Note: Blah. Not much here in any meaning of the term, just crammed a bunch of imagery from the section into a little snapshot, mostly it's stream of consciousness sort of stuff from Dan. And erm... happy birthday Rorschach.
Little Lives of Men
The man in the cemetary wasn't bringing flowers or standing near a particular headstone. If he wasn't dressed in black, he wouldn't have looked like he belonged there are all.
Daniel stared at the headstones, wondering how to bury someone when there was nothing left to bury, wondering how to honor someone who no one knew or cared had died. And in the long run, he thought, no one notices the dead. If it weren't for those who cared for us, our lives would pass without consequence, as if we had never existed. How can you remember a person when no one else will? How can you prove he existed?
But Rorschach did exist, dammit because Daniel had been there to care for him. Daniel was the living proof... the only proof. And if he couldn't do something, if he couldn't cling to his friend, it would be as if his friend had done nothing, lost among the lives of all the others.
Drops of water slid down his face, warming his cheeks. Daniel hadn't cried until now, until he was broken by the weight of a broken life and his desire, no his need to keep it... alive.
He wasn't that strong, that stubborn. If he had been, Rorschach would have been here, the one he had become partners with... Walter, that had been his name, hadn't it? Hell, Walter had been dying for years, and Walter had done nothing. He'd always done nothing. He just let the emptiness eat him alive, and he still did nothing. He just stood in the cemetary as the sun set and the red leaves fell from the branches above him. He felt like he could stand there for the rest of his life and beyond, like the emptiness had turned him into a statue. And someone walking by might have agreed he was.
