Entry tags:
Jakob Vanderschpiegle on politics (crossposted: ![[profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
drabblemania, non_plot)
(This partly to prove to myself that I can write that which is not merely fluffy. I get stuck in the fluffy because it makes me giggle, but sometimes life isn't fluffy.)
To say that dinner that night was 'tense' was an understatement. Tense was far too mild a term to be using. Jakob sighed deeply, pushing food around his plate in an attempt to fool people into thinking he was eating.
He'd been hungry when he'd gotten off the train in Venlo, but he'd left his appetite somewhere between the train station and Everettdoorn. Maybe it was the fact that the fastest, most "convenient" way between Amsterdam and the piddly-assed little burg his parents lived in was actually to take the train out of the Netherlands to Cologne, Germany - going through German customs, of course - and then back to Venlo by high-speed train. And then having them pick him up from there to drive the last half-hour.
He didn't like Germany. It left a bad taste in his mouth. The taste of tyranny and spilled blood.
He didn't like his father, either, come to think of it. Karl Vanderschpiegle was sitting at the end of the table, master of all he surveyed, stuffing wurst and potatoes into his mouth like the pig that he was. Hearty German food. Karl Vanderschpiegle was half-German, and made no secret of it. Jakob idly wondered if the fact that they were eating pork wurst made his father a cannibal.
For some reason he found himself humming 'Piggies' under his breath.
His mother wasn't really any better. She was short and built like a fire hydrant with a face that might have been beautiful once before the permanent scowl and the sense of entitlement set in. Now that it had, well, there really wasn't any hope for her either. And his sisters ... with the exception of Kaatje, who was really too young to have had much in the way of damaging propaganda set too far in stone ... were either terrifying, in the case of Svetlana, or empty-headed matronly twits, in the case of Helga and Valda.
What was it they said about family? That it was an opportunity to socialize with people you'd otherwise never have anything to do with, or something like that? Jakob sighed again, feeling decidedly uncomfortable in the crisply pressed linen pants and sweater. He'd rebleached his hair and left it naked of its usual dye job, and taken out the most obvious of the piercings while he was en route to Venlo, completing his innocuous disguise as Industrious Physics Major Boy.
When he got home, he had definite plans involving a water pipe, an enormous pint of beer, and a bottle of Manic Panic Tiger Lily. And if he was lucky, some cute boy to round out the evening with a bang.
Military Dickhead Dad set down his newspaper with a grumble. "Don't know what this world's coming to."
"Oh?" His mother the Bitch replied.
"They arrested another one of them last evening in Rotterdam." The look on Karl's face couldn't be more disgusted if he'd swallowed a mouthful of raw sewage.
Jakob sighed again, biting his tongue. Must ... not ... say ... anything. Arguing about Germany's criminalization of homosexuality and the obvious human rights violations therein with his father was like trying to swim upstream in a flowing river of sulphuric acid. Impossible, and potentially deadly, too.
"Are they so stupid that they don't realize the sin and degradation of their ways? It's people like them that make me fear for the future of this nation." Military Dickhead Dad went on, turning a page. "Oh well. What does it matter? The only good one of them is a dead one."
"What difference does it make?" Jakob blurted before he could stop himself.
His father looked at him intently for the first time in the entire meal. "What did you say?"
"I said what difference does it make?" His father's question was far from rhetorical. No point in backing out now. "So Jimmy goes to bed with Johnny at night instead of Jennifer. What does it matter?"
"It's a sin." his mother replied definitively.
"It's immoral. And it's illegal. And it's harmful to the Party." his father continued, a steely look in his blue eyes. "I would have thought you'd have better sense than to question the will of the Furher. What kind of people are you associating with at that school?" Fortunately, that question was rhetorical. His father was just getting his usual sermon off the runway. "It is our place as loyal members of the Party to expand the Party by furthering the Furher's teachings."
"So we're all just studs and breeding bitches then." Jakob shrugged snidely.
He'd been away from home too long - or perhaps not long enough - his reflexes weren't quite as good as they used to be, obviously, because he failed to dodge the flat-handed slap across the mouth that that remark recieved.
"I will have no more of this insolence at my supper table." Karl hissed, his eyes reduced to slits and his mouth twisted into a snarl of hate. "No son of mine will disrespect the Furher in my hearing."
Jakob sighed and got to his feet, trying not to wipe away at his face where his father's signet ring had broken the skin again. He knew an exit line when he heard one.
Besides, he really wasn't that hungry anyway, to tell the truth.
To say that dinner that night was 'tense' was an understatement. Tense was far too mild a term to be using. Jakob sighed deeply, pushing food around his plate in an attempt to fool people into thinking he was eating.
He'd been hungry when he'd gotten off the train in Venlo, but he'd left his appetite somewhere between the train station and Everettdoorn. Maybe it was the fact that the fastest, most "convenient" way between Amsterdam and the piddly-assed little burg his parents lived in was actually to take the train out of the Netherlands to Cologne, Germany - going through German customs, of course - and then back to Venlo by high-speed train. And then having them pick him up from there to drive the last half-hour.
He didn't like Germany. It left a bad taste in his mouth. The taste of tyranny and spilled blood.
He didn't like his father, either, come to think of it. Karl Vanderschpiegle was sitting at the end of the table, master of all he surveyed, stuffing wurst and potatoes into his mouth like the pig that he was. Hearty German food. Karl Vanderschpiegle was half-German, and made no secret of it. Jakob idly wondered if the fact that they were eating pork wurst made his father a cannibal.
For some reason he found himself humming 'Piggies' under his breath.
His mother wasn't really any better. She was short and built like a fire hydrant with a face that might have been beautiful once before the permanent scowl and the sense of entitlement set in. Now that it had, well, there really wasn't any hope for her either. And his sisters ... with the exception of Kaatje, who was really too young to have had much in the way of damaging propaganda set too far in stone ... were either terrifying, in the case of Svetlana, or empty-headed matronly twits, in the case of Helga and Valda.
What was it they said about family? That it was an opportunity to socialize with people you'd otherwise never have anything to do with, or something like that? Jakob sighed again, feeling decidedly uncomfortable in the crisply pressed linen pants and sweater. He'd rebleached his hair and left it naked of its usual dye job, and taken out the most obvious of the piercings while he was en route to Venlo, completing his innocuous disguise as Industrious Physics Major Boy.
When he got home, he had definite plans involving a water pipe, an enormous pint of beer, and a bottle of Manic Panic Tiger Lily. And if he was lucky, some cute boy to round out the evening with a bang.
Military Dickhead Dad set down his newspaper with a grumble. "Don't know what this world's coming to."
"Oh?" His mother the Bitch replied.
"They arrested another one of them last evening in Rotterdam." The look on Karl's face couldn't be more disgusted if he'd swallowed a mouthful of raw sewage.
Jakob sighed again, biting his tongue. Must ... not ... say ... anything. Arguing about Germany's criminalization of homosexuality and the obvious human rights violations therein with his father was like trying to swim upstream in a flowing river of sulphuric acid. Impossible, and potentially deadly, too.
"Are they so stupid that they don't realize the sin and degradation of their ways? It's people like them that make me fear for the future of this nation." Military Dickhead Dad went on, turning a page. "Oh well. What does it matter? The only good one of them is a dead one."
"What difference does it make?" Jakob blurted before he could stop himself.
His father looked at him intently for the first time in the entire meal. "What did you say?"
"I said what difference does it make?" His father's question was far from rhetorical. No point in backing out now. "So Jimmy goes to bed with Johnny at night instead of Jennifer. What does it matter?"
"It's a sin." his mother replied definitively.
"It's immoral. And it's illegal. And it's harmful to the Party." his father continued, a steely look in his blue eyes. "I would have thought you'd have better sense than to question the will of the Furher. What kind of people are you associating with at that school?" Fortunately, that question was rhetorical. His father was just getting his usual sermon off the runway. "It is our place as loyal members of the Party to expand the Party by furthering the Furher's teachings."
"So we're all just studs and breeding bitches then." Jakob shrugged snidely.
He'd been away from home too long - or perhaps not long enough - his reflexes weren't quite as good as they used to be, obviously, because he failed to dodge the flat-handed slap across the mouth that that remark recieved.
"I will have no more of this insolence at my supper table." Karl hissed, his eyes reduced to slits and his mouth twisted into a snarl of hate. "No son of mine will disrespect the Furher in my hearing."
Jakob sighed and got to his feet, trying not to wipe away at his face where his father's signet ring had broken the skin again. He knew an exit line when he heard one.
Besides, he really wasn't that hungry anyway, to tell the truth.
no subject
Is this in one of the alternative timelines? I normally wouldn't make a big stink about context, but you have so many contexts to choose from.
no subject
You're absolutely right - he's pretty much right on the cusp of the Permanent Goodbye. As soon as he figures out how to deal with that little sister of his, he's gone.