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Woken in a Fog, Don't Sweat It
3/18/15 12:47 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yoknapatawpha"None of this makes a lick of sense," Bayard says to himself, and then, remembering that Granny is nowhere to be seen, he repeats it as "none of this makes a damn lick of sense."
Not that Granny would have been able to hear him, anyway; the air itself seems cluttered with a thousand sounds, coins jangling in metal troughs, people laughing and whooping, drinks being poured, and noises that defy explanation. Bayard barely notices until he's walked through at least two people that he's a ghost, so fascinated he is by the rug that extends as far as the eye can see, as if he's standing on a great plain of woven fabric dotted with train-like contraptions spitting coins and light like buoys upon the sea. Machines, he thinks. Like a cotton gin.
"Pardon!" he yelps, passing through yet another person, an outrageously-clad woman with bare shoulders and a dress that only goes as far as her knees. Bayard feels his face flush in vicarious shame for her, but she neither responds to his presence or to his voice. She stumbles in her tall shoes and Bayard reaches to grab her arm and steady her, but his pale pinked hand passes right through her elbow as if he were made of smoke. He feels his breath tighten up in his neck like a coiled snake. He tries to think of what to do next, but the chiming of the machines and the clatter of coins and all the people gathered in one place and the music playing in the background scatter his thoughts like so many leaves in the wind.
"I'll be damned. I'll be damned."
Sartorises don't cry, and as such, despite the terror that makes Bayard's throat tight and his eyes wide and glassy, he finds his way to a quieter corner of this mad world and sits down, covering his face for a moment as he tries to make sense of where he's emerged.
Not that Granny would have been able to hear him, anyway; the air itself seems cluttered with a thousand sounds, coins jangling in metal troughs, people laughing and whooping, drinks being poured, and noises that defy explanation. Bayard barely notices until he's walked through at least two people that he's a ghost, so fascinated he is by the rug that extends as far as the eye can see, as if he's standing on a great plain of woven fabric dotted with train-like contraptions spitting coins and light like buoys upon the sea. Machines, he thinks. Like a cotton gin.
"Pardon!" he yelps, passing through yet another person, an outrageously-clad woman with bare shoulders and a dress that only goes as far as her knees. Bayard feels his face flush in vicarious shame for her, but she neither responds to his presence or to his voice. She stumbles in her tall shoes and Bayard reaches to grab her arm and steady her, but his pale pinked hand passes right through her elbow as if he were made of smoke. He feels his breath tighten up in his neck like a coiled snake. He tries to think of what to do next, but the chiming of the machines and the clatter of coins and all the people gathered in one place and the music playing in the background scatter his thoughts like so many leaves in the wind.
"I'll be damned. I'll be damned."
Sartorises don't cry, and as such, despite the terror that makes Bayard's throat tight and his eyes wide and glassy, he finds his way to a quieter corner of this mad world and sits down, covering his face for a moment as he tries to make sense of where he's emerged.
