Erin Ptah (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ptahrrific) wrote2007-10-16 12:06 am
ptahrrific) wrote2007-10-16 12:06 am
Entry tags:
Fake News: The Thing With Feathers, Chapter 15
Title: The Thing With Feathers, Chapter 15
Fandom: The Daily Show/The Colbert Report
Rating: PG
Words: ~1400
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: As the geometrician, who endeavours
To square the circle, and discovers not,
By taking thought, the principle he wants,
Even such was I at that new apparition;
I wished to see how the image to the circle
Conformed itself, and how it there finds place;
But my own wings were not enough for this.
--Dante's Paradiso, Canto XXXIII
For the backstory, watch this segment - but only AFTER reading the chapter.
For the full table of contents, click here.
The Thing With Feathers
Chapter 15
(here.)
Jon, Eric, and Allison all lunged for Stephen at the same time. It would have been easy if all they'd had to do was tackle him, but getting him under control without letting anything else hit his wrist was a far more subtle operation.
"I'm sorry!" cried Stephen, kicking in their combined grip, Allison and Eric holding most of him down while Jon put all his attention on that left arm. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I..."
He broke off both the tirade and the thrashing, panting heavily.
"Jon," he gasped. "Jon, is that another hallucination?"
Jon looked up, and saw feathers.
---------------------
---------------------
(there.)
Stephen swayed with the pain, eyes flying shut, and then there were arms around him, catching him, holding him steady, easing him towards the couch, letting him fall against it.
He opened his eyes to see three concerned faces hovering over him, but his gaze went immediately beyond them.
Feathers.
Feathers on feathers on feathers on feathers: rich green and iridescent blue and deep deep red with accents of brilliant gold, feathers brushing past each other to reveal more feathers beneath, so that the illusion was that it was endless, infinite, stretching to limitless feathered depths.
A moment passed, and then another, and then Stephen's eyes pulled back enough to see the form that shaped the feathers: huge, indistinct, but unmissable once you saw it, a three-dimensionality suggesting the body over which the feathers were draped.
Whatever it was, it was moving, coiling, the feathers brushing past each other as the flesh beneath them turned.
The display was captivating, hypnotizing; Stephen heard the other three men catch their breaths as they each turned and saw it. But at last he looked away for long enough to realize that there was something else to look at.
It was as if someone had torn the wall from the office, sliced the opposite wall from an exact copy of the same office, and taped the two ends together. The thing with feathers filled the opening from floor to ceiling at one side, extending nearly a third of the way out from the double-wall at its back. The rest of the opening, though, was clear.
And on the other side, in the other room, in a heap against the other couch...
"Jon?" breathed Stephen.
---------------------
---------------------
(here.)
Jon was utterly caught up in the mass of feathers, and the sense that there was something beneath them, flexing, turning. The sound of his name knocked at the door of his conscious and got no answer.
"Jon!" came the voice again, louder, and at last he turned his head.
It was as though the end had been ripped off of the world and another world pasted on to make up the difference, except that there was a little extra content in the second world, so a stripe down the middle -- which was almost exactly the width of Stephen's office -- happened twice.
And there, on and around the duplicate version of the couch, were Paul, another Eric, another Stephen, and ... Jon himself, except that this version was still in stage attire, the suit and the tie.
It was the other Stephen who had called him.
"Stephen?" he exclaimed shakily. "Are you our Stephen?"
"I voted for Kerry," said the man on the couch hopefully.
Jon grinned, a grin of sheer wild relief. "That's the Stephen I know."
Eric and Eric had locked eyes, but it was Allison who sorted things out first. "You're Bobby," she said to the second Eric. "And you're Tad."
Paul -- no, Tad -- nodded. "Is that ... 'Eric'? And you -- you're not the one who plays me, are you?"
"Nah. Just another writer. I think we're the odd ones out here," said Allison, managing to sound wry despite the breathless awe in her voice.
And Jon, the other Jon, himself as he pretended to be for the shows, right down to the ever-present suit and tie, only real: this Jon was looking in wonder from the real Jon to the other Stephen, the character Stephen, his Stephen.
The real Jon -- if it was fair, at this point, to think of himself as "the real Jon" -- the Jon in the T-shirt and khakis, at least -- followed the suited Jon's gaze to the Stephen who lay limply against him, gasping for air.
This Stephen was still staring, transfixed, at the feathers on feathers on feathers on feathers.
"Did you," he breathed, "do this?"
A pair of bone-white eyes opened in the mass of feathers.
YES, said a voice like rain and lightning.
---------------------
As soon as Eric saw the eyes, the rest of the figure resolved itself, like a Magic Eye pattern suddenly becoming an image. And the image was familiar.
It was stunning to see Bobby, but he had been half expecting to meet his character ever since Stephen's had appeared, so it wasn't as arresting as it could have been. This, though -- the possibility had never occurred to him, and even if he had had some forewarning, nothing could have prepared him for the vastness of it in person.
YOU SAY YOU ARE SORRY, said the earthquake that was its voice.
In the dead silence that followed, Stephen-the-character's strained whisper carried perfectly across the two rooms. "Yes. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
FOR WHAT?
"I -- I don't know. Whatever I did. Whatever it was."
YOU DO NOT REMEMBER?
Stephen seemed to shrink. "No! Please, I'm sorry, I don't know!"
"I remember," said Eric.
He spoke more loudly than he'd meant to, and felt all eyes turning to him, even the wide panicked eyes of the Stephen beside him -- even the huge blank white eyes of the feathered god.
"What did I do?" came Stephen's pleading whisper.
Eric swallowed. "You mocked his achievements; you mocked his appearance; you basically said a big 'screw you' to him, then taunted him to smite you, and when he didn't right away, you called him a coward. I remember the segment. I helped write that segment."
Jon, the Jon from Eric's universe, clearly didn't get it. He was looking from Eric to the character Stephen to the great white eyes in lost confusion. But Stephen, the Stephen in the world next door, remembered.
"Hey, Quetzalcoatl," he said softly. "Nice feathers."
---------------------
---------------------
(there.)
The plumed serpent god of the Aztecs turned his brilliantly feathered head with its china-white eyes on Stephen -- the real Stephen, or at least the comedian who played a different Stephen on TV.
"Sorry," he said quickly, holding up his hands, wincing at the motion of the fingers on his left. "Shouldn't have started that. Sorry."
YOU DID NOT MAKE A SINCERE CHALLENGE, said Quetzalcoatl, his voice as broad as the sea. YOU WERE NOT THE TARGET.
He turned back, feathers rustling and gleaming with the motion, to the other Stephen, who was cringing on the floor in a way that made the first Stephen's heart ache.
YOU WERE SIMPLY MOVED TO LEAVE A PLACE FOR THIS ONE.
---------------------
---------------------
(here.)
"Are you telling us," said Jon, "that all of this -- what you've put this Stephen through..."
"...not to mention," added Jon, "what you've put this Stephen through..."
"...that it was all over some insults this one lobbed in a segment from years ago?"
IT WAS A VERY THOROUGH SMITING, said Quetzalcoatl, IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF.
Jon and Jon leapt to their feet and began to shout as one.
---------------------
---------------------
(there.)
"What the hell?"
"You tear this man from his home, from his life--"
"--throw him to us with no explanation how or why--"
"--no idea whether we'll see our Stephen again--"
"--no warning, no nothing--"
"--we didn't even know it was possible--"
"--scared us all, terrified him--"
"--hurt, panic, confusion--"
Stephen realized that, if he closed his eyes, he had no idea which Jon was which. They could have been talking over each other, or they could have been finishing each other's sentences.
"--separated him from his medication--"
"--when he has a broken bone, for God's sake--"
"--no instructions on how to get back--"
"--just gambling on the possibility that he would get desperate enough to apologize for anything--"
"--and in the meantime he's separated from his family--"
"--doesn't know if he'll see his kids again--"
He couldn't tell which Jon was defending which Stephen either. Or were they switching off?
"--when he didn't do anything wrong--"
"--and all he did was say some stupid things--"
"--he's thoughtless, he's careless, but that's all--"
"--he's not malicious, he's no threat--"
"--of all the petty, vindictive--"
"--complete overreaction--"
"--you had no right--"
"--you dared!--"
"--you had no right!"
They stood, side by side, fists clenched, cheeks flushed, eyes blazing: two tiny, furious, middle-aged Jews, trying to shout down a god.
Fandom: The Daily Show/The Colbert Report
Rating: PG
Words: ~1400
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: As the geometrician, who endeavours
To square the circle, and discovers not,
By taking thought, the principle he wants,
Even such was I at that new apparition;
I wished to see how the image to the circle
Conformed itself, and how it there finds place;
But my own wings were not enough for this.
--Dante's Paradiso, Canto XXXIII
For the backstory, watch this segment - but only AFTER reading the chapter.
For the full table of contents, click here.
The Thing With Feathers
Chapter 15
(here.)
Jon, Eric, and Allison all lunged for Stephen at the same time. It would have been easy if all they'd had to do was tackle him, but getting him under control without letting anything else hit his wrist was a far more subtle operation.
"I'm sorry!" cried Stephen, kicking in their combined grip, Allison and Eric holding most of him down while Jon put all his attention on that left arm. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I..."
He broke off both the tirade and the thrashing, panting heavily.
"Jon," he gasped. "Jon, is that another hallucination?"
Jon looked up, and saw feathers.
---------------------
(there.)
Stephen swayed with the pain, eyes flying shut, and then there were arms around him, catching him, holding him steady, easing him towards the couch, letting him fall against it.
He opened his eyes to see three concerned faces hovering over him, but his gaze went immediately beyond them.
Feathers.
Feathers on feathers on feathers on feathers: rich green and iridescent blue and deep deep red with accents of brilliant gold, feathers brushing past each other to reveal more feathers beneath, so that the illusion was that it was endless, infinite, stretching to limitless feathered depths.
A moment passed, and then another, and then Stephen's eyes pulled back enough to see the form that shaped the feathers: huge, indistinct, but unmissable once you saw it, a three-dimensionality suggesting the body over which the feathers were draped.
Whatever it was, it was moving, coiling, the feathers brushing past each other as the flesh beneath them turned.
The display was captivating, hypnotizing; Stephen heard the other three men catch their breaths as they each turned and saw it. But at last he looked away for long enough to realize that there was something else to look at.
It was as if someone had torn the wall from the office, sliced the opposite wall from an exact copy of the same office, and taped the two ends together. The thing with feathers filled the opening from floor to ceiling at one side, extending nearly a third of the way out from the double-wall at its back. The rest of the opening, though, was clear.
And on the other side, in the other room, in a heap against the other couch...
"Jon?" breathed Stephen.
---------------------
(here.)
Jon was utterly caught up in the mass of feathers, and the sense that there was something beneath them, flexing, turning. The sound of his name knocked at the door of his conscious and got no answer.
"Jon!" came the voice again, louder, and at last he turned his head.
It was as though the end had been ripped off of the world and another world pasted on to make up the difference, except that there was a little extra content in the second world, so a stripe down the middle -- which was almost exactly the width of Stephen's office -- happened twice.
And there, on and around the duplicate version of the couch, were Paul, another Eric, another Stephen, and ... Jon himself, except that this version was still in stage attire, the suit and the tie.
It was the other Stephen who had called him.
"Stephen?" he exclaimed shakily. "Are you our Stephen?"
"I voted for Kerry," said the man on the couch hopefully.
Jon grinned, a grin of sheer wild relief. "That's the Stephen I know."
Eric and Eric had locked eyes, but it was Allison who sorted things out first. "You're Bobby," she said to the second Eric. "And you're Tad."
Paul -- no, Tad -- nodded. "Is that ... 'Eric'? And you -- you're not the one who plays me, are you?"
"Nah. Just another writer. I think we're the odd ones out here," said Allison, managing to sound wry despite the breathless awe in her voice.
And Jon, the other Jon, himself as he pretended to be for the shows, right down to the ever-present suit and tie, only real: this Jon was looking in wonder from the real Jon to the other Stephen, the character Stephen, his Stephen.
The real Jon -- if it was fair, at this point, to think of himself as "the real Jon" -- the Jon in the T-shirt and khakis, at least -- followed the suited Jon's gaze to the Stephen who lay limply against him, gasping for air.
This Stephen was still staring, transfixed, at the feathers on feathers on feathers on feathers.
"Did you," he breathed, "do this?"
A pair of bone-white eyes opened in the mass of feathers.
YES, said a voice like rain and lightning.
As soon as Eric saw the eyes, the rest of the figure resolved itself, like a Magic Eye pattern suddenly becoming an image. And the image was familiar.
It was stunning to see Bobby, but he had been half expecting to meet his character ever since Stephen's had appeared, so it wasn't as arresting as it could have been. This, though -- the possibility had never occurred to him, and even if he had had some forewarning, nothing could have prepared him for the vastness of it in person.
YOU SAY YOU ARE SORRY, said the earthquake that was its voice.
In the dead silence that followed, Stephen-the-character's strained whisper carried perfectly across the two rooms. "Yes. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
FOR WHAT?
"I -- I don't know. Whatever I did. Whatever it was."
YOU DO NOT REMEMBER?
Stephen seemed to shrink. "No! Please, I'm sorry, I don't know!"
"I remember," said Eric.
He spoke more loudly than he'd meant to, and felt all eyes turning to him, even the wide panicked eyes of the Stephen beside him -- even the huge blank white eyes of the feathered god.
"What did I do?" came Stephen's pleading whisper.
Eric swallowed. "You mocked his achievements; you mocked his appearance; you basically said a big 'screw you' to him, then taunted him to smite you, and when he didn't right away, you called him a coward. I remember the segment. I helped write that segment."
Jon, the Jon from Eric's universe, clearly didn't get it. He was looking from Eric to the character Stephen to the great white eyes in lost confusion. But Stephen, the Stephen in the world next door, remembered.
"Hey, Quetzalcoatl," he said softly. "Nice feathers."
---------------------
(there.)
The plumed serpent god of the Aztecs turned his brilliantly feathered head with its china-white eyes on Stephen -- the real Stephen, or at least the comedian who played a different Stephen on TV.
"Sorry," he said quickly, holding up his hands, wincing at the motion of the fingers on his left. "Shouldn't have started that. Sorry."
YOU DID NOT MAKE A SINCERE CHALLENGE, said Quetzalcoatl, his voice as broad as the sea. YOU WERE NOT THE TARGET.
He turned back, feathers rustling and gleaming with the motion, to the other Stephen, who was cringing on the floor in a way that made the first Stephen's heart ache.
YOU WERE SIMPLY MOVED TO LEAVE A PLACE FOR THIS ONE.
---------------------
(here.)
"Are you telling us," said Jon, "that all of this -- what you've put this Stephen through..."
"...not to mention," added Jon, "what you've put this Stephen through..."
"...that it was all over some insults this one lobbed in a segment from years ago?"
IT WAS A VERY THOROUGH SMITING, said Quetzalcoatl, IF I DO SAY SO MYSELF.
Jon and Jon leapt to their feet and began to shout as one.
---------------------
(there.)
"What the hell?"
"You tear this man from his home, from his life--"
"--throw him to us with no explanation how or why--"
"--no idea whether we'll see our Stephen again--"
"--no warning, no nothing--"
"--we didn't even know it was possible--"
"--scared us all, terrified him--"
"--hurt, panic, confusion--"
Stephen realized that, if he closed his eyes, he had no idea which Jon was which. They could have been talking over each other, or they could have been finishing each other's sentences.
"--separated him from his medication--"
"--when he has a broken bone, for God's sake--"
"--no instructions on how to get back--"
"--just gambling on the possibility that he would get desperate enough to apologize for anything--"
"--and in the meantime he's separated from his family--"
"--doesn't know if he'll see his kids again--"
He couldn't tell which Jon was defending which Stephen either. Or were they switching off?
"--when he didn't do anything wrong--"
"--and all he did was say some stupid things--"
"--he's thoughtless, he's careless, but that's all--"
"--he's not malicious, he's no threat--"
"--of all the petty, vindictive--"
"--complete overreaction--"
"--you had no right--"
"--you dared!--"
"--you had no right!"
They stood, side by side, fists clenched, cheeks flushed, eyes blazing: two tiny, furious, middle-aged Jews, trying to shout down a god.
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