Story 16: "Confirmation" by Bonetree

[emily-shore.livejournal.com]

Our first selection for short story week was nominated by lsugaralmond. It's an all things vignette.

TITLE: Confirmation
AUTHOR: Bonetree
CATEGORY: Vignette, missing scene
RATING: NC-17
DISCLAIMER: These are not my characters. No profit is being made and no infringement is intended.
SUMMARY: Choices, wings and all things.

Comments

[lsugaralmond.livejournal.com]

I like this vignette because it stands out amongst the many many All Things fics by portraying the first time as one tinged with regret and questions and uncertainty, instead of the hearts and flowers mutli-orgasmic transcendental love making that appears in most of the others (not that there isn't a special place in my heart for that stuff too). It feels more real to me because of this, and I think of all the attempts I've read to explain the missing time in the episode, this is probably the one I've chosen to absorb into my own personal canon.

It also leaves me wanting so much more, as all the best fics do. I'd love to know what happened in the minutes after the story ended, what they said to each other, if anything was resolved. But I also like that we don't get that. It's just a perfectly-preserved moment in time, and it ends with things still unsaid and unresolved. What did the rest of you think?

[wendelah1]

I don't know if this is going to make any sense, as it is 5 AM here, and I forgot to go to bed.

I do like this very much, for Bonetree's artful use of language and the sense of realism she tries to bring to this story. I like the little repetition of the phrase "The Buddha did not smile" with "Mulder did not smile." I like the pairing of the rocking motion of prayer with the rhythmic movements of love-making. She tried to bring the images from Scully's visionary experience of the temple into the description of their lovemaking and while I like the idea of it, I don't find this convincing somehow.

I don't agree with her characterization of Scully as having never understood the word sacred. At least after her experience of having survived her cancer, Scully is portrayed as having religious faith. Before that, she believed that she was meant to save Kevin, the boy with stigmatic wounds. She believed that Emily was speaking to her somehow, in the scene in "All Souls." where she let the last little crippled girl be taken by the archangel. These seem like spiritual experiences to me. I am sure that Scully would see them as having elements of the sacred.

Also, I don't think that people who are having a visionary experience are capable of thinking so much while they are having it. It just takes you over and you lose your Self. It isn't very conducive to explanation with words. Her bringing together in Scully's mind the figure of Christ, "intricate sculpture of a man dying on a cross," and the Buddha from the temple, and then Mulder making love to Scully reluctantly, even sacrificially, is very poetic. I am trying but I just don't believe it.

She wanted to tell him. She wanted to say that
what she'd seen on the dying man's face
on the cross -- the knowing about choices, his
choice that was never a choice - was the
same as the expression on the statue of the
Buddha, serene in his red smoke room, hidden
in his dark, golden recess.

It was what she'd seen on Mulder's face as he'd
looked at her from the bed, the look he'd
held her with as she'd stood beside him,
silent, and undressed.

The look on Christ's face is one of acceptance of God's will, even in the face of suffering. The Buddha is serene because of his acceptance that life is suffering. This is not the same thing, to my mind. And how can Mulder's face be both serene and full of regret? Who is regretting what here, exactly?

Is Scully thinking Mulder is suffering emotional pain over the decision to have sex with her? Is Bonetree? Or has he painfully accepted and surrendered himself to his sexual encounter with Scully? The phrase "in some bars of the light" implies a sort of cage or prison. Why would he be so reluctant? Why does Scully believe "it would never happen again?" This sex scene is seeming less transcendent the more I think about it. Maybe Bonetree means us to realize this isn't great sex or even good sex. I do believe that Scully would have a hard time just being in her body, without analyzing it all while it was happening.

I do like that it leaves everything up in the air, because despite the whole everything happens for a reason theme, "All Things" left many questions about the Mulder/Scully relationship unanswered. Trying to tie together Scully's Catholicism with the vision in the temple with what we all presumed was a missing sex scene happening in the bedroom was not an easy task. This story was more successful than most, but not entirely so for this reader.

That look of serene resignation she describes is what I saw on Mulder's face as he entered the circle of light with the other abductees at the end of Requiem.

[yaboiksar.livejournal.com]

Wow! Very very good!

[loosehorses.livejournal.com]

Thanks for such a great, honest discussion about this story! It's cool to read everyone's take on this short piece. I really appreciate it the interest and the input. :-)

Bonetree