answer.
I wanted more
Than life could ever grant me
Bored by the chore
Of saving face
The town she lives in wonders what happened to her that made her so mute, so
subdued, so silent upon their graveyard gate. Her friends know she's not as
subdued as anyone thinks. They see her in her glory, as a weapon made flesh
to protect the world. They hate her burden, hate themselves and the world
for what they did to her. She stares through them, mind too tired to
acknowledge them anymore, to care or to help. They stir up emotions in her
that she stopped being able to deal with years before. They make her weak.
She knows that now. It takes all the training and enforcement that the world
can put upon her to not give into that weakness. She knows her relief when
she sees it, and she is shocked away from it every time. Her fingers burn
with the electricity that keeps her away from them. How she wishes her world
still held metaphors.
She stares Death in the face every night, a thousand faces and a thousand
kills. She tastes Death on her tongue whenever she swallows, and smells it
in the deepest cavities of her nose. It dances behind her eyelids when she
allows her eyes to fall shut for that precious hour of sleep, and feels it
beneath her fingertips. Curly hair and bubbling eyes and temptation that she
wants so badly she could almost cry, if her body could remember how to do
that anymore. A tourist who keeps pushing back their hotel reservations. She
wants to spread her arms, open her chest, and cry out that Her room is
ready. But she has been made mute.
Today is the greatest
Day I've ever known
Can't live for tomorrow
I might not have that long
I'll tear my heart out
Before I get out
She screams in her head, hundreds of thousands of millions of voices and
thoughts bouncing from one end of her brain to the other in an endless fugue
of hysteria and confusion. She laughs there, cries there, screams and shouts
and sings and giggles and whispers and slowly spirals downward into a
darkness that is deeper and darker than she ever knew could exist. There are
smiles of beautiful boys who live forever in an endless wheel of denial and
pain and crucifixion and frowns from mothers who know best after they're
dead and gone and rotten in the earth. There's blood and teeth and cum
dripping down skin that is cold and hot at the same time and dirty and every
so slightly rotten itself. There's magic and donuts and vulgarity and wisdom
and knowlege and madness and she's the only one who can hear it.
She doesn't speak because she can't because she won't because she is afraid
to. She doesn't know which voice will speak for her.
Pink ribbon scars
That never forget
I tried so hard
To cleanse these regrets
My angel wings
Were bruised and restrained
My belly stings
She has been written about in the most prestigious history books in all the
world. The most famous supernatural creature to ever live still loves her.
Her friends are still alive. Her town is still safe. She is reknown and
revered and even worshipped as a diety in some cultures. She is twenty-six
and still young. She is fertile. She is beautiful. She is strong. She is
intelligent. She is wise. She is learned. She is confident. She is graceful.
She is unassuming. She is modest.
She is mad.
And laying on top of the spiked gate of SunnyRest Graveyard, her pristine
white shirt and pants slowly turning pink with life and sustinence, she is
finally free.
Today is the greatest
Today is the greatest
Today is the greatest day
I have ever really known
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