//November is coming up too quickly. Must write faster! Arrgh!
It's not like I can't, it's just that I'm lazy. Oh well. I'm updating quick as can be.//
What Shadows Hide: Questions
Jack led the way again, down into the further reaches of the museum. It was free today if you got in before eleven and Jack had found waking Ralph up that morning to be quite amusing. Ralph, of course, had been shocked, enraged, and now had completed the metamorphosis to sullen.
It was just after ten o'clock; they had been walking past an old church when the bells started to chime, shattering the silence. Ralph had jumped and even Jack had been hard-pressed to hide his surprise. The bells had sounded deep and old, weary and warning.
Still silent, Jack walked to the furthest reaches of the museum, past the fun exhibits that children and adults alike preferred to walk through. The third floor was where the older exhibits, most of them about Eastern cultures, were slowly moldering away.
"What's the game this time?" Ralph asked in a whisper, sarcasm warring with apprehension and anger in his voice. Jack kept walking, not deigning to answer. After a long moment, Ralph followed him.
"Why do you suppose they put carpets on display?" Jack asked, leaning over the guard rail to get a better look at the Oriental rugs on display on the far wall. Ralph was looking over his shoulder, obviously hoping that someone else would join them in the exhibit, but at the question he turned.
"Why are you asking me stupid questions?"
"No question is stupid," Jack replied, turning to stare at Ralph quizzically. The other boy frowned and looked away from his scrutiny. "Even questions that seem totally obvious have value. Do you know why?"
"I don't know what you're talking about," Ralph said, looking at the carpets and trying to ignore Jack's presence.
"A question is valuable, no matter how silly it seems, because it gives you insight into the person asking," Jack said quietly. Ralph didn't look at him, but he was listening. His eyes grew more focused as Jack continued. "And the answer is equally important, because it gives you a window into the way the person who answered thinks. Really, nothing anyone ever says should be ignored, or thrown out as 'unimportant.' Don't you agree?"
"That's your game, then?" Ralph finally looked at him, his expression cold as ice.
"You wanted to know," Jack answered, turning away.
The silence stretched for a long time before Ralph spoke again. "Why do you care?"
"About?" Jack asked mockingly. Ralph wasn't deterred.
"Why did you tell me that? Why would you care that I wanted to know?" he persisted.
Jack smiled. "Answer my question first. Then, maybe, I'll answer yours."
"What question?"
Jack waited. Ralph muttered something under his breath, but he was thinking as to what the other boy's question might have been. Jack wondered if Ralph knew just how obvious he really was.
"I don't know why they put carpets on display," Ralph finally said. "Now answer my question."
"I asked you why you think they put carpets on display," Jack countered. He leaned back against the guard rail and smiled at Ralph, who was scowling again. "Answer my question, I answer yours."
Ralph shut his eyes and let his head fall back. Jack stared greedily at his throat, having a sudden urge to bite it.
"Well, they're pretty," Ralph said suddenly, breaking Jack's concentration. Jack blinked, realized what he had been about to do, and cursed himself silently. "And I guess they're cultural. Probably there's some significance in the weaving, or something like that. Maybe there's a special process behind them." Ralph opened his eyes and glared at Jack. "Now answer my question."
"Because," Jack said immediately. Ralph started to yell at him in anger, but Jack held up his hand and interrupted. "We're in a museum, remember?"
"That wasn't an answer," Ralph fumed. Jack laughed at him.
"It's a simplistic answer, but it is an answer."
"It's not good enough."
"I have a feeling that a lot of things aren't good enough for you, Ralph." Jack watched in amusement as Ralph blushed at that comment, mumbling something angrily and whirling around to look at the rugs again. He continued, "Do you ever stop to think about what's happening? Not just here, but everywhere? The world's an island, Ralph. More people, more conches- it's still going to fall. Isn't it?"
Ralph was shaking his head. "No. It's different, out here."
"How?" Jack lowered his voice. "An island, a country, a continent, a world- it's all the same, just scaled up or down. Yeah, but we were kids, and there are adults here! Dammit, Ralph! Those adults are the same ones that started that whole goddamn war-"
"Don't swear-"
"I will swear if I damn well want to!" Jack grabbed Ralph's shoulder, forcing the other boy to look him in the eye. "It's all falling apart. Countries torn apart and people dying all over the place. Bombs, guns, kids with spears- what's the difference? You and I don't understand why our own people put carpets up in museums! How are we going to understand a whole other country, where people have lived so different for so long?" Ralph was staring at him with startled, frightened eyes. "We're all just running around in the dark."
"But we can understand! Even if we just guess-"
"And when we guess wrong?" Jack's voice was deadly quiet. Ralph stared at him, breathing heavy.
"Then we try again," he whispered finally. Jack could feel the gentle puffs of Ralph's breath on his face; they weren't very far apart at all. "We find out how to relate to people as people, then we scale up."
"You have hope, then?" Jack asked sarcastically.
Ralph was shaking ever so slightly. "I have faith."
"Faith falls."
"When you let it." And Ralph smiled, totally free of any dark emotion.
Jack let him go, and the rest of day was spent, for what the rest of the world could see, as if they were friends- not altogether easy in each other's presence, but with a certain understanding and hidden emotion.
Longing for innocence, faith in what's right- you aren't hiding what you are, but it's still so hard for me to see. What do I have to do to get inside you?
What is there left for me to find?
//Review if you like, flame if you have to, blink in confusion if you just don't get it.//