ABOUT THE SERIES:
(Please read this)

Okay, so I'm going to use this space to talk about this new project I've started. It's called "A Study in Images" and it's a little thing I came up with after reading some imagist poetry. Basically these are each independent one shots that are a view of an image and the symbolism will either be explicit or discrete. All of them WILL be symbolic, for right now I'm planning just to explore the friendship between House and Wilson.

Also, each one of these will be EXACTLY 500 words long, no more, no less! EXACTLY!! (Word count is amazing). The other idea for this is that there will be exactly 500 of these ideas, I'll probably run out of ideas long before then, but if I can't get to 500 I'll try and get to 50.

And yes, I did come up with this idea at one in the morning and this fic was written right about that same time.

I'd love to hear what everyone thinks, not only of the story, but also of the idea in general. I'm a feedback kinda girl! Tell me what works and what doesn't. Thanks!!

A Study in Images:

Part One

Carousel

How very simple a thing, and yet, so much depends upon its turning.

Wilson watched the painted horses rise and fall in careful rhythm to the automated music. The pastel carousel circled around and around; only a few small children rode the gilded horses. It was noon on a Monday and logically almost all of the children were in school.

One small child in particular caught Wilson's eye, a young girl, not yet old enough to attend kindergarten, she clutched at the dirty pink and sea green ribbons that were the reins. From his seat on the bench he could see her laughter, but he couldn't hear it.

The carousel slowed to a stop and the children ran back to the waiting arms of their parents. The "cute" little families meandered about the park, disappearing along the pathways that headed off in different directions.

Wilson turned back to the stationary carousel. So simple a thing. There was nothing ingenious in its form or in the painting, and yet, so much depended upon its turning. The smile and laughter of that little girl depended on it. The old man who was now eating a sandwich out of wax paper—the carousel was his livelihood. Everyday he sat under the sun-bleached umbrella and carefully operated the carousel. A small bird peeped its head out from a gap between two pieces of wood. It fluttered down and landed near the old man. He broke off some bread and threw it to the bird. The bird fluttered back to its hole with the bread and dropped it into the hungry mouths of three bald, little baby bird heads that poked out.

It was as if the carousel turned its own world. Without the painted horses and mechanical music the world would have disappeared into nothing more than another empty spot on the concrete.

And even for its magical ability to create this world, the carousel was old, tired. The thin veneer of paint only covered the painful cracks in the wood forced into its surface by stress and time and weather. The paint was just a cover allowing everyone to believe that the carousel would be able to withstand the test of time.

Oh, what fools they were not to see the truth behind the mask.

Two lives were caught up this "merry-go-round" world where they bounced up and down on the emotional roller-coaster that was each little horse. So much depended on the turning of the carousel. Without it the two of them would become nothing. They were stuck in the dizzying circle, lost in their world unable to escape but unable to deny their dependence upon it.

Wilson stood from the bench and placed one hand on a black horse's mane. The black horse had two ice-blue eyes that looked up at him in frozen hostility.

He sighed and turned from the horse to return to his own carousel.

How very simple a thing, and yet, so much depends upon its turning.