I bit of back story. I’m writing a comic and this is a piece that gives a bit of perspective into one of my characters. My comic is about a group of people living in a post-apocalyptic world. There’s been a great war and people are still reeling. In the madness left over from this war an evil dictator moves in and takes over, generally making life worse for everyone. My story is centered around two characters in particular, Eleanore and Isabella. Eleanore is a super soldier of sorts, with a vendetta against Boris Ladinof, the dictator in charge. Isabella is a sister of the order of some religion that’s come about from mis-translated texts about Catholic nuns and Brothel whores. The main tenet of the religion is basically about achieving spiritual enlightenment through sexual intercourse. Did I mention the war was about peoples God’s? Well it was…so…yea…that should be enough info for this to make some sense. Oh also the story is from the perspective of Eleanore. So, without further ado. My story. Enjoy, rate(?), comment, edit? Whatever…

We walked through the desolate town. The picture of filth and hunger covering the faces of everyone we passed by. It was becoming commonplace. Every town was a carbon copy of the next. Fear mixed with sadness, written on everyone’s face. All the anger and resentment bubbling just under the surface. No one had the energy to show it though. If Boris knew anything it was how to drive out all the fight in a person. Even I was starting to feel it. That feeling of “What’s the point? Why bother? This can only end in failure, so why even try?”

Lost in my thoughts I didn’t notice that Isabella was talking to me. I turned to her just in time to see her trip over a crack in the street, too distracted by some old, worn graffiti on the wall. Graffiti from a time long past, when people still tried to fight. Luckily by now I’m used to her clumsiness. I catch her and start to berate her for being so absentminded. She’s not listening to me. She’s in awe of this ancient scrawl. Talking about how beautiful it is. The fading colors just barely recognizable. Red and Blue. The colors of the resistance. Colors I saw everyday growing up. Colors that only invoke painful memories of all I’ve lost for the advancement of the cause.

It’s different for her though. She sees them and is in awe of the shape, the line. How perfect she says. She talks of how some of the girls of the order were taught to paint. Going into a story of how when she tried her hand at drawing she was punished because the masters didn’t think she was fit for it. All they wanted her for was sex. I cringe as I’m reminded of what she is, what she was made to be.

Off to my side I hear a stifled chuckle. I turn to look at her and she is on the verge of bursting out laughing. She looks at me and my confusion must be quite evident. She can’t hold it back anymore and she erupts in the most melodic laughter I’ve heard in ages. I can’t help but laugh with her. I don’t know why we are laughing, but it feels good. I realize it’s been so long since I’ve laughed. I forgot how nice it is.

Finally we stop. Still giddy from the pleasure of a good, strong laugh. Out of breath, I ask her why she was laughing and she responds with a tale of how she was so much trouble at the (abbey). Apparently when they tried to punish her for “drawing out of turn” and generally being useless they had placed her in a room with no windows for three days. By the time they had come to retrieve her at the end of the third day she had found a way to use the dirt on the floor to smear the wall with drawings. When they opened the door to get her and they saw her crude scribbles on the wall she said, “Can you believe I’ve never had a lesson?”

Then it starts again. Right there in the middle of the street. That laughter. More contagious than any virus Boris could pay to have cooked up. Once we start it feels like we’ll never stop. In the back of my mind I think I shouldn’t be laughing. People are dying and I’m just standing here laughing at an old painting. How must it look. Then I feel her hand on my arm, steadying herself as she crumples over from the pain of laughing too hard. Suddenly I don’t care so much about what has happened, what I know to be happening right at this moment to people who aren’t me. All there is is this. Just this shared laughter between friends. For this moment we are free.

This is my first post on here…quite a nice feeling…like I’ve actually accomplished something…kind of sad that it took me not being able to sleep to get this…but still nice to just get this :)