Write about: the after.
Well, I suppose the last two prompts wouldn't really be complete without my before and after. So here's the before, taken last Sunday:
And here's the after, taken last Wednesday (I wanted a picture after it had grown in a little... the one I took on Sunday was a little startling... though probably mostly for its newness):
I'd been thinking about doing it for weeks and it finally got to the point where I couldn't handle the length anymore. I've considered doing it in the past as well - probably coming closest when I was in Malta at the end of my six month backpacking trip to Europe. There was a guy staying at the hostel who had clippers and I'd just had my haircut and I wasn't happy with it.
I chickened out then, but not this time. Though, to be fair, I probably won't be seeing too many people in person before it grows all the way back.
Assuming I don't decide to just keep it this way...
2 comments:
Well, I probably should have guessed yesterday that today's prompt would be "the after" but I don't think I'd have guessed about the haircut! The new one suits you, for all that you're eyeing the camera as though you're expecting it to start laughing at you :) And it's a nice contrast the to picture of you in the About Me section which is... ten years old now?
I'm not entirely surprised you had trouble getting a good haircut in Malta. I had to track down a Brit before I found a good barber....
The after
William half-turned, his hand reaching across his body, and he stretched his arm out. Collins felt he was watching things in slow motion: with painful clarity his eyes focused on a black, snub-nosed gun with an oddly bulbous barrel that pointed first at him through the windows of the doors, then casually, slowly, realigned itself with the Inspectral. Who just stood there, waiting. William’s face, slightly too tanned for the North of England, creased into a smile that revealed yellow teeth and lips that were too red on the inside, and grey eyes seemed to sparkle with life.
“Malcolm said you wouldn’t be able to leave this alone,” he said. “He said curiosity about the Devices was eating you up inside, not that there’s much inside a ghost anyway. Hah.”
Behind William Tony was fiddling with the tools, reconnecting wires and sighing. Timothy stood up from the far corner where he’d been lying down and pricked his ears up. Collins looked at him and wondered how much the Garmr could deduce from the siutation. He was a police dog, after all.
“Not that’s there’s going to any ghost left at all.” William sounded almost gleeful, and Collins noticed that his forehead was glistening in the light of the Device. Sweat?
“I got this gun from Mada—”
“Timothy!” Collins hoped that the Garmr would know what to do, but to try and help he thrust the doors open as well and stepped into the room as boldly as he dared.
“—me Bonange.” William stopped talking, his smile vanishing, and his finger squeezed the trigger.
Timothy had leapt when his name was shouted and his jaws closed around William’s arm, pulling it down to the ground and William off-balance. Tony started, falling over backwards and pulling some wires loose. The Inspectral stood perfectly still. The gun went off, and the room rang with the noise; not a gun-shot explosion but a sonic wave of modulated tones, a banshee scream of high-pitched noise that oscillated harmonically. Collins put his hands over his ears, which helped a little but the noise still seemed to vibrate his teeth and he could feel it in the long bones of his arms and legs. Something, a packet of squiggling lines like heat-haze ejected from the gun, spun momentarily in the air, and then drifted through the Device.
The Inspectral didn’t move.
William tried to pull himself free from Timothy but the Garmr was holding his arm firmly in place and lying on the ground.
“Tony, help me up,” he said. “Kill the damn dog.”
Collins reached for his baton and then froze as Tony pulled a much more ordinary-looking gun from an inside pocket.
“This isn’t a ghost-gun,” said Tony. “It’s just an ordinary gun, useful for the after, when all the ghosts are gone and you need to make new ones.”
Greg - yeah, the profile one is pretty old. I should maybe update that at some point.
Oh good, it wasn't just me. And it still hasn't improved. That's... something.
Woo, intense. Really enjoying the way you're handling things, as usual. Two thumbs up for that final line as well.
Post a Comment