Categories > Games > Final Fantasy 7 > Slowly Twisting
"Since when was Vincent a goddamn artist?"
"What?" Tifa stared at Cid in bewilderment.
"He's holed up in the fucking attic with a pencil and a shitload of paper. Wouldn't let me in." He scowled and chewed on the end of his cigarette for a second, then added. "Guy needs a fucking cough drop too."
"Slow down. Why are you trying to get into the attic? There's nothing up there." She felt a little disoriented, Cid had launched into the topic (whatever it was) a little too quickly to make much sense. It left her irritated.
"Because your fucking television's out and I can't get to the goddamn roof without getting into the goddamn attic first!" His anger was a little disproportionate to the situation, but it usually was. She ignored it.
"Vincent sleeps up there, Cid."
"Since when? And what the fuck for?"
"He came by Midgar because he needed to be away from Ajit. Something about oppressive silence." She returned to wiping down the counter, preparing for the night's customers. "He was going to sleep on the floor to be out of the way, but we convinced him to sleep in the attic after Marlene suggested it."
"That isn't what I asked."
"It's what I answered."
"What the hell?"
"Look," she put down the cleaning rag. "I don't really know either. He's a private man, Cid, you know that. It's just the way he is."
Above them, Vincent sat silently on the wooden floor of the attic, pencil held tightly in his right hand. He was sketching. He paused then, studying his progress. The single eye of a shattered head stared ahead in empty silence. The left side of the skull was gone, blasted into nothing by a high calibre gun. A nine millimetre high-precision rifle, to be exact. Most of the brain was destroyed, and you could see the gentle slope of the cranial wall behind the nasal cavity, the cartilage portion missing, lost in the grime of the street. A garish streak of red smeared across the remnants of the forehead, and a flap of skin marked what was left of the eyelid on the left side. The jaw was still there, and blood pooled from the mouth like sick drool. Vincent's long legs curled beneath him and he shifted slightly, preparing to reach at a different angle. The face on the paper was drawn purely from memory, a snippet of a mission he'd completed in the long smudge of memory from his Turk years. He remembered things clearly, but the human memory is prone to blurring over time. So he'd begun sketching. It gave him something to do. He placed the pencil tip and darkened the shading behind the eye. Then he was done. He eyed the picture critically, checking the details-he found nothing that seemed out of place. He turned the page in his book and began an arm. Sometime in the same year (or at least eight months later), an older Turk had blown off part of his own arm with a grenade. The mission was related to the one he'd just drawn from, and he could remember the jagged edge of the man's humerus, a partial bone exposed, blood pooling around it. The image hovered vividly in his mind. He'd only gotten the preliminary outlines down before he was interrupted again by a knocking on the door. It wasn't as heavy or rapid as Cid's had been, not as violent. He lifted his head, eyes unblinking, then lowered his focus to his work again. The knocking came again, and he answered it with silence. Whoever it was (most likely Tifa), tried twice more before giving up, leaving him to his drawings and his memories. An hour later, he'd fallen barely asleep, metallic left hand placed almost protectively over the sketchbook.
"What?" Tifa stared at Cid in bewilderment.
"He's holed up in the fucking attic with a pencil and a shitload of paper. Wouldn't let me in." He scowled and chewed on the end of his cigarette for a second, then added. "Guy needs a fucking cough drop too."
"Slow down. Why are you trying to get into the attic? There's nothing up there." She felt a little disoriented, Cid had launched into the topic (whatever it was) a little too quickly to make much sense. It left her irritated.
"Because your fucking television's out and I can't get to the goddamn roof without getting into the goddamn attic first!" His anger was a little disproportionate to the situation, but it usually was. She ignored it.
"Vincent sleeps up there, Cid."
"Since when? And what the fuck for?"
"He came by Midgar because he needed to be away from Ajit. Something about oppressive silence." She returned to wiping down the counter, preparing for the night's customers. "He was going to sleep on the floor to be out of the way, but we convinced him to sleep in the attic after Marlene suggested it."
"That isn't what I asked."
"It's what I answered."
"What the hell?"
"Look," she put down the cleaning rag. "I don't really know either. He's a private man, Cid, you know that. It's just the way he is."
Above them, Vincent sat silently on the wooden floor of the attic, pencil held tightly in his right hand. He was sketching. He paused then, studying his progress. The single eye of a shattered head stared ahead in empty silence. The left side of the skull was gone, blasted into nothing by a high calibre gun. A nine millimetre high-precision rifle, to be exact. Most of the brain was destroyed, and you could see the gentle slope of the cranial wall behind the nasal cavity, the cartilage portion missing, lost in the grime of the street. A garish streak of red smeared across the remnants of the forehead, and a flap of skin marked what was left of the eyelid on the left side. The jaw was still there, and blood pooled from the mouth like sick drool. Vincent's long legs curled beneath him and he shifted slightly, preparing to reach at a different angle. The face on the paper was drawn purely from memory, a snippet of a mission he'd completed in the long smudge of memory from his Turk years. He remembered things clearly, but the human memory is prone to blurring over time. So he'd begun sketching. It gave him something to do. He placed the pencil tip and darkened the shading behind the eye. Then he was done. He eyed the picture critically, checking the details-he found nothing that seemed out of place. He turned the page in his book and began an arm. Sometime in the same year (or at least eight months later), an older Turk had blown off part of his own arm with a grenade. The mission was related to the one he'd just drawn from, and he could remember the jagged edge of the man's humerus, a partial bone exposed, blood pooling around it. The image hovered vividly in his mind. He'd only gotten the preliminary outlines down before he was interrupted again by a knocking on the door. It wasn't as heavy or rapid as Cid's had been, not as violent. He lifted his head, eyes unblinking, then lowered his focus to his work again. The knocking came again, and he answered it with silence. Whoever it was (most likely Tifa), tried twice more before giving up, leaving him to his drawings and his memories. An hour later, he'd fallen barely asleep, metallic left hand placed almost protectively over the sketchbook.
Sign up to rate and review this story