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31_days2010-09-26 05:12 pm
seta-suzume.livejournal.com) wrote in 31_days2010-09-26 05:12 pm
[Sept. 26] [Fullmetal Alchemist] Between Photos
Title: Between Photos
Day/Theme: Sept. 26, 2010 "film and flesh"
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Character/Pairing: Solf J. Kimblee and his younger brother
Rating: PG
When a person dies, a photograph is proof that he or she existed. That was what my brother thought. I know this because he told me so. What did it mean then, that he took so many?
I swept around the apartment like an avenger tearing apart the nest we had shared. All his papers, I consumed: the music he wrote, the letters he received from our mother, the things he scribbled down for his own sake as remembrances, whether records of his dreams or fumblings with alchemy or thoughts about me. I learned many things. I thought many things. None of this would change what had gone before. None of this meant anything in the context of how I ended up cleaning out the place alone like a whirlwind. Knowing any of it before wouldn't have made me different.
I clipped the things I felt like, but, mainly, I was honest. I boxed the things up and sent them to my mother. Perhaps Lon had been mine while we lived in South City. Perhaps he had also been mine before that. But at heart and from the beginning, he was always our mother's. I would let her read his papers if she liked, though I knew she would not like all that she found there. The truth was not packaged with ribbons and bows.
The papers were packed quickly. The clothes and knickknacks, whatever I didn't know what to do with and I thought our mother might desire, even faster. It was the photographs that stymied me.
Lon had had a lot of hobbies. He was something of a professional amateur. Photography numbered among his interests, but while he did learn how to develop film on his own, he always tended toward the other side of the lens. Often a little scruffy-looking on an everyday basis, his tie undone and his hair disheveled, Lon would clean up nicely and deliver his best smile (though the smile was a frequent enough guest in our lair without the aid of a camera) for anyone who'd photograph him. If it had been anyone else, I would've questioned their level of narcissism and vanity, but with Lon it didn't read like that. It didn't... Well, I didn't know why he did it. I still don't.
Some of the pictures were in frames- not the ones of just Lon, but other pieces of his collection. Pictures of me, of us, of our mother, of the whole family. The framed ones were on his desk and the side table beside his bed. The rest of them were arrayed randomly, tacked up above his desk and mixed with his papers. Looking at them all I imagined I could never forget my brother's face if I tried.
One by one, I packed the photographs away, deferring their continued existence to my mother's judgment (I couldn't imagine my father would be bothered to consider such things). I looked at myself, standing next to Lon. Our family's home in Fernburg was the backdrop. I looked at myself again, seated at my desk in a slightly tilted composition- clearly the haphazard work of Lon's own lens. I looked handsome enough. Young. Intelligent. I didn't know what to make of myself really, in picture after picture. Maybe it simply showed that my brother- he liked me.
I should keep one, I decided. A photograph of the two of us. I picked through the small stack, analyzing the images and the memories they brought back to me. The more recent they were, the more bitter I felt. I kept going backward through time, further and further, until my eyes settled on the picture I desired. We stood close together. I had my arm around my brother's shoulders. I guessed that at the time I was about twelve. I cut the picture down and tucked it in my wallet (later it transferred its residence to my pocket watch, trimmed down again to the form of a circle). I sent the rest of them home- every single one.
I only needed one. Something to remind me that Lon T. Kimblee had existed.
Day/Theme: Sept. 26, 2010 "film and flesh"
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist
Character/Pairing: Solf J. Kimblee and his younger brother
Rating: PG
When a person dies, a photograph is proof that he or she existed. That was what my brother thought. I know this because he told me so. What did it mean then, that he took so many?
I swept around the apartment like an avenger tearing apart the nest we had shared. All his papers, I consumed: the music he wrote, the letters he received from our mother, the things he scribbled down for his own sake as remembrances, whether records of his dreams or fumblings with alchemy or thoughts about me. I learned many things. I thought many things. None of this would change what had gone before. None of this meant anything in the context of how I ended up cleaning out the place alone like a whirlwind. Knowing any of it before wouldn't have made me different.
I clipped the things I felt like, but, mainly, I was honest. I boxed the things up and sent them to my mother. Perhaps Lon had been mine while we lived in South City. Perhaps he had also been mine before that. But at heart and from the beginning, he was always our mother's. I would let her read his papers if she liked, though I knew she would not like all that she found there. The truth was not packaged with ribbons and bows.
The papers were packed quickly. The clothes and knickknacks, whatever I didn't know what to do with and I thought our mother might desire, even faster. It was the photographs that stymied me.
Lon had had a lot of hobbies. He was something of a professional amateur. Photography numbered among his interests, but while he did learn how to develop film on his own, he always tended toward the other side of the lens. Often a little scruffy-looking on an everyday basis, his tie undone and his hair disheveled, Lon would clean up nicely and deliver his best smile (though the smile was a frequent enough guest in our lair without the aid of a camera) for anyone who'd photograph him. If it had been anyone else, I would've questioned their level of narcissism and vanity, but with Lon it didn't read like that. It didn't... Well, I didn't know why he did it. I still don't.
Some of the pictures were in frames- not the ones of just Lon, but other pieces of his collection. Pictures of me, of us, of our mother, of the whole family. The framed ones were on his desk and the side table beside his bed. The rest of them were arrayed randomly, tacked up above his desk and mixed with his papers. Looking at them all I imagined I could never forget my brother's face if I tried.
One by one, I packed the photographs away, deferring their continued existence to my mother's judgment (I couldn't imagine my father would be bothered to consider such things). I looked at myself, standing next to Lon. Our family's home in Fernburg was the backdrop. I looked at myself again, seated at my desk in a slightly tilted composition- clearly the haphazard work of Lon's own lens. I looked handsome enough. Young. Intelligent. I didn't know what to make of myself really, in picture after picture. Maybe it simply showed that my brother- he liked me.
I should keep one, I decided. A photograph of the two of us. I picked through the small stack, analyzing the images and the memories they brought back to me. The more recent they were, the more bitter I felt. I kept going backward through time, further and further, until my eyes settled on the picture I desired. We stood close together. I had my arm around my brother's shoulders. I guessed that at the time I was about twelve. I cut the picture down and tucked it in my wallet (later it transferred its residence to my pocket watch, trimmed down again to the form of a circle). I sent the rest of them home- every single one.
I only needed one. Something to remind me that Lon T. Kimblee had existed.