velocette | (no subject)

[As usual, he's smoking. And it's not unusual that he's staring at the smoke like he's been hypnotized, but he's smiling more than he has in the years he's been on board.]

You know, I've been so fixated on these things for so many years. On cigarettes, I mean, Kools if I could get them--and it's funny that these are the greyest thing in my life. The single thing that lacks color now. I sort of expected the smoke to be blue...or pink.

I actually stopped seeing color when I was four. I think that was when I stopped believing in God, Santa, and the American Dream. I assumed for a long time that everyone went colorblind (literally, figuratively, whichever) when they got old enough to be cynical. But I came here and I met a real muse, and I've realized that I was mostly wrong.

I wonder what the rest of you lost when you stopped being kids? I don't expect many of you will answer, since most of you are understandably very sensitive about your pasts, but it's a real question. What did you lose when you grew up?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

No, and they're what really gives the world flavor. What do you do with what you can't kill?

If I fear something and I can't kill it, it's useless to worry about it too much, don't you think?

[He thinks about that and smiles, just a bit, impressed.]

Most people are just afraid of the enormity of the possible future. But you're right. And if more people could think like you do, we'd probably have fewer inmates on board.

[He smiles back, though he looks a little sheepish-- he's not very good with this sort of praise, but he'll take it.]

I was lucky that I had good people surrounding me at the time. And I thought I had very little future, for a while- it's not so scary to have it back.

Why did you doubt your future?

[He bites the inside of his lip for a second, thinking of how to phrase it.]

I was- very ill, when I got here. [A beat] Dying. There was no cure where I'm from.

Is this place a second chance for you, then? Or just a vacation from the illness?

[He shakes his head] Dr. Cox had a cure for my illness. It won't come back, he told me.

I haven't met him. ...Do you have a warden now?

Oh, I'm not- I am a warden.