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

[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."

[lovethyneighb_or]

Ah. Yes. Of course. It makes sense, that there would be a few above even this principle. It makes sense that...

...

He blinks hard. He scratches his nose, wipes his hand over his face.

"What do you mean?" he asks, with the same hushed and strained cadence that he might also say, I don't understand.

[tehilim127_1]

"I mean," and her voice drops a little as well, not much louder than his but as clear as she can make it, "that by our law, if someone attempts to kill you, your obligation is to save your own life. By getting away if you can, by other means if you can, but ... ultimately by killing the pursuer, if that's the only way you can survive."

She takes a breath. "I'm not saying this because I think you need to agree, I know there are differences in interpretation. I just want you to have an idea where I'm coming from."

cw passive suicidality, The Most catholic guilt

[lovethyneighb_or]

"... Right," he says, unable to erase the shake in his voice. "Right, of course. I understand."

Of course. Right. Another one to sit him down and explain in their words why nothing wrong happened. It's alright; there's little else to expect by now.

(Don't be unfair. Even Christ held the whip--
--that was not murder--
--even Michael--
--he is an Archangel, he directly carries out the Will of God--
--even Peter drew his sword--
--it was not his place.

No. No. No.

No, it's not fair. It's not fair. Why does he get to hear this now?
Don't get ahead of yourself. It's not for you. It does not apply to you.

Ash. He reaches for purchase, the answer to anchor himself towards, and finds obliteration. He is not a saint; he will not even go where they are going. There is no justification or forgiveness that will resolve the fact that there is something wrong with him that caused him to sin so grievously. Mea maxima culpa. The answer is going to kill him one day. The answer holds his suffering, which he put there. The answer is to die.)

He looks at Zivia. He lowers and shifts his jaw just slightly, in the manner one does for speaking. "I'm sorry, I just don't think..."

(If it wasn't murder, it doesn't matter if it was your fault if you never even--) (It was. I did.) He stops. He wraps his arms around himself, hands gripping his sleeves.

Unsteadily, distantly, maybe a little desperately: "Well, no matter what you'd like to call it, I took a man's life that he was not willing to give. The least I could have done is remember even doing it."

[tehilim127_1]

"Do you --" She breaks off, tries to frame the sentence in her head before saying it. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to minimize what you did. Taking a life is ... it's a terrible thing to have had to do. Even if you feel, even if you are wholly justified in doing it, it's heavy. I wouldn't ever say it should be otherwise. But ... do you think it's your own fault that you don't remember doing it?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

There is an answer there. Somewhere in the ash. Yes is the one the simple part of him reaches for, but that's ridiculous. That's not how rages work.

"... In a sense. I... don't believe I could have avoided it necessarily. Not while doing what I did. But I wish I had... I wish I had better control of myself about it. However I could have struck him, or even should, there was no case in which I had to do it like that."

Monstrous.

[tehilim127_1]

"I think I get that." Softer, again. "Like ... it would be different if you'd decided to do it. Made a decision either that it was the right thing to do, or that it wasn't but you were going to anyway, and then carried it out. But ..."

And she stops there, trying to work it out.

[lovethyneighb_or]

“But I didn’t. And if I were a—“ (better,) “—stronger man, maybe I could have.”

[tehilim127_1]

"But that's not --"

And she stops, frowning. And says "Oh," very low.

[lovethyneighb_or]

Mulcahy says nothing, and does very little besides look down, and breathe.

[tehilim127_1]

"That's part of the problem, isn't it." Still very low. "Because if it were a sin, you could atone for it, and be forgiven. And instead you just have ... this shame, trying to make you think it's guilt."

Half a beat, and -- "Sorry. That was too ... I'm sorry."

[lovethyneighb_or]

Without moving: "No, you... you're far more right than wrong."

A longer pause. "... What do you mean? By..." the words almost burn his tongue to say, getting them out is like dragging fishing line and hook out of lake muck, "... shame, trying to make me think it's guilt?"

[tehilim127_1]

Right or wrong wasn't the trouble; it felt too deeply personal an insight to say aloud without warning. But now he's asked her, so --

"Well ... okay, people use those words differently a lot, so here's how I learned it. Guilt is the feeling you've done wrong. Sometimes people get it for bad reasons, or no reason, but it's about behavior. Something you did, even by mistake or without knowing it, that you shouldn't have done. Or something you should have done and didn't. Shame ..."

She takes a breath. "Shame is feeling bad about being something. Almost always something outside of your control. Shame masquerading as guilt, that's what someone I know used to call it when you feel ashamed of something you know you can't help, but at the same time somehow feel like it's your fault."

[lovethyneighb_or]

Carefully, Zivia outlines her words. She traces an elegant path through meaning and behavior, puts reason to name. Everything she says, of course, makes sense.

He hates it.

"In me, it is both," he repeats, through teeth held gently away from being gritted. He feels a sensation beneath his skull like the lightest burning. "I am..." (A gentle censor; Zivia would get caught on it.) "I am the creature that was there that day, and I am ashamed of being him. I do not feel guilt that the man got what was coming to him, nor that it was me, and I am ashamed of that. I... I would do it again. I was..."

He swallows. He shuts his eyes, and drags them out like pulling wire through the gaps between his teeth.

"I was right. I... was--was--mmfffh--"

He slaps both hands over his mouth.