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Feb. 2nd, 2024 08:38 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freevistasStory: Without Homeland
Colors: Teary-eyed #10: Broke glasses
Word Count: 840
Rating/Warnings: T (cw: homophobia)
Mairead heard the glasses crack against the wall before she even noticed she’d swatted them off the vanity with her feather-duster.
“Grand,” she muttered, crouching to gather the shards of the thin lenses from the rug. She’d lost count of the number of things she’d broken over the past few weeks: most recently, a china saucer, a hand mirror, and Mr. Fairchild’s old Brownie camera, which she’d sent tumbling down the stairs when he’d asked her to fetch it to show his guests. Mairead might not have been keeping track of the extent of her destruction, but the Fairchilds certainly were.
They were all accidents, of course. But Mairead wasn’t used to accidents like these. Stingy as they were with their compliments, the Fairchilds had never had cause to complain about Mairead’s work, much less discipline her for a mistake. But they’d already told her that they’d be docking her pay for the things she’d broken; with the glasses added to the bill, she’d be lucky if she ever got a cent from them again.
She held one of the shattered lenses up to her eye; the pattern of the wallpaper in front of her blurred and distorted as she squinted to peer through the glass. It seemed that everything looked that way these days, hazy and out of focus. Everything except–
“What happened?”
Mairead looked up to see Alba standing in the hallway, the laundry basket balanced on her hip.
“Nothing,” Mairead said, getting to her feet and smoothing the front of her skirt. “Where’s the dustpan?”
“Probably downstairs where you left it,” Alba said, her eyes narrowing. “Are you alright?”
“‘Course I’m alright,” Mairead huffed; but as she took a step toward the door, she heard the crunch of glass from beneath her boot-heel and froze in place.
Alba looked down at the glinting splinters at Mairead’s feet. “Maybe you could use a pair of glasses,” she smirked.
Mairead scoffed and slipped past Alba in the narrow hallway, pressing herself against the wall to avoid accidentally brushing against her. She nearly knocked over a sconce in the process.
“Come on,” Alba chided, following Mairead downstairs. “You’d look cute with glasses.”
Mairead could feel her cheeks burning; she all but ran down the stairs to find the dustpan she’d left in the dining room while Alba hauled the laundry to the kitchen. But when she got to the dining room, she couldn’t remember what she’d come there for. Every reflective surface in the room seemed to catch the late morning sunlight pouring through the long windows and throw it back at her. She was dazzled.
“Mairead’s off to fairy-land again,” her brothers used to joke when she got like that–foggy, distant, her body sluggish and clumsy while her mind soared away without it. How many small, fragile things had slipped through her fingers and broken when she let herself drift off like that?
“Spendin’ too much time with that Walsh girl,” her father would say and swat the back of Mairead’s head to knock her out of her trance. “Don’t want you gettin’ funny like her, do we?” he’d ask, his tone a strange mix of affection and threat, and Mairead would shake her head, both to answer her father and to try to scatter the images of her friend Róisín that filled her mind.
Mairead shook her head now, too, letting the dining room come back into focus. “Daft girl,” she whispered to herself, spotting the dustpan beside the china cabinet.
She had to admit to herself that she hadn’t felt like this since she left home–since she left Róisín–and come to America. And she had to admit that the accidents had only started happening when Alba started working at the Fairchilds…
But no. She was just tired, she told herself, climbing the stairs back to the pile of glass she’d left behind. Too many nights out dancing.
Too many nights out, she corrected herself, trying to make herself feel something for the boys she let buy her drinks and castle-walk her around the dancefloor.
“Daft girl,” she repeated through gritted teeth, sweeping the remains of the broken eyeglasses into the dustpan.
Some of the boys weren’t so bad. Maybe if she practiced, she could start daydreaming about them…and maybe someday, if she tried hard enough, those dreams could become something real. And maybe if she tried hard enough, she could be happy with that.
Better than wasting her time in fairy-land.
But this thing she wanted…could it only ever be some fairy-land dream? she wondered as she returned to dusting Mrs. Fairchild’s vanity. Alba was an anarchist, after all, and didn’t anarchists have all sorts of crazy ideas about things? Hadn’t Alba herself told her that she heard Emma Goldman sometimes went with women?
“Anything I can do?” Mairead heard Alba ask. And then there she was, their two reflections side by side in the vanity mirror, as if Mairead were looking through a portal into fairy-land itself.
She shook her head and went back to dusting.
Colors: Teary-eyed #10: Broke glasses
Word Count: 840
Rating/Warnings: T (cw: homophobia)
Mairead heard the glasses crack against the wall before she even noticed she’d swatted them off the vanity with her feather-duster.
“Grand,” she muttered, crouching to gather the shards of the thin lenses from the rug. She’d lost count of the number of things she’d broken over the past few weeks: most recently, a china saucer, a hand mirror, and Mr. Fairchild’s old Brownie camera, which she’d sent tumbling down the stairs when he’d asked her to fetch it to show his guests. Mairead might not have been keeping track of the extent of her destruction, but the Fairchilds certainly were.
They were all accidents, of course. But Mairead wasn’t used to accidents like these. Stingy as they were with their compliments, the Fairchilds had never had cause to complain about Mairead’s work, much less discipline her for a mistake. But they’d already told her that they’d be docking her pay for the things she’d broken; with the glasses added to the bill, she’d be lucky if she ever got a cent from them again.
She held one of the shattered lenses up to her eye; the pattern of the wallpaper in front of her blurred and distorted as she squinted to peer through the glass. It seemed that everything looked that way these days, hazy and out of focus. Everything except–
“What happened?”
Mairead looked up to see Alba standing in the hallway, the laundry basket balanced on her hip.
“Nothing,” Mairead said, getting to her feet and smoothing the front of her skirt. “Where’s the dustpan?”
“Probably downstairs where you left it,” Alba said, her eyes narrowing. “Are you alright?”
“‘Course I’m alright,” Mairead huffed; but as she took a step toward the door, she heard the crunch of glass from beneath her boot-heel and froze in place.
Alba looked down at the glinting splinters at Mairead’s feet. “Maybe you could use a pair of glasses,” she smirked.
Mairead scoffed and slipped past Alba in the narrow hallway, pressing herself against the wall to avoid accidentally brushing against her. She nearly knocked over a sconce in the process.
“Come on,” Alba chided, following Mairead downstairs. “You’d look cute with glasses.”
Mairead could feel her cheeks burning; she all but ran down the stairs to find the dustpan she’d left in the dining room while Alba hauled the laundry to the kitchen. But when she got to the dining room, she couldn’t remember what she’d come there for. Every reflective surface in the room seemed to catch the late morning sunlight pouring through the long windows and throw it back at her. She was dazzled.
“Mairead’s off to fairy-land again,” her brothers used to joke when she got like that–foggy, distant, her body sluggish and clumsy while her mind soared away without it. How many small, fragile things had slipped through her fingers and broken when she let herself drift off like that?
“Spendin’ too much time with that Walsh girl,” her father would say and swat the back of Mairead’s head to knock her out of her trance. “Don’t want you gettin’ funny like her, do we?” he’d ask, his tone a strange mix of affection and threat, and Mairead would shake her head, both to answer her father and to try to scatter the images of her friend Róisín that filled her mind.
Mairead shook her head now, too, letting the dining room come back into focus. “Daft girl,” she whispered to herself, spotting the dustpan beside the china cabinet.
She had to admit to herself that she hadn’t felt like this since she left home–since she left Róisín–and come to America. And she had to admit that the accidents had only started happening when Alba started working at the Fairchilds…
But no. She was just tired, she told herself, climbing the stairs back to the pile of glass she’d left behind. Too many nights out dancing.
Too many nights out, she corrected herself, trying to make herself feel something for the boys she let buy her drinks and castle-walk her around the dancefloor.
“Daft girl,” she repeated through gritted teeth, sweeping the remains of the broken eyeglasses into the dustpan.
Some of the boys weren’t so bad. Maybe if she practiced, she could start daydreaming about them…and maybe someday, if she tried hard enough, those dreams could become something real. And maybe if she tried hard enough, she could be happy with that.
Better than wasting her time in fairy-land.
But this thing she wanted…could it only ever be some fairy-land dream? she wondered as she returned to dusting Mrs. Fairchild’s vanity. Alba was an anarchist, after all, and didn’t anarchists have all sorts of crazy ideas about things? Hadn’t Alba herself told her that she heard Emma Goldman sometimes went with women?
“Anything I can do?” Mairead heard Alba ask. And then there she was, their two reflections side by side in the vanity mirror, as if Mairead were looking through a portal into fairy-land itself.
She shook her head and went back to dusting.
