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Apr. 20th, 2011 11:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drownedinlight I got on to my computer almost two hours ago to write for the night, before I would read and go to bed. I logged on to Facebook to check on something for a friend and send another a link before I forgot, and as I started posting, I noticed a post from my uncle. I usually try to read his posts, as I rather like my uncle, but this one shattered me a little.
He wrote about a woman that he met by mistake on a friend sharing website. He had talked to her for months, over a year, and she lived so close by him, in France while he was in Germany. My uncle fell in love with this woman, and when he talked about her this Summer when we went to visit, you could hear it in his voice alone, just how much he loved her. He wrote in this post about how much he wanted to introduce her to our family as his girl friend, or maybe as his wife. This post was an obituary, telling about how her life ended in route to the hospital.
I don't know all of the particulars, but I believe it was cancer, I know she fought it and that when she met my uncle she was in remission. But just a few months ago remission faded into dust nothign more than less than hope.
This is a woman who I did not know. But this is the woman who reignited some of the passion and the soul into my uncle's voice, something he lost after his divorce. This was a woman who I was ready to call my aunt and to love with all my heart. I wanted to meet her and hug her and help teach her how to speak English.
Before now, not many young people in my life have died of "natural causes." I guess cancer isn't natural, but it was something that happened inside of her own body. The only people I knew that had happened to were old, had lived for so long, that it almost seemed worthy that these things should happen. But not to her, not for life to so extiguish, in a way so heartwrenching...I just can't even think of how to describe it.
Since I saw that post two hours ago, I've been trying to sit and think, and farting about the internet eating some pop tarts. And then I started trying to write. I played the new Within Temptation album, which seemed to inspire me the past few nights, and just tried to write about a Superwoman, but nothings seemed to quite flow like it was supposed to, everything felt interrupted by a destraction or thought about death. "I hoped to introduce her as my wife," my uncle said. And that keeps playing over and over in my head like, "I can't live in a fairy tale of lies. And I can't fight this feeling 'cause it's right."
So I refuse to fight this sadness, and this pain building inside my cheast, for a a woman who did not know but who I love like the way you love people sometimes, and you just can't explain it.
She's the reason I can't write about a superwoman right now. She's the reason I'm crying tears and snot, and I just...I just need to let it flow. I need to be sad right now, I need to feel her heart here, beating in spirit with mine. I need to just be in this moment a little while longer. I need to not hold back the tears. And I don't want to.
I don't know if I will finish the story about Atalanta, the superwoman. But now I really want to, so that when the front cover opens up, her name can be there, as a woman who fought for her right to live, against the very forces of nature.
Elise, this is for you.
“Now are you going to talk to me?” Atalanta asked.
“What is there to talk about?” he asked.
“Greer—”
“Dark Strike,” he insisted, grinding his teeth as he did.
“Fine, Strike, what did you think you were doing back there?”
“I thought that would be pretty obvious,” he retorted, leaning out of the shadows just ever so slightly. “I’m doing what you’re doing. Saving the day and all without any powers to keep me safe, super girl.”
“Superwoman!” Atalanta protested. “Why?”
“Because,” he said, “the Superhero Collective didn’t just go missing, and they didn’t just retire quietly to watch the world burn. Something happened to them. I’ve been tracking someone since Nocturn stopped looking after his city. He would never do something like that.”
“And you knew the man personally?” Atalanta asked crossing her arms.
“Like you really knew Alcaeus? I’ve seen how people call you his protégé, but you lack his…finesse.” Strike leaned forward more, and revealed that his mostly covered face did hold the same shapes as Greer Mason and Atalanta knew it was him. “I didn’t come here to argue the finer points of secret identities. I came to see what you know.”
“Should we really be talking about this here?” she asked. “I mean is the location secure?” Strike paused, before he said,
“There might be a place we can go, it’s not really set up yet, but it’s meant for…for people like us.” Atalanta did not ask what exactly, “people like us,” meant, but grabbed his wrist before he could take off where she could not see him again.
“Take me there then, and we’ll talk.”
“It’s not ready,” Strike repeated. “It’s no more secure than here, but soon it will be. For now, back alleys will have to do. Now tell me, what do you know?” Atalanta held her breathe as long as she could, but exhaled, and said,
“I don’t know much, but I raided some filed from Kenji Fujimoto and Riko Takahiko. They have several connected to people I think might be other villains. Sorceress, Ice Giant—”
“Maestro?” Strike asked.
“Yeah and a few others. What’s so special about Maestro?” Atalanta asked.
“He often opposed Nocturn, and Nocturn has put him away a few times. What were a few more names you found?”
“Tsunami, Velocity, Guillotine,” Atalanta listened off of the top of her head.
“Those are many of the villains who directly opposed the Collective. There are a few who are unfamiliar to me, but if they all managed to work together, maybe they took the Collective down out of surprise. What else did you learn?”
“Fujimoto was reporting back to someone,” Atalanta said. “I heard him on the phone, and when he and Riko were talking. They never mentioned him by name, but said he had the Collective hidden away somewhere.”
“…Why would they say something so valuable in front of you?” Strike asked.
“I might have been almost passed out at the time,” Atalanta replied, pausing before and after almost every word.
“Then how do you know what you heard?” Strike asked.
“I know!” she exclaimed. “My mind was awake, I could hear, but I just couldn’t move. Look, isn’t the important thing that we know the Collective is hidden away somewhere, and that they can be found.” There was no answer, and Atalanta reached into the darkness to find nothing to greet her. “God dammit!” she cursed.
She returned to her apartment building after that, undressed, and went to bed, muttering about stupid boys and playing detective. The next morning, she rolled out of bed, grabbed a quick shower, and wrote a note to a still sleeping Natalie before she went down to the university still fuming a little bit over the past night.
“Good morning, Charlotte,” Professor Hakim greeted from the door of her office.
“Morning,” Charlotte replied. “Do you need a minute?”
“No, please come in and take a seat.” Charlotte nearly slumped into the chair, but thought better of slamming her body into a wicker chair. After all, it was not what had her so angry. “Is something wrong Charlotte? You seem, perhaps a bit tense, this morning.”
“It’s nothing…it’s a boy,” Charlotte sighed.
“Ah, yes, those do often tend cause trouble,” Professor Hakim agreed. “Would you like to talk about it?”
“It’s really complicated, and I’m not sure I could explain all of the circumstances,” Charlotte said, waving it off. “I guess I just feel a little…lied to. Like he was two faced or something.”
“Well, my best advice is that you should talk to him about it, and express whatever rage you are feeling,” Professor Hakim said, her long brown fingers pointing into her desk. “That way, you will feel better and you both will be stronger for it. Now, do you have an idea for your thesis? You were thinking of focusing on the classical period if I remember correctly.”
“Yes, I was, I just need to find a focus, but I was thinking…” Charlotte bit her lip before continuing, “I was thinking about maybe looking at the portrayal of male and female demi-gods, and how the men are always portrayed as heroes, but women are portrayed as victims or instigators.”
“Quite the topic,” Hakim replied, leaning back in her chair. “What brought this on?”
“Atalanta,” she said before she could stop herself. “I mean now that she’s appeared and everyone’s comparing her to Alcaeus, I just started thinking about it, and she’s the only hero I can think of who’s a woman and she’s not even recorded as a demi-god! Well, I think I read somewhere that she might have been a daughter of Hades, but I don’t think that source was reliable.”
“Ah yes, I do think she chose her name very wisely, especially since many compare her against Alcaeus,” Hakim remarked leaning forward again. “Sadly, I think many missed her careful association and therefore cannot think it clever. But expand on your thesis for me, which demi-gods were you thinking of using? Simply the well-known occupants of myth or perhaps some less described ones?”
“Well, maybe a mixture of both?” Charlotte inquired. “I think that way, it might show that it wasn’t just the stories people were telling, but also the way the culture was organized.”
“I think you will also need to search for an impact in all of this,” Hakim suggested. “We know the Greek culture was organized as patriarchal. So why should we care if the myths were organized this way. Or maybe you could focus your thesis on the mythical Atalanta and how she was not the typical woman of the age, and even how she refused to be.”
“But she became something like it,” Charlotte said. “She married because her suitor cheated her in a foot race, and even had sex in a temple.”
“Well, write about that,” Hakim told her. “Look up the tales of Atalanta and compare how she was different from the other women in the stories of heroes, and how she was forced to conform in the end. But perhaps you should keep your topic slightly wide for now; after all, you wouldn’t want me influencing you too much.”
“No, it’s a good idea…if you’ll let me use it of course,” Charlotte added.
“Well, I feel like it might have been a natural direction for you to turn to,” Hakim said. “Would you like to discuss the particulars of your thesis, do you feel clear on them, or would you perhaps like to save that for later, and simply begin your research?”
“Maybe we can leave that for the fall,” Charlotte said. “I do tend to get ahead of everybody else.”
“Yes, but it is one of the things I love about you Charlotte,” Hakim declared, “You refuse to let standards hold you back. And maybe you should keep that in mind when you talk to your boy as well.” Charlotte chuckled, and stood reaching out to shake her professor’s hand.
“Thank you, Professor Hakim,” she said.
“Charlotte, you’ve had me for three years, and now I am your thesis advisor. I believe you may call me Aaliyah, if you should like,” the older woman replied, shaking her hand with a firm grip.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said, “I will then.”
“Feel free to email me should you have any questions, or any drafts,” Aaliyah replied. “And should you need any more advice, about anything, really, my door is open.”
“Thank you, again, for the thesis advisement and the boy talk,” Charlotte said. “I’ll see you in the fall, or maybe sooner.”
“Maybe you will,” she agreed.
He wrote about a woman that he met by mistake on a friend sharing website. He had talked to her for months, over a year, and she lived so close by him, in France while he was in Germany. My uncle fell in love with this woman, and when he talked about her this Summer when we went to visit, you could hear it in his voice alone, just how much he loved her. He wrote in this post about how much he wanted to introduce her to our family as his girl friend, or maybe as his wife. This post was an obituary, telling about how her life ended in route to the hospital.
I don't know all of the particulars, but I believe it was cancer, I know she fought it and that when she met my uncle she was in remission. But just a few months ago remission faded into dust nothign more than less than hope.
This is a woman who I did not know. But this is the woman who reignited some of the passion and the soul into my uncle's voice, something he lost after his divorce. This was a woman who I was ready to call my aunt and to love with all my heart. I wanted to meet her and hug her and help teach her how to speak English.
Before now, not many young people in my life have died of "natural causes." I guess cancer isn't natural, but it was something that happened inside of her own body. The only people I knew that had happened to were old, had lived for so long, that it almost seemed worthy that these things should happen. But not to her, not for life to so extiguish, in a way so heartwrenching...I just can't even think of how to describe it.
Since I saw that post two hours ago, I've been trying to sit and think, and farting about the internet eating some pop tarts. And then I started trying to write. I played the new Within Temptation album, which seemed to inspire me the past few nights, and just tried to write about a Superwoman, but nothings seemed to quite flow like it was supposed to, everything felt interrupted by a destraction or thought about death. "I hoped to introduce her as my wife," my uncle said. And that keeps playing over and over in my head like, "I can't live in a fairy tale of lies. And I can't fight this feeling 'cause it's right."
So I refuse to fight this sadness, and this pain building inside my cheast, for a a woman who did not know but who I love like the way you love people sometimes, and you just can't explain it.
She's the reason I can't write about a superwoman right now. She's the reason I'm crying tears and snot, and I just...I just need to let it flow. I need to be sad right now, I need to feel her heart here, beating in spirit with mine. I need to just be in this moment a little while longer. I need to not hold back the tears. And I don't want to.
I don't know if I will finish the story about Atalanta, the superwoman. But now I really want to, so that when the front cover opens up, her name can be there, as a woman who fought for her right to live, against the very forces of nature.
Elise, this is for you.
“Now are you going to talk to me?” Atalanta asked.
“What is there to talk about?” he asked.
“Greer—”
“Dark Strike,” he insisted, grinding his teeth as he did.
“Fine, Strike, what did you think you were doing back there?”
“I thought that would be pretty obvious,” he retorted, leaning out of the shadows just ever so slightly. “I’m doing what you’re doing. Saving the day and all without any powers to keep me safe, super girl.”
“Superwoman!” Atalanta protested. “Why?”
“Because,” he said, “the Superhero Collective didn’t just go missing, and they didn’t just retire quietly to watch the world burn. Something happened to them. I’ve been tracking someone since Nocturn stopped looking after his city. He would never do something like that.”
“And you knew the man personally?” Atalanta asked crossing her arms.
“Like you really knew Alcaeus? I’ve seen how people call you his protégé, but you lack his…finesse.” Strike leaned forward more, and revealed that his mostly covered face did hold the same shapes as Greer Mason and Atalanta knew it was him. “I didn’t come here to argue the finer points of secret identities. I came to see what you know.”
“Should we really be talking about this here?” she asked. “I mean is the location secure?” Strike paused, before he said,
“There might be a place we can go, it’s not really set up yet, but it’s meant for…for people like us.” Atalanta did not ask what exactly, “people like us,” meant, but grabbed his wrist before he could take off where she could not see him again.
“Take me there then, and we’ll talk.”
“It’s not ready,” Strike repeated. “It’s no more secure than here, but soon it will be. For now, back alleys will have to do. Now tell me, what do you know?” Atalanta held her breathe as long as she could, but exhaled, and said,
“I don’t know much, but I raided some filed from Kenji Fujimoto and Riko Takahiko. They have several connected to people I think might be other villains. Sorceress, Ice Giant—”
“Maestro?” Strike asked.
“Yeah and a few others. What’s so special about Maestro?” Atalanta asked.
“He often opposed Nocturn, and Nocturn has put him away a few times. What were a few more names you found?”
“Tsunami, Velocity, Guillotine,” Atalanta listened off of the top of her head.
“Those are many of the villains who directly opposed the Collective. There are a few who are unfamiliar to me, but if they all managed to work together, maybe they took the Collective down out of surprise. What else did you learn?”
“Fujimoto was reporting back to someone,” Atalanta said. “I heard him on the phone, and when he and Riko were talking. They never mentioned him by name, but said he had the Collective hidden away somewhere.”
“…Why would they say something so valuable in front of you?” Strike asked.
“I might have been almost passed out at the time,” Atalanta replied, pausing before and after almost every word.
“Then how do you know what you heard?” Strike asked.
“I know!” she exclaimed. “My mind was awake, I could hear, but I just couldn’t move. Look, isn’t the important thing that we know the Collective is hidden away somewhere, and that they can be found.” There was no answer, and Atalanta reached into the darkness to find nothing to greet her. “God dammit!” she cursed.
She returned to her apartment building after that, undressed, and went to bed, muttering about stupid boys and playing detective. The next morning, she rolled out of bed, grabbed a quick shower, and wrote a note to a still sleeping Natalie before she went down to the university still fuming a little bit over the past night.
“Good morning, Charlotte,” Professor Hakim greeted from the door of her office.
“Morning,” Charlotte replied. “Do you need a minute?”
“No, please come in and take a seat.” Charlotte nearly slumped into the chair, but thought better of slamming her body into a wicker chair. After all, it was not what had her so angry. “Is something wrong Charlotte? You seem, perhaps a bit tense, this morning.”
“It’s nothing…it’s a boy,” Charlotte sighed.
“Ah, yes, those do often tend cause trouble,” Professor Hakim agreed. “Would you like to talk about it?”
“It’s really complicated, and I’m not sure I could explain all of the circumstances,” Charlotte said, waving it off. “I guess I just feel a little…lied to. Like he was two faced or something.”
“Well, my best advice is that you should talk to him about it, and express whatever rage you are feeling,” Professor Hakim said, her long brown fingers pointing into her desk. “That way, you will feel better and you both will be stronger for it. Now, do you have an idea for your thesis? You were thinking of focusing on the classical period if I remember correctly.”
“Yes, I was, I just need to find a focus, but I was thinking…” Charlotte bit her lip before continuing, “I was thinking about maybe looking at the portrayal of male and female demi-gods, and how the men are always portrayed as heroes, but women are portrayed as victims or instigators.”
“Quite the topic,” Hakim replied, leaning back in her chair. “What brought this on?”
“Atalanta,” she said before she could stop herself. “I mean now that she’s appeared and everyone’s comparing her to Alcaeus, I just started thinking about it, and she’s the only hero I can think of who’s a woman and she’s not even recorded as a demi-god! Well, I think I read somewhere that she might have been a daughter of Hades, but I don’t think that source was reliable.”
“Ah yes, I do think she chose her name very wisely, especially since many compare her against Alcaeus,” Hakim remarked leaning forward again. “Sadly, I think many missed her careful association and therefore cannot think it clever. But expand on your thesis for me, which demi-gods were you thinking of using? Simply the well-known occupants of myth or perhaps some less described ones?”
“Well, maybe a mixture of both?” Charlotte inquired. “I think that way, it might show that it wasn’t just the stories people were telling, but also the way the culture was organized.”
“I think you will also need to search for an impact in all of this,” Hakim suggested. “We know the Greek culture was organized as patriarchal. So why should we care if the myths were organized this way. Or maybe you could focus your thesis on the mythical Atalanta and how she was not the typical woman of the age, and even how she refused to be.”
“But she became something like it,” Charlotte said. “She married because her suitor cheated her in a foot race, and even had sex in a temple.”
“Well, write about that,” Hakim told her. “Look up the tales of Atalanta and compare how she was different from the other women in the stories of heroes, and how she was forced to conform in the end. But perhaps you should keep your topic slightly wide for now; after all, you wouldn’t want me influencing you too much.”
“No, it’s a good idea…if you’ll let me use it of course,” Charlotte added.
“Well, I feel like it might have been a natural direction for you to turn to,” Hakim said. “Would you like to discuss the particulars of your thesis, do you feel clear on them, or would you perhaps like to save that for later, and simply begin your research?”
“Maybe we can leave that for the fall,” Charlotte said. “I do tend to get ahead of everybody else.”
“Yes, but it is one of the things I love about you Charlotte,” Hakim declared, “You refuse to let standards hold you back. And maybe you should keep that in mind when you talk to your boy as well.” Charlotte chuckled, and stood reaching out to shake her professor’s hand.
“Thank you, Professor Hakim,” she said.
“Charlotte, you’ve had me for three years, and now I am your thesis advisor. I believe you may call me Aaliyah, if you should like,” the older woman replied, shaking her hand with a firm grip.
“Thank you,” Charlotte said, “I will then.”
“Feel free to email me should you have any questions, or any drafts,” Aaliyah replied. “And should you need any more advice, about anything, really, my door is open.”
“Thank you, again, for the thesis advisement and the boy talk,” Charlotte said. “I’ll see you in the fall, or maybe sooner.”
“Maybe you will,” she agreed.
