Title: Life is, and is not
Author: Winking Tiger
Rating: PG-13
Timeframe: Season Season Two; Spoilers up to and including Counteragent
Disclaimer: I own nothing, except the words that have come off of my keyboard.
Summary: When you know the future, can you remember how things are interconnected and interlinked? When Murphy's law plays out in all its glory, what happens at the end?
Author's Notes: Response to January CM challenge
This is something I forced myself to do. It's totally different. It's dark, and sad at parts. And it may just confuse the hell out of you. It's complex and dense, but I hope it's worth it.
It was a real struggle for me to finish and took a lot out of me by the time this was completed. This is my first piece to be submitted, so be kind.
It's fun and sickening to create your own little world. But it must be perverse to take pleasure in killing your people, but taking their pain as your own as the words come to exist—they're lives begin, ebb away, and end.
Life is, and is not
Events are.
THERE are always questions. Some think that the world was founded on questions. Questions between a creator and an idea—can I actually do this? Questions of alternatives—can there be anything better than everything? Questions of others and morals—is it right, is it fair, to do this? Questions of questions—why why?
When everything is presented at the beginning, does the end and all else matter?
If you know what will happen, can you stop it? Do you want to stop it?
With the answers already known, will you even be able to know what's to come?
But when you start with what is to come, while the end may be known, you must still start at the beginning.
THERE'S something distinctly different between knowing of something—of an apple, of Lou's Bakery, of Michael's film—and having known someone—having known Lou, having known Michael.
It's the tense and tone that are the clinchers there. English lesson: Of: Preposition, constituted by, containing, or characterized by. Informal, directed towards an unspecific subject, generally lacking of a possessive nature towards the subject. Known: Verb, to be acquainted or familiar with, past participle of know.
Having. Known. Someone. Those combined—informal and non possessive, past tense. You once knew them; no longer. The friendship is either gone, dead, ruined, buried, or there's no longer any possibility of friendship—death.
It changed before you knew what was coming.
YOU thought you knew. Knew what you needed to know. But truth is apparently tricky. While lies can be simple, truth and knowledge are elusive to the very end.
And the truth you knew has turned into lies. The world has begun to crumble, you fear—you know. Things have gone wrong. It was twisted before and now it's also corrupted and everything went to hell.
Chicken little ditched the scene long ago, and the pieces of the sky are slowly going to fall any moment.
The tears stung as they fell down my face.
THIS little thing called a forehead. It all started with a little thing, with a damn forehead. It was an attempt at a loving and kind gesture. A little goofy, funny, cute movement to joke around, to help out. And it all went down hill from there. He was focusing intently on whatever was in front of him—enough to have his glasses mounted on his nose, his face contorted in a look of mild confusion and moderate concentration.
I thought it was cute.
He didn't think it was funny.
I tried to rationalize it away. Maybe I was just transposing something else onto him. My life's stressful enough. So I didn't see that. He didn't freak when he saw me. He just got scared when I went to go at his glasses. It's perfectly reasonable, would be perfectly true.
There's an entire space, the amazing creation of a feature miraculous all by itself, the wonderful forehead. "I'm not sure if you're familiar with it," I said agitated, under my breath, not afraid—although I should have been—of the anger it held, promised. I was still deluding myself. "It's called the forehead," I went on. "Your eyes are directly below such an area. Glasses," I spat bitterly, "are located, generally, around the eye area, therefore below the hairline range." He had looked at me with an unreadable face, an expression I hadn't seen before on him. I remembered that, and resignedly, I added, softly, "Your glasses fall from your nose when you wear them long enough and face downwards. It's gravity, if nothing else. It's not something entirely foreign. I was trying to help you. Maybe goof on you. It was just a little joke. But I went for your glasses."
Resignedly, I thought quickly, when had that word ever been associated with me saying something—anything? If his expression was unfamiliar to me, this was certainly an aspect of myself I'd never imagined or encountered before either. And then it comes back again, in those few split seconds that I'd forgotten.
He didn't catch himself before he should have. I shouldn't have seen that, he shouldn't have let me see that. He shouldn't have been looking at that, looking for that, at all.
My heart raced, I felt my adrenaline levels sky rocket, I wanted to start something—I was ready for a fight. He shouldn't have done that, and I was fuming—how dare he, who the hell does he think he is. But I stopped myself, I did the right thing. Don't I always? His face is in one whole, entire, pain free piece—thanks to me. I stopped myself, made myself stop, and left. I pushed him out of my way before I could think of what had happened—of what he did, of what I did, of what I was doing. I left.
I only saw the tear blurred door on my way out. I didn't turn back.
What?
INNOCENCE and ignorance. It could be bliss. Blissfully ignorant, they say. And what I wouldn't give right now to be blissfully ignorant.
But I'm not. And while it'd be great to not know, maybe its better that I do—it's given me enough. I've been changed, irrevocably changed, by everything. For the worse, that's almost as clear as it's been for the better. Almost, not quiet, because there's been one change that's tricked me into making myself believe that it's all worth it.
And it matters, it does. But it's easier, most of the time, to just not think about it. Because everything else can be much less painful.
Because walking to the park and taking everything in isn't painful, at all. I walked out of the house and just stood outside for a moment. Thought, with a blank mind. And my legs began to walk, to move, and I started to my destination without knowing where I'd end up.
And the clouds were few, and scattered, and the sun shun through the clumps. The trees swayed with a slight breeze. And the sounds of cars never left me. But the sidewalk was continuous, and smooth, and my path was scenic, compared to others. And then, as I looked around me once more, the green and the colors called to me, spoke to come to them. And I came, as per their request, and the birds chirped and the park sung with life.
So when two little kids chasing after each other ran in front of me, I was thrown off a bit. But watching them, run through the grass, trample over a few weeds and some flowers, and a young woman chase after them, dog leash and attached dog trailing, I couldn't help the smile that formed on my lips. I turned my head and a Frisbee sliced through the air to my left, while a game of soccer got interrupted when the ball went out of bounds, and a jogger and a guy on roller blades passed me—going in opposite directions.
Little things can make you happy.
A barking at my feet makes me feel guilty for not taking Donovan with me, but I'll make it up to him later. But when I realize that the barking fur ball at my feet is in fact very familiar, I'd hope, since he's my dog. What the hell is Donovan doing here? He didn't follow me; he was asleep on the couch when I left. What happened?
"Hey! Slow down buddy!" Of course. The man I usually call my friend, but I'm willing to change that right now. Eric Weiss.
He looks over at me innocently, when he finally catches up and sees the man rubbing and petting his loot—aka the dog he took from his friend without letting him know.
"I'm not sure if I even want to know," I tell him honestly.
"Look, it's really not as bad as it looks. I … I was going to see if you wanted to do something. And I stopped by your house and you weren't there so when Donny boy—"
"Excuse me? 'Donny boy' what the hell is that?" I asked only a little pissed. I'm betting he was tired of getting dinner for one, and he wanted to try and use my dog to get a girl.
"Like I was saying, Donovan came and greeted me and when he gave me those pouty dog eyes I couldn't leave him alone in there. So we … we came for some fresh air," he says, a twinkle in his eye I've seen enough to know it's when he thinks he's done real good with a real bad lie.
"Mike! Mike, you forgot," a tall blond says as she runs up the path, with something in her hand. I turn to see who'd been calling me, but before I can tell her that she's mistaken, and that she's got the wrong guy, she approaches Eric.
"Oh, thanks Molly," he tells her, completely blocking me out of her, and his, view.
"Molly," I saw, the smile growing on my face. This should be—
"This is my friend Eric, Molly. We work together. Look, thanks so much for bringing this to me. I've got to go, I'll call you later." He ushers me off, Donovan by my side, away from the path. "Look, I know, I know," he says, knowing expression on my face. "I wanted to try the dog angle, okay? And when Donovan ran up to her, she saw his name: Donovan Vaughn, and went to talk to me. She said something and before I could stop myself, I blurted out that, 'Hi, I'm Mike.'"
"Sure," I choke out, laugh bursting to come out. But the phone rings against my side, and my attention was refocused. Answering it quickly, it was hard to hear what the voice was telling me, with the noise of the park seemingly thunderous.
I tried to process what was just said. But … no. What? No, it couldn't be. "I must have misunderstood you. I'm sorry; could you repeat what you just said?"
Pop.
I AM not broken. I am in need of repair. I might be slightly damaged, but I refuse to be broken. A few things just need to be mended, tweaked, altered … maybe, if you want to go to extremes, I need to be fixed. But I have not been beaten, broken, and killed. I cannot, do not, will not, go without a fight. And this is one battle I'm fighting until the end.
But, for sanity's sake, for all hypothetical intensive purposes, let's say I was broken. If these wings of mine were broken, if I'd gotten too close to the sun and the wax had melted, then I'd take these broken wings and learn how to fly. The impossible is only possible when you allow yourself to go beyond. And there are very few limits that I allow to keep me bellow beyond.
I function on experience, on success, on adrenaline, on life. There is a unique addiction I've come to acknowledge of having. I am a junkie to all that is above, and well beyond.
But beyond can be too far when you don't realize all the limits other than your own. And good intentions may be, good, but outcomes are never rooted in good.
And before you can realize it, beyond is transformed into uncontrollable. And that can, does, will, is, lead to the jumble of things that have just happened. It accounts for the splotchy vision that comes and goes, the odd feeling you've now taken on. And it must certainly be in alliance with the black spots you start to see, as they grow larger. And a quiet pop is all it takes, you realize much later. All becomes dark before you black out.
"Oh God. Please, please …"
IT'S an entirely different thing when there's a deafening silence. Or when the noise is so loud it is suddenly soundless. The mix of panicked, fearful, calm, worrying, and frantic lives and words tumble together.
"Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name," one man began.
Another woman's scream fades into desperate whimpers.
"My wife, my kids … I can't—this isn't supposed to happen this way! I can't … this can't be happening."
Faintly in the noise fogged cabin the pilot's voice, impossibly muffled by the cries all around, begins, attempts, to be heard. It is impossible to understand what it is he is, was, saying.
A couple. "I won't go without you Viv," he began, quietly. "If this is the end," she whimpers and begins to cry, he goes on with determination, "I'm gonna go out with a bang, with you, my love." They're noisy now, murmurs meant for only the two but increasing in volume, between sloppy kisses and similar gestures that have the two at an embarrassing and precarious point and situation. Broken for a moment, "This is how I want it to end, the two of us, I—" he's silenced with an onslaught of more of the previous actions. They no longer care or remember the others around them. They're noisy and loud and more than one person turns they're attention away from them, and more than one person wishes silently that they had the same opportunity.
"… forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for Thine is the kingdom …"
A man tries in vain; the power has fluctuated through the long moments, to use the onboard telephone. "I … he'll never know. We never had a chance," he cried franticly while trying to complete the call. He's met by silence at the other end; the pores of the phone mock him with unused potential. "I love you Alex."
A baby's cry wails throughout the tense walls.
Some turn and form a sick hind of circle. They're reaching the end now, but as the man continues, each silently says the same, "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen," he concludes, the closed book lowered into his now limp hands, revealing quickly a flash of white on black.
I never realized that I'd never thought of this before. Well, everyone ponders the concept at least vaguely one time or another. But I never really took much into my consideration. Never took the time to really analyze it before—now.
And all you can think, as the cabin's fully depressurized and the screams have been fogged and fading for you, the air masks are dangling uselessly out of your vision, the seat buckle is still secured on your lap, is maybe I should have thought of it before. Before would have given me enough time to come up with appropriate answers. Would have left me prepared, for such an occasion—it does only happen once. I would have been able to admit, in case I ever needed, that there's only one thing I should be thinking about. And she's miles away, ignorant to what's happening around me, and yet the most amazing creature I've ever had the pleasure to encounter.
Maybe, you try to reason—hope and wish is more like it—to yourself, acknowledging it, silently without her ever hearing the words from your lips, it's enough. Could it have earned some kind of assistance or pity? Will that make a difference? But, you think over and over, a mantra now—the last you'll ever hear or think about or say: I love you Sydney. And my love is strong, as you are. It's all that matters now. But, please, Love, come quickly.
You repeat over and over, the words you cannot believe, the thoughts you never wanted to think. You pray, not for forgiveness for your sins, or admittance to those pearly white gates, but that it is enough. And that you will have started soon enough. Quickly, before you start again, once more, you think that enough seems to be rather important to you in these last few minutes. I love you Sydney. And my love is strong, as you are. It's all that matters now. Let it be enough, that William loved Sydney. But, please, Love, come quickly.
The trick is to keep breathing.
BREATHE. That's what you need to do. If you do, then oxygen continues to circulate and you'll be fine. You know this. It's in the back of your brain, along with the alarm combination to your house, the password to the computer at work, your ATM pin number, the way to cook a soufflé to perfection, how many games are still left in the season, the directions to get to the Vet's—but none seem important right now. You don't think you could recall even one of them right now. No, you're sure, you decide, that you couldn't; you cannot.
Your vision, your thoughts, your attention—your being, is tunneled. You see the darkness around you. There is no light at the end, so far as you can see. And the darkness encompasses you, while violently taking hold of her as well. It circles as if it might drain, a tornado of dark water, but there is no drain. There is no end. There is no resolution by the centrifugal forces of a shower's floor.
She's all you can see, all that there is. You have a deep hatred for the hundreds, thousands, of years of life, and the subsequent instincts inherited. You are loath to blink, every second, each millisecond, lost to a blink is too much time away—wasted. Because, you've now realized, anything other than devoted to her, devoted to solely being of her, was, is, wasted.
Wasted—come on, you need air. You won't do her any good if you pass out because you wouldn't breathe. In, out, steady there, come on, you can do this. If my biggest struggle is breathing, than I'm a bigger wimp that I ever thought I was.
Be strong for her. She's always been so strong, she needs me. I have to … oh God!
I'm not sure how this has happened, but next thing I know it's hard to keep my head up, am I hyperventilating? Well, my head's between my knees … there, I think I'm a bit better.
But, the door's just opened. And … and there's blood. Red is over everything. It's covering him, and the nurse behind him, and the one behind her … no, no, no.
She … it's not hers. It couldn't be hers. She … he's shaking his head. I came in here and told them I wanted to see her, after racing in from that phone call. And, oh god, I couldn't breathe, let alone talk, but they knew. They knew, and I wasn't allowed into her room. But I carried a chair from the waiting room, down the hall, in front of her room. I've held my vigil now. And I think I remember someone briefly talking about fire codes and safety issues. She wore something with red stripes on it. And I shook my head and motioned for her to go away. And her red stripes—the red. Red. All over.
But there's still hope, right? I've tried to tell each nurse and doctor that's passed through the room that I'll do all that I can. I wanted them to test my blood. Let my give her blood. But they said something about something and shook their heads and kept going. So I stayed in front of her room, in my chair.
It's seemed like years. It's been a lifetime since that phone call. How could a day so beautiful, a time where the park was so amazing, and I start to believe in the good of the world, the unrealized potential. And now, this. And it's been years now, slow and horribly painful years, in this empty corridor, and my stares at her door and each quick glance at my watch.
And now it's technically been 23 minutes, and 7 seconds since my world's begun to end. And I'm petrified that there really won't be a light at the end of this tunnel—that she won't get through this and I'll be alive on this earth without her.
And it causes me so much pain that it literally, physically, hurts.
"Mr. Vaughn," the doctor began, gigantic above me. "I need to speak with you." And the words yet to be released from his lips were burning my ears, and my heart.
"Doctor?" kind reassurance, maybe—please, gentle let down—oh god, please no. Hope, yes, good kind, healthy, alive, doing well, words—I pray for them.
"Mr. Vaughn, Ms. Bristow," he began. Maybe it was my pleading eyes. Or the loud shattering of my heart. Or maybe he just felt this would be better. But instead of the entire speech, the recap of what had happened to her, the lengths they went to fix her, he didn't. "She'll make it. I'm giving her a high chance for a full recovery. She may not be truly 'with it', but she is conscious, and she can hear you. She is still in pain, we have her on medicine to try and aid the pain, but there's some complications with the medicine and her condition. Be gentle with her. I … I trust you understand what you can and cannot do with her right now, correct, Mr. Vaughn?"
'Make it … full recovery … conscious … ghn,' was all I could hear him say. "Yes, I … I just want to see her." And his kind eyes made me see something within him. I glanced down at his hands, but asked anyway, "Do you have a wife, Doctor?"
He looked at me oddly, but nodded his head, and replied, "Yes, we've been married for 29 years."
"Then you know what it's like to love someone. And I can't say much more, because there just aren't words. You … but you understand, what it's like. And … I just need to see her, please?"
He didn't respond, but opened her door, and waited for me to enter. I tried to keep a calm exterior, even if I was dying inside; But when I saw her. There … there were tubes and tape and blood and the tears came to my eyes no matter how much I tried to stop them. "Syd," I whispered. To the room silent accept for the machines and their hums and buzzing, and the woman that looked like she could break if I just breathed on her. "Syd, I'm here, I'm here Syd. And I'm not going anywhere. And I'll do anything, just, Syd. I need you to be okay. Because I can't be alone, I just can't."
But she didn't respond. And I couldn't breathe again. But I remembered what Eric said to me as I rushed away from him in the park. "The trick is to keep breathing."
But I looked over at her. And beyond the tubes and the tape and the blood, she was … she was the beautiful, and amazing, and breathtaking Sydney I've fallen in love with.
And she just lay there.
But as I continued my pleas, they were silent in my head, because the words were too painful to say anymore. She started to stir, I thought I was going to break into a million pieces just from hope. "Don't, don't frost … frost the pie. Don't!" and I couldn't help but laugh. I'd cried more than I've ever cried my entire life. It hurt to breathe, it hurt to stay upright, it hurt to even be. And she just showed signs of life by talking in her sleep and saying something, again, about frosting pies. And all I can do is laugh.
"Don't worry, Syd, I won't frost the pie."
Life is, and is not.
THERE'S something distinctly alarming between the difference in the occurrence of a singular event—Katherine's Sweet Sixteen party, Cuddles giving birth to pups, washing the car—and a collective event—the Holocaust of World War II, the plague, the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, the Hindenburg disaster.
Humans, individuals, absorb themselves in the matters they see as important. Important to themselves, those immediately around them, and those effecting and influencing themselves—for various and varied reason. There is always a bigger, larger, picture. Most are incapable to draw themselves from their selfish and self-fulfilling actions and concerns. But there are others, rare and hidden gems, that do. They could tell you of the horrors that have happened, that are happening, that might happen.
And there are others yet that understand how most is connected, one way or another. In a sick and twisted form of a spider-web, intricate, connected, and always growing. While one thing is happening in one place, there are infinite others occurring somewhere else. There are times when the world, most, may stop and realize that something has happened, in one place, over, instead, of another. But all are effected, directly, even if emotional, not physical or politically or economically.
There are times when the world should stop for events. There are times that events are skipped over, forgotten even before they've occurred and erased once they have.
But there is always at least one person that knows of an event. Things are never truly forgotten or missed, there is always at least one. And that one can grow to many, or disappear to none.
But events happen, for good or for bad. They cannot be changed once they've occurred. They cannot be forgotten before they've happened. They cannot be stopped once they've finished. They are. And they are.
As events are, thoughts are. The world may be forged on questions just as surely as the world may end with questions. Questions of limits—how far is too far? Questions of outcomes—is this really the end? Questions of existence—why life if there is only death? Questions exist when there is anything in existence.
When the end comes, once the beginning has, what still matters?
When you knew what would happen, did you stop it? Did you want to stop it?
With the answers already known, were you even able to know what was to come before it did?
Between the profound and the trivial, may perpetuity be found.
the end