An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

She thought her life would be different by now, but she's a prisoner again. Voluntary, she guesses, which makes it a little bit different than the first time. At least she can blink on her own this time. Not that she's using her body to do much good.

Ironically, she almost always looked better when she was a more total prisoner. Without her makeup and hair clips and changes of clothes to arrange herself into some approximation of health, without even a mirror to confirm her suspicions, she looks a wreck. Dark circles line her reddened eyes; her hair is unbrushed and falls in tangled clumps over her face; chapped, bloodied lips and fingernails bitten down to the flesh speak to her uneasy transition back into captivity.

Eva's given up all attempts to look 'okay'. She ripped a man's face open with her bare fingers. She's been a long road away from 'okay' for a while now, but she spent too long mistaking her anger and stubbornness for strength and resilience to recognize it. She's wised up now.

She really wants a drink right now. Instead she has some books - selected poems by Pablo Neruda and an anthology of poetry by women poets in the Andes - and a pillow and blanket. She's curled up on the cot with the former book in her hand, but drifting in and out of sleep. Her breath comes lazy and heavy as she alternately reads, dreams, and watches the door to the brig with heavy-lidded eyes, looking for nothing.

Comments

[not_the_philistine]

Goliath brings her no drinks, but her book collection is about to get a little larger.

The gargoyle enters the brig with a few more books under his arm, pausing only slightly at Eva's state in holding before approaching her cell to crouch at a better speaking level.

"I heard you were here. I did not hear why."

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

"Oh, bless you and the printing press," she says, leaning up to the bars so she can get closer to him and take the books. "Neruda's repetitive in his own poems, much less if you read them each twenty times."

She doesn't quite tell Goliath the truth. At least not immediately. 'Ripped a guy's nose open with my fingers' is a bit of a mood killer. "Conduct unbecoming of an officer. I reported myself."

[not_the_philistine]

That's responsible. Goliath can't find fault with that.

"I will ask you what happened, but if you believe it is not my business to know, I accept this judgement." He's not her clan, just her friend, and they have only known each other long enough for very emotional conversations when they are both heavily intoxicated, which is presently inappropriate.

He's brought two titles, which may or may not be appropriate for someone voluntarily incarcerated - A Hundred Years of Solitude, and Walden. In anticipation of distracting Eva with book talks, he's read both of them.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

Not that Eva would mind being heavily intoxicated right now. Being locked up makes her edgy. She feels like her skin is buzzing.

"It really isn't. Just, so you know, none of the rumors going around about me are true. I most certainly haven't been shacking up with Kang or stealing cakes or whatever else they're saying."

She breaks out into a grin, looking at the titles. "You don't happen to have psychic powers you didn't tell me about, do you? I was going to assign A Hundred Years of Solitude for the Book Club."