Post by Dirk Riedel on Dec 11, 2010 23:31:29 GMT
Her eyes followed the man’s figure once he breathed out the word and seemed to be looking around the room in search of a pair of scissors, and the woman could not help but arch an inquisitive eyebrow at his direction, slightly shifting her head to observe him in all of his absurdity. Did he really think that had there been any pair of scissors within that very same room she would not have known it already? She watched him quietly, standing close to the wardrobe and with her arms hanging down by her sides as he put on his shoes and left the room, her forehead still wrinkled into an expression of mild disbelief and she scoffed once she was alone in the room, turning around to pick up the white shirt from inside the shelf, and feeling rather heavy after the previous night’s alcoholic indulgence even if the headache had diminished to a certain extent; still, it had been years since the last time she had become so pathetically inebriated and her organism had forgotten to adjust itself to those moments, as had been the case back then. She rubbed her forehead with the palm of her hand for a second or two and closed her eyes in that brief moment, the slightest of noises escaping her throat as she breathed in calmly, before she blinked and proceeded to button up the shirt. She was neatly settling the edge of the shirt within the trousers by the time the door opened again, and in came the Hauptmann with the item in his hand.
Approaching her, he handed over the scissors and Dirk could only arch an eyebrow again as he mentioned her predictable lack of gratitude in that irritating tone that suggested she was some form of animalistic brute who only knew how to savagely snatch anything upon her wake and growl incoherent words. She knew perfectly well – and more than he would ever learn to do himself – how to exhibit her gratitude and return the favour, but that was a word unbefitting the situation, she believed. How could he expect gratitude from her, even going as far as calling such an expectation ‘foolish’, after all he had done to her? And how could he expect, at any rate, that she should feel the remotest sense of appreciation or indebtedness towards his person, him, an arrogant, worthless human being whose main purpose in life was bringing others misery and humiliation? Apparently to him the basic service of assisting someone with any item was enough to demand ‘gratitude’, as he called it, and Dirk was proven right yet one more time how all his human relationships had been founded upon the principle that, first and foremost, they are to be regarded as monetary units; one communicated with another person in the same dreary fashion as in trade and commerce, each service repaid by the other with another of equal proportions, and should there arise a situation in which one of the two should require something of even minimal importance, then, as though these were no friends but a customer and a bank, such an action were to be written down as a form of indebtedness. She would have told him this, naturally, had she not already decided she would only waste her time and how she had better things to do rather than try to clear up this issue to someone who would never change in the first place. Without a word, thus, she turned around and walked closer to the mirror, the scissors in her hands, and her face having obtained its determined, grave tone.
It was useless wearing a wig only to have it misplaced at the first chance, and on the grounds that Dirk had needed to make absolutely certain that no such occurrence would occur and her identity would not be jeopardized she had thought of a different way of applying the hair, no less inconvenient as it was troublesome, yet served its purpose. She picked up the scissors and stared at her reflection in the mirror, eyes tense and wide as they carefully examined the hair at the rim of her head, by now skilful enough with her moves as she pulled the scissors nearer to that direction and slowly, albeit firmly, began to cut through the hair. Normally the wig would have only required to be worn without anything else necessary, one would simply have to properly place it on the head and that should be all the trouble – of course, the woman would hardly be satisfied with this option, for which reason she had opted to get some of the animal glue to be found in the garage. Each time she would use a spatula to apply the adhesive around the wig’s periphery and thus glue the false hair directly on top of her own; the periphery was enough to guarantee that no matter what the situation would be, even if one suddenly decided to snatch her hair, it would not be pulled away. Each time she would use a pair of scissors to carefully remove the wig’s margin while leaving the rest of it unscathed, to be used again. But not now. Not again. Now she would completely destroy it.
Destroy it until there would be nothing left of it, and what it used to symbolize die forever along with it.
Locks of golden hair fell upon the floor, one right after the other, and slowly the wig was wrecked, slowly it disintegrated into the state of a pitiful mass of hair lying on the floor, to decompose after its death and forever be forgotten. Her fingers moved around her head, eyes of fierce dedication piercing at her own reflection as she stared back at herself, not even noticing the time the man was standing behind her; half her head had been rid of the wig, and she continued with her work, the metallic surface severing the false from the real hair, the ties she held to the past, the chain that linked her to Friederike. Perhaps she wished to kill her forever, as if that had been her weakness in the first place – that concealed identity she always feared would be discovered, and as it had been by the Hauptmann. Friederike Woltermann’s identity had been the root of all evil and by destroying the wig she was slitting any bond she had with the woman, for here, in this god-forsaken part of the world Friederike did not exist, she was nothing else but air – here stood Leutnant Dirk Riedel, in all of his masculine force and demanding posture, strong, commanding and unbreakable, for he had nothing to hide, nothing to fear aside from the essence of fear itself. But this woman, this Friederike, kept crawling back in, returning to the Leutnant not because she really desired to do so, but on account of the Hauptmann’s demands. Purely for that reason did the woman wish to sever that side of hers forever, lest the man had nothing else to turn out. More locks of hair fell down on the floor, and more Friederike was dying on the outside, making way for the Leutnant to resume his strength, his throne, his sacred duty. She had never before appeared in her feminine form since they had landed in North Africa (and even as she had joined the army Friederike had been a rare occurrence to happen), Dirk Riedel reigning over the body, ready to commit to his tasks without any interruption or distractions, to suddenly have the primal, raw nature of Friederike imposed upon by the likes of an arrogant, selfish and thoughtless baron who assumed authority and commanded at will. Yes, here stood Friederike, but this was her grave. For no more would Friederike be.
What met the Hauptmann once the woman turned around was not the feminine figure he had looked at mere minutes before, but the face of a stern, adamant Leutnant Riedel, and though the eyes were the same, as ever green and gleaming through the morning sun, it was a different person looking back at him. The Hauptmann appeared unaffected, and the words he voiced met her with a soft, threatening essence, assuring her they were to meet again and, indeed, that even though she had chosen to brush him aside and not submit to his whimsicalities once again, she had no other choice. She could burn, she could drown, she could freeze or bury herself alive, but she would not be released from his grasp, as unyielding as her primal nature, as obstinate and uncompromising. Her eyes glared back at him when his filthy mouth mentioned payment, and only ever wondered for a second if he truly was as much of an idiot as she thought him to be, thinking she could simply return the scissors to the landlady and somehow explain to her why in hell's name she was suddenly a man, but what truly did affect the woman was that one simple name voiced by the man, so softly heard, and yet how harshly it slapped her on the face.
Friederike.
She remained unmoving, and her heart may have stopped beating for a moment or two as that dry, crooked smile bid her farewell, and the Hauptmann left the room, leaving her alone to drown in the thundering silence. Little did she know that the Hauptmann had taken a piece of what she had been so determined to extinguish, little did, indeed, the woman know that was she had attempted to kill was still alive, and beating, beating softly within his hand. She stared at the closed door for moments, perhaps it was even minutes, she could not tell, no longer able to feel her feet as her entire body had submitted to a state of uncomfortable numbness; her throat felt too dry, her lips too dehydrated and her arms lifelessly hang down by her sides, face forlorn and miserable staring at the door, without a sound, without a heartbeat. The room felt airless and it was slowly that she made the first movement, and breathed again. Her feet led her to the bed, and she allowed her body to slowly come down to rest at the edge, at his side, facing the wardrobe. Her eyes were fixed upon the floor, and no one could know what she could have been thinking about, if indeed she had been thinking about anything to begin with. Each palm of her hands touched against the mattress by the rim of the bed, and she stood there, silent and consumed, green eyes that remained glassy, the iron forced against her and stripping her of any qualities that might have connected her to whom she used to be. Thus she stood for many more moments to come, until, slowly, her eyes moved along the floor, and suddenly stopped upon a glimmer in the short distance.
Approaching her, he handed over the scissors and Dirk could only arch an eyebrow again as he mentioned her predictable lack of gratitude in that irritating tone that suggested she was some form of animalistic brute who only knew how to savagely snatch anything upon her wake and growl incoherent words. She knew perfectly well – and more than he would ever learn to do himself – how to exhibit her gratitude and return the favour, but that was a word unbefitting the situation, she believed. How could he expect gratitude from her, even going as far as calling such an expectation ‘foolish’, after all he had done to her? And how could he expect, at any rate, that she should feel the remotest sense of appreciation or indebtedness towards his person, him, an arrogant, worthless human being whose main purpose in life was bringing others misery and humiliation? Apparently to him the basic service of assisting someone with any item was enough to demand ‘gratitude’, as he called it, and Dirk was proven right yet one more time how all his human relationships had been founded upon the principle that, first and foremost, they are to be regarded as monetary units; one communicated with another person in the same dreary fashion as in trade and commerce, each service repaid by the other with another of equal proportions, and should there arise a situation in which one of the two should require something of even minimal importance, then, as though these were no friends but a customer and a bank, such an action were to be written down as a form of indebtedness. She would have told him this, naturally, had she not already decided she would only waste her time and how she had better things to do rather than try to clear up this issue to someone who would never change in the first place. Without a word, thus, she turned around and walked closer to the mirror, the scissors in her hands, and her face having obtained its determined, grave tone.
It was useless wearing a wig only to have it misplaced at the first chance, and on the grounds that Dirk had needed to make absolutely certain that no such occurrence would occur and her identity would not be jeopardized she had thought of a different way of applying the hair, no less inconvenient as it was troublesome, yet served its purpose. She picked up the scissors and stared at her reflection in the mirror, eyes tense and wide as they carefully examined the hair at the rim of her head, by now skilful enough with her moves as she pulled the scissors nearer to that direction and slowly, albeit firmly, began to cut through the hair. Normally the wig would have only required to be worn without anything else necessary, one would simply have to properly place it on the head and that should be all the trouble – of course, the woman would hardly be satisfied with this option, for which reason she had opted to get some of the animal glue to be found in the garage. Each time she would use a spatula to apply the adhesive around the wig’s periphery and thus glue the false hair directly on top of her own; the periphery was enough to guarantee that no matter what the situation would be, even if one suddenly decided to snatch her hair, it would not be pulled away. Each time she would use a pair of scissors to carefully remove the wig’s margin while leaving the rest of it unscathed, to be used again. But not now. Not again. Now she would completely destroy it.
Destroy it until there would be nothing left of it, and what it used to symbolize die forever along with it.
Locks of golden hair fell upon the floor, one right after the other, and slowly the wig was wrecked, slowly it disintegrated into the state of a pitiful mass of hair lying on the floor, to decompose after its death and forever be forgotten. Her fingers moved around her head, eyes of fierce dedication piercing at her own reflection as she stared back at herself, not even noticing the time the man was standing behind her; half her head had been rid of the wig, and she continued with her work, the metallic surface severing the false from the real hair, the ties she held to the past, the chain that linked her to Friederike. Perhaps she wished to kill her forever, as if that had been her weakness in the first place – that concealed identity she always feared would be discovered, and as it had been by the Hauptmann. Friederike Woltermann’s identity had been the root of all evil and by destroying the wig she was slitting any bond she had with the woman, for here, in this god-forsaken part of the world Friederike did not exist, she was nothing else but air – here stood Leutnant Dirk Riedel, in all of his masculine force and demanding posture, strong, commanding and unbreakable, for he had nothing to hide, nothing to fear aside from the essence of fear itself. But this woman, this Friederike, kept crawling back in, returning to the Leutnant not because she really desired to do so, but on account of the Hauptmann’s demands. Purely for that reason did the woman wish to sever that side of hers forever, lest the man had nothing else to turn out. More locks of hair fell down on the floor, and more Friederike was dying on the outside, making way for the Leutnant to resume his strength, his throne, his sacred duty. She had never before appeared in her feminine form since they had landed in North Africa (and even as she had joined the army Friederike had been a rare occurrence to happen), Dirk Riedel reigning over the body, ready to commit to his tasks without any interruption or distractions, to suddenly have the primal, raw nature of Friederike imposed upon by the likes of an arrogant, selfish and thoughtless baron who assumed authority and commanded at will. Yes, here stood Friederike, but this was her grave. For no more would Friederike be.
What met the Hauptmann once the woman turned around was not the feminine figure he had looked at mere minutes before, but the face of a stern, adamant Leutnant Riedel, and though the eyes were the same, as ever green and gleaming through the morning sun, it was a different person looking back at him. The Hauptmann appeared unaffected, and the words he voiced met her with a soft, threatening essence, assuring her they were to meet again and, indeed, that even though she had chosen to brush him aside and not submit to his whimsicalities once again, she had no other choice. She could burn, she could drown, she could freeze or bury herself alive, but she would not be released from his grasp, as unyielding as her primal nature, as obstinate and uncompromising. Her eyes glared back at him when his filthy mouth mentioned payment, and only ever wondered for a second if he truly was as much of an idiot as she thought him to be, thinking she could simply return the scissors to the landlady and somehow explain to her why in hell's name she was suddenly a man, but what truly did affect the woman was that one simple name voiced by the man, so softly heard, and yet how harshly it slapped her on the face.
Friederike.
She remained unmoving, and her heart may have stopped beating for a moment or two as that dry, crooked smile bid her farewell, and the Hauptmann left the room, leaving her alone to drown in the thundering silence. Little did she know that the Hauptmann had taken a piece of what she had been so determined to extinguish, little did, indeed, the woman know that was she had attempted to kill was still alive, and beating, beating softly within his hand. She stared at the closed door for moments, perhaps it was even minutes, she could not tell, no longer able to feel her feet as her entire body had submitted to a state of uncomfortable numbness; her throat felt too dry, her lips too dehydrated and her arms lifelessly hang down by her sides, face forlorn and miserable staring at the door, without a sound, without a heartbeat. The room felt airless and it was slowly that she made the first movement, and breathed again. Her feet led her to the bed, and she allowed her body to slowly come down to rest at the edge, at his side, facing the wardrobe. Her eyes were fixed upon the floor, and no one could know what she could have been thinking about, if indeed she had been thinking about anything to begin with. Each palm of her hands touched against the mattress by the rim of the bed, and she stood there, silent and consumed, green eyes that remained glassy, the iron forced against her and stripping her of any qualities that might have connected her to whom she used to be. Thus she stood for many more moments to come, until, slowly, her eyes moved along the floor, and suddenly stopped upon a glimmer in the short distance.
