had_not_lived | ♕ |[42]| Methought I heard one calling, Child! And I replied, My Lord.

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♕ |[42]| Methought I heard one calling, Child! And I replied, My Lord.

[VOICE;]

[No preamble, just a deep breath, and then...]

Father, father, where are you going?
O do not walk so fast.
Speak, father, speak to your little boy
Or else I shall be lost.

The night was dark, no father was there,
The child was wet with dew.
The mire was deep, & the child did weep,
And away the vapor flew.

[Long pause, the faint flutter of pages turning.]

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you cam,
And don't have any kids yourself.

[Another pause, and he clears his throat quietly, a little embarrassed at using that kind of language on the Network, but, well. This is poetry and he has a point. Softer, now;]

Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?

[There's another moment's pause, as though he's going to say something else, before Neil thinks the better of it and cuts off the recording with a click.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Harvard, [he answers almost immediately, not because he feels any draw but because even now the answer is drilled into him.] And medical school. It wasn't my plan, though. [His voice drops a little lower, and he smiles in an oddly distant manner.] My father's.

[Kenny's eyebrows raise just slightly]

What did you want to do?

You know, for a long time I hardly thought about having a choice. [A pause.] I wanted to act. He didn't approve of that at all, though; he never let me, and when I went and did it anyway without his permission... He... [There's a certain delicacy here,] didn't take disobedience well.

[Kenny is listening as he orders two scotch on the rocks, because he's like that]

And read poetry?

Not a very doctorly hobby.

[It suits him fine, Neil's really the sort to drink what everyone else is, when he does at all.]

No, not really. The poetry, our English teacher got us into. He's the first one that ever made it seem like there was more to school than just... you know. Getting perfect grades and being whatever we were supposed to be.

My English teacher was sort of the same. He used to talk about the red scare, and immortality, and...

[Kenny smiles]

They make a difference.

It changed my life,

[he agrees, without a trace of irony. Neil doesn't blame anyone but himself for things going wrong.]

So, here... That's what I do, all the things I wanted to and couldn't.

You're completely comfortable here, aren't you?

[Sometimes Kenny manages to wake up enough for a sharp comment or two like this one]

[He blinks, not displeased but oddly surprised.]

I suppose I am, now. I wasn't at first.

[The drinks arrive, and Kenny takes a sip. The last conversation like this he had he was the younger party, and suicide had also been the topic avoided by both parties]

I get it. No one judges, here, do they?

Not really. [Most days he'd have other things on his mind to be judged about, but thinking of his father makes him think of death.] And no one has any... anything of their own, hanging on what I do with my life. There's no one who can forbid me to do anything. I like that, too, you know?

If it makes you feel better, I didn't have freedom until college, really. Even now? I still have all kinds of accountability to deal with.

Well, no one does. It's not like my father was so different from my friends', just... Once I had a taste of it I felt like I couldn't give it up again. [He shakes his head a little and reaches for his own drink.] It's hard to explain, because it doesn't really make sense. It did at the time, but now...

[He takes a bit of a drink]

You don't have to explain it. It's not like even if you could have it make sense that it would necessarily make sense to me. Your decision was something you had to make.

It's not something I talk about much, usually. I mean, it isn't a secret-- but I don't want that to be the only thing people think of me, or the first thing.

[He sips his drink, breaking eye contact for a moment.]

The City is... well, I want to make the most of it. To live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.

Would you have wanted someone to stop you?

Yes. At least, I think so.

[He looks up.]

I mean, I'm better off here, in pretty much every way. But... I can't make up for it. And I'd like to think I could've learned all the things I've learned since, sooner or later, even at home.

[He's thinking about George, and the gun that he's curled up with back home]

I think I have to stop someone. Back home.

Who?

[They're near enough in circumstance that the question doesn't seem too intrusive; and besides, this is hardly a guarded conversation.]

My English professor.

What makes you think he's going to...

[Neil just kind of nods, he doesn't want to say it any more than he has to.]

Things. Accumulated things.

[Kenny shrugs]

I sort of just know these things, sometimes. What people are feeling. I've been worried about him.

You think he's been planning it?

[The idea's a little novel to him; Neil's suicide happened because he didn't stop to think. Does that change anything? Could it be the right decision if it wasn't a rash one?]

I think... you'd be right, to stop him.

Yeah, I do.

[Pause]

I think he lost someone really dear to him. I don't know if the person moved, or died.

I'd bet died. [He pauses, frowning, brow creased.] I mean-- it has to be something big, something awful, awful enough that stopping to think about it didn't change how he felt.

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;

You know I just closed my eyes, my whole world disappeared;