[ what an absolute shithole, he thinks. he's seen a few, of course β every nation, every city has them, and he's been walking in what feels like circles for an age, with tumbledown ruin blending into tumbledown ruin. plenty of time, then, to have formulated and re-formulated an opinion.
he thinks, too, that there's something unnerving about the entire place; he shouldn't β he's seen and done and been so much worse than a bit of rot and decay, butβ he sees something then, gelatinous and viscous and his expression distorts from disinterest to disgust. he moves and it moves, though it also seems to swallow up its surroundings (or maybe, he hopes, he's imagining thatβ.)
he takes a step backwards, his shoes sounding loud against the rubble and debris. a pause. an inhale and an exhale. he might be an anchorite, but that doesn't assure him against death, and his instinct has always been for flight over fight.
another step backwards, his attention fixed firmly on the thing. ] Fuckβ. [ whispered more than spoken aloud, a verbal impetus to make himself turn away. he could always cloak himself, he thinks, but he's no certainty it would be effective, and he'd rather not test the matter. so he turns back the way he came, expecting the path to be as empty as it had been only moments before. ]
h o p e.
[ it's not that he awoke to find flowers, it's the where. it's the who. he doesn't care for the ones addressed to him, or the ones with unfamiliar names β they're cloying and sentimental and wholly unwanted. he's only ever bought and given flowers as a means to an end; as politeness; as formality.
no, it's the one nestled in amongst his ("his") addressed to holly sykes. it casts a strange, tight feeling in the pit of his stomach. jealousy, he realises, though faint and tinged with the palest ghost of regret; he recalls for a brief moment the way he'd felt when he'd seen that postcard from ed brubeck, and he compares and contrasts and drops the flower.
it doesn't flutter to the ground gracefully, it falls, weighed down by that singular card. it was dead β they all were. pruned flowers don't last; it's a neat, if not tired metaphor for them (bone clocks) all. but then footsteps behind him catch his attention and he pauses, the remainder of the flowers in his right hand, lifted as if ready to discard with the first. ]
Hugo lamb | the bone clocks.
[ what an absolute shithole, he thinks. he's seen a few, of course β every nation, every city has them, and he's been walking in what feels like circles for an age, with tumbledown ruin blending into tumbledown ruin. plenty of time, then, to have formulated and re-formulated an opinion.
he thinks, too, that there's something unnerving about the entire place; he shouldn't β he's seen and done and been so much worse than a bit of rot and decay, butβ he sees something then, gelatinous and viscous and his expression distorts from disinterest to disgust. he moves and it moves, though it also seems to swallow up its surroundings (or maybe, he hopes, he's imagining thatβ.)
he takes a step backwards, his shoes sounding loud against the rubble and debris. a pause. an inhale and an exhale. he might be an anchorite, but that doesn't assure him against death, and his instinct has always been for flight over fight.
another step backwards, his attention fixed firmly on the thing. ] Fuckβ. [ whispered more than spoken aloud, a verbal impetus to make himself turn away. he could always cloak himself, he thinks, but he's no certainty it would be effective, and he'd rather not test the matter. so he turns back the way he came, expecting the path to be as empty as it had been only moments before. ]
h o p e.
[ it's not that he awoke to find flowers, it's the where. it's the who. he doesn't care for the ones addressed to him, or the ones with unfamiliar names β they're cloying and sentimental and wholly unwanted. he's only ever bought and given flowers as a means to an end; as politeness; as formality.
no, it's the one nestled in amongst his ("his") addressed to holly sykes. it casts a strange, tight feeling in the pit of his stomach. jealousy, he realises, though faint and tinged with the palest ghost of regret; he recalls for a brief moment the way he'd felt when he'd seen that postcard from ed brubeck, and he compares and contrasts and drops the flower.
it doesn't flutter to the ground gracefully, it falls, weighed down by that singular card. it was dead β they all were. pruned flowers don't last; it's a neat, if not tired metaphor for them (bone clocks) all. but then footsteps behind him catch his attention and he pauses, the remainder of the flowers in his right hand, lifted as if ready to discard with the first. ]