wizened_cynic (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
wizened_cynic) wrote2006-05-08 12:09 am
wizened_cynic) wrote2006-05-08 12:09 am
Entry tags:
天國的女兒
I'm supposed to be on sabbatical and all, but I figured out this doesn't count because it's JOA-related rather than stupid Alex/Lorelai-related. After much prodding by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fewthistle, I finally got around to writing JOA fic again. I'd forgotten how much FUN it is to write Joan.
I always wondered what would happen if Joan told people she talked to God and they actually believed her instead of sending her to Bellevue. This fic is an attempt to answer that question. 595 words, first and last lines supplied byflying_peanuts.
Illumination
Frail as a fallen nest, she lifted --- hovering, weightless over a field of nails --- the burden of having been chosen. She bore it on her shoulders, keeping her head bowed like a servant in a primitive country, driving the plough through stubborn fields at the break of light.
He should have warned her. He should have told her it would end up like this.
He wouldn't have.
Joan wanted to laugh at the irony of it all. All that time she'd spent worrying she was crazy, worrying people would think she was crazy. In the end she told them the truth and they believed her.
They believed she talked to God.
Now she was here, in an ivory chamber overlooking the Tiber River, an ocean and a half away from home, away from her parents and brothers and Grace and Adam. Away from God.
(God doesn't live here.)
People were willing to believe now, after the outbreak in southern California and the storms in the Africa. The way hills and forests couldn't stop burning. It was supposed to be a good thing --- faith is always a good thing, he said --- but somehow Joan got caught in the middle.
No one called her by her name anymore.
(Bride of Christ. Daughter of Heaven. Prophet. Messenger.)
She just wanted to be eighteen, to go to college, to get a boyfriend, to cram for midterms and drink too much coffee.
She didn't want any of this, and the worst part was, he had left her here, all alone. People expected her to deliver his words, but how could she, when he never showed?
At this point, Joan could probably make anything up, declare an International Gelato Day or whatever, and people would still listen to her, no questions asked.
Somehow, having this much power wasn't as much fun as it seemed.
She had to be careful now, about everything she said or did.
(Actions have consequences, and to be in denial of that is to be disengaged from the laws of the universe, which renders you powerless and vulnerable to an inordinate amount of pain.)
He told her that secret in damp, dusty basement of Arcadia High, and she learned it well.
She was playing her own game now.
It's just that she always thought he'd be around when she did.
(I'm everywhere, Joan.)
She spent her days wandering around the marble halls, looking at squares and circles of colored glass that joined together to form pictures of a god she didn't know. She knew him as a big-bosomed woman wearing a hair net, an old man with a gang of dogs at his ankles, a red-haired little girl on a swing. A boy in a tan jacket with a cat-grin on his face and his hands in his pockets.
Where was he now?
(Trust me, even in the silence.)
It should be easier to believe in him now that she had seen him. It was harder, though, to keep faith, because knowing God was like living in light: everything was illuminated. Nothing could be hidden. You saw the bad as well as the good.
Joan had faith, but she needed company. She needed a friend. She needed him back with her, to walk her home like the time after the piñata incident, to lend a shoulder for her to cry on.
(Joan shouts: ollie ollie oxen free!)
(Learn to see, Joan, even in the dark.)
He called her name and she heard.
In the distance, she looked for a miracle of God invisible.
Anyway. Back into my hole I go.
fewthistle, I finally got around to writing JOA fic again. I'd forgotten how much FUN it is to write Joan. I always wondered what would happen if Joan told people she talked to God and they actually believed her instead of sending her to Bellevue. This fic is an attempt to answer that question. 595 words, first and last lines supplied by
flying_peanuts. Frail as a fallen nest, she lifted --- hovering, weightless over a field of nails --- the burden of having been chosen. She bore it on her shoulders, keeping her head bowed like a servant in a primitive country, driving the plough through stubborn fields at the break of light.
He should have warned her. He should have told her it would end up like this.
He wouldn't have.
Joan wanted to laugh at the irony of it all. All that time she'd spent worrying she was crazy, worrying people would think she was crazy. In the end she told them the truth and they believed her.
They believed she talked to God.
Now she was here, in an ivory chamber overlooking the Tiber River, an ocean and a half away from home, away from her parents and brothers and Grace and Adam. Away from God.
(God doesn't live here.)
People were willing to believe now, after the outbreak in southern California and the storms in the Africa. The way hills and forests couldn't stop burning. It was supposed to be a good thing --- faith is always a good thing, he said --- but somehow Joan got caught in the middle.
No one called her by her name anymore.
(Bride of Christ. Daughter of Heaven. Prophet. Messenger.)
She just wanted to be eighteen, to go to college, to get a boyfriend, to cram for midterms and drink too much coffee.
She didn't want any of this, and the worst part was, he had left her here, all alone. People expected her to deliver his words, but how could she, when he never showed?
At this point, Joan could probably make anything up, declare an International Gelato Day or whatever, and people would still listen to her, no questions asked.
Somehow, having this much power wasn't as much fun as it seemed.
She had to be careful now, about everything she said or did.
(Actions have consequences, and to be in denial of that is to be disengaged from the laws of the universe, which renders you powerless and vulnerable to an inordinate amount of pain.)
He told her that secret in damp, dusty basement of Arcadia High, and she learned it well.
She was playing her own game now.
It's just that she always thought he'd be around when she did.
(I'm everywhere, Joan.)
She spent her days wandering around the marble halls, looking at squares and circles of colored glass that joined together to form pictures of a god she didn't know. She knew him as a big-bosomed woman wearing a hair net, an old man with a gang of dogs at his ankles, a red-haired little girl on a swing. A boy in a tan jacket with a cat-grin on his face and his hands in his pockets.
Where was he now?
(Trust me, even in the silence.)
It should be easier to believe in him now that she had seen him. It was harder, though, to keep faith, because knowing God was like living in light: everything was illuminated. Nothing could be hidden. You saw the bad as well as the good.
Joan had faith, but she needed company. She needed a friend. She needed him back with her, to walk her home like the time after the piñata incident, to lend a shoulder for her to cry on.
(Joan shouts: ollie ollie oxen free!)
(Learn to see, Joan, even in the dark.)
He called her name and she heard.
In the distance, she looked for a miracle of God invisible.
Anyway. Back into my hole I go.