my piece for @thebanguette‘s June 5th prompt:
A Little Fall of Rain: Grief, loss, and the emptiness left behind by those we love when they depart.
[ID: three page long digital illustration that only uses blue values with bright red details. The first page is made of four panels, the first one sees child Enjolras and child Combferre, lying under the covers, reading books together; the second panel illustrates child Joly, standing on a chair, looking out from an hospital window, red lights simmers through the glass into the room, his crouches are against a table; the third panel is a dark rectangle with the words “Children of the barricades who didn’t last the night” written in the middle; the fourth panel sees a young Grantaire terrified in a room, there’s blood splattered on him and on the wall next to him and on the wall we see the elongated shadows of the Napoleonic Guard, we understand that he’s a witness to a failed riot previous to the one narrated in Les Mis. The second page has three panels: in the first one child Eponine holds a lizard close to a distracted child Cosette, Eponine is smirking mischeviously; the second panel has children Feuilly, Bossuet, and Bahorel looking out from the Orphanage window’s towards the sky. Within the window we see the moon and the stars but we also catch glimpses of the fire burning the streets below, another failed riot; the last panel of the page is a more bucolic scene: child Jehan and Courfeyrac, dressed distinctly better than everyone else so far, are holding a small chick in the middle of what looks like a barnyard. The last page consists of only two almost identical panels: the first one sees madame Hoceleoup in front of the Musain, her establishment, holding a hand towards Gavroche who has just stolen an apple from her. The kid is laughing. The second panel has madame Hoceleoup in front of the Musain in the same spot and from the same angle, only this time Gavroche isn’t there and we see the Musain after the failed revolution: blood splattered on the streets and red flags torn apart hanging from the windows. In each panel is a lyric from the song Turning from the Les Mis musical. The lyrics are:
Did you see them / going off to fight / children of the barricades who didn’t last the night. / Did you see them / lying where they died / someone used to cradle them / and kiss them when they cried. / Did you see them / lying side to side... End ID]
