I am a writing fool lately
Aug. 7th, 2004 08:25 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vivienMy character's vacation is going along well - 2,000 words of story so far today. And here is a Riddle drabble I wrote a while back and forgot to ever post. It's very young Tom Riddle at the orphanage.
Good Boy, Sweet Boy
By Vivien
Rating: PG, gen
Once there was a little boy. He was a quiet child. He floated through his life as carefully as he could, trying not to draw attention to himself. This didn’t work much of time, for he lived at an orphanage and was watched closely by the nuns who took pleasure in pointing out what wicked, nasty little boy he was. They turned their heads when the larger boys terrorized him, often times snickering amongst themselves that perhaps “this time the devil would get beaten right out.”
So the boy stayed quiet and stuck to the shadows and decided after awhile that what the nuns said was true. He was different - an aberration, a bad seed, child of the Devil, and accepting this made things much easier.
But it didn’t really. The boy was lonely, and he longed for someone, anyone to say he was a good boy, a sweet boy. Someone worthy of love. He read every book in the orphanage library, sometimes several times over. In the books he read, children were loved and treasured by their parents and friends. Books were an escape, but they were a bitter one.
One summer day the boy was hiding in a clump of bushes he often fled to during outside playtime. He was reading one of his favorite books, about a group of friends who got into all kinds of adventures together. He thought it would be very nice to have friends one day. He heard the stomping feet of two older boys approaching, and he shrunk back into the shadows a bit more. He looked up and noticed the boys were hitting something with sticks as they laughed their big stupid laughs. The boy recognized those laughs – he heard them whenever they kicked him or knocked him about for fun.
Then the boy heard something else. A soft, frantic voice reached his ears. It was saying “Help me, oh please, stop.” The boy looked through the branches of the bush, but he couldn’t see another child at the receiving end of the older boys’ sticks. He carefully and quietly stood up, and he saw on the ground a little green garden snake writhing and bleeding. And still he heard the voice slithering into his ears, “Help me, it hurts so.”
The boy’s eyes grew wide. The snake was talking. And if he could hear it, then he must be wicked and evil, for only wicked and evil people could hear snakes. And only the truly, truly wicked and evil people did what snakes told them.
“Stop that,” said the boy.
The two big boys looked at him with their insipid, cruel faces and laughed at the boy. “Shut your ugly mouth, Riddle. We’ll come for you next.”
With each whack of the stick and soft pleading of the snake, something big and powerful swelled inside the boy. It was anger and it was sadness and it was something else strong and explosive. Somehow the bigger boys were knocked to the ground where they both sprawled out cold. This frightened the boy, but he ran to the snake, scooped it up and fled to another of his hiding places.
He held the wounded snake as it died, cradling it and comforting it with shivery words that flowed with surprising ease from his tongue. Before the snake took its last breath it looked at the boy and whispered, “Thank you, boy. What a good boy. What a sweet boy.” And that moment changed the boy’s life forever.
Good Boy, Sweet Boy
By Vivien
Rating: PG, gen
Once there was a little boy. He was a quiet child. He floated through his life as carefully as he could, trying not to draw attention to himself. This didn’t work much of time, for he lived at an orphanage and was watched closely by the nuns who took pleasure in pointing out what wicked, nasty little boy he was. They turned their heads when the larger boys terrorized him, often times snickering amongst themselves that perhaps “this time the devil would get beaten right out.”
So the boy stayed quiet and stuck to the shadows and decided after awhile that what the nuns said was true. He was different - an aberration, a bad seed, child of the Devil, and accepting this made things much easier.
But it didn’t really. The boy was lonely, and he longed for someone, anyone to say he was a good boy, a sweet boy. Someone worthy of love. He read every book in the orphanage library, sometimes several times over. In the books he read, children were loved and treasured by their parents and friends. Books were an escape, but they were a bitter one.
One summer day the boy was hiding in a clump of bushes he often fled to during outside playtime. He was reading one of his favorite books, about a group of friends who got into all kinds of adventures together. He thought it would be very nice to have friends one day. He heard the stomping feet of two older boys approaching, and he shrunk back into the shadows a bit more. He looked up and noticed the boys were hitting something with sticks as they laughed their big stupid laughs. The boy recognized those laughs – he heard them whenever they kicked him or knocked him about for fun.
Then the boy heard something else. A soft, frantic voice reached his ears. It was saying “Help me, oh please, stop.” The boy looked through the branches of the bush, but he couldn’t see another child at the receiving end of the older boys’ sticks. He carefully and quietly stood up, and he saw on the ground a little green garden snake writhing and bleeding. And still he heard the voice slithering into his ears, “Help me, it hurts so.”
The boy’s eyes grew wide. The snake was talking. And if he could hear it, then he must be wicked and evil, for only wicked and evil people could hear snakes. And only the truly, truly wicked and evil people did what snakes told them.
“Stop that,” said the boy.
The two big boys looked at him with their insipid, cruel faces and laughed at the boy. “Shut your ugly mouth, Riddle. We’ll come for you next.”
With each whack of the stick and soft pleading of the snake, something big and powerful swelled inside the boy. It was anger and it was sadness and it was something else strong and explosive. Somehow the bigger boys were knocked to the ground where they both sprawled out cold. This frightened the boy, but he ran to the snake, scooped it up and fled to another of his hiding places.
He held the wounded snake as it died, cradling it and comforting it with shivery words that flowed with surprising ease from his tongue. Before the snake took its last breath it looked at the boy and whispered, “Thank you, boy. What a good boy. What a sweet boy.” And that moment changed the boy’s life forever.
