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

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.

I don't think I've ever loved anyone that much.

[He pauses, and thinks about how lonely George must be.]

That's where I was before I came here. Asleep on his couch, holding his gun.

Do you think he would've done it with you there?

[That Kenny was sleeping on his teacher's couch strikes him as a bit odd, but less so than this. Besides; in retrospect Neil imagines Keating would've lent them space, if any of them had needed it.]

[Kenny isn't even bringing up the fact that they had been skinny-dipping, too]

I don't know.

I hope he wouldn't.

[See, now that would be weird. Though Neil is hardly one to judge.]

What're you going to say about it?

I don't know.

I guess you'll have to hope you change his mind, that he won't want to go through with it anymore.

[He takes another swallow of his drink, looking down. Neil's fairly sure he would have thought the better of it if someone had stopped him, but it's hard to be certain of what someone else might feel.]

This doesn't bother you.

[It's not a question]

[He shrugs.]

Maybe in a perfect world no one would ever even think of dying like that. I think, having people around to help might be the best to hope for.

[He takes a drink]

It's funny. As a theory, I never imagined I would be sitting here with someone from the late fifties. Or someone from the new Millennium. This place is like a dream.

[This makes him smile.]

When I got here, I ended up putting on A Midsummer Night's Dream and had Robin Goodfellow in the cast. My roommate's a superhero and one of my closest friends is a princess. It's almost stranger to meet someone-- closer, to the real world, than any of that now.

I feel like I'm in a Borges story. That everything is layered and math is the solution.

Then I'm no help. I gave up on mathematics when I got here.

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;