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Topic 23: Pain
There are five basic torture groups, every agent learns. Blunt, sharp, cold, hot and loud.
It is a mystery to me why no one mentioned silence.
Not confinment in isolation. I knew about its effectiveness well enough before this. A different kind of silence. It started nearly thirty years ago, I think. Never mention. Never say. Her name. I never saw Emily suffering like this, not before or since, not even the day she first learned she had cancer, or those nights when the blasted chemotherapy did nothing useful but torment her. But you were wrong, dearest, you were wrong. We should have. Said her name. Spoken of her. She was ours, Emily, and then she was yours, and mine, but no longer ours, and I could not help you.
Or maybe the silence started before this. When you asked me about the first man I killed, and I told you you would not wish to know, and there was hurt in your eyes, but you never asked again. Not until the time I told you just in whose name I was dealing out death now, and that was decades later.
You shouldn't have forgiven me, you know. You would still be alive if you had not.
Emily isn't here, of course. I know that. I was not sure whether Nadia ever was until she left me, not until then, but Emily never was. Still, I find myself talking to her. I have the time now, you see. All the time in the world.
It is not especially cold here, or maybe I can't sense cold that well anymore. Blunt, well, that piece of columm which partly covers my legs certainly is, and so is the sand and earth covering much of the rest. I think I can move my fingers now; in another three days, I might be able to free my left arm. Maybe. There are... opposing factors.
Bullets, when they enter you, aren't that painful, oddly enough. Not sharp, not like needles. I died twice now, though Jack would probably argue the first time does not count. At any case, I felt it more strongly than the second time. The question of control again, perhaps; I wanted her to shoot me, after all. There was just one way to ensure that she would, promptly, without hesitation. It was also the final offering, and the ultimate proof.
The silence, though. They should have been there. All of them, when I was dead. But there was nothing, not until I began to live once more. Still, I thought, now I can bring them back. I have the time. I am no longer bound to mortal limitations. It was just the first step, and now I can bring them back. Nadia, Emily, Jacquelyn. Jack had been the last, and so he would be the first. Then the others. Of course, Jack had other plans.
There are moments when I wonder whether this isn't all one long extended death hallucination. All of it. Finding the tomb, and everything before that. Maybe I am still dying that very first time, in some undisclosed facility, courtesy of the US government. Or in Siena. Another cave, and somehow, every single one of those shards missed an artery. Surely, that was too convenient to be true. Would this mean Nadia was still alive? I think it would. Why then she lives. How did that go? It has been so long since I read Shakespeare. Do you see this? Look on her, look on her lips, look there, look there.
I had a choice, when she died. Even then. It could have been an accident. Another senseless death in a series of senseless deaths; the universe is drowning in them. And everything would have been meaningless. Everything. Hurt her, save her, no difference, she was dead, like Emily, like Jacquelyn. Was that what you would have wanted, Nadia? Surely not. I know you don't want to talk to me anymore, but answer me this. If I had remained with your dead body, and had admitted this to be a universe without any meaning at all, if I had given up and left it to its designs, would that have been really so much better?
An interesting play, Lear. One old man has to become utterly insane and the other has to lose his sight and go through death in order to make them understand. Understand what, though? Is this the promised end? There is a question for you. Cordelia still dies. Love and be silent. Her silence is her power.
Or I could choose a universe with meaning, Nadia. It was the choice I made when the first of my daughters died. If there was meaning, if there was fate, then there was sense. There is sense. I insist on it.
Through a glass darkly. That is not from Lear, but the source will come to me in a moment. I have the time to figure it out. There isn't much to distract me from it. I am not thirsty here, you see, nor am I hungry. It is neither hot nor cold, and frankly, after bullets and an explosion, sharp objects of metal would be an anticlimax. But then, they were never pain. Not to me.
Talk to me. Just once. I don't care if you curse me or tell me the sense in this is not a world that will finally change but a just punishment for me, as long as you talk to me again. I supped with horrors, my darling, indeed I did, and I never claimed the excuse of not knowing what I was doing, did I? I can bear their company.
Only not this silence.
It is a mystery to me why no one mentioned silence.
Not confinment in isolation. I knew about its effectiveness well enough before this. A different kind of silence. It started nearly thirty years ago, I think. Never mention. Never say. Her name. I never saw Emily suffering like this, not before or since, not even the day she first learned she had cancer, or those nights when the blasted chemotherapy did nothing useful but torment her. But you were wrong, dearest, you were wrong. We should have. Said her name. Spoken of her. She was ours, Emily, and then she was yours, and mine, but no longer ours, and I could not help you.
Or maybe the silence started before this. When you asked me about the first man I killed, and I told you you would not wish to know, and there was hurt in your eyes, but you never asked again. Not until the time I told you just in whose name I was dealing out death now, and that was decades later.
You shouldn't have forgiven me, you know. You would still be alive if you had not.
Emily isn't here, of course. I know that. I was not sure whether Nadia ever was until she left me, not until then, but Emily never was. Still, I find myself talking to her. I have the time now, you see. All the time in the world.
It is not especially cold here, or maybe I can't sense cold that well anymore. Blunt, well, that piece of columm which partly covers my legs certainly is, and so is the sand and earth covering much of the rest. I think I can move my fingers now; in another three days, I might be able to free my left arm. Maybe. There are... opposing factors.
Bullets, when they enter you, aren't that painful, oddly enough. Not sharp, not like needles. I died twice now, though Jack would probably argue the first time does not count. At any case, I felt it more strongly than the second time. The question of control again, perhaps; I wanted her to shoot me, after all. There was just one way to ensure that she would, promptly, without hesitation. It was also the final offering, and the ultimate proof.
The silence, though. They should have been there. All of them, when I was dead. But there was nothing, not until I began to live once more. Still, I thought, now I can bring them back. I have the time. I am no longer bound to mortal limitations. It was just the first step, and now I can bring them back. Nadia, Emily, Jacquelyn. Jack had been the last, and so he would be the first. Then the others. Of course, Jack had other plans.
There are moments when I wonder whether this isn't all one long extended death hallucination. All of it. Finding the tomb, and everything before that. Maybe I am still dying that very first time, in some undisclosed facility, courtesy of the US government. Or in Siena. Another cave, and somehow, every single one of those shards missed an artery. Surely, that was too convenient to be true. Would this mean Nadia was still alive? I think it would. Why then she lives. How did that go? It has been so long since I read Shakespeare. Do you see this? Look on her, look on her lips, look there, look there.
I had a choice, when she died. Even then. It could have been an accident. Another senseless death in a series of senseless deaths; the universe is drowning in them. And everything would have been meaningless. Everything. Hurt her, save her, no difference, she was dead, like Emily, like Jacquelyn. Was that what you would have wanted, Nadia? Surely not. I know you don't want to talk to me anymore, but answer me this. If I had remained with your dead body, and had admitted this to be a universe without any meaning at all, if I had given up and left it to its designs, would that have been really so much better?
An interesting play, Lear. One old man has to become utterly insane and the other has to lose his sight and go through death in order to make them understand. Understand what, though? Is this the promised end? There is a question for you. Cordelia still dies. Love and be silent. Her silence is her power.
Or I could choose a universe with meaning, Nadia. It was the choice I made when the first of my daughters died. If there was meaning, if there was fate, then there was sense. There is sense. I insist on it.
Through a glass darkly. That is not from Lear, but the source will come to me in a moment. I have the time to figure it out. There isn't much to distract me from it. I am not thirsty here, you see, nor am I hungry. It is neither hot nor cold, and frankly, after bullets and an explosion, sharp objects of metal would be an anticlimax. But then, they were never pain. Not to me.
Talk to me. Just once. I don't care if you curse me or tell me the sense in this is not a world that will finally change but a just punishment for me, as long as you talk to me again. I supped with horrors, my darling, indeed I did, and I never claimed the excuse of not knowing what I was doing, did I? I can bear their company.
Only not this silence.
OOC
poor Arvin!
OOC
Re: OOC
otherwise, I think my messenger is being wonky, and I have to run but will catch you later!