Diary of a Suburban Squeen

Title: A Kiss to Build a Dream On
Author: chaletian
Fandom: Chalet School
Rating: PG-13
Summary: This is how it starts. Kathie/Nancy.
Author's Note: Written for chiasmata's prompt for my last SDC.



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According to the Metro, that bastion of respectable reporting, poetry is dying out! OHNOES! To help battle against this dreadful fate, I post herewith a random pome:

The Darkling Thrush

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter’s dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land’s sharp features seemed to be
The Century’s corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited ;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

~ Thomas Hardy


And also, in a single-handed attempt to bring poetry back, please help me in my pome-themed SDC. Please? Anyone? Bueller?

:: for pim2005 ::

Harvey Bains had very definite ideas about what he wanted his future to be. Cabinet Minister, at least. Maybe Prime Minister, as long as he didn't have to go around kissing the French President. Marriage, of course: minor royal, perhaps. Leggy, blonde, rich, dim. Or an actress. An actress would be all right, as long as it wasn't one of those mousy feminist ones.

As the years went by, life lessened Harvey's ambitions. Perhaps a city mayor. Wife a nice County girl who went hunting and wore pearls. There'd be a statue, of course, somewhere central, perhaps in a park. "Harvey Bains," people would say. "Harvey Bains. You could always tell he was going somewhere."

In the end, it didn't turn out quite like Harvey had planned, but it would please him to know that after generation and generation had gone by, after apocalypse and regime change, after fire and flood, his name would live on when men far more famous in life had been forgotten.

oOo

"Diana, will willnot you comen?!"

"Mutti, comen looklook! Bebby dun a harvey!"

oOo

But perhaps it would not please him.

:: for bookwormsarah ::

Guy Marcel crossed his arms and scowled. “I don’t get it.”

The director sighed (not for the first time). “What don’t you get, Guy?”

“So, he what, laid down and died for this chick? Who he wasn’t even boning? Jeez, who does that?”

The director pinched the bridge of his nose. “Clare?” The writer stepped forward, a look of concentrated patience on her face.

“Marcus believed in old-fashioned chivalry,” she explained. “He loved Susan. She was his lady and he was her knight.”

“Sounds fuckin’ stupid, you ask me,” muttered Guy sullenly.

“Yes, well, whatever you think about it, that’s the sort of man he was,” said Clare.

They resumed the scene, Guy leaning over Ashley, the actress playing Susan Ivanova, clasping her lifeless hand in his, reaching out for the alien medical device that would…

“This is bullshit!” exclaimed Guy, backing away and throwing up his hands in disgust. “Someone get me my agent on the comm!”

oOo

”Marcus, you can’t! They’ll kill you!” Susan Ivanova, her uniform shredded in such a way that her heaving bosom was very much on display, flung herself at her lover. Marcus leant down and kissed her… and kissed her… and kissed her.

“There’s only a couple of dozen of them,” he said, devil-may-care, tossing his fulsome ponytail and flexing his biceps. “If it means you will live, my dearest.”

“Oh, Marcus!” sighed Susan. Dramatic music swelled and held as Marcus pushed her into an emergency evacuation pod, and then turned to face the growing horde of alien soldiers. He sneered, opened his fighting pike, and started shooting lasers from its end…

“Marcus was awesome,” said Tony, turning off the holo-projector.

“I’m gonna do my school project on him,” said Gaz.

“Cool.”

:: for katie__pillar ::

Whitney Leboutier, one of the western world’s leading art critics, tapped one sharpened, polished fingernail against her champagne glass and stood, head cocked, staring at a photograph on the bleached New York gallery wall.

“Good, isn’t it?” came a voice behind her.

“Mm,” she replied non-committedly. “Where’d you find it?”

Don Hammond, the gallery owner, shifted closer, and snagged a champagne glass from a passing waiter. “AP archives. I had Fleur going through before the exhibition. She’s got a good eye.”

“Great greens,” said Whitney, sketching the shape of the lush foliage. “And look at the sky – you can practically feel the humidity! When was it taken?”

“’69.”

The two of them stood staring for a moment, taking in the oppressive greens and earthy oranges, and the terrified look of the young American soldier.

“Who was the photographer?” asked Whitney eventually, taking a sip of champagne.

Don shrugged. “Some woman called Diana Trent.”

“Never heard of her.”

“Me neither. Fleur says she died in some old folks’ home years ago.”

Whitney shuddered. “Depressing.” She stood a moment longer, then nodded decisively. “It’s good. I’ll take it.” She moved away, then glanced back. “AP archives?” At Don’s nod, she pursed her lips thoughtfully. “Hm. I’ve got a free day or so. I might have a look-see for more of her work.”

She clacked off in her stilettos, and Don sketched a bow in the direction of the photograph. “Well, Diana Trent, you just got made.”

The West Wing, Toby's bouncy ball
::as requested by bookwormsarah::

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

Ow.

State secrets? Really? Thank fuck.

St Trinian's, audience member
::as requested by katie__pillar::

Oh. My. God. You so will totally not guess what happened! What? A painting? Oh god, who cares about some stupid old painting? Annabel the Cannibal took out Verity Thwaites. Uh-huh. Completely. I mean, I don’t even know how she did it, but Verity took off – no, I don’t know why, and she’s got amnesia now – and Annabel followed her, and knocked her out. Yep, stone cold. Like, unconscious. Miss Bagstock had to drag her to the coach. Annabel had used her phone. Bagface was on to their headmistress – yeah, the crazy one – so fast, I, like, totally got whiplash. She looked completely pissed off, though, so I don’t think she got anywhere.

The quiz? Who cares about the stupid quiz? We lost, anyway. That girl, Chelsea – yep. I know. Totally gorgeous – was answering loads of questions. What? Oh, god, shut up about the painting. So what if there were burglars going across suspended wires and stuff – oh, just something I saw – the main thing is Annabel knocking out Verity.

I know. How. Cool. I totally want to go to St Trinian’s.

A New Year, a new SDC!

For this one, I'm thinking outsider POV, because they're always fun. Give me a fandom character and an outsider role (teacher, binman, whatever)...

NCIS, desk, stapler, datestamp
::as requested by pim2005::

“That’s not how it happened, Tony,” said McGee patiently. He picked up the stapler, and moved it three inches to the left. “Fitzgerald was here.”

“Are you blind, Elf Lord?” demanded Tony, outraged, moving the stapler back to its original position on the desk. “Fitzgerald was here.” He plucked McGee’s cellphone from his jacket pocket, ignoring the younger agent’s indignant response, and placed it carefully in between the NCIS coffee mug and McGee’s keyboard. “Houghton was here.”

“You are both wrong,” said Ziva dispassionately, leaning over McGee’s computer monitor to assess the display more closely. “Fitzgerald was next to the keyboard.” She moved the stapler accordingly, pushing the cellphone out of the way.

Tony scoffed. “Puh-leeze! Like you could see anything the way you were all over Richardson!”

“I was not draped over anyone!” replied Ziva heatedly.

McGee coughed apologetically. “You… kind of were, Ziva,” he said. Ziva glared at him, and he looked down, suddenly fascinated by the weave in his jacket cuff.

Tony merely crowed. “See, Zee-vah, even the McGoogle kid here noticed. You and Richardson were practically pornographic!”

Ziva smiled suddenly, and leaned towards Tony. “Well, you would know, yes?”

Tony grinned, tilting his head to one side and raising an eyebrow suggestively. “I’m just saying that…” He broke off and straightened his tie. Ziva, recognising the signs that Gibbs had just appeared somewhere, turned until she was leaning against the desk, cool and professional. Gibbs paid no attention, but went straight to his desk, and retrieved badge and gun from the top drawer.

“Dead marine down at the docks,” he said briefly. He stopped by the desk, looked down at the disarray of stapler, mug, cellphone, three pencils, an eraser, a string of paperclips, and half a stale doughnut which, for some reason, had been sitting in Tony’s bottom drawer.

“You forgot Meadows,” he said, grabbed McGee’s carefully guarded datestamp (it was the stationery item most frequently stolen by Tony who, to McGee’s dismay rarely kept the correct date on it), and banging it down in the middle of the desk. He walked away. The three of them stared down at the datestamp, then were galvanized into action as Gibbs shout of “Now!” echoed back to them.

McGee took an extra moment to mourn over his desk. Kept immaculate and tidy, it now resembled a Staples war zone, and he rather suspected the datastamp ink wouldn’t come off. He sighed. No-one realised how hard it was working at NCIS.

Pushing Daisies, knitting, clingfilm (or US equiv), cheese
::as requested by katie__pillar::

At the age of twelve years, two months and seventeen days, Olive Snook had developed a passion for knitting. Her second-cousin-twice-removed, a former Olympic high-jumper, whose career had come to an end after a she was tragically embroiled in a grand cheese heist involving three dairymen and a retired safecracker from Connecticut, had taught her the simple pleasure of the knit and perl, and Olive, at times of stress, fell back upon the habit, little knowing she shared her hobby with private detective Emerson Cod. Following the mysterious arrival of Chuck into the Pieman’s life, Olive had knitted a clock-warmer, three socks and a blanket, lovingly crafted to match the rest of her bedroom. On this day, having finished a eyepatch of cerulean blue angora for Chuck’s Aunt Lily (of whom she was secretly very fond), Olive was resolved, once again, to make her feelings plain.

But Chuck and the Pieman were in the kitchen, kissing through plastic wrap.

Olive Snook poured coffee and thought about her next project.





I don't think Pushing Daisies fic is really for me...