15-minute ficlet
Dec. 5th, 2003 05:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pauraque_bkFrom ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
15minuteficlets. 284 words, Neville, G.
The word was 'forgetful'.
+--
Forgetful
Clutching Trevor to his chest, Neville trailed the line of students into the Great Hall. He had never seen anything so horribly *big*. There were excited conversations going on all around him, but he almost couldn't hear them over the deafening *bigness* of this place.
Someone bumped hard against his shoulder, startling him so that he could hear again. It was the boy with the glasses. "Ouch," the boy said, rubbing his forehead. "Sorry..."
Neville mumbled something back and patted Trevor's head nervously. He glanced up at the table where the teachers sat, and he only had a second of awareness that black eyes were looking at him before he just--
Two years old today, and mummy showing him how to put up two fingers instead of one when someone asks the question. You're not one anymore, Neville dear, you're two years old today. The smell of black sticky candy from the kitchen where daddy is cooking, and he's saying no, it's not candy, it's fennel seeds, it just smells like candy, see? No, Neville, that's not to eat, that's magic, it's a potion to--
And daddy stops talking and he's looking out the window with his eyes too wide, and there's yelling outside, and mummy puts him under the kitchen table and locks the door, and it all smells like black liquorice candy as the pot boils over and spills bright red all over the white tile floor--
Neville stumbled, his vision blurry, and he grabbed onto someone's cloak to keep from falling. He looked up, and the man with the black eyes was still studying him, with the intensity of a jewel-cutter working over a rare and flawed diamond.
And Neville remembered.
end.
*
By the way, thanks to everyone who gave Christmas shopping advice; the suggestions were very helpful. I'm planning to hit the bookstore on my way home today to check out some of the authors you named, and probably get one of the LotR extended DVDs. I'm still waffling on which one; knowing my brother, he might well be more interested in how they animated Gollum than in how they cast the actors and wrote the script.
15minuteficlets. 284 words, Neville, G.The word was 'forgetful'.
+--
Forgetful
Clutching Trevor to his chest, Neville trailed the line of students into the Great Hall. He had never seen anything so horribly *big*. There were excited conversations going on all around him, but he almost couldn't hear them over the deafening *bigness* of this place.
Someone bumped hard against his shoulder, startling him so that he could hear again. It was the boy with the glasses. "Ouch," the boy said, rubbing his forehead. "Sorry..."
Neville mumbled something back and patted Trevor's head nervously. He glanced up at the table where the teachers sat, and he only had a second of awareness that black eyes were looking at him before he just--
Two years old today, and mummy showing him how to put up two fingers instead of one when someone asks the question. You're not one anymore, Neville dear, you're two years old today. The smell of black sticky candy from the kitchen where daddy is cooking, and he's saying no, it's not candy, it's fennel seeds, it just smells like candy, see? No, Neville, that's not to eat, that's magic, it's a potion to--
And daddy stops talking and he's looking out the window with his eyes too wide, and there's yelling outside, and mummy puts him under the kitchen table and locks the door, and it all smells like black liquorice candy as the pot boils over and spills bright red all over the white tile floor--
Neville stumbled, his vision blurry, and he grabbed onto someone's cloak to keep from falling. He looked up, and the man with the black eyes was still studying him, with the intensity of a jewel-cutter working over a rare and flawed diamond.
And Neville remembered.
end.
*
By the way, thanks to everyone who gave Christmas shopping advice; the suggestions were very helpful. I'm planning to hit the bookstore on my way home today to check out some of the authors you named, and probably get one of the LotR extended DVDs. I'm still waffling on which one; knowing my brother, he might well be more interested in how they animated Gollum than in how they cast the actors and wrote the script.
