Autechre - Corc
…
— I do believe we have a soul, and at the moment we die, it leaves the body. Silly, isn't it?
— It ain't silly. – Many things bother my dear friend Ezekiel. Being one of the heads ruling out a school of Dragoon Knights, he's a man who has to deal with lots of trials and tribulations. – As a kid, I was forced to go to church every Sunday. I found the priest's speech to be utterly boring, all I wanted was to get out of there.
— I feel you. A tiny bug was more worthy of my attention than any of the saviors or prayers I heard at church, but now I kinda miss the green and purple colors. –I said, carrying on a few fond memories. There were times when kid Fratley would compare his green clothing to the priest's, and he would say "Mom, I am wearing liturgical green".
— Nobody likes going to church, much less lawyers.
— Is that another one of your lawyer's jokes? – Please, Zack.
— Why, yes… Will you sue me?
— I don't see why. – My wages are on time, you pay me well, we've been close to each for so long we're like a family. I guess.
— If you say so. Well, better not sue me.
— I said I won't.
— Just checking. – I think I never sued anyone in my life. But I'd hate Ezekiel being the first on the list. – How was the training?
— Lady Crescent finished for today. – To be fair, there was barely any training at all, but I'm glad it's over. – She took a whole tree down with her own fists.
— Really? With her fists?
— With kicks as well. Don't you miss a cherry tree standing outside?
— Oh, that was a cherry tree… some fine wood for a javelin. – The finest of the woods to make a weapon, Zack. Only the finest… – I wonder, whose ruler, warrior, Dragoon, whoever came up with this… it may sound impolite what I'm about to say, but I find it stupid. Yes, really stupid. Why force our students to punch a tree until it's down? Why not choose a tree and make someone else model a javelin out of it? Also, a whole tree for such small staff? That's even more ridiculous, but who am I to question?
— I borrow the same questions as well. – And one of my excuses for following such questionable rules is something we call 'tradition'. Or maybe I'm a coward deep inside, no option is better than the other. – When we are little, we feel forced by our parents to do anything. To clean the house, make the bed, take a shower, go to church, but when we grow up, we feel there's a need for doing these things on our own. Not because someone else told us to, but because it's the right thing. Except the church, you can go there if you want or not, but sometimes I do whenever I feel there's something missing in my life.
— You mean faith?
— Yes. Faith is important. You can find it anywhere, there's no need for going to church for something tangible and pervasive as faith be kept within walls. – Hmmm, why am I talking about that? It ain't faith that bothers me, but something else… – Walls and walls and more walls surrounding us. You see, there are circumstances in which private property has made us so stupid and one-sided that an object is only ours when we have it.
— I see. You believe the Dragoon, like faith, can be taught and felt outside such an old and well-regarded institution as the Jugend, isn't it? – It seems you took the words out of my subconscious, Ezekiel. – Look, Fratley, I broke my back to reach this far To attain this position in the Jugend, run this very academy of respect, while I gave my daughter a good home, a good education, anything money with sweat could buy. Seeing her behave like that, so reckless, so stubborn… I mean, she broke Jugend's property. Dug a hole with her own hair, can you believe that?
— With the Dragoon, you can do a lot of things. I'm proving that by just walking without my cane. – Another miracle, I could say as well.
— Why do you have a cane, anyway? – Good question. Everyone seems to ask me this very question, and I always reply with the same answer.
— Well, I can't just walk because I feel like I want to. It takes a lot of effort just by standing by my toes, by feeling each of them. I thought I lost my vision and my capacity for walking after the accident.
Of all things I lost… I mean, it was so sudden. Father and I, we were on a train, third class, nothing special. I was looking over the window, feeling the wind while an old lady coughed behind me, a young fellow wearing a huge hat smoked at my side, and father was holding me. And then… I don't like to talk about it, but since it's the last visual memory I ever had, it means a lot.
— …Moving on. – You're right, Zack. Better move on. Better forget that father holded me, I holded his hand, we flew out the window, fell on grass, and… he did it to protect me. Father Highwind, there should have been a portrait of my burmecian father around.
— I believe in angels. You said before that it was silly how you believed in souls, but I do believe there are angels,
— Even if the closest thing you can get out of a rat and an angel combined together resulted in a bat, or a pigeon? – Ezekiel asked in a rather amusing and overly cynical tone. Bats and pigeons, disgusting creatures like many say…
— I never understood the hate for both. I always had a fondness for bats, they can fly and despite being blind, they 'see' in the dark. I also find a few of them to be rather cute. – I said, as the inner child expresses their love for zoology and anything science-related. Then my mind recalls a past event that left me both embarrassed and curious. – Have I told you about the time a vampire bat came to my tent and sucked my blood by the tip of my toe? It doesn't hurt like many say, however I can't deny I got rabies that day.
— I suppose vaccines do not hurt as well. – Don't remind me of vaccines, Ezekiel. Well, it's not like I'm the only one afraid of needles around here, so… – And what about pigeons? They spread disease.
— Yes, but people don't? You don't see people getting rid of people by considering them as diseases. Well, you had these kinds through history, and to think they are referred to as people…
The very people who would often evaluate the superiority of a race above the rest and later proceed to do some ethnic cleansing and all sorts of indescribable atrocities, they got decent lifestyles, huge family trees and unceremonial deaths. Some of them even got oil portraits hanging around the walls of Jugend. They're here as if to quote Lord Tarius's war cries: "Brave Men Run In My Family"; yet, for what they fought? Their cruel principles of resistance are taught to this day. The tree hitting bullshit, for if tarnishing Burmecia's reputation with their wicked blood was not enough, they taint our walls with their faces, as if our leaders desperately sought solace in later generations, refusing to die as we live with their sins on our backs.
— In this corridor, only a few monarchs and Dragoons can be considered truly nobles. – Said Ezekiel, as we stared at the Kings and Queens of past Burmecia, and only a few did the right thing. – King Karnak believed that a few Burmecians belonged to what he called a 'pure race'. Legend says our country has been divided into during his reign, the gray rats
All rats are equal, but some rats are more equal than others.
— Sigh… What a fool. – I said. It's just a portrait, no need to fear. Just a menacing portrait staring right at me, as if Karnak himself was here to dry out my soul and all its contents. The artist really captured his demeanor, kudos for him. – If you attempt a 'pure' race, without any crossbreed between different specimens, you'll get no genetic variety and will end up sterile, because the world is made and depends on diversity. Also, aren't the Burmecians a result of a mix of tribes, cultures, traditions and breeds throughout ages?
— No wonder the King's head ended up on a pike. What an ironic way of dying. – And so Zack and I had a bit of history class, then we walked away and I don't know where.
— Flowers are way smarter than these bastards. They even learned before us about the incest taboo. – I still have no idea where Ezekiel is going. He said nothing, rarely he walks outside the office.
— Need a hand, Fratley?
— No, thanks. I can find the handrail. – It must be, gulp… That place. So we headed downstairs, to the morgue. – What are we doing here?
— Remember when I told you about souls, Fratley? How do I believe everyone, everything has a soul inside? Well… when someone commits murder, they don't just kill a person, but in my opinion, they take away that very person's soul.
Ezekiel is shaken at being here too. I wonder, who came up with the idea of building a morgue right at a school where the majority is made of young students? That's way more absurd than believing in souls.
— I see. It's way more painful that way. – And the very pain taints these walls. I have the feeling that the ones who built this chamber worked until they passed and they became the first guests.
— A bit dark here, isn't it?
— I'm used to the darkness. – I said.
As soon as Ezekiel lights the room, his heartbeat races like a comet. Hmmm, couldn't find a better word, this ain't no place for words. Or metaphors. I try to keep away any thoughts of death, but it's hard in a room only filled with corpses kept within walls. Zack pulls one of those mortuary cabinets and the scent, my god… I can imagine the amount of flies, but there are none. Anything to break this silence would be fine.
— I'm sure you remember this one. The wife of the guy that dropped twenty feet down. What was his name, Johnny?
— Yes. Johnny. – I can't forget the day he died. It always comes back, no matter what.
— They found her like this. I'd be glad to be in your place, 'cause this mess… no idea why I haven't puked yet. – Neither I, with these heightened senses of mine. I hear the rain outside these walls, so clean and filled with freshness
— Would you be more comfortable at my place, Zack? Better think twice. – I'm trying, but I can't just ignore what's in front of me. And what's that? I touch, and I feel nothing. Nothing. What was supposed to be a living being lies at the table like meat, just meat. A young lady became this…
— Damn, I feel like my brain's rotting.
— It's the scent. Just the scent. – Yes, the scent. It's getting all over my nose and clothes. – The savagery of the murder's methods… all because of a black mole.
— A black mole?
— She had a black mole in face. Well, there's not much of a face anymore, so… anyway, We believe the suspect got rid of the victim's 'defect'. I don't think a birthmark is quite a defect, though.
— Birthmark? Haven't you said-
— Oh yes, there's this one too. – Ezekiel pulls another cabinet. He is fast while doing so. Maybe he too wants to get out of here. Any sentient being wants to be out of here. – Male, thirty-years old, was walking out of the market fair, smoking, quite a bad habit, and got stabbed in the chest. These dentations seem to belong to a surgical scalpel, and he got stabbed at the lungs.
— This is what smoking does to one being. – I said. I swear I can still smell the tobacco coming out of his lungs.
— Yeah. If he didn't got stabbed, he would die anyway. – There is something cold in Ezekiel's voice. Little he knows about these victims, but now it feels so personal to him. – Like this other man. He had the eyeballs taken out.
— I know what it's like to live without eyes.
— And to die without them, on the other hand…
— That's not funny, Zack. – I'm not a fan of crude humour.
— Sorry. To have a few laughs is what keeps me sane at these moments.
— Don't be the devil's advocate. What you've said wasn't funny at all.
— I said sorry…
— I accept your apologies. – This place really does things to you. The only heartbeats I feel belong to Zack and me.
— Look, you don't see me saying these things in front of my little one.
— "Little one"? If Hrist heard you say these things… – That wicked girl may seem to have a heart of steel, but even steel can melt.
— You know what Hrist told me? That she broke the Jugend's floor because another student pissed her off. That was my dear's defense. She begged me to not put a ball and chain, saying that it didn't combine with her aesthetic, that it was a thing only a dinosaur would do. She called me a dinosaur…
— It's just the way she is. At least one of them. Don't worry, Hrist has shown before that she can be nice and friendly.
— Being nice and friendly is a trait of basic human decency.
— A decent human being would never do this mess without feeling guilty. – I replied while I felt the carnage surrounding us. Even Hrist has principles. I know her worries, her fears, what makes her happy, what upsets her… I won't say I know her better than Ezekiel does. – When I came back to Burmecia, no one knew me. Maybe I have forgotten the name and address of everyone I have ever known, it's nothing I regret. Made new friends, one of them being a little girl who wanted to be a Knight like her father. I think that what Hrist wants, deep inside, is full time attention.
— Well, that's impossible.
— To educate someone is an impossible craft. – I mean, compared to standing here for more than five minutes, education is a blessing. – Like I said, Hrist begs for attention. Not only yours or mine, but everyone at reach. And in that age, where you feel so many things… without any kind of support, it all comes down. As a Dragoon, I've found a way to cope with my weaknesses, and I hope the same happens with your daughter.
— The youth today… it ain't the same youth as before. They are in this constant process of being. Either something, or someone, everything and everyone, you can be anything, they say. Nobody's forcing you, yet whatever happens through 20 years of life, they want it to be done in 20 minutes. It doesn't help that there's this impression that success, the best life can offer, only comes after years. Well, I'm here to say that's a lie. Nothing comes in years, years are a thing made by us. Sure, adults can stay awake later at night, but they should not. Nothing to do with being productive, it's because it ain't healthy, you need to sleep.
— If you stay awake at night, you sleep at day, it will happen, it needs to. – And that's why I find the human body to be so fascinating, and smarter as well.
— A lot of young people who went to my office whimpered with the mention of what's called a waste of time, Fratley. There was a day my daughter cried in bed, and I had no idea why. She cried a lot, more than on that day I found her abandoned in the junk, or the day she fell out the stairs, or that day she began to bleed between the legs… never saw those rivers of tears before. No one close has passed away, none of her friends did something truly awful, no boyfriend broke my dear's heart, and well, not having a boyfriend never bothered Hrist that bad. So, I had to ask her why she was so devastated, what brought despair to my child's soul, and revelation came by numbers. Eleven. She woke up at 11 am, that's why she cried.
— Poor thing… I feel her pain. There was a day father Highwind woke me up and it was afternoon. I lost morning, but the rest of the day was the best I ever had experienced. He taught me how to ride a chocobo, I stayed awake until midnight, we made a fireplace and ate some marshmallows plants… he was aware of how much I have lost and tried to compensate for it all.
— Seems you had a good friend as a father.
— Yes. Sure I had. – One of these people could have been my father, which is very scary. As if this room hasn't evoked any disturbing thoughts until now.
— My apologies for calling you out. Honestly, I didn't want to be alone down here.
— It's okay, Zack. – I feel like I forgot to say something important. Am I not invested as Zack on the search for this, uh… maniac? I have, none of us have anything to do with this, but because we are Knights, we feel a need to do what's right. – By the way, where have these corpses been found?
— All of them were found in the southeast half of Burmecia. Elysian Fields, Riverside, Berlioz Square, Fridgeir Boulevard… Different neighborhoods, but same region.
— The same place where Johnny… – I still feel the weight of his fall.
— He would jump anyway, don't feel sorry. – Great advice, Zack. I better not feel bad, what's done is done. – At first we thought he was responsible for all of this mess.
— Well, he took his wife's eyes with him, but that was a desperate act. Hmmm… There's no need to rationalize that, though. – Even after leaving the morgue, something, I don't know what… something stays, more than its scent. The handrail has its own texture, it's so rusty and rough. Only after leaving that place that I am able to feel anything with my senses. We are back to the painting hall, as it seems. Some colors to fill in this depressing place.
— Anyway, a witness claimed seeing the suspect mumbling about taking away the rotten pieces, like he was a plumber or whatever. I'm not a specialist when it comes to insanity, yet I feel we're dealing with a higher threat disguised as a minor disturbance.
— Whose witness? – I asked. Who was courageous, brave enough to come here and tell us this crucial information?
— A boy. Teenager, wearing rags, brown skin, flaccid ears… I won't say he's ugly, but he looks uncanny. Won't reveal his identity, in fact no one knows who he is, other than his name is Puck.
— Puck?
— Yes. He's a trickster, but murder is another story.
— Puck… did he tell you anything else?
— No, that's all he said. He couldn't stop calling me by shrimp, though. Do I look like a shrimp?
/\/\/\_/\/\_/\/\/\_/\/\_
— Yeah, you do, shrimp! - so that's Puck, yelling at us. His heartbeat is racing like a wagon. Wagon, comet… I feel I'm lacking words lately. Whatever, no one listens to my metaphors. – What's with ya lettin' me in that empty room? Ye sook.
— Calm down, kid. – I feel like I should not have said that…
— Kid!? Amurnay a kid for ya! – There you go. – Ah hud tae sloch a sick apple fur o' ye! Keek, keek! Tis tae soft, nah… tis rotten.
— I had problems understanding what Puck was saying to me. – Beats me, Ezekiel. Is that an apple the ragged boy is showing to us? Doesn't have a nice scent.
— He speaks in a lowland dialect. Kinda.
— Do you understand, at least?
— It's even harder to understand because he mixes words in between, but I have a clear understanding of what he's saying. – I never met a 'teenager' this short. What is so uncanny about this Puck? He seems normal to me. Healthy, a bit fat, I may be sounding impartial, but that's how blindness works. – So, you had to eat a rotten apple, didn't you?
— That's richt! – No one deserves to eat rotten apples. I always suspect the soft ones.
— Speak our language, boy. – And Ezekiel still doesn't get his words.
— Ah speak lik' a'm waantin'! This is a free land, isn't it? – Then I listen to Puck. Not his words, but inside his throat, the stomach… now I get it.
— Are you hungry, Puck?
— Aye! – That must be a "yes". – My tummy is aching, A'm feelin' awfy, tis a' shrimp's fault! A' his fault!
— Puck said his tummy is aching. He blames you for that, Zack.
— I know. He keeps pointing at me. Don't you have manners?
— Mah manners? What about yer manners, eh? Shrimp.
— Hey, wait! Where are you going? – I listen to Puck's footsteps. They're different. It's like he doesn't have any claws, but feet. Human feet? Now that's unusual for a Burmecian.
— Ah did whit ah cuid. Ah not a snitch. See ye, sucker! – Puck disappears. He runs pretty fast on those toes.
— There goes our only witness… – I'm sure he knows the streets. Puck will be fine, though one thing still concerns me. – So, Ezekiel. If you didn't understand Puck's language, then how come he told you about the suspect?
— Oh, forgot to mention that for you, Fratley. See, the one who brought that boy on rags here understood what he was saying.
— And who was it? – I wonder…
— It was Gray – …What? Was not expecting that.
— Gray? You mean THAT Gray!?
— Why the surprise?
— To think the dice weirdo could have been any useful…
Gray Rhinehart… I remember the day that guy just came out of nowhere, stepped in at Ezekiel's office and asked if he could become a Knight, all because of a dice at hand. He came in by chance, I couldn't believe that. Even less that he passed the first training. Go figure out… When did he learn that dialect out of Puck's mouth? Maybe the dice told him so yet again. Well, I believe in gravity, how it attracts people to one another, so that makes us two weirdos.
— Again, what was Hrist's first word? – I find myself in another casual conversation with my dear friend Ezekiel. After all the murder talk, nothing better than a casual chat.
— I think it was damn.
— "Damn"? Wasn't "Oglop"?
— Right, Oglop. I wasn't even there when my dear said her first words. Lenneth was, may God bless her. Oglops be damned. Well, one day, I took the little one with me back home, she was saying da da da, then all of sudden, "damn". I was like, what? What did you just say? And Hrist said damn, yet again. She couldn't stop saying damn for a whole week, it was damn here, damn there, at church, at the bank, everywhere we went by. Have you noticed how a word repeated so many times loses its meaning? No more I felt offended, I was actually proud of hearing my little darling speak. I admit, I felt so embarrassed at times, but she said damn in such a cute way I couldn't tell her to stop.
I am beginning to picture Ezekiel as a shrimp. Hard outside, soft inside.
