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 Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 9:19 pm
Rodney looked at Lawr with slight concern.
"You...look down on people," he concluded, and shivered a bit, "You're saying they weren't lost, but sanitized. No. No, I don't think-"
It wasn't like that. It was like reaching out for someone from a distance. Seeing their years, the turning of their thought processes, a more intimate compilation than shaking their hand. A moment was like a photograph, but art was accumulated. Not just an object that had shed the humanity like a dust jacket.
He listened with some caution to Jan's answer, but seemed relieved by the response.
"It's still a mystery," Rodney repeated, "Yes, I've always thought that after- we become...something else. Ghosts, for some, but maybe-"
But those thoughts on this subject were too near and dear for first conversations.
"Alright. I'm sorry to move subjects suddenly. Do they know if all creatures and forces that we deal with are terrestrial? Do they originate here, or do some of them come from other planets. For example, stories of aliens. Is it demonic activity? Are we alone?"
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Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 9:42 pm
The hesitance in the other man's tone drew Lawr's attention like the stumble of a wounded animal. "I try not to look down on people. I apologise if it sounded that way." he said softly. But they made it so very difficult with their flaws, their stupidity, their illogical responses. It was a mess, and he had every right to look down on it, stripped as he was of those hopeless constraints. "How do you see it?" Because he knew there was more to the other man's comment than what he could tell from the superficial.
"And it is perfectly fine to change subjects, I assure you pardner. There aren't many people on the island able to converse at the level you are, they are intelligent of course, but they tend to direct it more towards their own pursuits, not art, not the concerns for the forces that move in the world."
He went on in a pleased voice. "From what I gather the forces originate not only here." and he gestured to the street around them. "But here." And he pointed with his index finger to his temple. "Fear. Is what crafts the creatures we face, imagination. I don't know the mechanics I'm afraid, I was never very good at that side of things, my concern lies with us. What we are, understanding how to improve, how to mend. The larger things are the work of those with perhaps grander aspirations than I." He shrugged. "And there are demons, they are one of the subtypes we face, but they are different from what the bible speaks of, simply a flavour of the energy that runs through everything. And on the whole, it seems to be more dimensions than planets."
He smiled. "So in that sense, we are not alone, but I cannot speak with any authority regarding aliens."
He resisted the desire to add that he felt that they were all alone, that some people were born simply born to be that way with simply no means to reach out to others or relate to them. But that did not seem to be the case for Rodney, and ran the risk at this point of deterring him further. Instead it was easier simply to lie, to withdraw the testing honesty he had ventured.
"Maybe we'll find out as we go, who knows? There are more things in heaven and earth."
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Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 10:09 pm
"The best of us isn't distilled," Rodney said, and without thinking about it, rubbed his left arm. As his sleeve hiked up, there was a flash of bold, dark, bloody color on his wrist. He seemed embarrassed as Jan again referred to other people as being inferior company. "Although maybe you're right. Corinthians talks about what we build with our lives in terms of building materials. Gold, silver, straw. If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as fire. But I-" he seemed disturbed by the thought. "It just seems like loss. That's all. I'm afraid of what would be left. Maybe where there's no pain, there's no need for sympathy."
There was a of conflicted longing in his tone.
He took a deep breath, and attended to Lawr's answer.
"Terrestrial," Rodney interpreted. And more confusing still, "Us. I'd always believed that there was power in cognition, but...you mean our beliefs manifest. Physically. That's what we study. That's what we fight."
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Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 10:30 pm
Lawrence listened to the other man talk and for the first time in what felt like months, he was interested, not simply watching people move and react, hoping for something to happen, for some spark of inclination and direction to surface. But he was cautious now, careful not to speak too frankly or too directly, spoiled by his interactions on the island. He could feel himself losing the other man's openness, losing something he couldn't hold onto that slipped between his fingers like sand. "We should not fear loss." he said. "Or at the very least I do not. Everything is transient, everything is changing, what we are surely is more than the material, than the body and the self. We are the ripples me make, we are the change we enact, we are action and motion. I did not mean to offend in my implications, I have grown clumsy in my terminology. I suppose what I was trying to say is that sometimes there are facets of people's lives that for one reason or another endure long past the point where their body has faded away. Those are the lights, not distilled but so bright that they remain like stars long after their source is departed. It is beautiful, not lamentable, not truly a loss. Art to me is that glimpse into the minds of those long past." he clenched his delicate hand subtly. "I would not look if I thought them without merit." Inferior but in possession of something he wanted.
"And it would seem so, worlds and creatures are born from the very effects of imagination and emotion. It adds further depth to the creative works of humanity. The creative act is more significant than anyone realises, art is as close to the supernatural, the - and I do so hate the word - magical, than we have perhaps ever realised."
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Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 10:56 pm
Rodney seemed to respond better to the softer philosophizing. "Yes," he agreed, relaxing. "A glimpse. Of a part of someone we can no longer help. ...Or harm."
"They aren't...individual, are they? I couldn't...think very hard and have something...?" Rodney splayed his hand gently.
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Posted: Fri Jun 26, 2015 11:15 pm
Lawr nodded, but he did not push too much further, concerned that he might upset Rodney again, determined to get a better handle on what set the other man off before he expressed any more opinions concerning the value of normal humans.
"Hah. I don't think so, mercifully. Again, I can't be sure, but I think that our weapon interferes on some level with the creation process, and even then I think it is perhaps a more generalised ambient energy than anything any one individual can control. Again though, I am not the authority on anything, my rank does not give me access to much more than you yourself could peruse. It is all certainly very strange I must say."
Rodney was given another thoughtful glance. "You have tattoos?" he asked casually, he had not considered the man the type to have them and anything deviating from expected aesthetic norms played on his mind.
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Posted: Sat Jun 27, 2015 10:05 am
"Beliefs of a group, you mean." One person was not much of a creator. But many people... "I can see why a lot of the organization isn't...religious. In spite of, what seemed to me like, very clear evidence-"
Demons, ghosts, monsters, every part of it existed. It was just the context. There was a reversal of who had created who.
"Oh, yes," Rodney answered. He touched his neck lightly. "On my collarbone. And I have two sleeve pieces."
They were, in a way, private. He didn't show them off very often, although he'd gotten more used to public showers. Nobody had asked him about his tattoos or scars. Both were commonplace on the island.
He stopped under the overhang of shop that hadn't opened yet, then carefully and neatly rolled up his shirt on each side. The styles were simplified, not detailed paintings, but almost cartoonish in their bold and clear colors. On his right arm, a light and soft looking angel with a kind gaze held a lily in one hand and a lamb in the other. A child clung to its robe. The angel had feathered wings, was bathed in light, and all three figures stood in a rich garden.
On his left, a pot-bellied red demon with a snarling, dog-like face held a sword and carried a handful of severed heads. Blood trickled wetly down its arms. It was undressed, breasts sagging over its belly and veined, erect phallus. The starved, beaten, and subjugated living bowed at his feet among the bones of dead animals. Poppies bloomed from the eye sockets of a skull the demon had wrapped in one clawed foot.
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Posted: Sun Jun 28, 2015 11:45 am
Lawr nodded. "Not to mention that there is a certain subset of the hopeless which are often recruited. People who have lost their path or fallen by the wayside in some capacity. People who are looking for answers and who perhaps never had faith to help set them on the right road, who were lacking something with substance to cling to." Once again he added mindfully. "Not that I am saying they are inferior or flawed, everyone loses their way sometimes." Even he had strayed from the path of perfection in his life, mistaking his gifts and genetic blessings for flaws instead.
Rodney's tattoos were given a fascinated and raptly intent look, he had never been able to afford tattoos himself, they were too permanent and too constrictive, they would chain him to a persona more solidly than the others and that simply was not acceptable.
"They are beautiful." he said, and for once it was not a lie, there was a satisfaction in the duality and he found himself wondering about the other man even more, his shyness and soft spoken demeanour had been assumed to be of the sort which would not engrave his skin with an emblem of such open crudeness.
Of note in his perception of the tattoos themselves was the fact that in Lawr's mind, the evil or foreboding side of the sleeves was not the devil but the angel. The devil, he assumed was merely unfortunate, one of those individuals born to always have the appearance of evil, a scapegoat and target to whom misdemeanours of others might stick. The dark side of the tattoo was instead the angel with its emblems of purity, that was where the danger lay, and no one would ever expect it.
"Absolutely beautiful. I am jealous." And he was not, but it seemed like an appropriate thing to say.
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Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2015 12:16 pm
Rodney offered Lawr a small half-smile. "The art was done by a friend, Sam Crowder."
He rubbed the left arm, thumb twitching at the blood, and deforming the rounded belly with the indent.
"It isn't pleasant. The latin for left is sinister. We...are always fighting opposing natures. Biblically, it says, you will know the tree by its fruits. Evil acts...cannot come from a good person. But I feel, at any moment any of us can make decisions...can- slip-" He was trembling now, but did not roll his sleeve back down. "It's...a reminder."
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Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2015 12:37 pm
"The world is not pleasant, that makes it no less pleasing to look upon. All creations essentially come from one source." The concept of fighting one's nature was completely alien to Lawrence though he had stumbled upon it many times, the very idea of being in conflict with your thoughts made no logical sense to him. If one wished to do something, then one simply did it, and the only reason why not would be the unwieldy inconvenience the of future consequences. Every action was weighed against its potential gain and potential backlash and seized accordingly. He very rarely stopped, because without fear or empathy, the promise of someone else's emotional harm or someone else's monetary loss held no threat or deterrent for him.
Rodney did get a curious eyebrow raise. "I would assume that the internal fight that battle against bad decisions must rage particularly intense within you to warrant such a permanent reminder. "
He shrugged his shoulders. "I have never felt any such war in me, though I have heard of it in others. My internal landscape is a still pool rather than a battleground. Though I like to think that I am a good person and therefore incapable of those evil acts. Pure motivations and so forth. I'd be quite neurotic otherwise."
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Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2015 12:53 pm
He did, at last, after a deep breath roll both of sleeves down, looking slightly tired as if that small act had taken an emotional toll.
His normally tragic expression turned to Lawr with a haunted look.
"You don't struggle?" he whispered, "You aren't afraid? I'm...always. Afraid. You have a very...daoist view on it."
He knew that peace and trust were things he should have, but they were gifts. He didn't feel capable of achieving them on his own.
"But...I believe in evil. And its impacts. ...L-light conversation for the morning, isn't it?" Rodney looked at a quiet cafe that had just opened its doors. The smell of fresh, warm bread spilled into the street.
"How about that one?"
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Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2015 1:43 pm
"No." Lawr said, wondering once again if perhaps lying was the safer route, if telling Rodney that he struggled daily was what he should have said. It didn't seem right though, and he didn't understand the reasoning enough behind the statement to argue its corner if the other man decided to pry or fish for some shared sympathetic vein between them. "I have never really struggled with morality, I was always blessed with a strong sense of what I should or should not do and deprived of a sense of fear. I am not normally afraid. There is a certainty in me which has simply always been there and I am glad that it is."
He nodded at the cafe. "Seems ideal to me." And making his way towards it, continued. "Perhaps a little heavy for the morning, though there is no better location for a discussion of good and evil, I feel."
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Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2015 2:59 pm
It was true that Lawr seemed very...calm. It was comforting, in a way. He did like people, but every time it was like venturing into a very stormy sea with uncountably high waves, and nobody else seemed to notice. Everyone else's vessels also seemed better equipped to handle it.
Lawr, by comparison, was...it was like he'd described. He felt like...a very still pool. Even the faint touches of a well-traveled accent, sometimes midwest, sometimes english, barely stirred the water, closer to the soothing sounds of summer, like a buzz of insects.
Rodney ordered a coffee and some sort of green, flaky pastry curled with spinach and sank into one of the outdoor chairs.
He relaxed as he took a bite with a soft, "Oh," and although he had endured picking over canned beans, old rice, and wilted irradiated salad in the cafeteria for months very patiently, he had entirely forgotten what it was like to have something hand-rolled and freshly made melt in his mouth.
The coffee, too, elicited a surprised "Mmph!" as if even is tongue couldn't reconcile meeting anything with any depth of flavor, coursing with the right amount of caffeine and heat. He rolled each around, even savoring swallowing.
"It has been so...so long."
He had never been wealthy, but he had always been active when it came to the farmer's market, and there was no comparison to something locally grown and in season. It had only been months, but it had felt like years.
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Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2015 5:24 pm
Lawrence on the island existed on what he had, when luxury was not an option balancing his diet on what would keep his light frame healthy. With the addition of Melvin's kitchen space and duty trading he had managed to secure some fresh produce each week and craft himself small islands of luxury in the day to day grind of unpleasant foodstuff. This was another world, a world he remembered with as close to fondness as he possessed, the rich carefully prepared world of other people's effort.
Sipping his caffè e latte he closed his eyes and exhaled. The cool morning air here was so different from the island, even with the lingering haze of modern day pollution it cleared and refreshed the lungs. Breathing in again, his senses filled with the scent of the coffee, enriched by whatever it was that Butch provided to his sense of smell, turning a simple hint of grounds into a rich chord of sensation. It had its downsides, not all of the sensations were pleasant, as over-sensitive as he was, the milk had a certain degree of tinniness. It was not unpleasant overall and he resumed studying his friend.
"The island is sorely lacking on the food front, that much is regrettably true."
Delicately using the edge of his fork to sever a piece of his own pastry (tiny and disproportionately expensive as always) he permitted himself time to savour the flavours and most of all the effort down the years which had gone into refining such a simple dish into the form it presently took, along with the much more subtle but no less effective skills of a trained cook.
The only thing which would have made it sweeter was if the funds were from someone else's wallet.
"A break is most welcome and this cafe is surprisingly good."
There was so much he did not know about the other man and every word spoken, every step felt like treading out on thin and treacherous ice. It was a difficult game devoid of the surety he normally experienced with people, typically it was simple to say what other people wanted to hear and to be what best suited to and accommodated their ego. With Rodney he felt blind, always aware that at any moment he might hear a crack under his feet and have to completely change who he was to adapt. It was interesting in a world where very few things interested him at all.
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Posted: Sat Jul 25, 2015 7:42 pm
Rodney was thinking now about how it had become a luxury, to eat something made only from willing hands, organisms grown only from the heat of the sun. Eating that did not sever bonds and attachments, that did not involve rape, filth, steel walls, and the smell of death. Terror from birth until death.
People didn't taste that, the same way they see the waves. Meat only tasted sweet, the brutality necessary. They saw no morality in in it. The machinery was necessary to support happiness, kindness, sincerity, generosity, art.
But he could always taste the blood.
And he did eat it. Out of that kindness. Out of that good feeling and good will.
But this was not that. Just sun. That was all.
"They can go anywhere in the world at any time. But they only use dried and canned foods." Rodney swallowed heavily. "I know most of the island eats meat. Most of them...distinguish between people and animals. In terms of worth. And feelings. Most people do that. I think...I think there might be a higher percentage on the island who don't. But it's...it's worse. You know, instead of- valuing both- it was a military organization. I know that. I knew what I must be getting into. I have just never been very strong."
And he was on the verge of tears again, thinking about it, even though they were in a nice, open place, in the quiet and still of the morning, eating food that did not taste like blood and that was made by Tomas, who they had both met. Even with his companion at the other end of the table only full of peaceful feelings- even here-
He took another drink of coffee.
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