MINGLE - Post-Op(era) Recovery

[pumpkinhollow]

On this night we drink to the death of Sorrow.

After the Fall of Efrain With the Prince of Sorrow's Song dead and gone, the opera dissipates, spitting its victims out on the summit of Crane's Ridge where the Dance of Celestine was held some months before. It's getting late, and there is no one yet in town to run the train. Some will brave the trip home simply for the sake of collapsing into their own beds and achieving some sense of normalcy. Others will do so with the hope of returning with help. But many others will simply say "fuck it" and camp out on the mountain, still fitted with extra firewood from the festival and the means to build temporary structures in nearby storage sheds. The journey down will be safer in the morning, and there's solidarity to be had in a cool spring night spent under the stars.

Oh, look, there's even some non-perishable food and wine from the Dance. Combined with what can be hunted or foraged, as well as snacks and drinks stolen from the concession stand, there's plenty to go around. This might even be a little bit fun! Anyone up for another game of Never Have I Ever? Maybe a little Truth or Dare? Or perhaps you just want to chat and unwind with your friends. Whatever the case may be, have fun. This is your time. After darkness, there is a dawn. At the death of Sorrow, there is joy.

Comments

[tehilim127_1]

Zivia doesn't wince, but it's by careful effort. She nods, instead, and considers for another moment.

(She knows this is often the hard part: trying to help, making an offer that doesn't land, and not taking it as either a personal rejection or a failure. This is not, she reminds herself, about how she feels.)

"I think," slowly, "I think I might understand your nightmare a little better, now. A little."

[lovethyneighb_or]

Mulcahy, for his part, looks distant, the way anyone would when reminiscing on the past.

Even when she speaks up again. He looks up at her, and there isn't much on his face, but there is a heaviness on his shoulders.

"What's on your mind?"

[tehilim127_1]

"Only that ... between what I saw on that stage and what you've told me, it makes sense that you would carry that combination of fears. Being hunted, being driven ..."

A breath. "Being changed. Into something violent that you don't want to be."

[lovethyneighb_or]

He nods carefully.

"Yes. Well. I believe we've moved from 'fear' to 'truth' there, but yes."

[tehilim127_1]

The smallest frown forms on her face, traces a line between her eyebrows.

"I don't know that I would say so."

[lovethyneighb_or]

A moment, as he works out how to say this politely.

"I'm curious as to how you come to that conclusion."

[tehilim127_1]

"Well." She folds her hands again. "You did something horribly violent. Under extreme strain and pressure. And the impression I have is that it wasn't the first of many such acts, but something you hate the memory of and don't ever want to repeat."

cw injury ment, teeth stuff

[lovethyneighb_or]

"I would suggest it's both. Well--I have not, ah, murdered anyone else. I should hope not."

Well, he hopes. It's hard to know what lies beyond the ragged and torn edges of his memory.

"But I hardly took my treatment lying down. I put my boxing experience to good use in those years. I can be certain of that. Blood was drawn. Clothes ripped. I was... as animal as you knew me in that dream. Cornered and rabid."

He shakes his head, trying not to remember the feeling of teeth giving way. "And I have not changed. If I was put back there now, I know I would do the same or worse as I had then. I am not sorry. Merely ashamed."

There is no forgiveness for those who are not regretful.

[tehilim127_1]

She's quiet for a long moment, biting back protests and arguments.

"Those don't feel like the same thing to me," is what she finally says, "but I'm not sure my feelings on the subject matter. Do you feel like you should be sorry?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

After that long pause, it takes him another moment to focus on her and respond.

"For harming another like that? As a priest? Of course. Not that that ever stopped me, evidently."

[tehilim127_1]

"For fighting when they hurt you. For trying to stop them."

[lovethyneighb_or]

As he speaks, he repeats.

"The chalice which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?"

[tehilim127_1]

Like everything else in the world, her resolve not to argue has a breaking strain. Counters are already leaping up in her mind ready to be spoken: and the living form our Father gave you, in His image, should you not guard and protect it? Or, do you really think that was God's will they were doing?

(Or, far less kindly: who the hell are you to think that's your line?)

The breaking strain is not yet, not quite. Zivia draws a breath.

"I see what you mean. But I'd say you did."

[lovethyneighb_or]

(And that's the thing, isn't it? It isn't. Not necessarily in terms of hubris or presumptuousness, but that the thought is foreign. It is not natively his, in that while the foundations of the guilt are all homegrown, the unchecked wilds of it--the arguments, the shoddy logic--those were imposed. Repeated at him under duress until they stuck. Zivia is in conversation with Mulcahy as much as she is with Number 2 himself. And it is certainly not his line.)

It takes some real effort of will to get the question out.

"May I ask you to elaborate on that?"

[tehilim127_1]

"Yeah, I don't think I said that clearly. Sorry."

She takes off her glasses, starts to clean them with the edge of the tea towel, frowning down at them in thought.

"The thing is that most of the time, when God hands us suffering, it isn't ... it's not significant how we respond to it, whether we let it happen or try to fix it or try to ameliorate it best we can. Getting surgery isn't refusing to accept God's decision that we got injured. Running for shelter isn't denying God's will that we get rained on. Having to run or fight to save yourself, I ... the way I see it, that's part of what was in the cup."

[lovethyneighb_or]

"Maybe."

Which is not an argument. In fact he goes rather quiet, staring off some ways again and thinking about it, which is a rather significant gesture when most of his reactions are rejection outright.

"Though that does little to change the fact of what I've done, I think."

[tehilim127_1]

"Not what you've done, just its context. What it means, maybe."

She slides her glasses back on and looks up.

"I know I'm coming at this from a different framework from yours, and ... I'm trying not to impose that. It's not fair to you."

[lovethyneighb_or]

"... Well, I did not choose to work interfaith with the intention of only listening to myself."

[tehilim127_1]

A sudden smile from her, small and brief but very sweet.

"In that case ... have you come across the Jewish principle of pikuach nefesh?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

“I don’t believe I have, no.”

[tehilim127_1]

"It's the obligation to save lives. Takes precedence over almost every other law there is. It's why we break sabbath rules to get someone to a hospital, or break a fast if someone's in danger from dehydration, or eat food that isn't kosher if we'll starve otherwise. Not as a concession, but because we're obligated."

A beat.

"And that includes our own lives first."

[lovethyneighb_or]

…

Naturally. Of course. It’s a good and right law. One would—one would hope.

(But—?)

But.

…

(But it’s not their way. But surely there is a reconciliation there? He closes his eyes—a hundred bloodied and burned martyrs stare back at him. He reaches for reason, for purchase, and his hand comes away covered in ash.

No, but he knew this once. It’s why he took up boxing. No, but what are schoolyard bullies and a bit of anger management to the threat of death? Worse than death—imprisonment in your own undying corpse? What a wretched treachery against the Father it feels like sometimes, to not even be able to martyr, to not even be able to die right—)

Christ. Something is very wrong with him.

What was the question? … Right, yes.

“… It’s a beautiful principle,” he says quietly. “Of course, you understand that I might be having… some trouble.”

Just trouble. Not with understanding it, and apparently not with practicing it. Just…

[tehilim127_1]

"Well." Softly. "I don't know if it'll help, but can I go into it just a little bit further?"

(The word martyr is in her own mind as well, and at least some awareness of the images that must be there for him. She knows she has reason to tread lightly here, more than ever -- but there must be common ground here, there has to be.)

[lovethyneighb_or]

(Focus. Focus.)

He takes a steadying breath. "Yes. If you'd like."

[tehilim127_1]

"Well. I said almost everything, earlier; there are a few, a very few commandments that we consider to take precedence over the obligation to preserve life. And this is where it gets complicated."

Oh, she hopes so hard that she isn't making a terrible mistake here.

"One of them is the prohibition of murder. But," and she stresses the words, "not all killing is murder. And the primary counterexample is someone who is actively trying to kill you, and pursues you if you try to get away."