Entry tags:
Darn that Dream
Who: Rat and wide open like anything.
Where: In a nightclub, in a classroom/battlefield, in his old apartment, but all of the above inside Rat's sleeping brain.
When: Days 83-88
What: Three dream options, just list which one in your reply and away we go?
Warnings: Death and war themes (dream 2), depressing stuff (dream 3)
The Good
It's a good night. The low lighting of the club is hazy through smoke, giving the place that dreamy quality that just makes the music sound all the better. There's plenty of appropriate applause after Charlie's sax solo, and when the song ends and Willie announces a short break in the set, Rat sets his guitar down and his gaze goes straight to the stool at the near end of the bar.
He's young, and Willie keeps telling him he's got his whole life ahead of him, a great future as a musician or a teacher, or maybe both. With that comes the warning not to settle too soon, or maybe just not to settle for her, but there she is. Marietta has a waterfall of black curls, dark eyes, and a sultry smile. She's also wearing a dress that hugs every curve, and when he looks for her, she's looking back at him. His Italian princess has all the passion and fire to match his quiet calm, and he's been head over heels for months, now.
Something about the scene is a little distracting, though. The person sitting beside Marietta seems very familiar, but he just can't place them, and his mind races desperately to figure out where he knows them from as he comes over to see his girl.
((Younger Rat! Your character doesn't have to be sitting beside his girl, if you've got other ideas, but it's an easy in. He might take some talking to to recognize anyone he did not know at that point in his life.))
The Bad
He's leaning over helping a freckled boy with glasses, teaching him the proper fingering for a chord, when the distant whistle starts. At first, He doesn't even pay any attention to it. The noise is unfamiliar, but he's got a classroom full of twenty-some middle-schoolers all with various musical instruments, so as long as it's not the kind of noise that sounds like trouble, it's just fine. Experimentation is a good way to learn an instrument, and the kids know they're allowed to mess around with them while he's focused on helping someone.
The whistle gets louder and closer, fast, and that's a little weird. He looks up just in time to be nearly blinded by the explosion. All around him is dark and muddy, ruined ground. Bodies lie strewn in positions too awkward to be the poses of the living. It's a battlefield. The second World War is being fought across an ocean, and Rat was deferred as a teacher, yet somehow now he is here, in the middle of a war zone.
So are his students, still chatting softly and playing around with their newly budding music skills. Two girls giggle as one of them gets a very undignified sound out of her flute. The bombs are still dropping all around, and the sound of close gunfire makes Rat flinch. He sees figures running and yelling nearby, through a haze of smoke, or possibly gas.
Then the bright walls of the music room are around him again, a safe, secure perimeter. Except there's still bodies on the floor, and the sounds of war all around. The boy with the guitar, no longer getting his teacher's attention, tugs Rat's sleeve. "My fingers keep slipping, though..."
((Likely possibilities for interlopers in the dream are to be put in the spot of a student, or a soldier. The scenery is likely to flicker back and forth and mix, so what scene your character perceives and what Rat perceives at any given moment may differ.))
The Ugly
It's been raining, but the sunset is reflected in the puddles as Rat steps off the bus. He didn't mean to stay so late after school, working on lesson plans, but he's got a substitute job tomorrow between the classes he usually takes, and then he's hoping to spend most of the weekend keeping Willie company. He's tired, and every morning it takes an effort to drag himself out of bed and face life, but just for this moment he can appreciate the beauty of the light on wet pavement. Things smell a little cleaner, after a good rain.
As he opens the door to their apartment, Rat calls out to Marietta, "It's real pretty outside, just now. You should come lo-"
The place is empty. Not just empty of her, although that's the note that really rings out clear in his head. Their broken-down sofa is still there. The drapes are still there. They really don't have all the accoutrements of a settled, married life that they should, at their age, but it's still pretty obvious the place has been more or less ransacked. Every photo is turned face down. His guitar is smashed and hanging against a corner of the coffee table. In the middle of the table, there's a note, and the loopy handwriting is all hers. It's labeled 'Markus' on the folded flap.
Somehow, he's not sure he needs to open it and read the rest. She's gone. She took most of his life with her.
((Your character is welcome to be wherever you'd like, wandering the apartment, coming up behind him from the street, whatever!))
Where: In a nightclub, in a classroom/battlefield, in his old apartment, but all of the above inside Rat's sleeping brain.
When: Days 83-88
What: Three dream options, just list which one in your reply and away we go?
Warnings: Death and war themes (dream 2), depressing stuff (dream 3)
The Good
It's a good night. The low lighting of the club is hazy through smoke, giving the place that dreamy quality that just makes the music sound all the better. There's plenty of appropriate applause after Charlie's sax solo, and when the song ends and Willie announces a short break in the set, Rat sets his guitar down and his gaze goes straight to the stool at the near end of the bar.
He's young, and Willie keeps telling him he's got his whole life ahead of him, a great future as a musician or a teacher, or maybe both. With that comes the warning not to settle too soon, or maybe just not to settle for her, but there she is. Marietta has a waterfall of black curls, dark eyes, and a sultry smile. She's also wearing a dress that hugs every curve, and when he looks for her, she's looking back at him. His Italian princess has all the passion and fire to match his quiet calm, and he's been head over heels for months, now.
Something about the scene is a little distracting, though. The person sitting beside Marietta seems very familiar, but he just can't place them, and his mind races desperately to figure out where he knows them from as he comes over to see his girl.
((Younger Rat! Your character doesn't have to be sitting beside his girl, if you've got other ideas, but it's an easy in. He might take some talking to to recognize anyone he did not know at that point in his life.))
The Bad
He's leaning over helping a freckled boy with glasses, teaching him the proper fingering for a chord, when the distant whistle starts. At first, He doesn't even pay any attention to it. The noise is unfamiliar, but he's got a classroom full of twenty-some middle-schoolers all with various musical instruments, so as long as it's not the kind of noise that sounds like trouble, it's just fine. Experimentation is a good way to learn an instrument, and the kids know they're allowed to mess around with them while he's focused on helping someone.
The whistle gets louder and closer, fast, and that's a little weird. He looks up just in time to be nearly blinded by the explosion. All around him is dark and muddy, ruined ground. Bodies lie strewn in positions too awkward to be the poses of the living. It's a battlefield. The second World War is being fought across an ocean, and Rat was deferred as a teacher, yet somehow now he is here, in the middle of a war zone.
So are his students, still chatting softly and playing around with their newly budding music skills. Two girls giggle as one of them gets a very undignified sound out of her flute. The bombs are still dropping all around, and the sound of close gunfire makes Rat flinch. He sees figures running and yelling nearby, through a haze of smoke, or possibly gas.
Then the bright walls of the music room are around him again, a safe, secure perimeter. Except there's still bodies on the floor, and the sounds of war all around. The boy with the guitar, no longer getting his teacher's attention, tugs Rat's sleeve. "My fingers keep slipping, though..."
((Likely possibilities for interlopers in the dream are to be put in the spot of a student, or a soldier. The scenery is likely to flicker back and forth and mix, so what scene your character perceives and what Rat perceives at any given moment may differ.))
The Ugly
It's been raining, but the sunset is reflected in the puddles as Rat steps off the bus. He didn't mean to stay so late after school, working on lesson plans, but he's got a substitute job tomorrow between the classes he usually takes, and then he's hoping to spend most of the weekend keeping Willie company. He's tired, and every morning it takes an effort to drag himself out of bed and face life, but just for this moment he can appreciate the beauty of the light on wet pavement. Things smell a little cleaner, after a good rain.
As he opens the door to their apartment, Rat calls out to Marietta, "It's real pretty outside, just now. You should come lo-"
The place is empty. Not just empty of her, although that's the note that really rings out clear in his head. Their broken-down sofa is still there. The drapes are still there. They really don't have all the accoutrements of a settled, married life that they should, at their age, but it's still pretty obvious the place has been more or less ransacked. Every photo is turned face down. His guitar is smashed and hanging against a corner of the coffee table. In the middle of the table, there's a note, and the loopy handwriting is all hers. It's labeled 'Markus' on the folded flap.
Somehow, he's not sure he needs to open it and read the rest. She's gone. She took most of his life with her.
((Your character is welcome to be wherever you'd like, wandering the apartment, coming up behind him from the street, whatever!))
The Bad
And then she's stumbling into a classroom of all places, full of children and music and everything that should be good and safe; she looks up to see Rat, and there's a flicker of acknowledgement in her face.
Re: The Bad
"I... what...??" He blinks, attention torn between the student and this new figure. The fact that she's green wins over his concentration, though, and he gapes at Shiala. "...What??!?"
Re: The Bad
She's caught up in the immediacy of the moment, and there are too many variables to keep track of -- the fight, the children, Rat here in front of her looking entirely out of place but she's not even certain what that place might be.
"We must get to safety, all of us."
Re: The Bad
A little girl squirms in her wood-and-metal chair, raising her hand. "Mr. Rathbone, Mr. Rathbone, are we going to play it again from start?" She waves her recorder.
There's the whistle of another bomb a distance away.
Re: The Bad
"What is this?"
She steps closer to him, lowering her gun.
Re: The Bad
"It wasn't like this! The war wasn't here! And I never... fought in it. They gave me a deferment because I was a teacher. But my friend Charlie..."
The student in the chair close beside him tugs at his sleeve again, only it doesn't look like a child any longer. The pose is the same, and he's holding a guitar still, but now the figure in the chair looks like one of the corpses on the ground. He's dark, bloody, in filthy fatigues and helmet pushed back. "C'mon Rat, show me that chord again? My fingers keep slipping..."
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The Good
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He does slide his arm around the girl, though. "Hey beautiful."
She leans up against him, although she just may have been eyeing Charlie sidelong, a moment ago. "You sound real good tonight." She has an accent, a mix of Chicago and American-Italian.
Day 85; the Good
He feels the eyes upon him, and he turns. Something about the man looking in his direction looked awfully familiar. The Doctor couldn't place where exactly he had seen him, but knew he had... somewhere... somewhen. And then he notices he's more focused on the woman beside him.
"I think he's looking for you." He nodded towards Rat, indicating for her to look over.
Re: Day 85; the Good
The big-nosed, familiar face smiles uncertainly at the Doctor as he slips an arm around the girl, but he seems oblivious to any flirting. "Evening..." His expression is open and friendly.
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"You're quite lucky to know such an artist." The Doctor grins to the woman next to them.
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"Mmmhm. Don't all artists need a muse?" She tilts her head against the musician's chest briefly, and strokes his arm.
"Definitely. And thanks, but Willie's the lead, I can only hope to be that good someday. Um... sorry, but I feel like I should know you from somewhere... I'm Markus Rathbone. Or just Rat." He offers a handshake.
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And yet why had he been dreaming of so many people from Kore. Why had he been dreaming at all? That wasn't like him.
"Hello! I'm the Doctor!" He didn't elaborate on the question, only offered a smile before finally releasing his grip and turning around. "We've met before. In a different place, I believe."
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"A doctor?" The younger Rat smiles a little. "I'm not sure I know anybody, but you're definitely classing the joint up, between the two of you." He squeezes the girl gently against his side, then lets go a little reluctantly. "Where did we meet, before? And I'm sorry if I've forgotten..." Immersed in the dream of a memory, Kore is far from his mind right now.
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The Ugly
He wanders out into the main room, taking a good look at the pathetic little space and the expression on Rat's face.
"It looks like you've been robbed." He lifts up a photograph to have a look, more curious about the surroundings than whatever suffering Rat might be experiencing at the moment.
Re: The Ugly
The Ugly
He cocks his head as he looks at photograph and then around the room once again.
"So your woman left? I can't blame her, if this is really the state you lived in."
Re: The Ugly
"...It didn't look like this. She... trashed the place, when she left." Granted, it's a pretty cheap apartment, spartan and worn down because that's all they could afford, but it was at least neat and clean up until then.
Re: The Ugly
He leaves the photos alone to perch on the sofa. He's never seen the man in a crisis and he's curious about how he'll react.
"So what are you going to do now? Break something? Drink? Weep?" He keeps watching Rat from the corner of his eye as he leans over to take that note on the coffee table.
Re: The Ugly
"...I'm not about to take romantic advice from you." He strides over with long, long legs, feeling angrier than he's usually inclined to let on. If it looks like he's bearing down on him to do something violent, though, that's misleading. He only reaches to try to snatch the note away. He's got long arms.
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The Good
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Finely he asks, "Do you know the band?"
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