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]

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.

[tehilim127_1]

It's only misgiving, worry that she's said the wrong thing, until that sudden violent movement -- then it ratchets up into alarm, propelling her halfway to her feet. The fact that the violence seems self-directed is more alarming, not less.

(And something about it reminds her of the hulking monster in his nightmare, the little red hand groping desperately from inside its throat.)

"Mulcahy --" That fear of saying the wrong thing is stronger now, but she has to try. "-- it's all right. You can say it."

[lovethyneighb_or]

"Mmfff--mmghffff--"

Mulcahy hunches over. Every bone and muscle screams deliriously in him, each remembering being beaten, torn, and broken for the crime of feeling justified. He cannot wrench his hands from his mouth or release the lock around his jaw--he tries in the only way he can, with fingernails digging into his lips and wedging into his teeth. He bites down hard.

He shakes his head, eyes firmly shut. Silently he prays she insists again anyway.

[tehilim127_1]

"You can. It's allowed, I promise. You don't have to but you can."

She reaches out a hand, not touching his where they clamp over his mouth, but hovering near.

"Please don't hurt yourself."

[lovethyneighb_or]

He shakes his head again. The wolf swallows the fox--or maybe it's the other away around. He is not willing enough and he is not strong enough and he is not okay enough and he can't. He hardly even allows himself to think this way for long before the thought is strangled. That he has allowed himself to discuss this topic for so long, to cut himself open and hold open the sides to let her look in, is... he can't hold it anymore. It hurts.

His teeth grind into his fingers. Tears well up, not from the pain--severe as it is, he's tolerated far worse for far longer--but frustration and disgust. His voice has been stolen. It's allowed, I promise. No, it isn't. There is more than one monster that still lives in him.

But he moves, and Zivia's fingertips brush his shaking hand.

[tehilim127_1]

She touches his hand, and doesn't pull away.

"I'm sorry. I -- I don't know how to help. This isn't fair to you."

What can I do? she wants to ask, but that isn't fair to him either.

"Will it be better if we stop talking about it?"

[lovethyneighb_or]

He tries, so very hard, to focus on those little spots of warmth and contact where her hand touches his. It is every ounce of his will that goes into forcing his jaw to move again, his tongue to shift, his throat to contract. The fingers wedged between his teeth are pulled out. No blood has been drawn, but just because someone isn't bleeding out after they've had their skull smacked against someone's fist doesn't mean they haven't been hurt; he already knows that his joints are going to bruise and swell something awful.

"I don't know," he murmurs, muffled behind the other hand. "I don't know."

He doesn't know how to fix this. He doesn't know how to fix any of what he's become.