Vulgar
3 a : of or relating to the common people : plebeian
b : generally current : public
c : of the usual, typical, or ordinary kind
And this weeks repsonse is this:
“To hide effectively one must hide in plain sight.”
I remembered my father’s teachings now, as I stood unadorned in the market place.
I was anyone in any crowd; a woman merely browsing stalls of over priced scraps. Pastel clothing, skin and colouring. I was uneventful, unmemorable, unrecognisable as intended. Only the man who knew the blue of my eyes and the bittersweet of a final kiss would pick me out, yet he must not.
In the moments, days, since he had presented me with his back, let me leave; against his morals, his teachings and the demands of his badge, I had kept within a raised voice of his portentous presence. I was his protector and I lingered undetected; I had been raised too well to be revealed.
“Find your mark, become his scenery, let him see you,
empty space reveals far more than an overflowing glance.”
So I watched his life, the vulgar repetition and lack of spectrum that came from all that was commonplace. Before our precarious sport of cat and mouse his life had found its well worn trail and deviated little. I cursed my influence, my perplexing existence and its interference to his.
I cursed more the need I felt, the urge to exchange that raised voice for a whisper. My life was a culmination of violence, exile, deception and the outlandish circumstances of a gun for hire. I had known nothing else until I had known him, had needed nothing and felt nothing.
Now, like my broad reluctant saving enforcer, I had a resurfacing soul. I was suddenly conscious of my conscience. He had taken my hand and stamped me with a hidden ultraviolet marker. Some imaginary bolded font that read NOW TYPICAL.
“It is not your aim that makes you sought
but your ability to barricade your compassion.”
Clearly my father, in his forty years of bullion standard butchery, had never been in love.
***
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I really liked this one. Great work here. You should continue this story, if you want to, of course. More, please! I am intrigued! :)
ReplyDeleteThank you for linking up to this week's Trifecta Challenge. I loved your use of the word here--slipped in and almost unrecognized alongside everything else that's going on. I agree that I'd love to read more of this story. It's very well-crafted so far. Hope to see you around soon.
ReplyDeleteWell I thought about it for a while and decided that the very definition of it meant that nothing special should be made of it. So I tried to keep the theme of common and typical throughout and hide the word in there, much like my character blending in.
DeleteI hope I managed that. :)
This is really good; you had me hooked from the very first sentence, and I really liked how you interspersed your story with the quotes.
ReplyDelete