Epistolary fic challenge
May. 1st, 2006 07:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaNearly forgot this was due today. ^^; JoJo fic, short and a bit sad. Nearly everyone who'd care has read it already, I think. XD
Plot spoilers to part 2 end, character spoilers to part 4 end.
September 20th, 1999--
We found a new stand user last week. Calls himself the Grandmaster. Believe it or not a walk-in case, literally walked into SPW's headquarters and asked to talk to the guy in charge. Said he was down and out and had heard through the grapevine that they could help people like him. When he couldn't get past reception he dropped an envelope in the CEO's lap - that would be the guy who runs the charity division. Luckily we were all in a board meeting.
Turns out his stand can send a letter to anyone in the world instantaneously, as long as he's got a name to go by. He'd built a little business for himself but the gangs wanted their cut, and he was never in the country legally to begin with. We get him to demonstrate with a scrap of paper; fifteen minutes later my grandson calls up to say it's the middle of the night and he doesn't see how it's any business of his that Granny Joestar purchased half a pound of provolone and a jar of peanut butter on Sunday.
We ask him questions. What if the person changes their name? What if the spelling doesn't match the face?
What can he say? He's got no way of verifying. All he knows is he's never gotten a complaint. He's sent messages to recipients who turned out to be deceased for years, and it seems to work the same. He shrugs at me - they go somewhere. He doesn't know where, he's not a religious man.
I'm writing you a letter. Your name came to mind.
What did I want to say?
I saw you yesterday. You were stepping out of the subway at 51st and Lexington with a girl on your arm; she had your full attention and you had hers. I passed you on the sidewalk, you nearly tripped over Shizuka, she started to cry and disappeared her stroller for a good two minutes, when I looked up again you were gone. Then I remembered you'd already been gone for sixty-odd years. It took that long.
I've seen others too, dead and living. They forget to tell you this about getting old. Smokey, Stronheim, Abdul - you never met him, but he was a good friend to me. I even saw my own wife, once. Suzy, just a slip of a girl buying roasted nuts from a street vendor, like a school kid on a field trip. She wore a barrette with big plastic cabbage-roses in her hair. I stood there and remembered she'd gone to Japan for the month, to keep Holly company; at the same time I thought she'd turn around and ask me where you were. I figure if you knew what I put her through sometimes you'd punch my face in. Nothing doing, no excuses, it's the principle that matters.
That and you'd be jealous; she never gave you a second look.
What is there to say? I've let myself get old. My old lady - Miss Lisa Lisa, you knew her as - she said it's nothing you can explain: you understand once you've had kids, and your kids have had kids, you have to know how to let go, that's all there is. That was right after Holly was born, before she got married for the second time. For years she had a white house in Newport Beach, and when the wind blew from the sea it felt like being on the Veneto again... Water under the bridge. My grandson was over there for a couple of years, on some sort of salvage gig in the Adriatic. He's back in Japan now. I have a son, he lives in Japan too.
The story's too long to tell. One guy leaves off and they hire another one to draw the next issue. Old friend, old friend, I wish we had had more time. When you're young time is nothing, you have so much and you need so little. You stand alongside someone for a day with the whole world at stake and you give them your heart, you give them your soul. We both grew up knowing we wouldn't knock around for long; if we had to beat the odds it should have been together.
Suzy was just in the room, she says hello.
Yours,
Joseph Joestar (JoJo)
Plot spoilers to part 2 end, character spoilers to part 4 end.
September 20th, 1999--
We found a new stand user last week. Calls himself the Grandmaster. Believe it or not a walk-in case, literally walked into SPW's headquarters and asked to talk to the guy in charge. Said he was down and out and had heard through the grapevine that they could help people like him. When he couldn't get past reception he dropped an envelope in the CEO's lap - that would be the guy who runs the charity division. Luckily we were all in a board meeting.
Turns out his stand can send a letter to anyone in the world instantaneously, as long as he's got a name to go by. He'd built a little business for himself but the gangs wanted their cut, and he was never in the country legally to begin with. We get him to demonstrate with a scrap of paper; fifteen minutes later my grandson calls up to say it's the middle of the night and he doesn't see how it's any business of his that Granny Joestar purchased half a pound of provolone and a jar of peanut butter on Sunday.
We ask him questions. What if the person changes their name? What if the spelling doesn't match the face?
What can he say? He's got no way of verifying. All he knows is he's never gotten a complaint. He's sent messages to recipients who turned out to be deceased for years, and it seems to work the same. He shrugs at me - they go somewhere. He doesn't know where, he's not a religious man.
I'm writing you a letter. Your name came to mind.
What did I want to say?
I saw you yesterday. You were stepping out of the subway at 51st and Lexington with a girl on your arm; she had your full attention and you had hers. I passed you on the sidewalk, you nearly tripped over Shizuka, she started to cry and disappeared her stroller for a good two minutes, when I looked up again you were gone. Then I remembered you'd already been gone for sixty-odd years. It took that long.
I've seen others too, dead and living. They forget to tell you this about getting old. Smokey, Stronheim, Abdul - you never met him, but he was a good friend to me. I even saw my own wife, once. Suzy, just a slip of a girl buying roasted nuts from a street vendor, like a school kid on a field trip. She wore a barrette with big plastic cabbage-roses in her hair. I stood there and remembered she'd gone to Japan for the month, to keep Holly company; at the same time I thought she'd turn around and ask me where you were. I figure if you knew what I put her through sometimes you'd punch my face in. Nothing doing, no excuses, it's the principle that matters.
That and you'd be jealous; she never gave you a second look.
What is there to say? I've let myself get old. My old lady - Miss Lisa Lisa, you knew her as - she said it's nothing you can explain: you understand once you've had kids, and your kids have had kids, you have to know how to let go, that's all there is. That was right after Holly was born, before she got married for the second time. For years she had a white house in Newport Beach, and when the wind blew from the sea it felt like being on the Veneto again... Water under the bridge. My grandson was over there for a couple of years, on some sort of salvage gig in the Adriatic. He's back in Japan now. I have a son, he lives in Japan too.
The story's too long to tell. One guy leaves off and they hire another one to draw the next issue. Old friend, old friend, I wish we had had more time. When you're young time is nothing, you have so much and you need so little. You stand alongside someone for a day with the whole world at stake and you give them your heart, you give them your soul. We both grew up knowing we wouldn't knock around for long; if we had to beat the odds it should have been together.
Suzy was just in the room, she says hello.
Yours,
Joseph Joestar (JoJo)
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no subject
Date: 2006-05-01 11:52 pm (UTC)Eh, I like this very much. :D (Okay, I don't get the music reference, though.) The type of style that people would use to write a letter is pretty unlike your normal one, too.
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Date: 2006-05-02 02:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-02 07:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-02 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-02 02:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-02 08:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-02 04:40 pm (UTC)I like the first half of this a lot. The second half seems like it would be poignant if I knew who the characters were.