Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2007-09-24 12:25 am
ptahrrific) wrote2007-09-24 12:25 am
Entry tags:
Fake News: The Thing With Feathers, Chapter 4
Title: The Thing With Feathers, Chapter 4
Fandom: The Daily Show/The Colbert Report
Rating: PG (cursing, creepiness)
Words: ~1500
Disclaimer: Two.
For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.
And for the real people, the poem:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.
Notes: I was working on this story when the October 2007 Vanity Fair article broke. This is one of the chapters where the influence shows most clearly.
Jon's story about his kids can be found, among other places, in this appearance on Letterman.
For the full table of contents, click here.
The Thing With Feathers
Chapter 4
(there.)
It was a half-hour drive to Stephen's house, and he usually spent the time blasting Neutral Milk Hotel while trying to shake off the last of his pundit persona. The curves of the road and the chords of the music formed a kind of long familiar slide which he could, after the rush of doing the show, take his time easing down before landing on the solid ground that was home and family.
This driver was playing a local classical station, and the road was flashing past outside the window like something in a film, two-dimensional and sterile and wholly useless as a distraction.
Every minute or two he glanced over at Jon, who was sitting patiently at the other window with his hands folded in his lap. He suspected Jon was stealing looks at him too, but every time he looked in the other man's direction Jon was focusing on a point outside.
Then he decided to watch Jon, really watch him, and after a few minutes he realized that his friend wasn't moving at all. Either he could feel Stephen's eyes on him, or he had been sitting perfectly still all along. Whichever it was, it did nothing for Stephen's mood.
This was ridiculous. Stephen could banter with Jon for hours on end, and here they were sitting next to each other; why was he wallowing in worried silence? "Say something."
At least Jon faced him to answer. "What would you like me to say, Stephen?"
"I don't know! Your favorite news story from the day. Something cute your kids did. Anything."
"You want to hear about my kids?" asked Jon, blinking in the dim light.
"Yes. I would love to hear about your kids. Tell me a story about your kids."
So Jon launched into a story, and a few sentences into it Stephen recognized it as one of the stock anecdotes that he brought out on talk shows when the hosts asked how the kids were doing. Oh, it was cute, but it was polished cute, rehearsed cute. It wasn't "hey, you'll never guess what my son said this morning..."
It was, however, not silence, and that seemed vitally important to Stephen at the moment.
Furthermore, Jon was actually getting into the telling. It animated him, energized him, made him more -- well, more like himself, instead of the strangely passive person who had been sitting in his place before. When he got to the bit where he described his son's impromptu dancing, he actually unbuckled his seatbelt and approximated the dance, head bumping the ceiling, limbs flailing.
Stephen had known it was coming, but that dance had never before failed to crack him up and it did not disappoint now. He ended up bent double with his forehead pressed against the seat in front of him, watching Jon's moves out of the corner of his eye as he shook with laughter.
Eventually Jon settled back into his seat; the car was now cruising down a street lined with lamps, and yellow light arced over his flustered smile every time they passed under one.
"It's silly, I know," he said as the car slowed for a red light.
"Of course it's silly," said Stephen. "That's why it's so great, because he's too young to know that it's silly. I wish they stayed like that longer."
He couldn't decipher the look on Jon's face. Then the car turned, leaving it in shadow.
The lamp out front was on as they pulled into the driveway, but all Stephen's worries came back in a rush as he saw drawn blinds and unlit windows in the house itself. He threw off his seatbelt and jumped out of the vehicle before it had stopped moving, stumbling a bit and causing hundreds of amusement-park ride operators to turn in their graves; but in an instant he had recovered his footing and was running for the front door.
If he'd been in a horror movie, the key would have been wrong or the lock jammed, upping the dramatic tension and leading to a poorly lit scene of the hero trying to get in at the basement window.
The key clicked on the first try, and the door swung open.
Inside, everything was dark.
---------------------
---------------------
(here.)
"Stay here? All night?" repeated Stephen.
"Just until we make sure you're okay," said Jon. "I'll be here too."
"You ... you will?"
"Yes. To keep an eye on you."
"Oh," said Stephen. "All right. Let's do that."
"Good. You'll need to call your wife, let her know what's up..."
"Oh, right! My wife! Of course. I told you about her. Yes, I will call her. Right away. I'll just use the phone in my office."
Jon followed him down the hall; when the door was closed between them, he turned to Eric and Allison, who had been a few steps behind. "How are you guys with sticking around?"
"I'll have to call my wife," said Eric. "But her birthday's not until next month and we just had our anniversary, so it should be okay."
"Would we be crashing in the hall, or what?" asked Allison.
"I guess so. Stephen will probably take his couch, and ... yeah, I didn't really think that part through."
"That's okay. We've got some sleeping bags and pillows down in props. I'll haul a few of them up here."
"Thanks, Al."
They went their separate ways, Jon leaning against the wall opposite the office to call his own wife, a process which gave him some idea of what Eric had gone through in ringing up him. How on Earth were you supposed to explain something like this? Why hadn't he paid more attention in college when they covered this stuff? (For crying out loud, he was a psych major; shouldn't he have picked up something useful along the way?) By the time he hung up, it was obvious that his attempts to explain had left his wife more confused than when he'd started.
She did, however, accept that it was important, and brought the phone to the kids so that he could say good night before hanging up. I, he thought, and not for the first time, am the luckiest husband on the planet.
The warm glow lasted only a minute or two. That was when, having suddenly realized that Stephen's office was very quiet, he opened his phone again and dialed the other man's home number.
---------------------
---------------------
(there.)
"Hello?" called Stephen shakily into the house. "Honey?"
He switched on the nearest light. The front room was exactly as he remembered it, but cleaner: no textbooks spread out on the couch, no mismatched shoes lying against the wall.
Throwing caution to the wind, he took the stairs two at a time.
He slammed open the door of his daughter's room without bothering to knock. She was getting to the age where privacy was sacred, so he was fully prepared to beg her forgiveness when she yelled at him, but then he flicked on this light--
--and she wasn't there--
--and, he realized as his heart sank, neither was anything else.
Oh, there was furniture. The bed was even neatly made. But there were no stuffed animals on the bed, no books on the shelves -- he yanked out the dresser drawers, they were empty -- no socks on the floor, no art on the walls, nothing at all in the closet--
He bolted for the next room, and it was the same way, neat, clean, empty, and very obviously not lived in--
When he got to the master bedroom, this at least had personal items, but his wife's jewelry was gone, her clock was missing from the nightstand on her side of the bed, and the sampler that hung above the headboard had been replaced with another picture of him--
He ran back down the stairs, not knowing where he meant to go, and crashed headlong into Jon.
"Stephen, Stephen, shh, calm down--"
Stephen grabbed the other man's shoulder with his good hand and shook him, unevenly, roughly. "Where are my kids, Jon? Where the hell are my kids!?"
He hadn't realized that he was crying until he heard his own voice, loud in the empty house.
Jon looked scared too, but not nearly as panicked as Stephen felt, so he clung to the isle of relative sanity -- he didn't stop to think about it, he couldn't, because if he did he would realize that the other man wasn't being authoritative or calm or at all reassuring--
"Stephen, please, listen to me," begged Jon. "You don't have kids."
Fandom: The Daily Show/The Colbert Report
Rating: PG (cursing, creepiness)
Words: ~1500
Disclaimer: Two.
For the Report characters: They and their universe are property of Stephen Colbert, the other Report writers, and of course Viacom. Not mine. Sue me not, please.
And for the real people, the poem:
Please, make no mistake:
these people aren't fake,
but what's said here is no more than fiction.
It only was writ
because we like their wit
and wisecracks, and pull-squints, and diction.
We don't mean to quibble,
but this can't be libel;
it's never implied to be real.
No disrespect's meant;
if you disapprove, then,
the back button's right up there. Deal.
Notes: I was working on this story when the October 2007 Vanity Fair article broke. This is one of the chapters where the influence shows most clearly.
Jon's story about his kids can be found, among other places, in this appearance on Letterman.
For the full table of contents, click here.
The Thing With Feathers
Chapter 4
(there.)
It was a half-hour drive to Stephen's house, and he usually spent the time blasting Neutral Milk Hotel while trying to shake off the last of his pundit persona. The curves of the road and the chords of the music formed a kind of long familiar slide which he could, after the rush of doing the show, take his time easing down before landing on the solid ground that was home and family.
This driver was playing a local classical station, and the road was flashing past outside the window like something in a film, two-dimensional and sterile and wholly useless as a distraction.
Every minute or two he glanced over at Jon, who was sitting patiently at the other window with his hands folded in his lap. He suspected Jon was stealing looks at him too, but every time he looked in the other man's direction Jon was focusing on a point outside.
Then he decided to watch Jon, really watch him, and after a few minutes he realized that his friend wasn't moving at all. Either he could feel Stephen's eyes on him, or he had been sitting perfectly still all along. Whichever it was, it did nothing for Stephen's mood.
This was ridiculous. Stephen could banter with Jon for hours on end, and here they were sitting next to each other; why was he wallowing in worried silence? "Say something."
At least Jon faced him to answer. "What would you like me to say, Stephen?"
"I don't know! Your favorite news story from the day. Something cute your kids did. Anything."
"You want to hear about my kids?" asked Jon, blinking in the dim light.
"Yes. I would love to hear about your kids. Tell me a story about your kids."
So Jon launched into a story, and a few sentences into it Stephen recognized it as one of the stock anecdotes that he brought out on talk shows when the hosts asked how the kids were doing. Oh, it was cute, but it was polished cute, rehearsed cute. It wasn't "hey, you'll never guess what my son said this morning..."
It was, however, not silence, and that seemed vitally important to Stephen at the moment.
Furthermore, Jon was actually getting into the telling. It animated him, energized him, made him more -- well, more like himself, instead of the strangely passive person who had been sitting in his place before. When he got to the bit where he described his son's impromptu dancing, he actually unbuckled his seatbelt and approximated the dance, head bumping the ceiling, limbs flailing.
Stephen had known it was coming, but that dance had never before failed to crack him up and it did not disappoint now. He ended up bent double with his forehead pressed against the seat in front of him, watching Jon's moves out of the corner of his eye as he shook with laughter.
Eventually Jon settled back into his seat; the car was now cruising down a street lined with lamps, and yellow light arced over his flustered smile every time they passed under one.
"It's silly, I know," he said as the car slowed for a red light.
"Of course it's silly," said Stephen. "That's why it's so great, because he's too young to know that it's silly. I wish they stayed like that longer."
He couldn't decipher the look on Jon's face. Then the car turned, leaving it in shadow.
The lamp out front was on as they pulled into the driveway, but all Stephen's worries came back in a rush as he saw drawn blinds and unlit windows in the house itself. He threw off his seatbelt and jumped out of the vehicle before it had stopped moving, stumbling a bit and causing hundreds of amusement-park ride operators to turn in their graves; but in an instant he had recovered his footing and was running for the front door.
If he'd been in a horror movie, the key would have been wrong or the lock jammed, upping the dramatic tension and leading to a poorly lit scene of the hero trying to get in at the basement window.
The key clicked on the first try, and the door swung open.
Inside, everything was dark.
---------------------
(here.)
"Stay here? All night?" repeated Stephen.
"Just until we make sure you're okay," said Jon. "I'll be here too."
"You ... you will?"
"Yes. To keep an eye on you."
"Oh," said Stephen. "All right. Let's do that."
"Good. You'll need to call your wife, let her know what's up..."
"Oh, right! My wife! Of course. I told you about her. Yes, I will call her. Right away. I'll just use the phone in my office."
Jon followed him down the hall; when the door was closed between them, he turned to Eric and Allison, who had been a few steps behind. "How are you guys with sticking around?"
"I'll have to call my wife," said Eric. "But her birthday's not until next month and we just had our anniversary, so it should be okay."
"Would we be crashing in the hall, or what?" asked Allison.
"I guess so. Stephen will probably take his couch, and ... yeah, I didn't really think that part through."
"That's okay. We've got some sleeping bags and pillows down in props. I'll haul a few of them up here."
"Thanks, Al."
They went their separate ways, Jon leaning against the wall opposite the office to call his own wife, a process which gave him some idea of what Eric had gone through in ringing up him. How on Earth were you supposed to explain something like this? Why hadn't he paid more attention in college when they covered this stuff? (For crying out loud, he was a psych major; shouldn't he have picked up something useful along the way?) By the time he hung up, it was obvious that his attempts to explain had left his wife more confused than when he'd started.
She did, however, accept that it was important, and brought the phone to the kids so that he could say good night before hanging up. I, he thought, and not for the first time, am the luckiest husband on the planet.
The warm glow lasted only a minute or two. That was when, having suddenly realized that Stephen's office was very quiet, he opened his phone again and dialed the other man's home number.
---------------------
(there.)
"Hello?" called Stephen shakily into the house. "Honey?"
He switched on the nearest light. The front room was exactly as he remembered it, but cleaner: no textbooks spread out on the couch, no mismatched shoes lying against the wall.
Throwing caution to the wind, he took the stairs two at a time.
He slammed open the door of his daughter's room without bothering to knock. She was getting to the age where privacy was sacred, so he was fully prepared to beg her forgiveness when she yelled at him, but then he flicked on this light--
--and she wasn't there--
--and, he realized as his heart sank, neither was anything else.
Oh, there was furniture. The bed was even neatly made. But there were no stuffed animals on the bed, no books on the shelves -- he yanked out the dresser drawers, they were empty -- no socks on the floor, no art on the walls, nothing at all in the closet--
He bolted for the next room, and it was the same way, neat, clean, empty, and very obviously not lived in--
When he got to the master bedroom, this at least had personal items, but his wife's jewelry was gone, her clock was missing from the nightstand on her side of the bed, and the sampler that hung above the headboard had been replaced with another picture of him--
He ran back down the stairs, not knowing where he meant to go, and crashed headlong into Jon.
"Stephen, Stephen, shh, calm down--"
Stephen grabbed the other man's shoulder with his good hand and shook him, unevenly, roughly. "Where are my kids, Jon? Where the hell are my kids!?"
He hadn't realized that he was crying until he heard his own voice, loud in the empty house.
Jon looked scared too, but not nearly as panicked as Stephen felt, so he clung to the isle of relative sanity -- he didn't stop to think about it, he couldn't, because if he did he would realize that the other man wasn't being authoritative or calm or at all reassuring--
"Stephen, please, listen to me," begged Jon. "You don't have kids."
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