ALBATROSS 2
Monday, January 18, 2010
River Tam was once a student at The Academy. Now she has disappeared into the black, and all official records of the years she spent in captivity there have been erased or smoothed over. They no longer exist. But the girl does. Her diary is the only remaining commentary on the horrors of a future deceived. This is her story, told in her own words.
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For those who want an intro, Part 1 is here: http://www.fireflyfans.net/bluesun.aspx?bid=22568
CATEGORY: FICTION TIMES READ: 3480 RATING: 10.0 (PG13) SERIES: FIREFLY
ENTRY #????
I learned a very important thing today. An impin is useless for writing without its component. I carelessly threw it away when it was almost used up. It took three days of answering in gibberish for them to give me another one, finally convinced I wasn't hiding it somewhere. How could I hide when all they have to do is tap into my brain?
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ENTRY #????
The labyrinth wouldn't be such a scary place if you had the time. It's the monster that lives in it (the maze) that eats up the seconds, the days, hunting you. But the king, who summoned them—called for the most impeccable youths and maidens—said different, to our shining faces, the finest in Thebes. Thebes is cursed with monsters.
But sometimes I think the monster is just as lost, trotting through sinuous furrows of sterile and unforgiving stone. To meet at last would break the tension and you'd almost be familiar with each other (you, the monster; the monster, you). Then the horror of eyes and teeth and hooves. The ancient heroes, in their vanity, went searching for the beast. They came to know the same grey corridors, but did not understand the paths, their fear overwhelming when their narrow view opened out to show miles of malicious maze. The beast devoured them.
Except, a string. A theory. Watching that pale coiled mist spooling out behind you like a memory, twisted and condensed, of voices, places that only belonged to you, there in pale replicate in your head.
Knowing that every inch of string spun out followed you, wherever you went, an umbilical cord that tied you to a proud history.
Wondering who is holding it at the other end, if they still keep it in their warm hands or if they've long given you up as sacrifice—all these things that you can learn from the tension of a string, a connection to the outside world.
How easily they snap, and the beast finds you. Can't run, can't walk. You're lost, and it is not.
Now it's all tangled---too many strings leading down corridors like the insi
So let's see, I decided to open this one up by trying to track down any themes in the previous entry that I can see carried over to here.
Layers is one. Which doubles as a hint to us, we must look and see multiple layers here at the same time to understand all the aspects.
Here's another one. Mist in the first chapter referred to the writing on he page/wall, what River was writing, and possibly fate. Here it also represents the past that makes up a person.
I see also a reference to frozen ground, where a young River, just starting at the Academy was expecting daffodils and spring to break through. It never did. It just got colder, even if she's kept warm and sheltered from the rain.
Window is another. In the first chapter, the window was something a light used to shine through. In this chapter, windows open to the soul, and are also mirrors.
She mentions conditioning again. Conditioning is associated with becoming a machine, which previously River described as a gun with a silencer. Assassin and weapon, no longer a girl.
Questions and comments welcome, everybody!
So River no longer really sees her reflection, it doesn't have eyes, or her eyes aren't hers (she doesn't recognize herself). Because her eyes aren't hers, her soul isn't hers (window to the soul). The light in the window has been extinguished (light in the soul gone).
This connects to the string theme through the concept of memory. The string here represents memories of her past life, getting lost and tangled in a labyrinth.
At the same time, the Academy is creating muscle memories to replace the lost life memories. Mirror neurons. This is why she metaphorically doesn't recognize herself in the mirror.
Got the minotaur - YES! (It is the minotaur, right?...)
I got distracted, though, by the awfulness of River blaming herself...that's what a teenaged girl would do, in all this complexity of trying to make sense of something - just blame herself. You've created a beautifully, poetically-written tangle here, but it wouldn't work for me without that humanity underneath and through it all. Bravo.
I'll have to do what I did last time, read again and come back to comment some more.
That's why I've found it useful to keep notes on what themes I can identify and what they mean as they're introduced, used, and evolve.
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