when tomorrow comesRating:PG
Posted: January 28, 2002
Notes: (1) A dream sequence, a continuation of "Provider", episode 12 of Series 3 Angel.
(2) A gentle nod to Lewis Carroll, Princess Shikishi, Annie Lennox, Dylan Thomas and the nightmares of my youth.
Spoilers: Vague spoilers for Series 3, Angel up to and including episode 12.
From the final scene in "Provider":Angel and Cordelia are lying on Angel's bed, facing each other with Conor lying between them. Cordelia is feeding the baby with a bottle. Both Angel and Cordelia look exhausted.
Cordy: I'm just saying a boat...
Angel: No, college fund
Cordy: Yes college fund...and pay our bills, and put a down payment on a boat.
Angel: I'm not getting a boat.
Cordy (deep breath): They're fun.
Angel: They're expensive...and when would I go on this boat?
Cordy (small smile) : moonlight sails...
(Cordy takes a breath, shifts a bit in bed, both have closed their eyes.)
Cordy: Okay, college fund, pay our bills, and rent a ski condo in Aspen.
Angel: Ski condo?
Cordy: There's got to be some fun in our lives...
Angel: Would I like a ski condo?
Cordelia: Sure...snow, trees, chipmunk robots on ice...
Angel: Chipmunk robots on ice...
Conor keeps sucking on his bottle as Cordelia and Angel fall asleep.
Chipmunk robots on ice...Chipmunk.... robots...
In the white snow.
Trees. Lots of trees.
Do chipmunks live in trees?
They gotta commute to the ice.
A ski condo.
Condo. Cordy. Cordy. Condo.
Some fun in a condo with Cordy.
Cordy wants some fun.
Fun on the ice...
...with chipmunks.
Spring blossomed when you
came; sun-ripened joy in a
stormy winter’s night.I saw you tonight standing by the frozen lake, splashing your glitter tipped toes in the icy waves, silver gulls diving and nipping at your wriggly, worm-snacky feet.
My boy jumps up and down on the glistening sandy shore, hair blowing, eyes shining, pristine yacht bobbing on the pond at the end of his string.
I can see you clearly, warm and hazy in the sunshine. I can see you clearly from my icy condo in the darkened inside depths of a snowy hill.
Fun for us, in a ski condo.
Tears drip on my dreams
with the clamouring din of
dark fear on blind hope.Bedding my girl on the cosy ice mattress, a downy quilt of snow feathers covering your silken nakedness; your golden warmth melting pools of my frozen love, like icicles, dripping tears.
Bedding my girl. Slickering into you, and out, begging and slickering, pleading and slickering. The slickering grows to a deafening climax, drowning my fading in and outs; hollow and empty in the frigid, hoary-eyed moonlight.
Hollow, empty; fill me. Suckling your secrets, your long hidden mysteries, buried in the aloneness of your nights and the solitude of your days. Eating into your stubborn resistance because I care, because to love means to fear and I am full of dark-binding, night-binding fear. I have nibbled into your secrets, I can touch them with my tongue, poke them with the tip of my tongue. Fear what is inside you, your fear.
Fear is as sweet as
joy; the joy of strawberries
laced with death’s pure blade.Fear should be sweet like strawberries, ripe and bursting with sun and blue skies and broken butterflies. Not like this acid, ill-natured lifeblood burning my mouth.
Fear should be sweet but your fear was my fear and I screamed into your shuddering softness.
Oh, God!
Your insides and your fear are eating me and I don’t know how to ski.
Blinding light from
the ache in my heart, my son;
love too true to live.My rosy boy cries out for more of the milky sap that he guzzles ravenously from your breast. Can he ski? Did I remember to teach him that day on the yacht? Did I show him how to live before the Ivy-covered fish burst from the spewing waves and ate all the money?
Conor, my woolly boy, come with me, away from the caustic stench of fear. But my lovely child peers at me with a ‘why me, why you, why her’ gaze and keeps on gorging and growing on your cream laden love.
The fears keep tumbling out and I duck in shame from your accusing eyes and gather the skittering horrors close, ready to hide them, bury them deep once more in my love before they can escape into the tulgey wood.
Trees whisper above,
where chasing shadows echo
the taunts of your death.I have to get to my shining girl and tell her your secrets are safe. Bury the secrets deep under stone and ice, stop the fear gnawing its way through the sodden earth like a worm wriggling into a slimey corpse.
Tie my feet to the surfboards and whoosh through the silver fresh forest. Shadows chasing me, the companions of my memory and misery and, fighting for room above, metallic chipmunks buzzing and darting from tree to tree. Snickering a clitter-clacker, snickering at me, at what I was, what I became, what I am, what I will always be; snickering and clackering at the frightened man.
Down to the frozen lake in the moonlight, to my rosy boy and shining girl playing and laughing in the salty waves. The secrets are buried and we can live.
Winter’s snow melts my
mourning heart; I will wither
without your love.I slide to the edge of the gurgling forest where the lake ripples in the sunlight, but I am already there.
I am there. Black and blood-dripped, I wave lovingly from the deck of the brilliant white boat and sail into a sun-set heavy with maraca and coconut rum.
My rosy boy is with you, my love, silent and ghostly. I reach for your hand, paley blue and waiting but it is rigid under the distorting, enclosing ice. Such a sweet crooked smile on your loving, far-away face with my hushed boy hugged gently to your breast.
The ice is smooth and hard and cold and grasping for your touch my fingertips freeze to a paler shade of death.
I am happy now. You will care one for the other, dearest loves, safe in death, cheer each other in those deathly, crawling corners of the night.
I’ll leave you both to sleep until tomorrow.
When tomorrow comes I’ll look to you.
When tomorrow comes I can love you again.
Disclaimer: The characters are Joss Whedon's, Mutant Enemy's and probably a heap of other people about
whom I know nothing.
I lay no claim to ownership of the characters, I simply like to ask them out to play now and then.