103.3 - burn it to the ground tonight

[hard_talker]

[tonight’s broadcast doesn’t come crackling over the radio, as they have since January … no, this one comes straight out of the pages of the journals … and through the windows, if anyone’s rooms are close enough to the front lawn. since dusk, Mark’s been studiously dragging folding tables out onto the main lawn, assisted by Nora, running extension cords out the front doors from the lobby …. and now he’s finally got his DJ station set up properly, outside, in the courtyard. the object of interest, however, isn’t the pair of tables covered in stereo equipment and cassettes and CDs and vinyl … it’s the giant papier-mache object d’art that Nora’s putting the finishing touches on.

Nora’s skirts swish around her legs as she skips around the 7 foot tall scale model of the castle they’d built out of busted furniture and papier-mache. She pauses in her circling to regard it with a measured eye. She’d painted it stone gray with the stonework accented in places along the walls. The most glaring addition to the outside of the structure, however, are the names. Nora had carefully written every name of a resident she’d seen announced in the journal as missing from the castle. They cover every inch of the walls in varying colors and styles. Many of them were spray painted around the lobby as well, but the true message was in the piece standing before her. Biting her lip she steps forward and writes four letters larger than the rest on the front wall above the door. GOKU.]

… You ready? [he keeps his eye on her, even while one finger rests on the ‘play’ button of his precious stereo. tonight’s just as much her show as it is his, after all. he’s got a book cradled in his free hand, already open to a page]

[With one final look at the walls she grabs the ladder and shoves it off to one side before moving over to Mark. She nods, wrapping an arm around his waist.] Ready if you are.

[he nods, then mashes the button. instead of Leonard Cohen, you get a surprisingly peppy score piped over the paper airwaves … and he starts to read.]

"You need fuel, gas, something to run a carnival on, don't you? Women live off gossip, and what's gossip but a swap of headaches, sour spit, arthritic bones, ruptured and mended flesh, indiscretions, storms of madness, calms after the storms? If some people didn't have something juicy to chew on, their choppers would prolapse, their souls with them. Multiply their pleasure at funerals, their chuckling through breakfast obituaries, add all the cat-fight marriages where folks spend careers ripping skin off each other and patching it back upside around, add quack doctors slicing persons to read their guts like tea leaves, then sewing them tight with fingerprinted thread, square the whole dynamite factory by ten quadrillion, and you got the black candlepower of this one carnival.

All the meannesses we harbor, they borrow in redoubled spades. They're a billion times itchier for pain, sorrow, and sickness than the average man. We salt our lives with other people's sins. Our flesh to us tastes sweet. But the carnival doesn't care if it stinks by moonlight instead of sun, so long as it gorges on fear and pain. That's the fuel, the vapor that spins the carousel, the raw stuffs of terror, the excruciating agony of guilt, the scream from real or imagined wounds. The carnival sucks that gas, ignites it, and chugs along its way."

[Mark sighs, shuts the book with an audible ‘paf’ of paper, and sets it aside] ... Sound familiar, folks? A guy named Ray Bradbury wrote that, thirty years before they made me read it in my freshman year of high school. I think he knew what the fuck he was talking about. So I hope you all enjoyed your fried whatever-the-hell, and your trip around the carousel, and your dart games, because as fun as all that was - we all pay for it eventually. Maybe not you, maybe not me - but someone we love gets kicked out without even so much as a "thanks for all the fish". And tonight, we’re gonna show you exactly what we think of all that.

This place cares about as much about those of us who live here as carnies care about the idiots who pay two bucks to throw a dart at an under inflated balloon. It keeps us here until what? It loses interest? We stop entertaining it? We kowtow and let it get away with whatever the fuck it wants? [She pauses, taking a breath.] I heard another story not too long ago. Seems that once upon a time everyone got together and tore this thing to the ground. We might not be able to do that... but we can do the next best thing. So if you’re as tired of this shit as we are - if you’ve lost a friend - come outside and join the party.

[Mark picks up a bottle of lighter fluid off the DJ table and spins it like a bartender with a bottle of vodka, as the music fades and shifts. he’s timed tonight’s playlist to be mellow and introspective at first, but in a few minutes, once Nora tosses on a match and the flames really start to catch, it’ll kick up and start sounding like proper music for an anarchic, screw-the-system bonfire. come on down … or yell at the dumb kids to get off your lawn. if it’s too loud, you’re all too old]

Comments

[eat_me_beat_me]

[Nora leans her head on Mark's shoulder, silent for the moment as she watches the paper start to catch fire.]

[hard_talker]

[he wraps an arm around her waist and sighs, breathing in the smell of the first tendrils of smoke in the night air. it reminds him of the night he burned his fanmail, the night everything started to spiral ... and somehow, it gives him hope]

... Think we'll get any company?

[eat_me_beat_me]

I hope so. [She sighs, enjoying the feel of him next to her as they watch her work burn]

I'd be even more disappointed in the people here if no one came.

[hard_talker]

Tell me about it. I say the next step is flaming dog shit bags, if they don't.

[eat_me_beat_me]

[She laughs, turning to face him with a grin]

I like the way you think.

[hard_talker]

You always have. [he grins back and pulls her closer for a smooch]

Feelin' better?

[eat_me_beat_me]

[She smiles against his lips, holding him close]

Yeah. Yeah I am. You?

[hard_talker]

So far, so good. ... I'll feel even better if we get a really good turnout, too.

[persequor]

[ Nymeria snarls at the fire. For an animal designed to survive in the harsh cold climate north of the Wall, fire is nothing that pleases her. One this big only sets her on edge. Arya leaves Nymeria where she stopped to head a little closer. ]

Is that supposed to be the castle?

[hard_talker]

[Mark smiles at her, though Nymeria gets a pretty wary glance because HOLY SHIT THAT'S A GIANT ASS WOLF]

Yep...

[he would elaborate but um

yeah

WOLF]

[eat_me_beat_me]

[Dafuq wolf?! Nora's giving the wolf a leery look]

Uh yeah we made it ourselves.

[persequor]

[ Arya rolls her eyes. Might as well get it over with if she wants any of her questions answered. ]

She's a direwolf so she's not a normal wolf. She lives in the far north where it's always cold so she doesn't like fire. She's harmless unless you get too close to her. Or she's really hungry. But I keep her well-fed so she won't eat anyone.

[hard_talker]

.... Well, that was thorough. [AHEM. okay, the kid just made him feel like an ass, that was fun. RIGHT moving on]

We're not gonna let her catch fire, so I guess we're even, yeah?

[eat_me_beat_me]

[Well if she's not going to eat them...]

Does she have a name?

[persequor]

Nymeria.

[hard_talker]

Neat name. .... [now that he knows he's not wolf chow, he relaxes a little].....And yeah, the frame underneath is made out of busted up furniture.

Dictated

[wilder]

[Y e a h, he is not stepping near that stereo system of death. Instead Zelos has been packing and didn't hear the show on the radio, so he figured Mark was taking a week off and he'd just filter to him later to say goodbye or whatever. But the journal, being the journal, gets knocked open during the loud part of the music]

Ow! What the hell?!

[eat_me_beat_me]

[Have some laughter, Zelos]

Whatsamatter, Zelos?

[hard_talker]

Sounds like he's got a case of the Mondays.

[wilder]

[And right now he's in too much pain to actually think to censor himself]

Music, assholes! Turn it down!

[eat_me_beat_me]

[Nora smirks at Mark]

Ooooo Mark it sounds like Zelos is mad at us or something.

[hard_talker]

[idly - he's surprisingly not at full trolling strength, mostly because getting that volatile a reaction out of Zelos is ... a pretty rare thing, in all honesty]

Yeah, seriously, go figure.

[he's ... only going to marginally turn it down, though, bro. sorry. the fact that he even does at all speaks volumes for what he thinks of you, though.

get it. volumes]

1/2

[wilder]

[ANNOYED SO HE BLURTS OUT] Hey you'd be irritated too if you got a sudden blast of music with hearing like mine!

[wilder]

[ --- and immediately claps his mouth shut when he realizes what he said o o p s ]

[eat_me_beat_me]

[she's still got some residual little sister annoyance tendencies floating about, so sue her.

She looks at Mark, confused]

Hearing like yours? What are you talking about?