Doodling Thoughts

I was doing what Rimmer is going to be doing here. This is just a nice, sad review of him. Nothing really. Not really a plot. Just something I literally 'spit' out, with my pencil. I like it, though!

Arnold J. Rimmer stared at the piece of blank paper in front of him. Absent mindedly, he started to move his pencil over the paper. Well, his doodling wasn't coincidence that had just...happened. He had asked Holly for a hologrammatic paper and pencil. He HAD to ask Holly, because he couldn't touch. He couldn't do anything.

He had to ask for a clean uniform, even a shower and shave. This wasn't freedom. When you died, wasn't it your way out? No, he had to come back, not being able to touch anything, and have the company of the last human being alive, a life-form that evolved from a cat, and a mechanoid.

Deep in his thoughts, Rimmer started to actually press down on the paper, leaving a thick, dark line to the left side of the paper. A line vertical, that seemed to fill the page, and it did.

The last human being alive had to be the slobbiest, laziest, 'person' in the whole universe. And Rimmer used the word 'person' and 'human' lightly. Lister had to live, while he had to die. Dying wouldn't have been that bad, but he had to be 're-created' and had to see, and live, through it. HE had to keep the last surviving human sane.

He had to be the one for Lister to fight against. While Lister, the high and mighty, had...friends! A cat, who was totally vain, self-centered, all about himself, and a mechaniod who had broken his programming.

They made fun of him, insulted him. Added to the life of hurt that had made him the smeghead he was now. Added to the beatings, the hurtful words, the bullies.

Rimmer stopped making that line, that was as dark as the black night, an endless abyss. His hand, on autopilot, went to the middle of the line, and drew a shorter line horizontally. His mind was not drawing this alone; His mind had joined his soul, his sub-conscience, and was drawing the thought that stayed on his mind. What he really felt.

He remembered his father's quick temper, and the strokes that fell on him alone. He remembered his mother's harsh words, blaming him for something he didn't do. He remembered that his 3 older brothers got all the credit, that everybody loved them. They would do something, and the blame would be placed on Arnie. The boys were too good to do such things. Tears poked at Rimmer's hazy eyes, as his brain drifted to the outside world.

Hadn't they noticed! Rimmer had not said a bad thing today. He hadn't insulted anyone, talked bad about anyone. He hadn't said anything today. Did they notice!

Of course not.

Rimmer stopped drawing the other line. He started drawing another vertical line, on the un-connected part of the horizontal line, to the right of the paper.

'Bloop!...Kerplop!...Drip!...'

Rimmer wasn't going to yell at the Cat to do his laundry elsewhere. He wasn't going to tell the Cat to stick that green shirt somewhere where the sun don't shine. He wasn't going to state a fact, that the Cat's tongue would be raw to the cartilage inside, if he kept licking his shirts, and putting soap on it. HE was too drained to say anything. Life was a drain, and Rimmer was the water that plummeted down it, like a whirlwind.

'DUH...DUM...De-La-Dum...Dancin'...'

Rimmer wasn't going to tell Lister to turn of the racket he was playing, or tell him to stop singing along, out of tune. He wasn't going to insult Lister's singing, and say it sounded as if he was torturing a baby cat, while screaming as if his life depended on it. Rimmer sighed out loud. He couldn't even think of a good remark to say.

'Rrrrerrrreh! Rewwwshup!...'

Rimmer wasn't going to shout at Kryten to stop vacuuming. He wasn't going to scream insulting names at the droid, telling him to go somewhere and where the vacuum should be jammed.

Rimmer wasn't going to shatter their lives, as the people in his life had. He didn't want them to know the pain, the name calling. He knew now. He was saying those things, just as others had said to him. He knew the pain, and was trying to share it.

Rimmer looked at his drawing, and a surprised look crossed his face. It was a thick 'H', just like the one on his fore-head. A reminder of what he was. A reminder that he wasn't like he was when he was alive. He wasn't alive; he was dead. He didn't have to act like he used to.

This was a revolution. He was a new man. A new, dead man.

I was drawing, and I drew a 'H'. I think Red Dwarf was on my mind.