When I was- thirty something, new, but not new, I had this diplomat I was leaning on. He'd taken up with a dancer, and it wasn't, there was a wife, a family-
I mean, I thought he'd tell me to fuck off, so I came in heavy. And he went-
[He makes a diving gesture, with his hand.]
-right out a top story window.
That's the thing about playing rough. Even if you all know the rules, it's a little alarming when someone loses. You... you feel it, don't you?
What happens is I can turn into a dog and I enjoy chasing tennis balls and peeing on trees. I'll let you shake my paw if you give me a biscuit, Ricki. And I'll be good to you if you rub my ears right. I chase other dogs, I eat people alive, I like chasing sprinklers. I am wired to do and feel and know certain things I never could have as a man.
But people can't get their head around the idea that I'm not human. I don't think like a human anymore. I don't experience emotions like I did as a human.
Yes, maybe the humans here are judging you by human standards, but you don't know whether the Admiral is at all, do you? You're assuming he is, but maybe it's time to make room for the possibility that you have been a very bad dog.
Do I know for certain what the Admiral wants? After having read my file, dug into it, after having watched similar people graduate through similar means? No. But I have a pretty damn good idea.
What actually bothers me more than the Admiral is the people, though. I have to live with them. I've accepted the possibility that I might never graduate, and even if I do, part of being here is living day to day, isn't it? I have to appease you--the wardens--to get so much as an invitation to the gym.
"I know you would. I've heard tales of what you do with butter knives,
Tarr."
He searches for the safest thing to offer.
"I want to steer the ship. Not for long, just a trip or two. I have no way
to do this, no idea how I would even learn. But it comes back to me over
and over."
"I worked with him on that during my last stay. But wherever he is now he's probably forgotten the Admiral exists--isn't that how it works when he kicks us out?"
He hums, trying to remember.
"The helm, I think? Or maybe that's just the navigation area. Cars really did ruin us for transportation knowledge, didn't it?"
"But the specific wheel, with all the spokes. Is it just a wheel?"
Searching his memory back.
"I was a sailor, I should know this- we just had buttons, though." So he's no good to anyone. "Anyways, I thought the story was that he killed us? Failing to graduate."
He grins. "Yeah, just a wheel. According to every pirate movie I ever watched in the 70's."
The smile drops a little and he shakes his head. "When I was sent back, I didn't die. Maybe it's case by case. Maybe it's just a lie we were told to keep us in line. Maybe it's an urban legend that grew out of all the uncertainty."
"An oversimplification sounds right. It's just that some inmates have started to catch on that we don't all die to get here, and they feel...lied to. Betrayed by the wardens. Even though, in my file at least, there's nothing to say if I actually died--it's certainly not my past wardens' fault that I thought I was murdered."
He sighs faintly and rubs a hand over his jaw.
"It's not good, Ricki. All the unrest over assumptions. Have you noticed it? Or is it still low-level inmate chatter?"
"The cafeteria is a small target, and the only way they hold it is by starving out the wardens and the inmates who didn't join in. Because not all of them would. There's a period of time where the really angry inmates take revenge, is an alternative. They poison everyone who opposed them. It won't stick, obviously, but it's a way to vent their spleens. And when they lose the cafeteria, they're even angrier and even more disillusioned. Some give up. Others plan for something more bloody, but are probably too defeated to follow through. Morale plummets--but so what, right? It's not like it matters if we slit our wrists."
"The Admiral doesn't care. I spent about- oh, a conservative quarter- of my time here actively seeking a way to commit suicide that would stick, but I never found one, because even that worst case scenario in a very real sense doesn't actually have permanent consequences. Not to diminish how you feel- or how I felt, for that matter- but it still cycles back around."
Because;
"The ones who weren't involved, who were poisoned, band together with the wardens. The peripheral ones are forgiven and taken in by the same, and are so touched by the experience of having been their worst and been embraced nonetheless that they start to redeem up, and the two that are left over, one vanishes next week and no one hears from him again, and the other becomes Arthas."
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I mean, I thought he'd tell me to fuck off, so I came in heavy. And he went-
[He makes a diving gesture, with his hand.]
-right out a top story window.
That's the thing about playing rough. Even if you all know the rules, it's a little alarming when someone loses. You... you feel it, don't you?
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[Is absolutely the word for it.]
I used to go with 'disappointing' but it was more than that.
Did you ever lean on people here?
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[He wonders.]
What happened?
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[And he isn't running.]
What happened?
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But people can't get their head around the idea that I'm not human. I don't think like a human anymore. I don't experience emotions like I did as a human.
But I'm here, being judged by human standards.
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[He challenges, right away.]
Yes, maybe the humans here are judging you by human standards, but you don't know whether the Admiral is at all, do you? You're assuming he is, but maybe it's time to make room for the possibility that you have been a very bad dog.
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What actually bothers me more than the Admiral is the people, though. I have to live with them. I've accepted the possibility that I might never graduate, and even if I do, part of being here is living day to day, isn't it? I have to appease you--the wardens--to get so much as an invitation to the gym.
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He advises him, quietly.
"I know that's easier said than done, but the best thing I ever did to let myself graduate was blow up the bar."
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His tone is soft, very dry, like he wants permission to just go ahead.
"Because what you did didn't affect anyone but the alcoholics. The things I want to let myself do...?"
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He wonders, resting an elbow on his knee, and leaning in.
"In complete and utter confidentiality. In my function as a preacher's son, if you like; I mean this."
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"Isn't that sort of confidentiality moot if I were, perhaps, planning to hurt someone? Wouldn't you be obligated to do something?"
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He promises- comforting, and maybe just a little unsettling, too. He's best at being both.
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"I know you would. I've heard tales of what you do with butter knives, Tarr."
He searches for the safest thing to offer.
"I want to steer the ship. Not for long, just a trip or two. I have no way to do this, no idea how I would even learn. But it comes back to me over and over."
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And, more importantly;
"What's the wheel called on a ship?"
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He hums, trying to remember.
"The helm, I think? Or maybe that's just the navigation area. Cars really did ruin us for transportation knowledge, didn't it?"
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Searching his memory back.
"I was a sailor, I should know this- we just had buttons, though." So he's no good to anyone. "Anyways, I thought the story was that he killed us? Failing to graduate."
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The smile drops a little and he shakes his head. "When I was sent back, I didn't die. Maybe it's case by case. Maybe it's just a lie we were told to keep us in line. Maybe it's an urban legend that grew out of all the uncertainty."
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He admits, quietly.
"I think it might be... an oversimplification, maybe? I know I was dead, but I know that isn't true of everyone."
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He sighs faintly and rubs a hand over his jaw.
"It's not good, Ricki. All the unrest over assumptions. Have you noticed it? Or is it still low-level inmate chatter?"
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He says, with a faint shrug.
"How does it go?"
cw suicide, murder, violence of a revolutionary nature.
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Because;
"The ones who weren't involved, who were poisoned, band together with the wardens. The peripheral ones are forgiven and taken in by the same, and are so touched by the experience of having been their worst and been embraced nonetheless that they start to redeem up, and the two that are left over, one vanishes next week and no one hears from him again, and the other becomes Arthas."
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