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 Posted: Fri Jun 24, 2011 10:37 pm
Solo 6/25/2011 - The Dark and Quiet Spaces where You Wonder Who You Are
It never occurred to Finn to feel angst. Not when his childhood best friend proved to him just how over they were by not attending his Bar Mitzvah. Not when his grandmother had a stroke. Not when he first argued with his father over a low grade or when his mother humiliated him in front of four classmates he was desperately trying to impress or when he lost his iPod on his first solo trip from Destiny City to New Orleans. Certainly he had not delved into the depths of depression when he didn’t get an Xbox for his birthday, and the realization that his first real, grown-up not-little-kid-crush crush was on a boy had not sent him into a month-long sulk.
No. The emotion had simply never occurred to him. Anger, certainly. Jealousy and disappointment and all those other things that lead to the dark side? Of course. Fear and dread and sheer, unbridled terror? Of course, Finn had felt that, along with all manners of joy and sorrow and confusion and more joy. But angst? Pure, unfocused, and utterly pointless self-pity?
It had never occurred to Finn to feel angst. He had never stopped to ponder it. The brand of hedonism he lived by didn’t have room for angst, at least not as he chose to define it. He was familiar with existential dread. Well-versed in his own smallness in the universe. These were thoughts that kept him up at night. But they were not paralyzing.
Strange, then, that Finn Derouen could be struck dumb by a single sentence.
”Are you what’s become of us?”
Six words, and suddenly Meadowview’s Most Likely to Save the World could not move a muscle. Because what had he done since that night? And what had he done since he’d confessed his fears to Camelot and been told it didn’t matter who he was now, because his ancestor had no way of knowing what he might become?
Fought a man-bat, kissed a senshi who tasted like Kiddush wine, and hadn’t powered up since. Instead he’d run off to camp where he acted like his usual goofball self, let a little girl braid his hair in a zillion braids, and generally shirked responsibility. And while he lay awake at night, listening to Damian snore in the top bunk, the question came back.
”Are you what’s become of us?”
And the boy who was Finn and was sometimes Huckleberry and sometimes Babylon found himself paralyzed to answer, even dreading it; feeling, for the first time in his life, something like angst. Because he was what had become of them, and somehow what had become of them was so totally unsatisfactory to them that it merited that tone of derision and scorn. A tone that burned all the way down, like the too-sweet Concord grape wine that was all he could taste on Vindemiatrix’s lips.
(Which he might have been imagining. Suddenly, Finn wanted to kiss the senshi, for science, until he figured it out. As many times as it took.)
But then his half-asleep musings were interrupted by the old man’s angry question. ”Are you what’s become of us?”
“Yes,” whispered Finn to the stale night air. But the angst was heavy on his chest, and the only sound he managed to make was a parched, sad squeak.
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Posted: Sat Jul 02, 2011 9:50 pm
Solo 7/3/2011 - I want to believe
Finn didn’t particularly know anyone in his peer group who actively sought rabbinic counsel for deep, pressing questions. Well, aside from himself. He sort of vaguely supposed that it helped that Rabbi Gordon Schmidt was undeniably cool. Some five years out of seminary with a motorbike, a Brad Pitt haircut… and a pretty wife and a toddler daughter, and an office floor strewn with Barnie-the-Dinosaur memorabilia. Finn settled into his armchair and decided that this did not detract from the cool.
Rabbi Gordo handed him a mug of tea and looked him over expectantly. “You know, you’re the only person your age who comes here voluntarily,” he said.
“I don’t see why not,” he answered honestly. “You’re cool!” Even the crayon drawings taped to the front of the desk couldn’t detract from the cool. Gordo, for his part, chuckled good-naturedly and cut to the chase.
“Is everything okay, Finn?” he asked.
Finn tugged on his teabag. “You know I haven’t really believed in God since I was fourteen.” It didn’t require a preamble or anything – if only every problem in his life was so straightforward.
Gordo nodded. “I seem to recall several conversations establishing as much,” he said, sipping his tea like some turn of the century psychologist, sitting in a sunny office in Vienna. He knew how to hold a saucer.
“I’ve been trying, really,” Finn said, clumsily emptying a packet of Sugar-in-the-Raw into his mug. “Sometimes I almost do.” He glanced up and caught Gordo giving him a look like he was waiting for the other foot to fall. Finn tugged on his teabag some more and tried to think of a way to phrase his question without sounding like a loony. He settled for, “What does Judaism say about the existence of God in a universe with extraterrestrial life?”
“Why?” asked Gordo, leaning in conspiratorially. “Do you know something I don’t?”
Finn wasn’t quite amused by what Gordo might have thought was a pretty good joke. “Just hypothetically,” he added defensively, taking refuge in his tea.
“People have written entire dissertations on which direction to daven in in space,” said Gordo, seeming full aware that it was only tangentially related to the topic at hand.
“Downwards, wouldn’t it be?” asked Finn. “Towards Earth?” He thought this made sense. But then, on Mercury, were you supposed to face upwards? Not that it was a particularly pressing issue to him – he never felt compelled to pray. Still, the part of him that had sat through a decade of afternoon Hebrew school felt the need to guess.
Gordo shrugged. “Roughly. So what’s this about aliens?”
“Breishit. The creation of the universe in seven days. Does it allow for extraterrestrial life?” Finn thought he was being as concise as possible, but Gordo made a face.
“You know you’re not supposed to take that literally, right?” he asked. “You’re supposed to think geologically. Every day is millions of years. Billions, even.”
Finn rolled his eyes. He knew that: he believed in evolution, after all. “Yes, fine, whatever,” he said, setting his tea aside. “But aliens. Can God exist in a world with aliens?”
Gordo raised his eyes. “Well, there’s nothing to say He couldn’t have been creating other worlds at the same time as the Earth. But the Torah and the Rabbis don’t say anything one way or the other – I don’t think E.T. was anywhere on the priorities of ancient Babylonian Talmudic scholars. And no one has written a dissertation on it since.”
Finn momentarily had to narrow his eyes at the mention of Babylon before remembering that that was a place in the ancient middle east, and not just a ruin on Mercury, and he had to puzzle over Gordo’s specific example before tossing it aside as a coincidence. Other than that, the answer mostly displeased him. He nudged his mug across the coffee table. “Thanks, Rabbi Gordo,” he said lamely, getting up.
“No one’s said God and Aliens are mutually exclusive,” Gordo called reassuringly as Finn left the office.
The boy called a weak “Okay” back, but he wanted a second opinion.
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Posted: Thu Jul 07, 2011 8:17 pm
Solo 7/7/2011 - Alien Theologies
Finn eventually wound up at the Destiny City Earth and Space Museum, talking to an exceptionally perplexed Iouri Spekter on a Thursday afternoon. “You want me to have a conversation with you about… God?” the museum director asked slowly, as if Finn had just asked something outrageous and puzzling of him.
“Well, yeah,” answered Finn. It didn’t seem like such a ridiculous request to him.
Iouri slid a dish of candies across the desk defensively. “I’m a scientist, not a theologian,” he said, and Finn snickered involuntarily. The older man raised an eyebrow at him and continued, “Really, you should talk about this with Gordo.”
“I already did,” said Finn, taking a candy. He didn’t recognize the label, although that might have been because it was in Russian. He unwrapped it, making more noise than he would have really liked to make. “I wanted a second opinion.”
Iouri helped himself to a candy and mulled this over. “I’m really not the best person to ask about this,” he said reluctantly. “And even if I was… you’re asking me about God. I’m hardly qualified to tell you what to believe.”
“Why not?” asked Finn pointedly, sticking the candy into his mouth. It tasted like caramel and some kind of spice.
Iouri gave him one of those looks that adults tended to give children when they thought they were being smartasses. It made him look a little like Bert from Sesame Street. Finn decided to try another approach.
“You’re a man of science,” he said plainly. “What do you believe?”
Iouri sighed in exasperation, crinkling the candy wrapper noisily. “Really, Finn?” he asked.
“Really,” insisted Finn.
“I believe that all things being infinite, there is certainly enough room in the universe for God to exist somewhere in it.”
This was not exactly the answer Finn was looking for. He groaned. “Are you kidding me.”
“I am not going to sit here and tell you what you should or shouldn’t believe about the universe, Finn,” answered Iouri sternly. This especially was not the answer Finn wanted to hear, because he truthfully wanted to be told. He wanted someone with far more knowledge than himself to sit him down and tell him something about the way the world worked with total certainty.
“What about aliens?” he asked, and Iouri’s reply was almost immediate.
“Definitely,” he said.
“So you believe in aliens, but you won’t be straight with me about God,” said Finn flatly. This conversation was getting more and more unsatisfactory.
“I’m being perfectly clear with you,” objected Iouri. “The universe is infinite. There’s plenty of room in it for both god and aliens to exist. I personally find the aliens to be far more likely.”
“And if aliens are real for sure, then does the probability of God existing go up?” probed Finn. Iouri shook his head.
“It isn’t cause and effect!” he protested, unwrapping another candy. “It doesn’t work like if aliens, then god.”
“But then… wait.” Finn trailed off. He tried to work through the layout of his problem in his head. “I’m confused.”
Iouri chuckled and sucked on his caramel, leaving Finn to try to work the problem out a while longer before coming to his rescue. “I know nothing with any certainty,” he quoted at the young man, “But the sight of stars makes me dream.”
Finn narrowed his eyes at Iouri and got up from his chair. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, “but I have the uncanny sense that you’re mocking me.”
The fact that Iouri yelled “Vincent Van Gogh!” at his retreating back did nothing to alleviate Finn’s consternation.
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Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2011 2:24 pm
Solo 7/12/2011 - How will the ghosts find their way home?
“I pledge my life and loyalty to Mercury, and to Babylon. I humbly request your aid, so that in return I may give you mine.” The words escaped Babylon’s mouth before he was properly ready to say them, but this time he was prepared. When he arrived on the windy mountaintop, he was already wearing his goggles.
Not seeing the older knight anywhere on the crest, the page turned towards the ancient city of Babylon. It glowed blue in the darkness, lit with tiny balls of light that shone too steadily to be fire. “What the hell?” he asked himself, and pulled his coat tighter as he headed down the trail.
He found the old man lighting streetlamps, taking tiny specks of light from an old railway lantern and feeding them into some kind of wick. Half the street was lit the same color blue that lined their uniforms. The other half was dark, awaiting light.
Babylon Page stood silent, watching his ancestor go about his task with total seriousness. When the he reached the end of the street, he gently closed the lantern and turned to look at the boy. “So I see you’ve managed to survive another month,” he said, sounding miffed.
Everything that the page had planned to say fled immediately from his mind. His mouth flapped uselessly for a moment, and then he said the first thing that came to mind. “What are you doing?”
The elder knight gave him a look like he had just asked the world’s dumbest question. “Lighting the lamps,” he said, hoisting the lantern in his hand to about eye level and crossing the street. He began again, opening a streetlight and coaxing a tiny blue spark into it.
Babylon Page followed, pushing against the wind. “But no one lives here!” he protested. “You’re the only person I’ve seen-“
His ancestor gave him a steely look. “How will the ghosts find their way home?” he asked with utter seriousness. Babylon Page blanched. The old knight moved on to the next streetlight. “We are at the base of the Caloris mountains,” he called, not waiting for Babylon to catch up. “It is a thousand kilometers long. The longest mountain range on Mercury. People die trying to cross it.”
He closed the lamp and moved on to the next. The page followed wordlessly. “I am Babylon,” said the old man. “He who lights the way.” He continued down the street. The page followed, struggling with words he knew he had to say.
“I’m Babylon, too,” he stammered, three lamps later. The knight gave him a look.
“Not yet, you aren’t,” he said coolly, guiding spark to wick.
“I’m here, aren’t I?” asked the page. “I said the oath. I’ve got, well, this.” He held up his glowstick, trying his best not to feel lame. The knight seemed to sneer at the weapon, his craggy features tugging upwards in derision.
“You cannot even light the lamps with that,” he said. The whole street now glowed with light. The knight hoisted his lantern to eye level once more and began to climb. The alleys here were stairwells, heading up the mountain. The city itself seemed more Safed’s twin than ancient Babylon, although the page bit his tongue to keep from saying so.
“I didn’t pick it,” he retorted, feeling personally offended on his weapon’s behalf.
“It is the knight of Babylon’s duty to keep the lamps lit,” said the old man, reaching the top of the stairs with surprising nimbleness. “To provide safe passage through the mountains, to shelter the lost and the hidden.”
This street was already lit. They crossed and continued the journey upwards. “To come to the aid of the royal house of Mercury when called upon,” continued the old man. “To keep the lamps lit, to drive back the dark and guide the lost.”
“I can do that,” asserted the page, not fully sure what he was saying. The old knight looked him up and down, messy hair and goggles and glowstick all forming one lackluster package.
“Not yet, you can’t,” he said. The page struggled for an answer, and Camelot’s advice came trickling back.
“No,” he agreed. “Maybe I can’t yet. But I will.”
This was met with a long, singularly nonplussed look from the knight. “Perhaps,” he said, but did not seem particularly cheered by the thought. The page had not prepared himself for such a response, and he spent the next street following the knight in silence as he lit the lamps.
“It’s not fire, is it?” he asked finally, as they climbed the next set of stairs.
“How astute,” drawled the knight. “It is the light of Babylon.”
“What’s that?” asked the page. The knight gave him a long-suffering sort of look, as if he did not like being interrupted on his rounds.
“There are many stories,” he said. “It is a drop of a blue star. The tear of a god. A gift from Cosmos herself. A piece of Mercury’s core. It burns without burning, consumes no fuel. The lamps may go out, but they are merely echoes. The lantern – the light of Babylon – glows eternal.”
The page held up his glowstick, seeking to regain some dignity for his weapon. “This never dims. It never goes out. It’s not a normal glowstick,” he asserted.
Again, the old knight seemed to sneer. “Then perhaps you have been given a small piece of our light. But that does not mean you are its proper guardian.”
Babylon felt once more personally offended on behalf of his weapon.
“Perhaps,” the knight said. He gazed out over the glowing hillside below them, for they had climbed to the top of the city and could go no higher.
“Yes?” asked the page.
“Perhaps,” said the knight, “When you can light all of the lamps, you will be a proper guardian of Babylon. But no sooner.”
The page nodded, watching the city below glimmer in the wind and snow. He turned to speak to the knight, but the wind had picked up, and the old man was nowhere to be seen.
He looked back down to the city, and it was dark as if the lamps had been out for a very long time. The page gripped his glowstick closer and traced his fingers along the scar on his cheek. Strange things were afoot on Babylon.
The challenge had been posed: he would return, and he would light every single lamp, until the hillside blazed blue and Babylon beckoned all the lost souls home.
He was still thinking about this when he arrived back in his bedroom, and his dreams were painted cyan.
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Posted: Sun Jul 31, 2011 10:24 am
Solo 7/31/2011 - My Sister's a Yaoi Fangirl and Get Me Out Of Here
After Friday night dinner, Leah flopped down on the couch beside her older brother. “So why are you mooning around like some lost puppy?”
Finn moved to clutch the remote control protectively. He had the TV flipped to Futurama and didn’t care to change it. “I am not mooning around,” he snapped. Leah kicked him. Hard.
“Yeah, you are,” she objected, while Finn simpered and rubbed his ribs. “Which straight guy are you in love with this week?” He turned at glowered at her, partially for the unnecessary bodily harm and partially because it gave him time to wonder when his little sister had turned into someone so keenly intent on earning the title of ‘f** hag’ in the worst ways possible.
“Would you not jump to conclusions about my sex life?” he asked after a moment.
“That would imply you had one,” she sighed, giving him a pointed look. Finn gave her a pointed look right back. When had his little sister learned to talk like that? She seemed to pick up on his bewilderment, because she added, “I’m not a baby anymore, ********.”
“I’m telling mom you’re not allowed to watch any more Will and Grace.” He tapped the remote against the arm of the couch. Leah made a mad grab for it.
“Queer as Folk, actually,” she said. Finn shoved her away. “So I guess it’s not a straight guy?”
“It’s none of your business,” he said, although he did not think a straight guy would have been such an obliging kisser. Leah rolled her eyes.
“Sure it is. I’m your sister, aren’t I?” she asked. Finn wasn’t particularly moved by this, and in fact just kind of stared at her.
“That doesn’t make it any more your business. Life isn’t all butterflies and yaoi manga.”
“But wouldn’t it be neat if it was?” cracked Leah, grinning wryly.
Finn didn’t even have to think about it before answering, “No!” His sister seemed unfazed by his distinct lack of enthusiasm, and he had a sinking feeling that she wasn’t going to let the conversation go. In fact, she was probably just getting started.
“So who’s the mystery dude?” she asked, ribbing him. Finn winced – didn’t she know she’d just kicked him in the same place only moments ago? Probably. This was Leah they were talking about.
“I already said it was none of your business.” He glared. Even if he wasn’t currently head over heels for a superhero whose civilian name he didn’t know, he wouldn’t tell Leah. She would probably go write fanfiction. Finn shuddered involuntarily at the thought and heaved himself off the couch. All possibility of enjoying the rest of Futurama was shattered. It was all he could do to leave and go back to his apartment before Leah decided to start going through his phone for unfamiliar numbers and questionable texts.
Leah followed him, making another mad grab for the remote. “I’m gonna find out,” she said, tugging it out of his hands. “I’ll ask Tate or Dietrich or Tabby or, well, one of your friends has go to know-“
Finn shook his head and called to his parents that he was leaving. Tate and Dietrich definitely wouldn’t be able to tell Leah about his mystery man. “Just give up already, Leah,” he sighed, pulling the front door open.
“I’m gonna find out, ********,” she said determinedly, and Finn ruffled her messy purple hair with one hand as he looked for his car keys with the other.
“Good luck, kiddo,” he sighed. It was only a matter of time, he knew, until Leah thought of more ways to make his life miserable.
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Posted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 11:52 am
Solo 8/24/2011 - Sleep Spent
He could pinpoint the exact moment of sunrise as they gazed eastward. Salt flats glittered under the lightening sky, turning brilliant, glittering orange as the round globe of the sun broke the horizon - this was sunrise as they had never seen it before. The early wakeup and the steep hike had paid off for this - their first glimpse of the dead sea, the way the Jordan river snaked down from the north, the rise and fall of the mountains.
It paid off because of the way that when the group around him began their morning prayers, Finn sang along to Modeh Ani and didn't feel like he was faking it.
"What gives you the right?" someone asked sourly. The voice was somewhere behind him, and Finn didn't want to turn his head to see. He was too consumed with the vista before him, too invested in watching the sun rise and make the desert boil. As long as he stayed dedicated to reliving this moment, he could ignore that it wasn't happening right here and right now.
"You have no right to delude yourself," said that same sour voice. Finn focused intently on a point on the horizon, mouthed along with the Shacharit service and tried to convince himself he felt it. He had felt it, he reminded himself. It was all he could do to keep himself anchored in the memory.
"You have no evidence. No proof. No convincing argument," sneered the man behind him. Finn concentrated on the sun as it rose in triple-time. It could do that: this was just a dream. "In a debate match, you'd be dead in the water."
Oh, so it was one of those dreams. He wanted to wake up but couldn't. True lucid dreaming had always been a step beyond Finn - as such, he was doomed to mouth the Bar'chu while some debate coach he couldn't see hurled insults at him until morning.
"God is a myth and the opiate of the masses."
Finn gritted his teeth, focused on the rapid shifting of the clouds. A water bottle came down the line and this seemed important somehow, the memory of the taste. The most satisfying water he'd ever drank. He wasn't going to let crushing self-doubt ruin his remembering.
He moved to pass the bottle, turned- No, no, he didn't want to turn! Despite his protestations, the momentum carried Finn forward. The craggy face of Babylon Knight looked down at him.
"You are a sentimental fool," declared the Knight. Finn drew back, his lucidity shattered. It didn't matter that deep down, somewhere, he knew this wasn't the real Babylon Knight - this was a judgement handed down from on high. "You are clinging to an illusion."
At this precise moment, Finn wanted nothing more than to run back down the mountain and keep going until he hit the Jordan border - maybe this specter wouldn't follow him there. But he could not move. He was anchored, watching it unfold. This was and was not happening to him.
"Why are you so determined to believe in something you can't prove?" sneered old Babylon. "I thought you'd been broken of all this nonsense years ago."
Finn was seized with an undeniable sense of encroaching terror. There was a bad thing, it was coming this way - the reason why, the reason why he did not believe, that thing, he could sense it on the horizon like a weight pressing down. "Because," he said hoarsely. "Because the world is so beautiful, and I want-"
An air raid siren blared, or at least he thought it was an air raid siren. Dream logic turned it into an air raid siren, although basal, aware Finn tried to shout that it could not be an air raid siren because it was singing Daydream Believer. The bad thing, it was here. He could hear the planes overhead, surely the pilots could see them here down below, could see flowers blooming and cars moving and people living-
A mushroom cloud bloomed in the morning light. Wind carrying the smell and taste of death rushed towards the mountaintop.
Finn awoke to a ringing phone. It was Leah, looking for a ride home from a busted up party. As he dressed, he struggled to remember the dream he'd been having - but all he came away with was a bad taste in his mouth, and a sense of impending doom.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 11:36 am
Solo 8/25/2011 - No One Else to Answer To
At the end of the night, the fact remained that Finn was ultimately responsible for what had happened to Leah. The lieutenant might have taken advantage of an unfortunate situation, but Leah really shouldn’t have been walking by herself at three AM anyways. That was all Finn’s fault, because he’d decided to act like a diva instead of a responsible older brother. The truth was, no matter how many offensive names your sister managed to call you… it was never appropriate to turn her loose on the streets of Destiny City while she was heavily intoxicated.
Thankfully he hadn’t been questioned too much by the ER staff. Leah had puked on the way over, and between the vomit and the fact that she was unconscious, not to mention that she reeked of 4Loko, it was believable enough that she had blacked out and fallen down the stairs. Finn sat in the waiting room while they pumped her full of liquids, feeling dismal and watching the bruise bloom slowly on his solar plexus.
He had ******** up tonight. He didn’t even want to list all the ways he’d ******** up tonight – he knew well enough that he had. The upgrade at an opportune moment, but he didn’t feel as though he properly deserved it. Saving your sister from a metaphorical rapist was noble… less noble was putting her in such a situation in the first place. The ancient Babylon Knight certainly wouldn’t have been impressed.
Of course, it seemed as though nothing would ever impress his ancestor. The Knight looked at everything Finn did with a faint sense of derision. Even with this upgrade – he had a lantern now, which surely counted for something – Finn had no doubts that he’d be met with scorn. It didn’t even seem like tough love to him – more like outright enmity.
When she woke up, Leah didn’t even remember leaving the party. Finn had dodged a huge bullet, but he still felt like he’d been shot in the gut. There’d be consequences for Leah when their parents arrived – a stern talking to, at least, and probably grounding. He left before Gwen and Anthony showed up; better to let Leah be alone in her humiliation than let it appear that he was trying to build himself up as the “good child.”
Finn could taste bile in his mouth the whole way home. The lieutenant he’d fought couldn’t have been older than Leah herself, and it made him think of a documentary he’d watched about Mara Salvatrucha, who recruited children to fight a bloody gang war. The kid had a quota to fill, he’d been recruited…
And that was when it hit Finn the difference between knights and negaversers, what set the two factions apart:
He’d never been recruited. No one had given him his power, and no one could take it away. Babylon served with the Jovian court, and he would fight alongside Vindemiatrix until there were no more battles to be won – but if he misused his powers, he was the only person he had to answer to. It was time to be a harsher task master.
He tossed his car keys in the bowl by the door and took a long shower. Then, Finn locked himself in his room and departed for Babylon. He had a lantern in his hands and a challenge to attempt.
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Posted: Thu Aug 25, 2011 10:05 pm
Solo 8/25/2011 - Glutton for Punishment
“I know what you’re thinking,” said the knight as they traveled through the darkened tunnel.
“You do?” asked Babylon Squire, eyes wide as he struggled to find footing. The ground had a definite slant – they were traveling deeper into the mountain, underneath the city, the only light coming from their lanterns. In the gloom, even the light of Babylon seemed dim.
“Yes.” There was a sound like perhaps the knight had licked his lips. “You are thinking that that ring you now wear on your finger was left in that lamp a thousand years ago.”
Babylon Squire nearly stumbled. He had not been thinking about that at all, but now that it was brought to his attention he had to give it some thought. “Well,” he replied dryly. “It is a long shot.”
“A tremendous leap of faith,” agreed the knight. “I placed that ring in the lamp not knowing if there would ever be another knight of Babylon or, even if there was, if he would find it.” The squire waited for the other foot to fall. “Imagine my disappointment,” clucked the knight.
And there it was. The squire frowned, unsure of why he kept coming back to Babylon if it was synonymous with verbal harassment. Maybe he was just a glutton for punishment.
“Still…” The knight broke him from his thoughts. “You have managed to not die so far, or be seriously maimed…” The squire raised his fingers delicately to the place where, underneath his coat, a brilliant bruise was blooming on his torso. “And you are of my line, diluted as it may be.” The tunnel was bottoming out; they were now on level ground, moving forward at a careful pace.
“Where are we going?” asked the squire. Although he could not see the old man’s face, he knew he was making one of his typical sour expressions. A door appeared out of the gloom, made of some matte white material. It opened with a pneumatic hiss, which the squire thought odd for something presumably ancient.
He was momentarily blinded when they stepped inside, and the door closed once more. The squire blinked stars out of his eyes, and was struck by how warm this room was. When his vision finally cleared, he saw that they were in a sort of cavern apartment, at once Spartan and cozy. “…You live here?”
The knight gave him a sidelong look. “Don’t touch anything unless I give you permission,” he said. The squire suppressed a scowl as he moved carefully around the room. The furnishings had a strange sort of unnamable quality to them – ancient modernity, if he had to guess.
“That ring’s not just any sort of trinket,” said the knight after allowing him to look around for a while. Babylon squire glanced up.
“Huh?” he asked, and instantly regretted his unintelligent vocalizations when the knight gave him a stern look.
“It’s an ancient communication device,” he explained, sounding quite long suffering. The squire brought the ring close to his face, trying to understand what that could possibly mean. How could this thing be a communication device? “Come over here. Sit down.”
Babylon Squire took a seat across from the knight at a small writing desk. “How does it work?” he began to ask, but the knight shushed him, taking a sheet of paper, a quill pen, and an inkpot from the drawer and placing them on the tabletop. The squire tried interjecting logic into the situation and quickly failed – by all means the ink should be dry, yet it sloshed as the knight shook the bottle.
“Address it to someone. A knight, a senshi, even one of those god-forsaken cats,” commanded the knight, handing the squire the pen. For someone used to ballpoints, it was awkward to use, but he dutifully scratched out every letter of “VINDEMIATRIX.” The knight raised an eyebrow, but made no comment. “A quick letter will do,” he sighed, and the squire scratched out ‘Hi from Mercury! -Babylon’ before both of their patience ran out.
The knight waved the ink bottle closer to the page. “Dip your signet,” he ordered. “Now stamp the paper.”
He did, and the paper vanished. “What was that?” asked the squire, blinking in disbelief. The knight gaped back at him.
“What kind of depraved upbringing have you had,” he drawled, “That you do not understand the point of a letter?” The squire found it better not to contest this point, but was a bit tickled to have just sent his boyfriend (!!) a letter written on a thousand-year-old sheet of paper. The knight, on the other hand, seemed utterly unfazed. “If you have wrapped your exceedingly simple mind around that, then perhaps we will attempt something far less infantile on your next visit.”
He rose from the table. Babylon squire sputtered, remembering suddenly what he’d been looking for before he found the ring. “Wait!” the boy exclaimed. “I was looking for the torch-thing. To light the lamps.”
There was a long moment of silence. The knight exhaled, a long, low sound. “It is called the wick,” he corrected harshly. “And it is hidden, and rightly so. You will find it when the time is right.”
“You said I had to light the lamps,” challenged the squire.
The knight shook his head. “The time is not right. We are finished here.”
Seconds later, Babylon Squire found himself back on the plaza, alone and in the middle of a sudden blizzard. He had no choice but to head for home.
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Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 3:19 pm
Solo 9/19/2011 - Postcards from Far AwayHe wrote a lot of letters home, except at the end of the day they all got sent to Vindemiatrix. It wasn’t a conscious sort of thing, inundating his boyfriend with letters from the front… it just happened. Every free moment when he sat down to write, there was only one person who came to mind. (Well, sometimes there were other people, but you could not send people letters stamped with your secret identity when they didn’t know who your secret identity was.) So his letters went to Vin. Quote: Vindemiatrix- I suppose you’ve probably heard through the phone tree or whatever it is the senshi have that the missing civilians wound up out in the “Surrounding,” which is sort of like the Zodiac’s secret base at the edge of the solar system. I mean, go figure, who knew this existed, but if I had to guess I’d say I’m somewhere in the Kuiper belt right now. Maybe the Oort cloud? Seems kind of fuzzy and unimportant when we’re all superheroes, anyways. For the moment, though, it seems like everything is under control. Supplies are showing up and it looks like the Zodiacs are just using us as a free source of labor to clean the place up. I’ll let you know if anything changes, but for now you should keep up patrol on the Destiny City end of things, I think. With so many of us out here on the front lines, it might only be a matter of time before someone takes advantage of the situation… Anyways, ignore my conspiracy theories – I think it’s just Europa rubbing off on me. I’ll write again soon and let you know how things are going. -Babylon  And then, later: Quote: Vindemiatrix- I made a girl cry today without even trying, which I actually feel pretty lousy about because it was Sailor Virgo and we’re all imposing on her already and then I wasn’t my ancestor. First time I’ve ever wished I was more like ‘bitchy Dumbledore’! (Have I told you about my ancestor? No? Story’s better in person but apparently he was friends with Virgo, like, a thousand years ago.) Anyways it was the first time in a while I felt bad for being, you know, me, instead of whoever people wanted me to be? Which was weird. I know senshi don’t get rings like ours so if you can’t write back don’t worry about it, but I’m sure if you found another knight they’d be cool with sending off a letter for you, right? (That’s not a hint if you don’t want it to be but seriously I’m starting to miss you.) -Babylon Another arrived the next day: Quote: Vindemiatrix- Valhalla’s not so bad. I guess I got off to a really rocky start with him, but he’s smarter than I took him for and has a lot more going on inside his head than I thought he did. He’s nicer, too, when he’s not making fun of my art. (I guess that arranging mannequins on the Sovereign Heights quad is actually a really dumb use for superpowers after all, isn’t it?) (But don’t tell Valhalla I’m agreeing with him.) -Babylon A few days passed without a letter, and then: Quote: Vindemiatrix- I met another Mercury Knight today! Her name’s Hesperis and she sings Ke$ha songs and glows so I guess she’s pretty cool. Her weapon’s way less wussy than my old glowstick, which I guess you could say makes me sort of jealous. Bo-staff envy! (Is that how you spell it? My iPhone doesn’t get reception out here at the surrounding so I can’t look these things up…) The Zodiacs are still working on trying to get the civilians home but so far nothing is working. I’m more worried that there are monsters attacking people when they try to walk between outposts. I’ve been sticking close to Virgo’s temple so I haven’t seen any and I’m not sure if they’re youma or what but we’ve gotten word of a few different attacks – not to mention some crazy s**t that apparently went down before I even got here? I’m torn, Vin. I want to go home and eat real food instead of camping rations and sleep in my own bed and go on patrol with you but I feel like I should stay here and see what happens, just in case they need all hands on deck- I’m still not saying it’s a hint but if you want to go find a knight and get them to send a letter to me it would be amazing amazing amazing. I miss you I miss you I miss you I miss you -Babylon
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Posted: Thu Nov 03, 2011 7:33 pm
Solo 11/3/2011 - Teenaged Girl Drama
It wasn’t like he had anything suitable for use as a cold-compress back at his apartment, so Finn let himself into his parents’ house close to midnight with every intent of raiding the freezer and going home. He felt like a bit of a cat burglar because his parents had gone to bed an hour ago, but it wasn’t like this was illegal. He had a key. He could technically come by and raid the freeze any time he wanted. So if he was stopping by at midnight to steal a package of frozen peas, who would stop him?
“What, what, what are you doing?” came a voice from the hallway. Finn slapped the bag of vegetables onto his face and glanced up guiltily. Leah stood illuminated in the doorway, hands on her hips.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Finn asked, squinting at her. There was something different, but he was having trouble deciding what it was. “I got punched in the face.” This hadn’t happened since sometime in high school, and Leah knew it. She grinned.
“Flirt with the wrong jock?” she asked, entirely too self-satisfied. It might have been close to the truth – Valhalla was a jock and certainly the wrong one – but Finn didn’t think he’d been flirting with him.
“No,” he said sourly, continuing to squint. Leah seemed to pick up on his consternation.
“I changed my hair,” she said, leaning against the doorframe. Finn nodded, realizing that was the case.
“Orange,” he observed. Leah’d gone carrot-topped, but not any natural shade. True to her nature, she’d gone for a totally Crayola shade.
“Like the lead singer of Paramore,” she asserted.
“Okay, sure,” said Finn. “What happened to purple?” Leah’s hair had been purple for as long as she’d been dying it – something he’d sort of suspected had to do with her best friend, whose hair grew that way naturally.
“I got tired of it,” Leah shrugged. Never mind that the whole time Keren had been missing she’d kept her locks especially vibrant. “I mean, it was purple for like two years. Gotta keep people guessing.”
Finn shut the freezer and shifted the peas. “What’s Keren think?”
Leah’s expression said it all. “Oh, who cares what she thinks. She doesn’t go to Crystal anymore. She’s a traitor.” Finn regretted asking. “So what happened to your face?”
“I got punched,” he replied, although he didn’t see why it mattered. She was just going to make fun of him, wasn’t she? “It doesn’t matter. It’s none of your business.” Leah frowned and stepped over to him. She reached up and, despite his protestations, pulled the ice pack away from his face.
Leah winced. “Yeah, ********,” she said. Finn made a face at her. “You should go beat up whoever gave you that shiner.”
He shrugged his little sister off and headed back towards the back door. “Yeah, easier said than done.” He tossed the bag of peas against the counter for Leah to deal with. “I’m going back to my apartment. Class in the morning, you know?”
Worst. Night. Ever.
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Posted: Wed Nov 30, 2011 9:28 pm
Solo 11/30/2011 - Anyone Else But You
The city was already lit when Babylon Squire arrived. The great lamp in the Knight’s Square blazed blue, and the hillside above him twinkled in the night. The boy looked around, immediately looking for his ancestor: this much light could only mean one thing. The old man had gotten started without him.
A light bobbing down the lane answered the squire’s question before he could even begin his search in earnest. Menachem’s hunched form strode out of the darkness. There was a look of distaste (wasn’t there always?) plastered across his craggy face. “You’ve been away a while,” he observed.
“There was a crisis on the Surrounding,” answered the squire, shrinking under his mentor’s disdain. The knight quirked an eyebrow upwards as he stalked past the boy, raising his lantern to hang it at the base of the great lamp.
After a long silence, he drawled, “Well, I hope you helped.”
“I did,” confirmed the squire, searching the older man’s face for any sign of approval. He found none.
“The knights of Babylon have a long history with Chronos’s court-
Inadvertently, the squire interrupted Menachem’s speech. “I know, I-“ And stopped himself, fearing retribution.
“You what?” asked the knight.
“I met Virgo.” The knight remained impassive. “Your Virgo.”
“Surely not,” the knight answered stiffly. “My Virgo, as you call her, has been dead for a millennium. You couldn’t have met her. Some other Virgo – it runs in families.” The squire thought he detected some barely-restrained emotion behind the words, sadness maybe. But he blinked, and it was gone.
“It was!” Babylon squire objected, taking a few hesitant steps towards the man. “Aria. She said she still had your light. Menachem – your name’s Menachem, isn’t it?”
That certainly got a response out of the knight, although Babylon wasn’t sure it was the one he’d been aiming for. Menachem yanked his lantern down from the hook on the great lamp and hurried across the square. The squire followed, struggling to keep up. Despite his apparent age, the knight could move spryly when he wanted to, and the squire kept tripping on the cobblestones.
Halfway to the doorway to the knight’s corridors, he turned back and snarled, “Just once, I’d like to see you figure things out for yourself!” Then he hurried forward, lantern-light cutting through the gloom ahead of him, and vanished through the doorway.
Babylon squire approached the arch hesitantly. He’d only ever gone through it with Menachem’s permission before, but then, he didn’t know where the ghost went when he wasn’t directly observed. (Schrodinger’s Knight, although that sort of thinking is tonally inappropriate.) Perhaps he was allowed through the door by virtue of the ring he wore: after all, the same symbol was echoed on the sleek metal knocker. The boy gave the door a nudge and found it opened easily. Raising his own modest lantern, he advanced down the dark hallway within.
The blue glow in the study seemed cold – tiny balls of light encased in the sconces on the walls, and the knight’s lantern was nowhere to be seen. Babylon Squire tread carefully, unsure of whether this too was lit by history and echoes, or if he was actually in the study as it appeared in the year 2011. The center table was littered with parchment: maps mostly, and of the mountain range surrounding the city from what he could gather. They were annotated in a neat scrawl, not the Latin alphabet but one he recognized from years of Hebrew School. Babylon Squire pulled out a chair and sat, hoping for a closer look.
“Can you read it?” came a voice from the corner. The boy looked up, and could barely make out the knight, hunched in a chair in the shadows.
“A bit, I don’t speak it fluently—
“It doesn’t matter if you can speak it,” objected the knight sharply. “No one here spoke it. But it was my native hand and I wrote in it. Phonetically.”
“Oh,” nodded the squire, who was still trying to piece together the genealogical implications. He was mostly drawing a blank. “Why do you keep lighting the lamps?” he asked. “There’s no one here.”
“So the ghosts can find their way home,” answered Menachem. The squire shook his head.
“But every single lamp?” he asked.
“Because as long as Babylon glows, no one will ever truly be lost,” replied the knight, which Babylon Squire thought was terribly sentimental but didn’t really answer the question. The knight seemed to sense his consternation, although the squire couldn’t be certain if he actually had or just thought of something else to say. “Mercury is the smallest planet. Our princess was powerful, but her magic was defensive. A planet like that must rail against the dark more than any other. And our nights are so long…”
The squire frowned. “What about Pluto?” he asked.
“I have reason to doubt Pluto was ever considered a planet, except perhaps in a treaty inked by the moon kingdom,” came the knight’s reply. “It was too powerful to be left alone. At least, that was how I saw it. The moon kingdom controlled the inner worlds as a matter of security, and the outer worlds because they were too strong to leave to their own devices. But I always thought that Jupiter could have put up a fight if it had wanted to.”
The squire nodded, rolling this information around on his tongue and wondering for a brief moment why a rich and powerful system like Jupiter hadn’t given Serenity a run for her money. Of course, none of these names meant anything of particular significance to him. He only knew how many moons Jupiter had because he’d been in the right place at the right time to be snapped up by Europa.
“Of course,” added the knight, “I am only an arm chair political analyst at best,” and the squire thought he detected a sense of humor in the statement. It was the first time he’d ever observed such a thing.
“Virgo seemed fond of you,” the squire said, after a while. (Having been uncertain of how to respond to the apparent joke.)
“Aria was an exceedingly bright child,” the knight replied, placing special emphasis on her name. “The Virgo line has always run strong in Babylon. Her family… had a tendency to produce senshi.” This was followed by a long silence – perhaps a moment of pensiveness on Menachem’s behalf. Eventually, he said, “Even when she was small and following me on my rounds… I suspected she might follow her aunts to the Surrounding.”
Babylon Squire nodded, taking this in. He had a plan slowly forming, one that would hopefully earn him points with his ancestor and with Virgo. Maybe he could even construe this as a good deed, reuniting two long lost friends…?
“When she met me,” said the squire, “Just for a second, she thought I was you.”
There was another long silence.
“Would you rather I was you?” the boy inquired to the dark. He could swear he heard a single, hoarse laugh.
“No,” replied the knight, “Because then I’d be a freckly, rambunctious brat with bad hair.” It stung. The squire looked down at the table, concentrating on the neatly-lettered alephs and bets of the map.
“Would you rather I was someone else?” he asked. The dark seemed to hesitate.
“You need to go find some things out for yourself,” came Menachem’s reply. It wasn’t an answer. The map on the table swam in front of the squire’s eyes and then crumpled before his eyes, becoming a dried husk of its former self. Babylon picked up his lantern and got to his feet: the vision was over.
The journey out of the study seemed longer without the faint lamps to guide him. All radiance had vanished with the knight, and when Babylon emerged into the square he found the whole mountain had gone dark in the meantime. It was funny like that. He twisted the sigil ring on his hand, studying the insignia engraved upon it.
He needed to go find some things out for himself? The order rang in the squire’s ears. What did the knight think he’d been doing – slacking? Babylon thought he’d done a lot of work already moving towards becoming a better superhero. Being told to find things out for himself almost implied that he hadn’t done any groundwork so far, something the squire vehemently disagreed with. It wasn’t cheating that Kurma had clued him in about the rings, or that Virgo had told him his ancestor’s name… was it?
It wasn’t like he’d woken up one day knowing all the rules about how to be a knight of Mercury or something. Gee whiz.
Babylon gripped his lantern tightly. Without any other lamps lit, the ancient city seemed impossibly immense and dark; like some slumbering giant, settling on its foundation. He almost swore he could hear the mountain groaning against the wind.
Babylon squire did not have the Wick. He could not light the lamps and he could not show the ghosts their way home and he could not push back the dark, and the night on mercury was long and cold.
He held his lantern high, trying to bounce light into as many corners of the square as he could. It seemed a feeble effort: the shadows here had a texture, thick and velvety. Menachem probably expected his squire to go home (if Menachem expected anything of him at all, being Schrodinger’s Knight and all), but the boy was undeterred. He had a tiny circle of light, and he could wait out whatever hissy fit the knight was throwing.
Babylon hooked his lantern onto the great lamp and crouched at its base. The blue light never flickered, never wavered. He could not say how long he’d been sitting there when a familiar figure emerged once more from the darkness. One by one, the lights on the mountain blinked back on.
“You are going to get frostbite,” pronounced Menachem. Babylon squire gave him a stubborn look. The knight offered him a gloved hand, which the boy ignored as he got to his feet unassisted.
They stared up at the mountainside for a long moment, not speaking.
Finally, unable to stand the silence any longer, the boy asked, “You’d rather it be anyone but me, wouldn’t you?” It took him a long time to get a response.
“You’re what I have to work with,” said the elder knight, ambiguously.
“Why’d you come back?”
“Because you’re going to get frostbite if you fall asleep here.” He shot the boy a withering glance. “You ought to go home.” It honestly hadn’t even occurred to him to leave.
“I want to light the lamps,” Babylon squire told him. “Where have you hidden the Wick?” Except, he was already anticipating the answer.
So of course, “You should figure it out for yourself,” came as no surprise. The boy mulled this over for a while, adding it to the baker’s dozen of other questions he’d been messing with.
He turned to the knight. “You’re on my mother’s side, aren’t you?” he asked, finally beginning to untangle the bizarre genealogy. The knight gave him a sidelong look.
“Keep looking. You’ll find it,” he said, cryptic as ever and apparently two trains of thought distant.
“Mom’s side of the family,” pressed the boy. “If I go far enough back.” Not that there was any way to trace back further than the eighteen-hundreds that he knew of. It was a forcibly pruned family tree on that side. “My grandfather,” realized the squire, “He’s one of seven, but he’s the only one— I don’t know what you want me to look for.”
“The only one to what?” asked the knight.
It seemed that Menachem was not versed on recent Earth history. “To survive,” said the squire quietly. “To escape- there was a war.” That seemed to be enough of an explanation to satisfy the knight, and describing genocide to a thousand-year-old ghost was a daunting proposition.
“So that’s what became of us,” he said sadly. “Surely…”
The man was lost in thought. The squire turned around and unhooked his lantern from the lamppost behind him.
The knight spoke again. “Something must have survived. People carry things with them. It’s only natural. All of mankind clings to their history.”
Well, at the very least, it was another question to answer. “I could ask,” said the squire, flexing his numb fingers.
“You should go home,” answered Menachem. “And find the answers for me. Consider it an order.” He sounded weary and sad. Unwilling to upset him further, the squire did as he was told.
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Posted: Tue Dec 13, 2011 9:59 pm
Solo 12/14/2011 - Vacation Planning
“Huckleberry, honey,” crooned Gwen across the kitchen, and Finn didn’t bother to correct her because she’d given birth to him and thereby had special privileges. She was slicing a cantaloupe, which offended Finn on some deep, personal level because they weren’t in season and it had almost certainly been imported from Argentina. Orange cubes plopped slickly into the salad bowl. Finn slouched onto a stool and leaned against the counter.
“What, Mom?” he asked.
“Oh, I know it’s kind of last minute,” clucked Gwen, causing Finn to hold his breath. He’d come over for some kind of social climbing dinner his mother had planned, and the last thing he wanted at this point was to be sent out on an errand, be it to fetch some mysterious ingredient or to pick up flowers. Rush hour was just getting started – going out now would mean not getting back for an hour. “But would you mind spending some time with your grandparents around New Years? They want to give their live-in a bit of time off for the holidays…”
“Which grandparents?” asked Finn hesitantly, wanting to be sure he wasn’t about to get shipped off to New Orleans and midnight mass before he agreed to anything. Gwen smiled at him.
“Oh, mine, of course, honey,” she clarified, popping open a packet of strawberries (Product of Mexico) and running them under the vegetable sink. “I know you’re not so comfortable with Nanna and Grandpa Derouen. It’s not their fault they’re Republicans.”
Actually, thought Finn, it sort of was. But never mind that. He gave his mother an obliging smile. “Yeah, sure, I wouldn’t mind that at all,” he said earnestly. In fact, he’d been meaning to ask if he could visit anyways: Menachem’s mission was still rattling around in the back of his mind, and if anyone would have the answers he wanted it would be his grandfather.
“Of course their live-in would be their some of the time,” added Gwen, dicing strawberries with the acuity of a seasoned chef. “I just don’t want them to be alone at all…” She snuck a taste of the fruit, then slid the cutting board across the counter to her son. “You have to try these!” Gwen urged. Finn shook his head.
“I’ll have some with dinner,” he excused himself. “But go ahead and tell grandma and grandpa to expect me?”
“Sure thing,” replied Gwen, retracting the cutting board. “Thanks so much, I would go visit them myself but I haven’t got the time off… and I’m certain they’ll be thrilled to see you! Now…”
Finn raised an eyebrow, anticipating he was about to be sent on some awful errand. Instead, Gwen pointed to the cabinet over the sink. “Could you set the table? For nine?” she asked, and Finn breathed a sigh of relief, because at least it wasn’t the grocery store during rush hour. “The meat dishes, and salad plates,” clarified Gwen. “Put out wine glasses.”
“Can I give myself one?” asked Finn hopefully.
“No… because then I’d have to explain to your sister why she can’t.”
(Leah Derouen was the reason why Finn couldn’t have nice things. Typical.)
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Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 7:08 pm
Solo 12/23/2011 - Changing of the Guard
His grandparents’ neighbor picked him up at the airport Friday morning, and although Finn was still half-asleep and gingerly nursing a swollen ankle, she managed to coax a conversation out of him. Minnie Frisch would give a full report to her mahjong group later that day, telling them that Herschel and Zelda’s grandson was majoring in environmental science, was handsome aside from his awful haircut, and seemed quite smart (but then they would all expect the child of that nice girl Gwen to be smart) – although he did strike her as a bit of a feygele. Finn anticipated the label with sniper precision, but otherwise didn’t much care whether she’d pegged him as one of those nice confirmed bachelors or not. These weren’t the grandparents he was worried about.
The condominium looked and smelled much as he remembered it looking and smelling on the occasion of his last visit, some two years previously. Herschel and Zelda Berkowitz were perpetually early-risers, even as they entered their late eighties, and Finn found both of them fully dressed and seated at their kitchen table reading separate sections of the newspaper with a His-and-Her set of magnifying glasses. He found it utterly charming, but wasn’t allowed to spend much time contemplating the sight because their live-in was running around the living room packing her day bag and trying to give him instructions.
“Thank you so much for coming,” she gushed as Finn helped himself to an orange from the bowl on the kitchen counter. “My name’s Stephanie. I’ll come back around ten to help them with their night-time things, and someone will be by in the mornings, but otherwise you’re on your own. Do you think you can handle that?”
Well, Finn certainly hoped he could handle that, since it was what he was here to handle. He peeled his orange and nodded at the young woman. “Yeah. Could you—
She pre-empted him. “My number’s on the counter – and the number for the agency I work with. Call if anything comes up. Let me think – it’s Friday, yeah?”
Finn nodded, certain that he could at least keep track of the days of the week, and that he’d definitely spent Thursday night fighting a monster, nearly getting his foot ripped off, and being targeted by Senshi flirting tactics for the 21st century. “That it is.”
“There’s a reform temple up about ten miles up the state route that they like to go to for services and dinner,” she explained, shouldering her bag. “Car keys are on a hook by the door. You’ve got your license, yeah?”
Finn gave her a look of disbelief, but restrained himself from sarcasm. It wasn’t as if his mother had sent some totally incompetent teenager to look after her parents for a few days. (Which was a weird thought in and of itself, visiting his grandparents and being the caretaker and not the kept.) “I do,” he confirmed, keeping hold of his politeness, even managing a crooked smile – one which she returned.
“I just live a town over,” she explained, while Finn tried to discern how much older than him she was. At least out of college, and how many years was a nursing certificate? He wasn’t sure. At any rate, she looked mid-twenties and Finn was nearly certain that he himself looked all of about seventeen, and it was all just an exercise in observation since he was ineffably queer. “So, if anything comes up, I can be back here pretty quick.”
Finn flashed her a thumbs up. “Enjoy your Holiday,” he said.
“You too,” she smiled, and he tried to tell himself he hadn’t unwittingly charmed her. “Have fun with them. Maybe ask your grand-dad what he was up to in World War II – do you know that story?”
“Just the basics,” Finn said hesitantly. He knew scant about how his grandfather had actually escaped Nazi Germany, simply that he had. Everything else was genealogical issues. Stephanie grinned at him and grabbed her keys off the side table.
“You definitely should, then!” Stephanie urged, waving to the couple at the table. Zelda waved back, although Herschel didn’t look up from his newspaper. Finn kept his eyes on the door until she left, then joined his grandparents at the table.
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Posted: Tue Dec 27, 2011 7:09 pm
Solo 12/23/2011 - Took Stock in My Maturity, Realized I Was Rich
He took his grandparents to evening services as instructed, and decided he could see the charm of this synagogue. There was a nice mix of old and young congregants, and with their own grandchildren living so far away he guessed that Herschel and Zelda had found suiting replacements. The idea of being replaced stung Finn a bit, but it made his grandparents happy, and it was Hannukah, and he had to admit he’d have felt entirely sacrilegious if he didn’t light a single candle for the duration of the eight-day festival. (Or eaten a latke, he had to admit once they progressed into the social hall for dinner.)
At dinner, he found his seating assignment dictated by Minnie Frisch who, as his grandmother had indicated on the drive over, was something of a busybody. She’d placed him beside a lanky teenaged boy that besides bearing the most trace passing resemblance possible to a certain Chris Gallo didn’t seem all that significant to Finn. While the conversation across the table had delineated into rapid-fire Yiddish, a language that Finn regrettably did not speak, he and the boy beside him just gave each other awkward looks and waited for dessert to be served on the buffet line.
Glancing up from whatever they were conversing about, Minnie Frisch waved the pair of them away. “You two should go talk! Make friends!”
Retreating to the darkened lobby, Finn awkwardly re-learned that the lanky kid’s name was Jacob. They leaned against the front windows and looked out at the moonlight bouncing off the retention pond. Finn re-evaluated whether or not this kid looked at all like Chris Gallo and tried to decide what that meant to him, and, in the larger scale of things, what that meant about how he felt about Chris Gallo.
Thankfully, he reached the conclusion that Jacob was both shorter and slighter and all around just sort of wussier than Chris Gallo, and that even if Finn hadn’t been eagerly anticipating his boyfriend’s return from Europe he wouldn’t have thought about it. Because even if Finn looked seventeen, he was pretty sure this kid was actually seventeen. Vin’s age didn’t figure into it at all, because Vin was a senshi – at least he and Babylon both had the same hard-earned measure of maturity you earned in war.
“Grandma was talking about you the whole drive here,” said Jacob awkwardly.
“Oh?” asked Finn, shaken from his bizarre, Chris Gallo-related train of thought. “Who’s your grandmother?”
“Minnie Frisch,” replied the other boy, which explained a lot of things. Finn bit his tongue, holding off on the opinion that Minnie Frisch had him figured out from the second he set foot in her car, and because he didn’t like that she seemed to be trying to play matchmaker.
“So are you?” asked Jacob, interrupting Finn’s reverie. Finn glanced over at him, not following.
“What?”
“Gay,” came the answer. Finn nodded absently, counting down the minutes before he could excuse himself from this and go back to the social hall. This was just… pointless. Nothing exposed in this conversation would ever be relevant ever again. He’d met this kid an hour ago and had already evaluated that he had the personality of wet cardboard. “Me too,” added Jacob, which was something Finn had already judged based on a series of subtle clues that he refused to amount to anything so banal as gaydar.
“Good for you, I guess?” Finn said awkwardly, knocking his forehead dully against the glass. How much more of this conversation did he have to have, especially with a high schooler? (And not even his high schooler?) “Is that why she sent us out here, then?” Five more minutes, tops, he promised himself. Then he was going back inside and getting an enormous slice of cake for his trouble. And maybe a jelly donut – it was Hannukah, after all.
Jacob turned away from the window suddenly, with a manic energy that set Finn on edge. He glanced over at the other boy and recognized the half-lit look on his face as one he’d worn himself at a dozen high school speech and debate tournaments. Unsuccessfully. As Jacob was about to find himself.
“Do you want to-” he propositioned, although it was interrupted.
“I’m too old for you,” said Finn.
“I’m mature for my age,” promised Jacob, which struck Finn as insulting to the actual mature-for-their-age teenagers he knew. Vin for one, Ganymede for another – kids who fought wars while this suburban brat was mulling over his sexual minority status and writing emo poetry. It was a state of existence that Finn both recognized but considered totally alien.
Had he been there once?
Maybe. But he’d come a long way since there. “Sorry,” said Finn, shaking his head. “I’ve got someone back home.” Back home and a world away, apparently. Was this how normal teenagers behaved? Jacob looked utterly dejected, which seemed only fair because Finn had to guess he didn’t meet many other gay kids hanging out with his grandmother. Still, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do about the situation besides suggest they go back to dinner.
Shoving his hands in his pockets, Finn nodded towards the social hall doors. “Let’s go check on that dessert situation, yeah?” he asked, and was eternally grateful to whatever higher power was watching when the answer was a half-hearted “Sure.”
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Posted: Thu Dec 29, 2011 7:05 pm
Solo 12/25/2011 - Blood Ties
It was Christmas Day before Finn worked up the courage to ask his grandfather if had any old family documents squirreled away. Despite Stephanie’s insistence that he ask about World War II, he just wasn’t that comfortable asking about it right off the cuff. Even if he was sure his grandfather would be pleased to tell him, even if he knew that Herschel Berkowitz never spent any time in the camps, even if the rest of his family died there.
Maybe it’s because he knew that once he found out, he’d have no choice but to go back to Babylon and tell Menachem the whole story. Finn had already avoided explaining the concept of genocide to the ghost once, and he wasn’t keen on actually following through.
Still, there was an hour before the bowl game started and his grandparents had both taken to rooting for the Gators. Finn knew how to pick his battles and recognized that there wasn’t any chance of getting them out of the house today. No, better to just go with this – put their soup in the microwave, answer their questions about school, and build up to that moment when he could finally ask: “Zeyde, I’m working on a genealogy project.”
“Eh?” asked his grandfather, looking up. He was reading the most recent National Geographic with a magnifying glass. Finn was surprised by his own boldness – he hadn’t expected to bring it up just now – but pressed on.
“A family tree kind of thing,” he explained. “Because I don’t think anyone’s taken the time to do one.” That was what maiden aunts were for, and Finn didn’t have a maiden aunt. The boy pulled his backpack across the coffee table and pulled out a notebook and a pen. “If you wouldn’t mind answering some questions?”
There was a long silence where it occurred to Finn that Herschel would say no and that would be the end of that. And then, the old man set aside his reading materials, adjusted himself on the sofa, and said, “What do you want to know?” His grandson breathed a very audible sigh of relief.
“Your siblings, your parents – maybe even your grandparents. And where everyone came from?” asked Finn, pen at the ready. His grandfather was the eldest of seven, which was a well-enough known fact, but Finn couldn’t hope to list the names of more than two or three of the siblings at most. His grandfather’s eyes were gazing somewhere far away as his listed them off and Finn wrote as fast as he could, trying to consult on spelling and years of birth.
“I only know it in Yiddish, you’ll have to make do,” objected his grandfather, which shut him up about spelling things.
“And where were you from?” Finn asked, finally looking up from his pathetic attempts to spell his great-grandmother’s name.
“I grew up in Warsaw,” his grandfather replied, to which Finn nodded. “My mother’s family was from there, but my father came from further east.” Finn scribbled notes frantically. “The Pale, some little shtetl that doesn’t exist anymore.”
“Do you know the name of it?” asked Finn. Herschel shook his head.
“No,” he said, after a moment. His brow furrowed. Finn inclined his head to the side, regarding the man and waiting for his next action. “I don’t remember the name – My father never went back there, I certainly never went. You know, if you’re so interested…” He trailed off.
“Yes?” asked Finn.
“I have a box,” said his grandfather, starting to get up. Finn leapt to his feet and gestured for his grandfather to sit back down.
“Zeyde, I’ll get it,” he urged. “Just tell me where it is.”
Bewildered, Herschel settled back onto the couch. “In my desk, in the bottom drawer, a wooden box with a latch,” he called. Finn opened said drawer, pushed aside some old financial documents stamped with dates in the 1970s, and found the box. It was made of a burnished, dark wood, scuffed in places but painstakingly polished. There was an ugly burn mark across the top edge, ancient.
He pulled it out and, against all reason, smelled it. A deep breath out and in. It was the kind of antique that still smelled like its history, even after however long it had been sitting in the drawer. A whiff of old papers, and then a permeating scent of oil, and then underneath that turpentine, from when it was first crafted… Finn took the box over to the coffee table.
“I brought this with me, all the way across Europe, all the way across the ocean,” said his grandfather, eyes fixed on the box. “I was nineteen. I had fake papers, I didn’t speak any German – Polish and Yiddish, yes, and either one was likely to get me killed. I was supposed to meet a ship in Denmark that would take me to the United States, but to get there I had to cross two borders.”
“And the box?” asked Finn, feeling bad for being slightly impatient. He had a sense that this might have the answers he was looking for. (Although boxes, falcon statuettes, and other such MacGuffins did have a tendency to mislead for the sake of suspense.)
“I was told to protect this box with my very life,” said his grandfather. Finn reached for the clasp.
“May I?” he asked, hesitating.
“Go ahead,” said his grandfather. Finn gingerly undid the latch and lifted the lid. The inside of the box was strongly perfumed – cloves, he thought the scent might be. It was initially a slight disappointment to see that the box contained only papers, but as Finn sifted gently through the topmost sheets he began to smile.
“It looks like a lineage of some kind,” he remarked. Herschel nodded.
“I never figured out what that was,” said the old man. “It’s all greek to me. If you can make heads or tails of it then I’d be intrigued to know.”
Papers in hand, Finn slid onto the couch beside his grandfather. The papers were in a number of different languages, none of which the young man could even pretend to be proficient in. “Can you translate?” he asked.
His grandfather tried, but even if they could figure out what the cracking ink said, it was another matter to figure out what it meant. Finn was having flashbacks to the Da Vinci Code and more than believed that this was strong evidence for where he’d inherited the squire of Babylon title. However, there wasn’t anything terribly conclusive just because he’d discovered some bizarre Knight Templar tomfoolery going on with his family tree. There might have been any number of reasons!
Okay, it was totally Babylonian, he just needed to prove it.
A symbol at the top of one of the sheets caught his eye. At first Finn had just taken it for an ink smudge, but now that he really focused on it, it resolved itself into a carefully-drawn icon of some sort. Flipping carefully through the stack, he located it on multiple other pages. “Zeyde, what’s this?” he asked, pointing it out.
Herschel held his magnifying glass over the symbol, squinting intently at it. “That… is a crest my father used to use,” he said after a while. “I thought it was odd that it was on these papers, too.”
The longer Finn stared at the crest – especially under magnification – the more familiar it looked to him. He looked thoughtfully down at the ring clenched around his index finger, trying to compare the two. The Babylon crest was certainly more intricate, but the overall shape seemed similar. The sign of Mercury had gone from the center, replaced by a circle, but then it seemed silly to expect that to last. “Does the crest mean anything?”
Herschel made a funny, strained noise. Finn didn’t look at him, not sure he wanted to see the look on the man’s face. “It’s a ner tamid. A light that never goes out. My father came from a family of lamp-makers. He moved to Warsaw to learn about gas and electric lights.”
Well. That sealed it.
“And the crest – it was just his?” asked Finn.
“No, it was a family symbol. It was a family trade. Oil lamps, lanterns. They were craftsmen,” clarified his grandfather. Finn nodded, feeling quite sure of the connection. He lifted the first sheet again, the list of names that he’d assumed was some kind of lineage.
“Would you mind if I made a copy of some of these papers?” he asked, trying his best to read some of the names. They all seemed male – maybe he’d at least be able to trace the male line to some degree.
“If you can find someplace to copy them over the holiday, sure,” replied Herschel, setting the sheets back into the box and closing it delicately. He glanced at the clock on the mantle, even though Finn knew it was too far away for him to read. “The game’s starting soon, isn’t it?”
Finn took the hint gladly. He had what he’d come for.
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