it's been a long october.

[afterdrop]

Who: Charles Rowland and YOU
What: Monthy catch-all
When: Throughout October
Where: Around Milton

Content Warnings: Specifics TBD; general warnings available here.


𝒊. 𝒚𝒂𝒓𝒅 𝒔𝒂𝒓𝒅

[A short jaunt up from the town center, where the road gets rougher and the sparse trees begin to climb towards Milton House, there's an overgrown, decrepit cottage tucked back in the trees. Blue once, maybe, but faded into a mildewy grey, its windows utterly piled with what hasn't been worth scavenging.

At least, until today.

It's been almost six weeks of squatting in the near-hoard, stuck between pretending that he wouldn't be here long and feeling overwhelmed by the monumental task of making this place livable, when Charles finally wakes up, opens the front door, and starts dragging shit outside.]

Sorry, mate. [He gives a sideways little wave, plunking down a plastic cat carrier.] Just trying to clean up a bit, yeah?

[If it looks like it might have belonged to a 70-year-old woman prior to the apocalypse, it's sitting in the front yard now. Several ceramic horse figurines. A needlepoint pillow with a Bible verse on it. An ornate mirror, slightly scuffed. Use your imagination liberally. Surrounding it all, however, are items in much worse shape. The mattress looks like someone may have died on it, judging from the stains, and there's plenty of busted, broken furniture that's ripe to be chopped into firewood.]

Nick whatever you want. Don't think Gladys'll miss it much, will she?

𝒊𝒊. 𝒈𝒆𝒕 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆

[There's one thing he won't part with from the old lady's house - an old, crumbling stick of black eyeliner he found in a bathroom drawer. With a tragic lack of sufficient inside light, however, he's toted a compact mirror down to the lessening hours of the town's unfiltered sun, and sat down against the back of the hunting supply store.

After thirty years of spiritually manifesting his eyeliner, it's harder than he remembers, especially with the scavenged pencil.]

Fuck. [Someone's having a hard time.] Bloody piece of shit.

[If you approach, he'll have one of a couple of reactions. Older men, particularly those broad or bearded, or otherwise classically masculine, will have him scrambling to conceal the pencil behind his leg, quickly barking out a, ] What're you looking at?

[If you have the good fortune not to remind him of one Paul Rowland, however, his reaction will be much less hostile. Instead, he'll give the pencil a little wave and offer a crooked smile.] Bit harder than back home, innit?

𝒊𝒊𝒊. 𝒐𝒐𝒄

[Contact me at ghoulsonfilm or pantsghost @ discord to plot a custom starter. Brackets are prose are both fine!]

Comments

[desperate_times_right]

Aw, the fog in London can be nice! Atmospheric. [It's good for sneaking around in, anyway.] Here, it can do all kinds of things to you. Burn you or freeze you, or give you a fever for some reason.

[Chloe still has a scar on the bridge of her nose from that caustic fog back in April.]

I knew a Charlie, back in London. Obviously not you, though.

[afterdrop]

Evil fog, then. Aces. [He's brilliant at sarcasm; without context, one might think he's honestly chuffed about the news.] All London's does is smell like piss sometimes.

[Not that he's been able to smell it in quite a few decades, with his nose as dead as the rest of his body, but it's not a memory that goes away. It's not an altogether bad one, either. He certainly wouldn't mind being back in Southall on a damp mid-morning, bunking off of school to smoke and laugh with his friends in a grody alleyway.]

This is the most fresh air I've gotten in my life. Lungs don't know what to do with it, do they?

[desperate_times_right]

That's the tradeoff for only being able to see like, fifty people. There were more people at the street party I was at before I got swept away to this place than there are in Milton.

[afterdrop]

You got nabbed from a street party? Some fucking luck, mate.

[More like, "You got to attend a street party?" Living people get all the luck.]

Dragged me in while I was running for my life. Now I gotta wait to see how that ends up.

[desperate_times_right]

Yeah, a civil war had just ended. Atmosphere was pretty great. I had plans for my night that didn't involve winding up in the middle of a blizzard, let me tell you.

Not sure whether to hope for my sake that we get dropped back right where we left off of for your sake that we don't.

[afterdrop]

[Charles fiddles with a couple of stacked chairs as he listens to Chloe, lifting the top one up and away to set it down in the snow.]

What war? [Pure curiosity. He can't say he's got much knowledge of world events outside of England in the last three decades, caught up as he's been in his own shit.] Been awhile since I really paid attention to the news.

[desperate_times_right]

Nationalists kicking up shit in India. [Chloe makes a face.] The army had half of Ahmedabad blockaded when I got there.

[She’s not going to forget witnessing a plane dropping bombs on the city where she’d been born in a hurry.]

[afterdrop]

[His stomach instantly drops, distress clear on his face as he takes in Chloe's words. Any fidgeting comes to a cold halt.]

... My mum's family's in Hyderabad. [His geography isn't the best, and his mum never talked much about India, but he's held onto some things. Just enough to pick out Telangana on a map, and recognize some words of Urdu. He remembers the pictures of his cousins, though, tucked away in his parents' closet. Smiling kids his own age, who he would only ever know on photo paper.] Is- is it okay over there?

[desperate_times_right]

Yeah, it's - [Maybe “okay” is overstating it.] Well, a lot of stuff blew up out in the Western Ghats, and the half of Ahmedabad where those guys were holed up is in pretty bad shape, but the leader of their little militia group died and without him, things are calming down. That's why everyone was celebrating.

[afterdrop]

[Charles nods through the explanation, inwardly regretting his lack of knowledge about the country. While he knows of Ahmedabad, he's never heard of the Ghats, and couldn't say exactly where either of them are.]

What year was all this?

[He's finally been here long enough to understand the way time works.]

[desperate_times_right]

2018. No idea how many waves it's going to make outside of India, though. Except in the warlord scene, I guess, but I don't think that's your thing.

[afterdrop]

Yeah, not quite into pillaging.

[Shit, though. He really needs to start reading the news.]

I came here from 2023. Not missing much, really. Just... stock up on toilet paper, 'round about 2020.

[desperate_times_right]

Hm. Ominous.

I'm not sure where I'll even be by then. I want this new thing I'm doing to work out, but… well, I always want that and it's never stuck yet.

[afterdrop]

[Charles has always felt remarkably lucky that the detective thing worked out, as unlikely a whim it was. He's not sure what the hell he'd be doing otherwise.]

Yeah? And what's the new thing?

[desperate_times_right]

I'm working with this new partner, and she… I guess she makes me want to try different things. Working for cultural ministries and institutions instead of just private buyers, you know.

[afterdrop]

[He squints for a moment, like he's trying to solve a puzzle. Cultural and buyers definitely paint a bit of a picture.]

Archeologist, then? Are those a real thing, or just for movies?

[desperate_times_right]

I think you have to have a degree or something to call yourself an archaeologist.

[Even Indy was a professor.]

I'm just a thief.

[afterdrop]

[Isn't that, in essence, what an archeologist is?]

Well, I'm pretty sure you have to have a certificate or something to be a proper detective, but here I am. Pretty classist to make people pay to earn their living, innit?

[desperate_times_right]

My dad was a professor. Classics. The apple fell near the tree, but hit a few branches on the way down.

You're a detective? You know that guy Dutch?

[She means March.]

[afterdrop]

[The apple fell near the tree. Charles manages to stop the shudder that nearly goes down his back, but the invisible chill in the back of his mind is unavoidable. He's spent the better part of his life worrying that he's landed right in the roots, destined to carry on a legacy of anger and violence.]

His name's Dutch, or he's Dutch? [Not that it matters, because, ] I mean, haven't met either of 'em, anyway.

[desperate_times_right]

His name’s Dutch, or like, Mold or something. You’d know, I think. PI from the seventies, wears that loud-ass ski suit everywhere.

[afterdrop]

[March had better hope he doesn't meet Charles, who will absolutely be calling him Moldy Dutch.]

Loud suit sort of detracts from all the private investigating, doesn't it?

[desperate_times_right]

What's there to investigate here? Everyone’s already in each other's business all the time.

[afterdrop]

Yeah, but there's plenty of crazy shit happening all over! We're all sort of in one big mystery, aren't we?

[Despite it all, he seems a little bit excited by that prospect.]

That's my specialty, back home. The weird stuff no one else can solve.

[desperate_times_right]

I see. I bet my friend Elena would love to compare notes with you. She's a journalist, but she always seems to lose her camera before anything supernatural happens.