Disclaimer: 'The West Wing' and all related materials are the sole property
of Aaron Sorkin, NBC, and various other capitalist strongholds. Fight the
power, but if you want to pay for this, pay them, you fool.
Messenger
By BJ Garrett
Don't kill the messenger, you tell yourself as you walk between offices. Don't kill the messenger. What if the messenger deserves it?
Don't kill the messenger. The first words you thought of when the clocks kept ticking and time stopped. The first thing that popped into your head when you realised he didn't have the guts to tell you himself.
Don't kill the messenger.
So you walk on. You finish your rounds, you go back to your office. You wallow in paper and try to stop yourself from thinking.
If you keep working, you'll be fine.
You wonder why everyone else got the benefit of his explanation, of his voice revealing an essential truth like the voice of God and you got nothing. You got a messenger. You got second-hand information and a brush- off.
You got eighty-seven seconds with a man who doesn't understand you to begin with.
And all your expectations dropped like lead balloons. Like flying men who realise suddenly that they're flying, and flying is impossible, and so they fall.
You push the idea away.
You watch the phosphors turn black on your screen, watch the tiny lines of the shadow mask excising your letters, you press your fingers to the keys, don't pay attention to what you're doing, just working, just putting the message through yourself.
Don't kill the messenger.
You are the messenger.
Fist hitting the desk with a sudden swell of anger, you slam the laptop closed, put your head in your hand, feel the warmth of your skull against your fingers. Something wells in your sinuses, but you push it back. This is no place for tears.
There is no time for tears. Time only to repress, and move on, and keep bringing the message.
You consider the men who used to run between battles and home, between elections and home, between coronations and assassinations and home. You consider that perhaps it would be better to kill the messenger, because then he will not have to run anymore. You consider not feeling the ache and burn in your legs-in your chest. You consider falling to the ground, a knife in your neck, letting the blood pulse and flow steadily from your throat. No more messages.
You know you have been the whipping boy of circumstance. That you have given up a life of lesser moral value but greater emotional stability to cry in your office at midnight.
You don't want lesser moral value.
And you ask yourself what you're doing crying in your office at midnight for a man who has no morals, obviously, who does not believe in you as you believe in him, who does not care that you took the high road and lost your life for him.
He does not care that you are his messenger, and the people are bloodthirsty.
You don't want to cry for him.
You don't want to cry for yourself.
You don't want to cry for this whole fucked administration and the smoke grime on the walls in the Mural Room.
You don't want to write without knowing what you're writing anymore.
You don't want to be a victim.
But you don't have any choice.
We can only expect to be victims.
End.
Messenger
By BJ Garrett
Don't kill the messenger, you tell yourself as you walk between offices. Don't kill the messenger. What if the messenger deserves it?
Don't kill the messenger. The first words you thought of when the clocks kept ticking and time stopped. The first thing that popped into your head when you realised he didn't have the guts to tell you himself.
Don't kill the messenger.
So you walk on. You finish your rounds, you go back to your office. You wallow in paper and try to stop yourself from thinking.
If you keep working, you'll be fine.
You wonder why everyone else got the benefit of his explanation, of his voice revealing an essential truth like the voice of God and you got nothing. You got a messenger. You got second-hand information and a brush- off.
You got eighty-seven seconds with a man who doesn't understand you to begin with.
And all your expectations dropped like lead balloons. Like flying men who realise suddenly that they're flying, and flying is impossible, and so they fall.
You push the idea away.
You watch the phosphors turn black on your screen, watch the tiny lines of the shadow mask excising your letters, you press your fingers to the keys, don't pay attention to what you're doing, just working, just putting the message through yourself.
Don't kill the messenger.
You are the messenger.
Fist hitting the desk with a sudden swell of anger, you slam the laptop closed, put your head in your hand, feel the warmth of your skull against your fingers. Something wells in your sinuses, but you push it back. This is no place for tears.
There is no time for tears. Time only to repress, and move on, and keep bringing the message.
You consider the men who used to run between battles and home, between elections and home, between coronations and assassinations and home. You consider that perhaps it would be better to kill the messenger, because then he will not have to run anymore. You consider not feeling the ache and burn in your legs-in your chest. You consider falling to the ground, a knife in your neck, letting the blood pulse and flow steadily from your throat. No more messages.
You know you have been the whipping boy of circumstance. That you have given up a life of lesser moral value but greater emotional stability to cry in your office at midnight.
You don't want lesser moral value.
And you ask yourself what you're doing crying in your office at midnight for a man who has no morals, obviously, who does not believe in you as you believe in him, who does not care that you took the high road and lost your life for him.
He does not care that you are his messenger, and the people are bloodthirsty.
You don't want to cry for him.
You don't want to cry for yourself.
You don't want to cry for this whole fucked administration and the smoke grime on the walls in the Mural Room.
You don't want to write without knowing what you're writing anymore.
You don't want to be a victim.
But you don't have any choice.
We can only expect to be victims.
End.