And here's me, running out of digits.

[odditycollector]

 
The first ten.
The second ten.

(The continuation of the "does this count as fan fiction" quasi-experiment. I think I've got enough thoughts now to make me go hmmmm, but that's what I said *last* time - Though I'm really just having fun, I am still interested in knowing what rings as fanfic (or not!) to people who don't live in my head.)

 
 

Why

He promises the interview, but his subject proves cagey and elusive; his boss shouts and throws paperwork and threatens his job before he finally sits down with the question sheet and asks himself for a reason he does what he does, a reason he does anything at all.

Rain

The pedestrians around him shout and scurry, but he smiles into the storm; looking up far enough, he can see the sun.

Shrine

He does not know what it should look like, but he builds a monument to a people that will never see it - builds it and redesigns it and rebuilds it - knowing that no matter how perfect he creates it, it will remain empty and unjudged.

Winter

This is what the farmboy knows: plant a seed in fertile ground and the crop proliferates once more through the fields (and wheat begets wheat, and corn begets corn, and barley begets barley; the seed does not choose its destiny).

Tense

She was in danger and he saved her, he saves her, he'll save her; eventually, it's all the same story.

Cell

He's just as curious as they are, so he donates a bit of skin that absorbs all forms of diagnostic radiation and shows nothing interesting through optical equipment and refuses to be prepared for electron microscopes… but the scientists look ever closer, searching for a way in.

Lure

They call him out by claiming to have his secret; it's easy, when he has so many.

Clock

He teaches himself to move with the rhythm of his watch's second hand, slicing time into the smallest human digestible chunks; it takes effort to not listen deeper, slower, to not notice when the universe twitches forward, one tick at a time.

Three

He looks into the mirror and sees a stranger, sees a hero, sees a man; if he switches fast enough, he doesn't have to choose.

Road

The first time he means it, he takes the bus to the city: pays for a ticket, stows his suitcases underneath, watches the sun play golden and bronze over wheatstalks until they give way to metal and glass and evening... he steps off unnecessary hours older, feeling small and uncertain and no urge to glance behind him, the ritual complete.