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kendermouseTitle: Nevermore
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](/%20https://www.npmjs.com/package/ocr-https-www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
a_mouses_tail on LJ,kendermouse on Dreamwidth (and elsewhere)
Chapter: 1/1
Rating: Um... PG13?
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Poe's works, nor his madness. I have madness all my own, thankyouverymuch. I do, however, sort of own the Housekeeper OC, inasmuch as anyone can own a character.
Beta: None - read at your own risk.
Warnings: TW: Mental Illness.
Characters: The Raven, the protagonist of The Raven poem, (whom I have assumed shares a name with Poe,) some random, nameless EMT's, and a housekeeper OC I invented.
Summary: A sequel, as it were, to The Raven. Basically, it's what would have happened after the events of the actual poem, had they occurred in a more modern setting.
FOREWORD
Whatever comes of this, it was borne of an idea I discussed with a few people on what was truly frightening about a certain poem, by a very esteemed author. The poem itself, when read on the surface, doesn't seem all that scary to most people in this day and age, when compared with, not only all the horror movies we have, with the special effects, but all the horrors we see perpetrated by actual people on the news every day. And when read straight, compared to those things and more, it really just isn't all that scary seeming.
But when you read between the lines...
You find the story of a man descending into complete and total madness, over the course of a few short hours. (Or possibly days. Who knows how slow time moves to a madman?) Mind you, he didn't seem all that solid to begin with, but still. By the end, he's basically screaming and cursing at a bird, then curled up on the floor, completely broken, moaning about his lost love.
Says a lot about a guy when his sanity's so fragile to begin with, that a bird can break him, (of course, that's saying there even was a bird, and he was not hallucinating the entire encounter...) and that the majority of his insanity hinges on a single female, purported to be lost.
Did she leave him because he was insane? Did she pass away? Did he kill her? Did ninjas/pirates/a madman kidnap her, sending him ransom notes, and taunting him with thirty second snippets of her being tortured slowly to death?
(Okay, so when the original poem was written, the latter was unlikely to have happened- it was well before the days of youtube, after all. BUT STILL.)
The world may never know.
What we do know, however, is that we were left with a rather intense poem, describing one man's descent into madness. Oh, and a bird. But the bird isn't really all that important. Don't let him trick you into thinking he is. He's just a catalyst, after all.
===============================================================================================================================================
The EMT's arrived just as the sun started to reach for its typical noontime position. They had been called by the housekeeper, as the man in question had no relatives, or at least none living with him. It was the third time this month they'd been called out- they knew the drill quite well by now. They entered the home, and went straight for the master bedroom, where the patient in question was, just like the last two times, curled up on the floor, staring fearfully at the top of his door, whimpering tearfully, and mumbling rhyming nonsense.
They lifted him up, and gently laid him on the stretcher as the housekeeper fidgeted worriedly, and talking to them- or perhaps herself. Nobody was really certain, since she didn't seem to be expecting any replies.
"Third time this month... all the same... poor Mister Eddie... hasn't been the same since that girl he loved disappeared..."
She sighed, and started pulling sheets off the bed, still chattering at full speed.
"I keep tellin' those people at the hospital when they call, maybe they should keep him for awhile, make sure he's really okay before they let him loose, but oh, no... 'just a little episode, he'll be fine ma'am' they tell me, when they call me to come pick him up. If he's so fine, why does this keep happening, huh? And all that extra driving, and the mess he makes when he has one of these breakdowns... if I wasn't getting paid so good, I swear, I'd have quit already."
One of then paid her a token amount of attention, getting the info they needed for getting him checked in, and filing on his insurance, and then they left, loading him into the back of the ambulance, and getting in themselves, and taking off.
The woman watched them go, then went back to the master bedroom, and went back to work on straightening up in there, chattering to herself as she did. She heard a strange noise, and paused, turning around slowly. Perched on top of the door frame, was a large black bird, peering at her quizzically.
"You again? How do you keep getting in here anyway, you silly thing? And why would you want to? Don't you know the bird-feeder's around the back?" She opened the window, and waved her hands at the bird. "Shoo! Go on now, a house is no place for a wild bird." The bird made another odd sound, cocking it's head at her, eyes gleaming redly.
(Some who saw it might say unnaturally so, but none of them are in this story now, are they?)
"I mean it now... go on, or I'll get the broom." It seemed to assess this threat for a moment, then, deciding it was a relevant one, took off out the window, flying to a nearby tree, and perching there, peering back at the window almost malevolently. The housekeeper, though, had already shut the window, pulled the curtains, and was completely oblivious to the eerie red stare being leveled at her as she went about her work.
===============================================================================================================================================
Author:
a_mouses_tail on LJ,kendermouse on Dreamwidth (and elsewhere)Chapter: 1/1
Rating: Um... PG13?
Disclaimer: I do not own any of Poe's works, nor his madness. I have madness all my own, thankyouverymuch. I do, however, sort of own the Housekeeper OC, inasmuch as anyone can own a character.
Beta: None - read at your own risk.
Warnings: TW: Mental Illness.
Characters: The Raven, the protagonist of The Raven poem, (whom I have assumed shares a name with Poe,) some random, nameless EMT's, and a housekeeper OC I invented.
Summary: A sequel, as it were, to The Raven. Basically, it's what would have happened after the events of the actual poem, had they occurred in a more modern setting.
FOREWORD
Whatever comes of this, it was borne of an idea I discussed with a few people on what was truly frightening about a certain poem, by a very esteemed author. The poem itself, when read on the surface, doesn't seem all that scary to most people in this day and age, when compared with, not only all the horror movies we have, with the special effects, but all the horrors we see perpetrated by actual people on the news every day. And when read straight, compared to those things and more, it really just isn't all that scary seeming.
But when you read between the lines...
You find the story of a man descending into complete and total madness, over the course of a few short hours. (Or possibly days. Who knows how slow time moves to a madman?) Mind you, he didn't seem all that solid to begin with, but still. By the end, he's basically screaming and cursing at a bird, then curled up on the floor, completely broken, moaning about his lost love.
Says a lot about a guy when his sanity's so fragile to begin with, that a bird can break him, (of course, that's saying there even was a bird, and he was not hallucinating the entire encounter...) and that the majority of his insanity hinges on a single female, purported to be lost.
Did she leave him because he was insane? Did she pass away? Did he kill her? Did ninjas/pirates/a madman kidnap her, sending him ransom notes, and taunting him with thirty second snippets of her being tortured slowly to death?
(Okay, so when the original poem was written, the latter was unlikely to have happened- it was well before the days of youtube, after all. BUT STILL.)
The world may never know.
What we do know, however, is that we were left with a rather intense poem, describing one man's descent into madness. Oh, and a bird. But the bird isn't really all that important. Don't let him trick you into thinking he is. He's just a catalyst, after all.
===============================================================================================================================================
The EMT's arrived just as the sun started to reach for its typical noontime position. They had been called by the housekeeper, as the man in question had no relatives, or at least none living with him. It was the third time this month they'd been called out- they knew the drill quite well by now. They entered the home, and went straight for the master bedroom, where the patient in question was, just like the last two times, curled up on the floor, staring fearfully at the top of his door, whimpering tearfully, and mumbling rhyming nonsense.
They lifted him up, and gently laid him on the stretcher as the housekeeper fidgeted worriedly, and talking to them- or perhaps herself. Nobody was really certain, since she didn't seem to be expecting any replies.
"Third time this month... all the same... poor Mister Eddie... hasn't been the same since that girl he loved disappeared..."
She sighed, and started pulling sheets off the bed, still chattering at full speed.
"I keep tellin' those people at the hospital when they call, maybe they should keep him for awhile, make sure he's really okay before they let him loose, but oh, no... 'just a little episode, he'll be fine ma'am' they tell me, when they call me to come pick him up. If he's so fine, why does this keep happening, huh? And all that extra driving, and the mess he makes when he has one of these breakdowns... if I wasn't getting paid so good, I swear, I'd have quit already."
One of then paid her a token amount of attention, getting the info they needed for getting him checked in, and filing on his insurance, and then they left, loading him into the back of the ambulance, and getting in themselves, and taking off.
The woman watched them go, then went back to the master bedroom, and went back to work on straightening up in there, chattering to herself as she did. She heard a strange noise, and paused, turning around slowly. Perched on top of the door frame, was a large black bird, peering at her quizzically.
"You again? How do you keep getting in here anyway, you silly thing? And why would you want to? Don't you know the bird-feeder's around the back?" She opened the window, and waved her hands at the bird. "Shoo! Go on now, a house is no place for a wild bird." The bird made another odd sound, cocking it's head at her, eyes gleaming redly.
(Some who saw it might say unnaturally so, but none of them are in this story now, are they?)
"I mean it now... go on, or I'll get the broom." It seemed to assess this threat for a moment, then, deciding it was a relevant one, took off out the window, flying to a nearby tree, and perching there, peering back at the window almost malevolently. The housekeeper, though, had already shut the window, pulled the curtains, and was completely oblivious to the eerie red stare being leveled at her as she went about her work.
===============================================================================================================================================
