Soulgaze (is can be meme?)
Aug. 18th, 2010 03:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skysailor In the Dresden Files, which I've just spent a month rereading most of, there's a thing called a soulgaze where, if Dresden meets someone's eyes too long, he can look into their soul (and they can look into his). It basically turns into a symbolic representation of a person and the symbolism can get rather complicated. It's really fascinating.
So, as a writing exercise, I decided to try and write my own soul. Here's what I've got. If any of you do a soul write-up, link me?
It was a house. A home, really, centered on the kitchen, sunlight playing along pale wooden cabinets. She sat at a table made of the same wood, sipping tea from a mug. She didn’t look quite the same as she usually did, from the outside. In here she was a little taller, a little thinner. Her face, on the outside young and smooth, here had worn care lines. But laugh lines, too. She looked at me casually as I stepped in, as if not at all surprised to see someone peeking in on her soul, and presented the house with a wave, inviting me to look around. The walls vanished, the house suddenly a studio, the contents of all the rooms visible from here.
A glance to the left revealed the front door, steel in contrast to the rest of the interior. A suit of armor and a sword rested beside it. I took my gaze slowly from there to the rest of the home as she had unveiled it.
The nearest room, now without its walls, could be called a study, but would be better referred to as a library. From here I could see immense shelves lining two walls, and when I walked up close to see the titles I could find them running the gamut from books you could find at the store to tomes with old-style covers and hand-written titles. I realized soon enough that some of them were her books and stories, the ones I knew she constantly wrote. Others were blank or only partly filled. Unfinished works and the works yet to come. I drew one out of the shelves and opened it. Instantly I felt someone standing behind me. I turned to see a young man, tall with dyed black hair and piercings.
“Bad shit happened to me in that one,” he said, pointing at the book. Startled, I snapped the volume shut between my fingers, and he disappeared. I carefully replaced the book on its shelf.
In the back of the library was a couch, old and worn. Stretched along it was a lithe girl with black hair, pale as snow. Her fingertips curled beneath her cheek as she slept, and worn into the creases of her fingers was a thin, yellow-red crust. Little flecks of brown stained her garments. I felt the heavy gaze of the woman at the kitchen table as a prickling at the back of my neck, and when I turned to look at her I saw her staring at me, an expression of mixed fear and longing on her features. She shook her head mutely, and I backed away from the sleeping girl.
My eyes soon caught on another sight – on one wall hung a painting, a strangely blurred picture of a young man, thin, with short blonde hair and brilliant green eyes. Closer examination showed the glass of the picture frame to be covered in fingerprints, all the same size. My host's fingers, I suspected.
On the desk were more pictures, all of them photographs. Friends, I should suppose. One picture, slightly set off from the others, was of another thin, young blonde man, this one with hair down to his back. He was turned away in the painting, head bowed to scatter his hair across his shoulder blades, the pose making him look strangely angelic. Taped to the frame was a circle of hair – his, I figured.
I was turning to examine the bedroom when a hard knock came at the steel door leading outside from the kitchen. Two voices called, a man and a woman; the woman had a Southern accent. As they called, my host looked up in a sort of paralyzed fear, staring at the door. I realized suddenly that while the house was lit as if by sunlight, sunbeams cast gently along its features, the view outside the windows was that of blackest night. As my host stared at the door, the door and then the armor began to turn to rust. The sword stayed sharp, but that was all.
As a key snicked into the lock and the doorknob began to turn, the soulgaze ended.
So, as a writing exercise, I decided to try and write my own soul. Here's what I've got. If any of you do a soul write-up, link me?
It was a house. A home, really, centered on the kitchen, sunlight playing along pale wooden cabinets. She sat at a table made of the same wood, sipping tea from a mug. She didn’t look quite the same as she usually did, from the outside. In here she was a little taller, a little thinner. Her face, on the outside young and smooth, here had worn care lines. But laugh lines, too. She looked at me casually as I stepped in, as if not at all surprised to see someone peeking in on her soul, and presented the house with a wave, inviting me to look around. The walls vanished, the house suddenly a studio, the contents of all the rooms visible from here.
A glance to the left revealed the front door, steel in contrast to the rest of the interior. A suit of armor and a sword rested beside it. I took my gaze slowly from there to the rest of the home as she had unveiled it.
The nearest room, now without its walls, could be called a study, but would be better referred to as a library. From here I could see immense shelves lining two walls, and when I walked up close to see the titles I could find them running the gamut from books you could find at the store to tomes with old-style covers and hand-written titles. I realized soon enough that some of them were her books and stories, the ones I knew she constantly wrote. Others were blank or only partly filled. Unfinished works and the works yet to come. I drew one out of the shelves and opened it. Instantly I felt someone standing behind me. I turned to see a young man, tall with dyed black hair and piercings.
“Bad shit happened to me in that one,” he said, pointing at the book. Startled, I snapped the volume shut between my fingers, and he disappeared. I carefully replaced the book on its shelf.
In the back of the library was a couch, old and worn. Stretched along it was a lithe girl with black hair, pale as snow. Her fingertips curled beneath her cheek as she slept, and worn into the creases of her fingers was a thin, yellow-red crust. Little flecks of brown stained her garments. I felt the heavy gaze of the woman at the kitchen table as a prickling at the back of my neck, and when I turned to look at her I saw her staring at me, an expression of mixed fear and longing on her features. She shook her head mutely, and I backed away from the sleeping girl.
My eyes soon caught on another sight – on one wall hung a painting, a strangely blurred picture of a young man, thin, with short blonde hair and brilliant green eyes. Closer examination showed the glass of the picture frame to be covered in fingerprints, all the same size. My host's fingers, I suspected.
On the desk were more pictures, all of them photographs. Friends, I should suppose. One picture, slightly set off from the others, was of another thin, young blonde man, this one with hair down to his back. He was turned away in the painting, head bowed to scatter his hair across his shoulder blades, the pose making him look strangely angelic. Taped to the frame was a circle of hair – his, I figured.
I was turning to examine the bedroom when a hard knock came at the steel door leading outside from the kitchen. Two voices called, a man and a woman; the woman had a Southern accent. As they called, my host looked up in a sort of paralyzed fear, staring at the door. I realized suddenly that while the house was lit as if by sunlight, sunbeams cast gently along its features, the view outside the windows was that of blackest night. As my host stared at the door, the door and then the armor began to turn to rust. The sword stayed sharp, but that was all.
As a key snicked into the lock and the doorknob began to turn, the soulgaze ended.
