#patients lie patients make mistakes patients are humans and i refuse to let myself get in trouble for stupid shit that other people do

[pussy-ache]

my coworker criticized me for wasting time chasing after referrals meanwhile every day i catch other peoples mistakes that are only made cuz they never tracked down the referral and trusted the patient to read it correctly

[engagemachine]

I have nowhere else to put this. I need to say this. 

These past two weekends at work have been utterly beyond my comprehension and have nearly pushed me to my limit. I’ve had patients in restraints for the past two weekends in a row now, and the mixture of verbal/physical abuse from these patients and others has been so emotionally taxing, I just don’t even know where I can lay down this exhaustion and this frustration and this hurt. 

Our chronic understaffing issue has started to reach a boiling point. Last Saturday I had seven patients, which in some states is illegal (for reference, 5 patients on the kind of unit that I work on is considered normal, and 6 is the max that one nurse can have). Additionally, this past Friday, we went without a charge nurse and we didn’t have a tech (normally we have three to four techs because I work on a 40-bed unit, so each tech has ten patients each). My back has never been as sore as it is now from having to do so much heavy lifting this weekend without any help. Imagine changing multiple patients over 200 lbs all by yourself, multiple times, within a twelve hour shift. 

Last night in particular was so stressful that I found myself snapping at my coworkers -- which is so unlike me and something that I never do -- and even worse, I snapped at and was short with a patient who had been very irritating and especially demanding. This is not the kind of person that I am. I am not a person who snaps at their coworkers and their patients when I’m feeling overwhelmed. I’m not unflappable but any means, but I make a point of leaving my stress outside the door every time I walk into a patient’s room. I know that my stress is not their burden to bear. These patients are already sick/suffering, the last thing I want to do is add to their stress by coming into their private space with my own personal storm cloud hanging over my head. They have enough to worry about and their primary focus should be on healing. I never want to carry negative energy like that into a space where I am actively trying to take care of/love/heal/protect/educate/support/comfort the people I am taking care of. 

I can’t help feeling so angry at myself for my behavior and for allowing myself to slip so openly. I know I reacted this way because I was stressed and angry, but that is no excuse. And I also can’t help but feel bitter over the fact that the reason I’m so stressed is because we are lacking the resources/supplies/staff that are necessary in order for me to effectively do my job. 

I’m also so sick and tired of all the hospital politics and the beaurocracy of working for a big corporation... a corporation that does not care about its employees and whose primary focus is money. I know the nurse shortage we’re going through at our hospital is an ongoing issue that is being faced nationwide, but something absolutely has to be done in order to get staffing to where it needs to be, otherwise nurses will be leaving hospitals in droves, or will simply exit the profession all together from burn-out.

And it’s just... all this little stuff, too, all these things that occur that keep piling up that no one ever does anything about and no disciplinary action is taken because we’re so desperate for nurses and can’t afford to fire anybody. Some of the nurses I work with have adopted an attitude where they they feel like they can do anything they want without repercussion, because they know they won’t get fired because we’re so understaffed. We had a nurse walk out one night after receiving report which should result in having your nursing license revoked or, at the very least, result in some form of licensure suspension. Leaving during your shift -- even if at the beginning of a shift -- is considered abandonment/neglect of your patients. That nurse should have been fired after that, and she wasn’t. 

It is downright unconscionable that we should have to be responsible for seven patients. You cannot take good, quality care of that many patients at one time. It’s just impossible -- and it’s so unsafe. Imagine having a patient with sepsis whose blood pressure is tanking and who has spiked a fever/is quickly becoming unresponsive, another patient with schizophrenia who is hallucinating and being violent, another patient who has dementia and is confused, who has a feeding tube, a tracheostomy that requires frequent suctioning (this is a sterile procedure), a colostomy, a Foley catheter, and is in two-point restraints, which requires documentation three times every hour. And then imagine another patient who is going through Benzo withdrawals and needing around-the-clock medication and is also on seizure precautions, and another patient who is confused and is a fall risk and keeps trying to crawl out of the bed, and another patient who is vomiting and needs an antiemetic and possibly an NG tube, and another patient who is post-op and requiring pain medication for 7 out of 10 pain -- and imagine trying to take care of all of these things at the same time. Imagine going thirteen hours without peeing, eating, or drinking, simply because there is no time. That was me last weekend. It’s crazy to imagine the stress of having that many human lives in your hands, to be so busy and so stressed out that you literally do not even have five minutes to go to the bathroom because there is so much to do and you cannot afford to sit down. 

Or the fact that there’s a nurse on day shift who has nearly killed two separate patients on two different occasions, a nurse who refuses to do the basic necessities/tasks required by her job, has the nastiest attitude imaginable, and has been written up so many times by staff and patients that her personal folder is roughly as thick as the Oxford dictionary... and they still won’t fire her. 

And the way I keep catching nurses in blatant lies, nurses who have documented that they’ve done something when they haven’t. Just last night I saw a nurse had documented that she had administered a medication when I know she hadn’t because the medication was still sealed in its original box and I was the first one to open it. She did this for two days. Like... how can you even live with yourself, telling a lie like that? 

When I managed to take my lunch break this morning around 4am, I was near tears in the breakroom talking to my coworker because I just felt so overwhelmed and at my whit’s end. I’d gotten into a spat with my supervisor just a few minutes prior over something that she said had not been documented correctly (even though a different supervisor last week said that it had to be done the opposite way, and at that time, I’d had to stay late to correct this “mistake”) and now my supervisor this morning was telling me it had to be done the opposite way from what I’d been told, and there’s no clear hospital policy on how the documentation should be done... it’s so irritating. 

There is honestly so much more. I could write an entire novel about the stress of my job -- but I hope I don’t sound ungrateful, because I do love my job, I really do. I love caring for people more than anything, and if there’s one positive takeaway from all of this, it’s that, despite our lack of staff, some of my patients have been so gracious and understanding, and so many of my patients have been very expressive of how grateful they’ve been for my care, telling me I’m an angel/the best nurse they’ve had/telling me they wish that I didn’t have to leave. That’s very sweet. 

Emotionally, though, I just feel so spent. Like I’ve given everything I can and I have nothing more left because it’s been siphoned out of me. And there are weird things going on in my life with some of my personal relationships that have caused me an unnecessary amount of stress/insecurity and it’s frustrating that I feel like I can’t talk to the other person(s) about it because I am afraid of sounding needy/jealous/ungrateful. I pride myself on communicating the things that I want/need, but sometimes it just seems like it’s easier to let it go. I almost convince myself that they could never give me what I need even if I were to ask for it, but it’s also too painful to ask for something and then not get it.

I’m just so tired. I want to be positive and uplifting, but I don’t know where this road is supposed to take me. I don’t know if maybe I am being called to find work elsewhere or if this is an experience I am supposed to grow from and that is meant to make me stronger. I just really don’t know. 

[laguera25]

An Open Letter to Richard Z. Kruspe on the Occasion of His 54th Birthday

When I was born, ten weeks prematurely and weighing a scant two-and-a-half pounds, the doctors told my parents not to bother naming me, as I would likely die very quickly, and even if I were to survive, I would likely be blind and helpless and profoundly retarded, unaware of, and unable to engage with, the world around me. Best to leave me be and let nature take its course. A few days of benign neglect, and it would all be over. If they were fortunate, there would be other, better children.

Fortunately for me, my parents gave the double-fingered salute to that bit of medical advice and took me home to do the best they could with very little money and no one to guide them through the strange and terrible country of life with a disabled child. I survived because my very country grandmother chucked out the baby formula that I wasn't digesting and fed me the cow's milk the doctors so solemnly swore would kill me.

There was so many milestones I missed, and of which my parents were deprived. I didn't sit up by myself until I was two. I never walked, never ran, though there are a few faded photos of me gamely pulling myself upright on chairs and the edges of coffee tables, trying to do what my brain said I ought, but my body too weak and miswired too obey. No play with other children, who were stronger and more rambunctious and would have bowled me over in all innocence. And as I grew older, no first dates or driving tests or prom dresses. No thought of an independent life.

What there was was endless rounds of physical and occupational therapy. Hours and hours on a brown vinyl mat, trying to lift my leg or raise my ass off the ground or make my hand write the words in my head. Hours and hours putting change into a slot or trying to tie shoelaces or forcing my hands into uncomfortable plastic splints for a chance at a fraction of more bodily control. While my school friends were out playing in the sun, I was inside beneath fluorescent lights, learning to button my shirt and comb my hair and brush my teeth. To hold a pencil. No time for joy, for peace, for figuring out who I was beyond this collection of aches and pains and deficiencies, just the endless tedium of learning to "be normal" and less of an imposition on the world around me.

And I did go to school. Despite the doctors' dire predictions, I was neither blind nor idiot. I was perfectly aware of the world around me, and smart. So much so that when I was nine, the school ordered an intelligence test. The score was so high that they thought it an error and made me take it again in front of witnesses. When the same score came back the second time, they wanted to move me two years ahead, but my mother, afraid it would both isolate me further and give me airs, refused. So, I stayed, face in the mat and hands in splints, learning advanced history and English, yet forced to put blocks into holes and put colored rings on a stick.

And so I lived this strange paradox for my entire childhood, the genius child that my mother crowed about to all her friends and anyone who would listen, and terrible burden who still had the coordination of a toddler, and who had ruined her dreams of ribbons and curls. When I was nine, she was convinced I could be made "normal"--or closer to it--any road, with a surgery. And so, the surgeons detached the muscles and ligaments in my legs from the bones and stretched them in an effort to relieve the spasticity. The surgeons were doing a kindness to relieve pain; by then, the muscles were so tight that when I was stood on my feet and held up, my feet rolled onto the instep and my knees pointed at each other. It was a measure of dignity.

To my mother, it was supposed to be a miracle, the cure that gave her the daughter she deserved.

I woke up screaming. The muscles and ligaments were unhappy with their new positions and weren't afraid to register their protest about this new state of affairs. They tried to administer morphine, but the levels needed to control the pain were dangerously high for a child, and so I was left to ride it out. I screamed and screamed and screamed. For thirteen hours.

My mother. who was so sure she had found her miracle, was taken into another room by an exhausted surgeon who had done the best he could, and told that at most, I might be able to walk across the room on a walker and take myself to the toilet. She screamed, too, then, at this man who had been on his feet for nine hours, trying to undo the mistakes of the hands that had formed me from the dust of the ground, and who would try to make me laugh every day when he came to check my progress. She called him a liar and a bastard and a son of a bitch, and family lore has it that she would have hit him had my father not intervened.

They tried to tell her. Kindly and patiently and incessantly, but she would not listen. God had told her I would be cured, and dammit, I would be. The day they cut my casts off and sent me home, they told her not to push me too hard, that my muscles needed time to adjust and build endurance. She said she understood, but when we got home, she ordered me to walk uphill to the house. I tried, I truly did, but it wasn't long before I hit muscle fatigue and started to cry. I want to stop, wanted my wheelchair.

And my mother, this woman who had once told the doctors who would have let me die to go fuck themselves, picked up a stick and started to beat me. "Be normal! Be normal!" Screaming and sobbing and flailing with this stick, and me screaming and begging and trying to stay upright. I don't know how long she would've kept going, but eventually, my stepfather appeared, wrested the stick away and threatened to beat her with it, and carried me into the house.

Here I must give my mother a sliver of credit even if I will carry the memory of that beating for the rest of my days. She was right, after a fashion. I did do more than walk across the room with a walker and take myself to the toilet. For a while, I even graduated to forearm crutches and quad canes, which might not sound like much, but when you were expected to do nothing, that's like climbing Everest in your underpants. My wheelchair gathered dust for years, but soon I had to choose between the demands of my education and the demands of my body. The latter simply lacked the energy to fuel both my mind and my muscles to the best of my their abilities, and since school was the only area of life in which I had ever excelled, there was no choice at all. Back into the chair I went. By the time I graduated high school, I could no longer use crutches, and by my third year at uni, even the walker was too much. These days, I cannot move myself without help, and arthritis has set in. I made my choice, and now I pay its price.

I tell you all of this to illustrate that whatever the fool doctors might have said as they clucked and tutted over my incubator, I was keenly aware of the world. Of everything I was missing while my mother insisted I just bootstrap myself out of my disability and be normal. Of her seething resentment of all that I was not. Of her wish that I was someone else.

There were two bands that got me through, kept me sane and kept me moving when all I wanted to do was just lie down and not get up. The first was Metallica, whom I discovered at thirteen, and who told me it was all right to be angry about my circumstances, to kick and scream and argue with God and call him a rotten bastard--as long as I kept living, kept getting up in the morning and trying to inch down the road. I didn't have to swallow my anger for fear of upsetting God and hurting my mother's chances of getting into heaven(my mother believes that I am a test she must pass in order to get into heaven; therefore, my suffering is irrelevant and should never be questioned, lest it anger Him. Don't ask; I don't get it.)

If Metallica was the band that gave me permission to be angry as long as I kept trying, it was Rammstein that told me it was okay to want more from life than an endless regimen of therapy and prayer and gratitude to a God that had, or so it seemed to me, sent me into the world with a ramshackle body and precious little armor or defense against the assholery of my fellow human beings and yet still expected me to praise His holy name allelu. To want joy and friends and human contact. To have a libido and ogle whatever flipped my switches. To, in short, be human, and more than just a symbol of all my mother's broken hopes.

I discovered the band through a book, believe it not. I found a copy of Tom Reynolds' <i>Touch Me, I'm Sick</i> in a Barnes and Noble I had gone into to browse and hide from a cataclysmic thunderstorm, and in it, he began to talk about a band called Rammstein and a song called "Heirate Mich." The more I read, the more gloriously improbable it all seemed, and the harder I laughed. By the time I got to the line, "As the music pounds like a collapsing factory...", there were tears streaming down my face, and I was having trouble breathing. The saleslady must've worried I was having a stroke.

And so it was that I found the key to everything that would come after. From the book to my creaking dial-up Internet(don't laugh, it was what I could afford as a broke-ass cripple on the government dole) to the CD shop, where I blew my food budget on Rammstein CDs and lived on Hamburger Helper for weeks. This is a terrible dietary choice, by the way, but at least I had Rammstein music in my ears all day, every day. A few weeks later, I put another dent in my food budget buying all the DVDs. Ah, the vigor and stupidity of youth. If I tried that foolery now, I'd be semiconscious on the floor in a day and a half. Back then, I had a more stalwart constitution.

I knew by the second song I heard that Rammstein was going to be special to me. My German, which consisted of a year of study in high school and a disastrous two years in college, was pretty poor, but thanks to snooping around Internet forums and squinting at grainy videos, I knew much of your catalogue dealt with taboo subjects. I didn't care. For all its dark subject matter, the music made me want to dance. It made me feel something other than apathy and a persistent wish for this whole mess to be over and my soul to be recycled into a body that didn't make me want to scream until I was too tired to do anything but sleep.

And I did dance. Constantly. Seldom in public because dancing in a wheelchair often looks like the Devil is trying to stick his finger up your ass, but often at home, just shimmying away until the chair developed some alarming creaks and the bolts needed adjustment. Rammstein made me happy. It made me curious. It made me want to see just how much was out there.

And, if I am honest, it made me want to see those silver MC Hammer pants for myself. The combination of those pants and the diaper rash cream in your hair was a striking look for you, if I may say so, though perhaps not so grand as the black spikes and the lion pants you wore with such swaggering panache on the Reise, Reise tour. Alas, this was not to be, as I suppose you had wearied of slathering ass cream for infants in your hair. I can't blame you, though I suppose it must've been a sad day, indeed, for the ointment companies. Still, those Hammer pants and their Reynolds Wrap, space-age splendor will always hold a special place in my heart.

Stymied in my hope to witness for myself the wonders of those Hammer pants--and those lion pants as well, as it turned out, oh, unhappy hour, long may they reign in the storage closet--I nonetheless wanted to see a Rammstein show. Not much chance of that, the morose American fans assured me. The band hadn't come here since they foolishly took the American commitment to freedom of expression at face value and Till and Flake landed in the Puritan pokey for playing Loose the Dachshund into the Badger Burrow in front of delighted fans. Besides, the band's management had scant interest in repeating that little experiment.

Even so, I held out hope. I hung out on message boards and kept me ear to the ground. You can imagine my delight when the MSG show was announced. I wasn't so foolish as to think I could attend, mind you; New York might as well have been the moon for someone who cannot safely fly, but it was fun to indulge in a bit of wistful what-if? What if I could find a way to get there that wouldn't give me a lethal clot? What if I could score tickets? What if I could afford a hotel in Manhattan where the rats and roaches wouldn't kill me in my sleep or carry me off to be devoured in the sewer system? These were all very big ifs for someone who lived in the boonies and was only supposed to spend money on medical expenses and basic bills. Besides, MSG was going to sell out before I could gimp my way to the phone.

Knowing all of this, I took to my blog to whine and moan and feel sorry for myself. It wasn't fair, I whinged to the ether. I had wanted to see Rammstein for so long, but it just wasn't possible. It was too expensive and too far and too haaaaard. And woe is me.

And then...

And then...

And then a bossy German lady dropped a punk alarm in my inbox.

I don't remember now how or why she came to my blog. Maybe she was drawn by an unconventional perspective on life and fandom and moving through the world, or maybe she just wanted to snortle at my friend and I's discussions of your sartorial splendor and the ridiculous dramas going on in the Rammstein fandom at the time. Either way, she'd been been watching my sulking and stropping for a few days, until she'd reached her limit and this woman, who had never said an unkind word to me in years, called me a coward. Just straight up said that I could either find my spine, stop pissing and moaning, and try my hardest to see Rammstein in New York, or I could keep being a coward and making excuses. But make my choice and stop sniveling because she was tired of hearing about it.

At first, I was stunned. Of all the things I had ever been called, a coward was not one of them. Then I was mad. How DARE she call me a coward when she had no idea how much pain I was in most of the time or how difficult it was to move around a world that had never been designed for me and been but grudgingly retrofitted by handymen who thought that grab bars fixed everything!

So I stewed and pouted for a few hours, but the longer I thought about it, the more I realized she was right. I hadn't tried very hard to research my options. I hadn't checked hotels or called the venue or gotten my finances in order. I had claimed Rammstein was so important and meaningful to me, but I hadn't shown it. I had assumed defeat before I'd even started the charge up the the hill and wallowed in self-pity. Sure, maybe I was right and I wouldn't be able to go, but I'd never know if I didn't square up and try.

Before I proceed, a word about the tried-and-true deutscher Fuss zum Arsch(not another aside in a letter full of them, I hear you cry as your eyes begin to glaze. I know, Mr. Kruspe, believe me, but if you speak to the world through your guitar strings, I speak through my keystrokes, and so I beg your patience. We're almost there.). If a German you have gotten to know puts their foot up your ass and calls you on your bullshit, they are not doing it to be a prick, and it's not done with the intent to create hard feelings or demolish your self-esteem. It's harsh, man, is it harsh when you're used to American doublespeak and soft-pedaling, but they're doing it because they see something in you and are trying to stop you from making a dumbass or a jackwagon of yourself. They're doing it because they want to keep being your friend.

So.

Punk alarm duly dropped and head dislodged from ass, I started making phone calls. To the banks do get my money in order. To bean counters to make sure I would have access to it. To Amtrak to discuss their booking options. I went to disability websites and forums to discuss precautions to take in case my health or my equipment gave out on the road. The best hospital for the broke-ass should I get mown down by a taxi while trying to cross the road. Emergency numbers and insurance forms and blah blah blah. A raft of bureaucracy and safeguards and double-checking, all for a concert I might not get tickets for.

But I did, because for once, my disability worked in my favor. MSG sold out in twenty-five minutes, but that venue, bless its heart, doesn't put disabled seating up for general sale. You have to call the disabled patron assistance line, and they don't release unsold disabled seats for general sale until three days before a show. So I called the magic line, and a very amiable fellow talked me through the process. Two weeks later, the tickets were in my mailbox.

I am not ashamed to tell you that when I opened the envelope and held the tickets in my hand, I screamed like a debutante that sat on an upturned spoon. It was really happening.

And yes, my German friend gave me a giant "I told you so!" But she was right, and she'd earned it. Besides, she was happy for me, too.

So I did it. I got on a train(where I soon learned that accessible or not, I couldn't use the toilet because the train swayed too much for me to keep my balance), and I went without eating, drinking, or urinating for twenty-two hours(I do not recommend this to anyone, by the by. It hurt, and it was dangerous)to get to New York. And when I got there, I stood in Penn Station and simply stared because I was somewhere I never thought I'd be. It was simultaneously everything I thought it would be and nothing like I'd expected.

There were still obstacles, of course. There always are when you have two hands and four wheels and see the world through asses and elbows. Clutching my luggage while my trusty and ever-present companion pushed me over the cracked sidewalk with one hand and dragged the rest of the luggage behind him. Finding out that the "accessible" hotel room was, in fact, not all that accessible and wrenching my knee every time I used the toilet. Being accosted by my first sidewalk screamer within ten minutes of being in the city. Meeting my first hustler.

Freezing my ass off outside the venue for four hours before the show and called not fan enough by other fans because I didn't do it for fourteen, because hey, if you were really a fan, you'd risk pneumonia to see the show, even if it would kill you. Being shunted and shuffled to four different doors by event staff because no one could agree on where the disabled fans were supposed to enter. Being let into the building to warm up by an MSG employee, only to be booted out by event staff three minutes later. Whee! Aren't the logistics of being disabled fun?

But Mr. Kruspe, it was all worth it. I've never felt an energy like that before. Whatever snitty elitism some of the fans might have been nursing outside, inside MSG, we were all fans, all people who had waited and wished for this for a very long time. The primal roar from the crowd when the band began to break through the wall raised the hairs on my nape, and you'd better believe that I joined them with all of my energy.

From the first note, I forgot my pain. It was still there, mind, waiting for me, black-toothed and patient as the grave, but I was beyond it, in a state of suspended euphoria. No pain, just joy. I watched everything as best I could despite my near-sightedmess and my rather distant seat. I soaked it all in--the music and the unapologetic bombast, and the pageantry of the fire. It was all so starkly, darkly beautiful, and according to my companion, who has all the sentimentality of pavement, when he looked over at me during "Ich Will", I was "radiant." He, who had known me for thirteen years by then, said he'd never seen me like that before, and that he would never forget it.

It was not without price. These things never are. There was another train journey and another twenty-two hours without access to a toilet, and by the time I got home, I was so strung out from lack of food, water, and sleep(because trufax, it is hard to sleep when your bladder is trying to pop out of your skin from the pressure)that I cried like a toddler on the drive home. And then I went home, peed forever, drank, ate, and collapsed for seventeen hours.

But it was worth it. It was so worth it that on the band's next go-round, I took a cross-country roadtrip to Vegas, during which I peed much more often, thank God, but I also fought ants and roaches in a hotel room in Texas and stayed in a room so gross I slept in my clothes and threw them out when I got home. But it, too, was worth it, just as it was worth it to get in the car and drive to Florida and Atlanta on the next tour after that.

I told you ALL of these things, Mr. Kruspe, to tell you this. I saw your interview in that documentary about depression in 2010. I heard you say you felt worthless unless you were creating.

I don't know what you're worth to anyone else, but to me, you are priceless, and always will be. Without you, there would be no Rammstein, and for me, there would have been no reason to try, to spread my wings and take a run at that hill. Without you, I might have given up, might have let my mother win, and maybe now, I'd be sitting in some care home, stewing in my own yellowing stink and getting a bath once a week and a monthly outing and rotting from the inside out. Without you, I might never have taken the chance, never pushed myself.

But you were, and are, and because of that, I did. Because of that, I saw New York, and moved, however briefly, among that anonymous throng. Because of that, I met the sidewalk doomsayer and the exasperated hustler. Because of that, I tried New York Pizza(and yes, I saw a rat, but he minded his business, and I minded mine). Because of you, I heard a Cajun patois in Louisiana and watched out the window of the car as the Texas plains unwound around us. Because of you, I saw the night sky on the outskirts of Vegas and was escorted back to the Strip after the show by two Native dudes who walked far out of their way and called me little sister. These are gifts I got from you because you were, and are, and they have sustained me ever since. They sustain me now that my world has been reduced to the four walls of my house as I ride out the pandemic in a country that believes people like me are an acceptable sacrifice.

I know this won't change things for you, won't quiet that awful voice in your head. Depression doesn't work like that, and even if it did, I am just a stranger you will never meet. But maybe it will give you something to hang on to, something to think about on the bad days. Christ knows you kept my head above the water when all I wanted to do was let it go under.

Happy Birthday, Mr. Kruspe. May it bring you joy and all that you need.

Guera

[crackspinewornpages]

The Tempest- William Shakespeare

A1S1

There is a storm at sea, the shipmaster tells the boatswain to order the mariners to move or they’ll run aground. Alonso asks them where the shipmaster is they keep telling him to stay below, Gonzalo tells them to be patient, they tell him to leave them alone and go below. (storms at sea are scary as shit if the professional sailors are telling you to get below get the fuck below) Gonzalo tell them to remember who they have onboard, they’re not having it “None that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor: if you can command these elements to silence, and work the peace of the present, we will not hand a rope more:”p.1 Tell him again to get to his cabin and out of their way, Gonzalo says he looks like a drowning man, “If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miresable.”p.1

The boatswain call orders and ask if Sebastian, Gonzalo and Antonio want to drown when they come back up. Sebastian curses at him and the Boatswain tells him to work then, (I like these boatswain they don’t take shit) Antonio then insults him saying they’re not afraid as he is of drowning. (you say that now) Gonzalo warrants him for drowning but the ship is leaky and the boatswain give more orders. The mariners show up soaking wet lamenting that it’s hopeless before leaving. Gonzalo wants to help them, Sebastian and Antonio complain and Gonzalo says he’ll be hanged yet in spite of the water. The sailors call farewell to each other, Antonio wants to sink with the king and Gonzalo says, “Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground:”p.2

A1S2

On an island Miranda asks her father to stop the storm, “If by your art, my dearest father, you have put the wild waters in this roar, allay them.”p.2 She watched a ship sink and suffers thinking everyone had drowned. Prospero tells her there’s nothing to worry about, he’s taken care of her, but she is ignorant of the art and what he is. (that’s because you never taught her) He lays down his mantle for her to sit on as he tells her (and also the audience) his backstory. He’s already made sure no one died in the wreck, Miranda interrupts that he’s tried before to tell the story but stopped since it wasn’t the time. Prospero asks if she remembers before they were on the island when she was three. He doubts but she remembers some women that took care of her.

He says it’s been twelve years since he’s been Duke of Milan and she was practically a princess. Miranda asks what happened to change that, by blessed and foul play. “By foul play, as thou say’st, were we hear’d thence: but blessed help hither.”p.3 His brother Antonio, he loved him and put him in charge of his state and governmental duties while he studied his magic. Antonio then betrayed him, turning the state against him. “to credit his own lie,-he did believe he was indeed the duke: out o’ the substitution, and executing th’out word face of royalty, with all prerogative:-hence his ambition growing,”p.3 (well you ignored your duties and shoved them off on him of course he would feel like it was him that deserved the title) He played the role for Prospero, all he cared for was his library, but Antonio swayed the king of Naples to Miranda’s shock. “I should sin to think but nobly of my grandmother: good wombs have borne bad sons.”p.3 (oh sweety)

Prospero continues that the king exiled them both in the night since they couldn’t execute them, they were sent out in a rickety boat in the middle of the sea. (so still executed and why Miranda too she’s three) Miranda kept his spirits up as by divine intervention they came to this island. Gonzalo felt sorry for them and sent water and food, clothes and his favorite books and Miranda wishes she could meet him. Prospero finishes that on the island he educated her, Miranda is thankful but still, what’s his reason for the storm. Bountiful Fortune brought his enemies to shore but no more questions and orders her to sleep. (wouldn’t it be great to just sleep on common)

Prospero calls up Ariel who comes to answer his commands, she played out the tempest as he wanted with waves and fire. All but the mariners plunged into the foam and Prince Ferdinand was the first to jump. None of them were harmed and she scattered them around the island and Ferdinand is alone. The ship is in harbor and the fleet is bound for Naples after seeing the ship supposedly wreck. (and not bother to look for survivors) Prospero says she performed well but there’s more work to be done, Ariel complains, “Let me remember thee what thou hast promis’d which is not yet preform’d me.”p.5 her freedom. She’s served without complaint for a year, he asks if she’s forgotten that he already freed her from Sycorax, no.

Sycorax from Argier, banished since they couldn’t kill her with her child and was brought here. Ariel was her servant, too delicate to act on her abhorred commands so was imprisoned in a pine tree for a dozen years even after Sycorax died. She was left alone with only her human shaped son Caliban, who Prospero now has in his service. He heard her torment and freed her, (you already freed her from the tree what else bounds her) she’s thankful and will do as he wishes. (this is on the verge of an abusive relationship ‘I got you out of your bad situation after you refused to serve someone now serve me or I won’t free you’) After two more days he’ll release her, she asks what to do, he has her be like a sea nymph and be invisible to all but him. She leaves and he wakes up Miranda to see Caliban and he calls him to do orders.

Caliban comes in insulting them and Prospero promises painful cramps that night for it. Caliban says this is his island and it was his mother’s and they took it from when they first came. They treated him well and he loved them and he showed them around, his mistake (really makes you feel sympathy for him). Prospero calls him a lying slave who tried to rape Miranda (sympathy gone) and calls him abhorred. He took pity to him and taught him, “which any print of goodness will not take, being capable of ill!”p.6 So he was deservedly confined to the rock and orders him to find firewood quickly or he’ll give him cramps.

Ariel comes back singing with Ferdinand following, wondering where the music is coming from. Prospero asks Miranda what she sees, she calls it a spirit, he corrects her. “A goodly person: he hath lost his fellows and strays about to find ‘em.” “I might call him a thing divine; for nothing natural I ever saw so noble.”p.7 Ferdinand sees Miranda, calls her a goddess and asks if she could show him how to live here and if she is a maid. (like that’s the most important thing right now) She is a maid and he’s happy to hear his own language and wishes he were in Naples.

Prospero says he is the Duke of Milan and to himself that they could control him and he’ll free Ariel for this. Miranda wonders why her father speaks like this, “This is the third man that e’er I saw; the first that e’re I sighe’d for: pity move my father to be inclin’d my way!”p.7 Ferdinand says he’ll make her the Queen of Naples and Prospero acts upset but is happy at the development. He acts like he thinks Ferdinand is a spy but Ferdinand and Miranda protest this, Prospero calls him a traitor and tells Miranda not to talk to him and he’ll be a prisoner. Miranda pleads for him Prospero orders him to put his sword up and Miranda begs. Prospero warns he’ll scold her for advocating for Ferdinand when she ‘sonly seen two men, she says she doesn’t want to see any others. (I know it’s part of the plan but there is  point since this is the only man she’s seen that she isn’t related to or tried to assault her) Ferdinand says he feels his father’s loss, “to whom I am subdued, are but light to me, might I but through my prison once a day behold this maid:”p.8 (Shakespeare and his insta love) Prospero is happy his plan worked but asks what use he is, Miranda tells him her father is better natured, Prospero says he’ll be free but to do as he commands.

A2S1

On another part of the island everyone else is fine and Gonzalo tell them to cheer up, “So have we all, of joy; for our escape is much beyond our loss.”p.8 Their woe is common in sailor widows but this is a miracle they survived, Antonio, Sebastian and Alonzo aren’t impressed. (if I went through that I wouldn’t either) They look around the island and notice their clothes are untouched from the sea, fresh like when they put them on in Africa for the wedding. Sebastian calls it a sweet marriage and hopes they’ll return and they talk of the widow Dido. Alonzo wishes he didn’t marry his daughter there since they wouldn’t be her now and Ferdinand wouldn’t be lost and he won’t see them or Naples again.

Francisco tells him Ferdinand may be alive he saw him swimming in the sea to shore, Alonzo doesn’t think so. Sebastian says he may thank himself for this loss, not blessing Europe with his daughter rather than losing her to an African, banishing her from his eye. All of them including her between loathness and obedience, lost Ferdinand now Milan has more widows it’s all his fault. (not helping Antonio) Gonzalo chides him for speaking like that, rubbing salt in the wound when he should make him feel better instead of bringing down their moods. “It’s foul weather in us all, good sir, when you are cloudy.”p.9

Gonzalo wishes for a planation by contraries. “No occupation; all men idle, all; and women too, but innocent and pure; no sovereignty-“p.10 Sebastian and Antonio cut him off, Gonzalo says all things with common nature should produce without endeavor but nature should bring abundance to feed people. (you know farming is a ting) Sebastian and Antonio mock him, Alonzo wants to join in, Antonio says they’re laughing at Gonzalo, who says they laugh at nothing. This is when Ariel arrives (thank god) invisible with music and all but Alonzo Sebastian and Antonio sleep, as he told Alonzo he’ll guard he does so and Ariel leaves.

Sebastian remarks on the strange drowsiness, Antonio blames the climate but they’re not tired. Antonio claims to see a crown on his head, Sebastian says that’s sleep talk but they’re wide awake and they talk. Antonio says the lord is weak remembrance, “for he’s a spirit of persuasion, only professes to persuade,-the king, his son’s alive, ‘tis as impossible that he’s undrown’d as he that sleeps here swims.”p.11 Sebastian doesn’t have hope and Antonio asks who’s the next heir, Claribel Queen of Tunis. Antonio says there’s space, how can Claribel measure back to Naples Sebastian could rule. (killing the king to take the throne doesn’t usually end well)

Sebastian believes he follows and remembers how Antonio supplanted Prospero. Antonio says it’s true, now look at him, his conscience doesn’t bother him. Here lies Sebastian’s brother, “no better than the earth he lies upon, if he were that which now he’s like, that’s dead; whom I, with this obedient steel,-three inches of it,-can lay to bed for ever;”p.11 They plan to frame Gonzalo and talk as Ariel reenters and sing-warns Alonzo awake and he sees the two armed. Sebastian lies that they heard a bellowing, didn’t he hear, he heard nothing, (my god you’re dumb to believe this) Gonzalo heard a humming and should search. Alonzo wants to look for his son and they leave, Ariel says that Prospero shall know what she did and the king is looking for Ferdinand.

A2S2

Caliban is walking, carrying a bundle of wood, wishing Prospero would get sick then Trinculo shows up. Trinculo is lamenting there’s nothing to make shelter since another storm is coming when he sees Caliban. “What have we here? A man or a fish? Dead or alive?”p.12 Then he goes on saying he smells like old fish before saying he’s an islander that suffered a thunderbolt. (we get it he’s ugly) As the storm is coming he decides to wait under a gaberdine until it passes, that’s when Stephano shows up singing and drinking ad Caliban tells him to sop tormenting him.

Stephano asks what’s the matter thinking it’s a trick and Caliban thinks he’s a spirit tormenting him. Stephano wonders how this monster knows his language but then decides he could take him to Naples as a present for royalty. (look up human zoos) Caliban keeps saying not to torment him he’ll bring the wood faster and Stephano decides to give him wine to stop his fit. Trinculo hears Stephano and scares him when he comes out but convinces him he’s no devil but is his friend. Stephano asks him about Caliban and Trinculo tells him he thought he was struck by a thunderbolt and he hid out of the storm and Stephano warns him not to shake him because his stomach is upset.

Caliban realizes they’re not spirits, “That’s a brave god and bears celestial liquor. I will kneel to him.”p.13 Stetphano asks Trinculo how he escaped, he himself was saved by a sack and his bottle, Caliban swears on said bottle to be his servant. Trinculo says he swam to shore like a duck Stephano says he’s more like a goose and gives Trinculo a drink and he has more his by the seaside. Caliban asks where he came from, he’s the man in the moon and Trinculo calls him a weak monster. (they keep calling him a moon calf I don’t get it) Caliban will show them around and calls Stephano a god and he’ll be his subject and Trinculo finds it all funny. (well this is the comedy part) “A plague upon the tyrant that I serve! I’ll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee, thou wonderous man.” “A most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of a poor drunkard!”p.13 Caliban goes on about the things he’ll do for him and Stephano has him lead the way believing everyone else is drowned and Caliban starts singing about his new master and freedom.

A3S1

Ferdinand is carrying a log saying some sports are painful and nobly undergone to rich ends, his task is heavy but Miranda gives him pleasure, he has to move a thousand logs and she cries seeing him. Miranda wants him not to work so hard and rest, her father will be busy for three hours, she’ll carry the logs. Ferdinand tells her he’d rather break his back than her dishonor herself, Miranda says it will be easy for her as she wants to do it and he doesn’t, he looks weary. “No, noble maiden; ‘tis fresh morning with me when you are by at night.”p.14 (dude she already likes you) He asks her name, she gives it against what her father said.

Ferdinand calls her the top of admiration, he’s liked several women but never any without defect or a full soul. “but you, O you! So perfect and so peerless, are created of every creature’s best.”p.14 (you just met her lighten up on the praise a bit) Miranda’s never seen another woman besides herself, she call men like him a good friend and her father, but wouldn’t wish any companion but him. Ferdinand says he’s a prince and a king wouldn’t endure this and has her speak he’ll be at her service for her sake. She asks if he loves her, “I beyond all limit of what else; the world, do love, prize, honour you.”p.14 (he fell hard and fast) Miranda cries because she’s happy and unworthy, she’ll be his wife and if not, die his maid or servant. Ferdinand says he’ll be her husband, “Ay ‘with a heart as willing as bondage e’er of freedom: here’s my hand.” “And mine, with my heart int and not farewell till half an hour hence.”p.15 They leave and Prospero is glad his plan is working but there’s still much to perform. (his machinations lay undetected for years for he is a master of deception)

A3S2

On another part of the island with Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo are drinking and Trinculo says that including them there’s five on the island who are the other two. Caliban say he won’t serve him as he is not valiant. Trinculo asks if he lies being half fish and monster, Caliban asks Stephano if he will let Trinculo mock him. Stephano says he’s his subject and won’t suffer indignity to Caliban’s thanks. Ariel comes invisible as Caliban is telling them he’s in servitude to a tyrant that cheated him of the island, he’s not lying. “I say, by sorcery he got this isle; from me he got it: if thy greatness will, revenge it on him,”p.15 he’ll be lord and he’ll serve him. He’ll have him go to sleep so Stephano can put a nail in his head, Ariel tells them they can’t startling Caliban who beseeches Stephano to beat up Trinculo for interrupting. (I guess all this was funny back then)

Stephano tells him to stop and Trinculo says he did nothing and Ariel says he lied angering Stephano who hits Trinculo. Trinculo says it’s not him, blaming the bottle causing Caliban to laugh. Stephano tells hm to continue his tale, it’s Prospero’s habit to sleep in the afternoon that’s when you can brain him or knife him, (poison him drown him bash him on the head) burn his books and damn his daughter. She’ll be his bed and bore his brood (who whoa whoa this just stopped being funny) and Stephano likes this plan and asks Trinculo if he is. In a half hour they’ll carry it out and they sing but stop when Ariel plays a tune. Stephano calls the devil to show itself Trinculo begs forgiveness and Stephano mercy, Caliban says not to be afraid, “the isle is full of noises, sounds and sweet airs, that give delight, and hurt not.”p.16 Sometimes music, sometimes voices and Stephano would like it when he is king and they follow after it.

A3S3

On another part of the island is everyone else, Gonzalo says he can’t go any farther. Alonzo doesn’t blame him he’s tired too and lost hope he’ll find Ferdinand alive and Antonio and Sebastian talk about their next advantage. There’s music and Prospero, invisible, watches as a banquet appears and shapes invite the king to everyone’s amazement. Gonzalo says if he reported this in Naples no one would believe him, the islanders have a monstrous shape but are mannered, more kind than most humans you’d find. (well given your current company I can understand) Prospero aside, “Honest lad, thou hast said well; for some of you there present are worse than devils.”p.17 (see he agrees with me) The shapes vanish but leave the feast behind and Antonio won’t taste it and Gonzalo assures there’s nothing to fear. (dude that’s fairy food there’s probably broken church glass in it)

Ariel arrives looking like a harpy in thunder and lightning and the banquet vanishes. He calls them men of sin, the sea belched them up on an uninhabited island, “you ‘mongst men being most unfit to live. I have made you mad;”p.17 (I’ve noticed Shakespeare been using a lot of apostrophes in this play I don’t know why) They draw their swords she calls them fools she and her fellows are ministers of fate, they might as well harm wind and water, she is invulnerable. “But remember,-for that’s my business to you,-that you three from Milan did supplant good Prospero; expos’d into the sea, which hath requit it, him and his innocent child.”p.17 A foul deed the powers didn’t forget, she enchanted everything against their peace and gave Ferdinand worse, only death, this isle is nothing but sorrow to them. She disappears and the scene comes back and Prospero is happy with the performance and he’ll go back to Ferdinand and Miranda. Alonzo is freaking out (pretty reasonable reaction) and Sebastian declares he’ll fight it and Antonio and Gonzalo say they’re desperate from their guilt.

A4S1

Prospero says he’s punished and to make amends to Ferdinand he’s given his daughter, but she’ll outstrip his praise, he believes it. Prospero says she’s his gift but if he takes her virginity before the ceremony he is in for shit. Ferdinand says he won’t succumb to lust because he hopes for a fair and long life. (can I just see a modern day version of this where Prospero’s magic staff can turn into a loaded shot gun like it’s played straight but everyone is a country redneck) Ariel then arrives, she performed well and he needs her to do it again, bring them to this place and show them the couple. Basically says he’s setting up a blind date with a twink (actual word used) and she asks if he loves her dearly. (is there some Stockholm thing going on) Iris, Ceres and Juno come to perform a masque to celebrate the betrothal and bless the couple. Juno and Ceres sing and Ferdinand is in awe of the spirits, “Let me live her ever: so rare a wonder’d father and a wise, make this place paradise.”p.19

Prospero tells him to be quiet or their spell won’t work and Iris calls the nymphs to help celebrate. The spirits celebrate by dancing and vanish when Prospero remembers Caliban’s conspiracy to kill him. (yeah there’s still a conflict) Ferdinand and Miranda note he’s acting weird, Prospero tells Ferdinand to be cheerful the spirits he called just disappeared but he’s troubled and tells them to retire and he’ll go for a walk to calm down. When they leave he calls Ariel they have to prepare for Caliban and she tells him they are drunk and she charmed them with music into a pool. “A devil, a born devil, one whose nature nurture can never stick; on whom my pains, humanely taken, are all lost, quite lost;”p.20 (I can see how people can see Caliban as a racist caricature) and Prospero swears to plague them all.

Ariel comes back with fancy clothes and hangs them on a line and she and Prospero are invisible as Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo arrive soaking wet. Caliban warns them to walk softly and Stephano says the so called harmless fairy has only played a prank on them and he and Trinculo claim to smell horse piss and are getting impatient. Caliban tells them to be patient and talk quietly and Trinculo complains of losing his bottle in the pool. Caliban tells them to be quiet as they are here to enter the cell and do the deed but Trinculo becomes distracted by the fancy outfits. Caliban gets irritated that they’re going through the clothes and losing time and They start to pile the outfits in his arms. (I guess people had low standards of comedy back then because this is just annoying back to the plot please) Sprits enter in the shapes of hunting hounds and drive them off with Prospero cheers them on. “Let them be hunted soundly. At this hour lie at my mercy all mine enemies: shortly shall all my labours end, and thou shalt have the air at freedom.”p.21

A5S1

Prospero and Ariel enter his cell, his plans are coming to a head and Ariel tells him he said at the sixth hour their work would end. He did say that and asks about the king and the others, just as he left them in the line-grave until he releases them. They’re dismayed and Gonzalo is crying and if he saw them his feelings would change, she’d think so if she were human, he would too. “Though with their high wrongs I am struck to the quick, yet with my nobler reason ‘gainst my fury do I take part: the rarer action is in virtue than in vengene: they being patient, the sole drift of my purpose doth extended not a frown further.”p.22 (is this like a thrown in lesson at the end of the episode) He has her release them then soliloquys that he’ll give up his magic, “I’ll break my staff, bury it certain fathoms in the earth, and deeper than did ever plummet sound, I’ll drown my book.”p.22 (As this is apparently the last play Shakespeare wrote people see it as a goodbye to is playwriting besides that I can see Prospero decide to give it up as studying magic and putting off his duties was what got him in this situation in the first place)

Ariel reenters with Antonio and the others standing charmed in the circle Prospero made and speaks to them. He calls Gonzalo honorable and loyal who saved him then calls out the king and his brother, “-most cruelty didst thou, Alonzo, use me and my daughter: thy brother was  a furtherer in the act;”p.22 Says he and Sebastian planned to kill the king and he forgives them and tells Ariel to get his hat and rapier and she’ll be free. (what binds her she’s already out of the tree) She sings as she helps Prospero and he says he’ll miss her and for her to wake the sleeping ship crew and bring them there.

Gonzalo says trouble and amazement are on the island and asks for some heavy power to get them out, then Prospero introduces himself and welcomes them. Alonzo asks where he’s been or if he’s there to abuse him and begs forgiveness and how is he living here. Prospero welcomes them as his friends except for Antonio and Sebastian, “I here could pluck his highness’ frown upon you, and justify you traitors: at this time I will tell no tales.”p.23 (these guys orchestrated the attempted murder of you your daughter and the king and you won’t say a thing while they’re all there there’s forgiveness and there’s stupidity) The devil isn’t speaking for him, he forgives his brother’s faults but requires his dukedom restored. Alonzo begs for how he survived and met them, they shipwrecked and lost his son Ferdinand. Prospero says he also lost his daughter and the king is remorseful, “A daughter? O heavens! That they were living both in Naples, the king and queen there!”p.23 (funny you should mention that)

He wishes he were in the sea where his son is and asks when he lost her, in the Tempest. (I see this as him emotional torturing him a bit) Prospero knows they’ve been through much but he is real and he landed on this shore and is lord of it and welcomes them to his court and to look around. The cell opens to reveal Miranda and Ferdinand paying chess and she accuses him of letting her win. Alonzo thinks it’s a vision Sebastian calls it a miracle and Ferdinand is relieved the seas are merciful. Alonzo is overjoyed and asks how he came here and Miranda is amazed at all the people. “How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in’t!”p.23 (oh honey you’re going to have such a huge culture shock) Alonzo asks who she is, the goddess that brought them here, Ferdinand says she is as mortal and his.

She is the daughter of the Duke of Milan who he heard is renown but never met before who gave him a new life and became his second father. Alonzo asks for his forgiveness, Prospero tells him to stop (please) it’s all in the past. Gonzalo asks the gods to drop a blessed crown on the couple he is beyond joy that in the journey to marry Claribel Ferdinand found a wife while he was lost. Alonzo takes their hands, “Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart that doth not wish you joy!”p.24 Ariel comes back with the ship crew and the boatswain are happy to find them alive and good news the ship was repaired and ready to set to sea. As they explain how they were put to sleep Prospero sets Ariel free. Alonzo says they have to conduct an oracle to shed light on this strange place, Prospero tells him not to bother and he’ll resolve him and aside to Ariel tells her to set Caliban and the other two free.

She returns with them wearing stolen clothes and Caliban is afraid Prospero will chastise him. Prospero says that Caliban’s mother was a witch that could control the moon (is that why he’s called moon calf) and the three have robbed him and plotted to kill him. “two of these fellows you must know and own; this thing of darkness is I acknowledge mine.”p.25 Alonzo recognizes his drunken butler (a butler’s original purpose was to serve wine I guess showing them as alcoholics was funny back then even Tolkien did it) and Trinculo and Caliban is a strange one. Prospero tells Caliban to take them to his cell and he has his pardon. “Ay, that I will; and I’ll be wise hereafter, and seek for grace. What a thrice-double ass was I, to take this drunkard for a god. And worship this dull fool!”p.25 Alonzo tells them to return the clothes and Prospero invites them in for the night and he’ll tell them the story of his life and wishes Ariel well.

Epilogue

Prospero says he gave up charms now has his own faint strength to either stay here or be sent to Naples but let him not since he pardoned the deceiver and got his dukedom back. He asks the audience to now free him from the island, “unless I be reliev’d by prayer, which pierces so that it assaults mercy itself and fees all faults. As you from cries would pardon’d be, let your indulgence set me free.”p.25 (now clap dammit)

[echoes-of-the-clockwork]

Book One: Death (Noctis x Reader) Chapter Eleven

In Talcott's room, (Y/n) had held the boy closely until he had cried himself to sleep. Her heart ached for the boy as she sat him down on the bed and pulled the sheets over his body. The sun's rays bounced through the windows and she closed the curtains to keep them from waking Talcott. She sat down in a chair located in the corner of the room. Pulling her legs up, she rested them on the chair. Death placed her arm on the armrest and cupped her chin in her palm as she stared out the slit in the curtains.

(Y/n) hadn't heard the door open until she heard her name. "(Y/n)?"

Her head snapped up and she saw Noctis standing in the doorway. "Huh?"

"You plan on staying in here all day?"

"What?" She gasped, glancing towards the clock. She realized it was past noon and nearly fell out of the chair when she tried to stand up. "It's already noon?"

"Yeah. You've been in here for hours. Talcott was worried when you wouldn't move or respond to him."

"I totally spaced out and lost track of time. Did you and the others get a little sleep?" (Y/n) asked.

"Uh, yeah. We're about to head out and grab a bite. Wanna join us?" Noctis offered.

Death nodded with a gentle smile. "Sure. Give me a few minutes and I'll be down."

<-----<<<<<<<

In the lobby, Noctis and Gladio were waiting for (Y/n) while Prompto and Ignis went on ahead to the eatery to grab a table. As they waited patiently, the brute crossed his arms with a smirk. "Someone's crushin' on Death."

"What?" The prince's eyes widened in shock at the accusation.

"I see the way you look at her and don't try to deny it, either. Hell, even Prompto noticed." Noctis fell silent, unable to think of an excuse. He refused to speak about the matter further, but Gladio wouldn't back down. He elbowed him in the arm, his smirk growing. "Tell her."

"You seriously think I'm gonna tell her?" The prince scoffed.

"Damn right. You're gonna tell her and I'm gonna make sure you do."

"Why do you care about this?" The raven-haired boy questioned with a raised eyebrow.

Gladio threw an arm across Noctis' shoulders, pulling him closer. "Not every day you find someone special."

Noctis could only think of one question. "Why should I tell her my feelings when she'll be leaving after killing the other Wendigos?"

"Just tell her, dammit," the bodyguard groaned. "You'll cross that bridge when you come to it."

Noctis was about to retort, but he sealed his lips once he saw (Y/n) walking down the stairs. She smiled at the two before gesturing to the entrance of the hotel. "Shall we?"

"Uh, yeah. Let's go," the younger boy responded with a hint of nervousness. Gladio smacked Noctis on the back as Death walked beside him. The hit caused his body to lurch forward and grunt in pain, earning a confused gaze from the Horseman. "T-Tripped over my own feet," he quickly concocted a lie.

(Y/n) giggled lightly at his lie, but she didn't call him out on it. "Of course you did, Noct."

<------<<<<<<<

At the eatery, the five sat down and enjoyed a meal. Prompto has ordered a slice of fluffy chiffon cake after finishing his lunch and pushed the plate in front of (Y/n). She eyed the blonde in front of her, perplexed as to why he had passed the cake her way. He smiled like a child as he nudged it closer. "Try it, (Y/n)!"

Death eyes the cake with a hint of uncertainty. "I don't know, Prom. I haven't eaten anything in a hundred years. Not like I need to eat, anyway."

"That's just another reason to try it! You're really missin' out. How 'bout a small bite?" The blonde tried to persuade the girl.

(Y/n) picked up the fork and poked the dessert. "I don't know..."

"Just eat it," Noctis sighed. "You might actually like it."

The girl breathed out as she impaled the piece of cake. With a small piece on her fork, she placed it in her mouth and chewed slowly. When she swallowed, she was amazed by how sweet and fluffy the cake was. "Wow, that is good!"

"Never had cake before?" Gladio asked.

"Would you believe me if I said "no"?"

"You're serious?!" Prompto cried out. "You've never had cake before?"

"Nope. Ice cream was more my style. Altissia had so many ice cream shops that there was one on almost every street. They had so many delicious flavors." The boys were silent at hearing the news. Only Noctis was the one who knew where she had grown up and lived her short life. (Y/n) noticed her mistake, but she didn't try to correct it. Instead, she decided to tell them the truth. "We've been traveling together for weeks now. You all deserve to know something about my life before becoming the Horseman of Death."

"You don't have to force yourself, (Y/n)," Prompto gently spoke.

She smiled at him. "I'm not forcing myself. Don't worry, Prom." Death adjusted in her seat before telling all she could about her previous life on Eos. She told them all about Altissia and its beauty. She even shared her drowning with them and what led her to jump into the stormy waters a hundred years ago. Before she had shared crucial information about her previous life, she made sure no one was around to eavesdrop.

After (Y/n) finished, no one said a word. Noctis knew the truth already, but hearing it a second time didn't make it any easier. She fiddled with her fingers in her lap as she crossed her legs. "Was that... too much?"

"Um... uh..." Prompto muttered.

"Do not fret over such, (Y/n)," Ignis quickly intervened.

Death leaned back in her seat, pushing a few black strands over her shoulder. She bit her bottom lip, wondering how to break the awkward tension. Gladio saw this as an opportunity and grinned. "Welp, the three of us got somewhere to be."

"What the hell are you talkin' about, Gladio?" Noctis questioned his shield.

Without a word, the brute stood up from his seat, followed by Prompto and Ignis. The three left the eatery, leaving behind a petrified prince and a confused Horseman. (Y/n) clapped her hands together, snapping Noctis out of his stiffened state. "Since we have the rest of the day together, what do you wanna do, Noct?" Glancing at the boy, Death noticed his cheeks were slightly ablaze. She poked one of his red cheeks with a smile. "What're you blushing for?"

"N-Nothing," Noctis promptly denied.

"Then, what do you wanna do? We could take a stroll around Lestallum."

"U-Uh, yeah. Let's do that."

"Alright. Let's go!" (Y/n) grabbed Noctis' hand and dragged him out of his seat.

"H-Hey, (Y/n)!" The prince shouted as they left the eatery.

<------<<<<<<

During their stroll through the town, (Y/n) had been holding Noctis' hand the entire time. She didn't realize until they reached the outlook and released her grip on his hand. It was nearly six o'clock when they finished their leisurely stroll around Lestallum due to how many stops they made on the way and how lost they got in their own little world.

The sun had begun to set as the two sat on a bench. With the Meteor gone, the only sight to behold was what was left of it. (Y/n) leaned forward, crossing her legs and resting her elbows on her knees. "It was nice having a day off."

Noctis nodded in agreement. "Yeah."

The girl rested her chin in her palms, her thoughts racing to those that fogged her mind during their excursion of the Disc. She decided to break the silence and speak what was on her mind. "At the Disc, I promised to tell you what was bothering me after we left. We were so preoccupied with finding the Regalia that it completely slipped my mind."

"Oh," Noctis said, remembering the promise. "Yeah. What was on your mind?"

"Well," she sighed. "I kept thinking about how my life would've been like if I didn't drown myself. I wondered if I would've learned to love again and would've married someone. I wondered if I'd have a family of my own, but..."

Noctis felt his heart ache at her gentle, melancholic words. ""But" what?"

(Y/n) closed her eyes, placing a hand over her chest. "I'll never know what that life would've been like and it's all my fault."

Shocked by her accusations, the prince turned in his seat to face her. "You can still experience those things, (Y/n)."

Death scoffed at his optimism. "No, I can't. I sacrificed all those possibilities the moment I chose to take my own life."

Noctis flew to his feet, his eyes filled with a familiar fierceness. "Yes, you can. It doesn't matter who you are or where you're from, you can still be loved, get married, and have a family." (Y/n) stood up, summoned a strange dagger, and extended her arm in front of Noctis. His eyes widened in fear and confusion as to what she was going to do next. "What the hell are you doing?!"

Death brought the blade down on her arm, creating a gash that started at her palm and ended at her elbow. "No one wants to love a monster and that's exactly what I am!" Blood dripped from the large wound, but the gash slowly mended itself. "Humans don't heal like this-only monsters!" Tears streamed down her cheeks as she dispelled the bloody dagger.

Noctis reached out to grab (Y/n), but she dodged his hand and ran. "(Y/n)!" He shouted as she left the outlook and disappeared into the crowd. He gritted his teeth, feeling his own tears threaten to fall. Clenching his fists, he slammed one against the stone railing, void of all feelings except for the hurt in his chest. "Dammit... Dammit... Dammit!"

After an hour of wallowing in his own sorrows, Noctis decided to head back to the hotel for the night. When he entered the room, the others were waiting for him. Gladio hadn't noticed the prince's gloomy expression due to his nose being buried in a book. "So, how'd the date go?"

"Shut the hell up," Noctis hissed vehemently at his shield.

Gladio closed the book at the harsh response and saw Noctis' expression. "Somethin' go wrong?"

Prompto looked up from his phone and saw his best friend's bloodied knuckles on his left hand. "What happened?!"

"Shit happened and it's all my damn fault!" The boy snaps, running his hands through his hair.

"What prospered in our absence, Noct?" Ignis inquired.

"Like I said-shit happened and now..." Noctis sits down on the foot of the bed closest to the door, cradling his head in his hands as he stared at the carpet below. "Now (Y/n) thinks she's a monster..."

"What?" Prompto gasped. "She's not a monster!"

"I should've ran after her and told her that. But, I didn't."

Prompto moves from his spot and sits beside his best friend. "Try summoning her!"

Since it was all he could do, Noctis pulled out the summoning orb and called upon Death. When (Y/n) didn't appear, he knew she was somewhere nearby. He seemed a little relieved to know she hadn't run away to somewhere far and out of his reach. The boy shoved the orb back into his pocket and flopped down on his back. "What am I goin' to do now?"

"Talk to her, man! That's the best and only thing you can do!" Prompto bellowed.

"He's right, Noct. Better hurry before (Y/n) really is out of your reach," Gladio said.

"In the meantime, give her time and space to tranquilize her thoughts," Ignis stated calmly.

Noctis closed his eyes with a heavy sigh. "Yeah, you're right. She probably doesn't want to see me right now, anyway. I'll talk to her tomorrow morning."

Prompto grinned as he reclined beside his friend. "Operation: Steal-(Y/n)'s-Heart is a go!"

[raphaels-prism-villains]

“Love lies to you. Don’t listen to your heart. Listen to me.”

Thanks for the prompt Penni! I had a lot of ideas for this, hope you’re not disappointed! 

Trigger warnings: blood, death, and some treating people as less than human.  (I don’t know what other triggers there are so please let me know if there’s something here I didn’t mention.)

All characters and concepts besides the prompt itself belong to me, Raphael Ross ( @scholarlypidgeot ).  Please do not steal my ideas; if you’d like to use the characters, just ask, or at the very least tag me so I can read your piece.  Thank you. 

______

Erik Dracula wasn’t surprised to look outside and see snow falling in droves, the already-blank landscape being purified further from any inconsistency with the smooth white left after the storm.  There were as many things on his mind as there were flakes falling to the ground - but foremost was a problem within his own house.

All it took was one misplaced spark to ignite an uncontrollable fire.   One escaped Renfield and all the rest became restless.  There was one in particular, who had openly spoken back to Drake.  She’d been punished already - Drake’s hand was not light, or patient - but he felt that he needed to make a point.  Because she hadn’t stopped there.  

She’d learned what rebellion was, had tasted it, and had liked its flavor.  

At the time, she’d been with child.  A few weeks had passed since then, she had given birth, and as was custom the young female would be raised with all the other Renfield infants.  The adults didn’t normally form attachments - they were trained against that.  Very carefully trained against it.  

All it took was one, one stray animal, to make the others question the fences holding them in.  

They needed to be retaught their purpose.

A cough alerted him to her presence, and he turned slowly to face her.  He saw a few others through the open door - Renfields as well, likely her followers.  They could be dealt with... later.

“Renfield,” he acknowledged.

She bowed her head stiffly, feigning some degree of respect.  Perhaps the only shred left, a small shred of the fear she still had of him.  

“Renfield,” he said again, giving her a second chance for the appropriate reply of “Master”.  Instead, she remained silent.  There was fire in her eyes, but she didn’t turn them to him.

He decided to be patient.  Humans were fickle creatures, after all.  He could give her a chance.  A few, if needed, to redeem herself in his eyes.  After all, she was still relatively young.  She had produced a healthy Renfield child already.  She didn’t have to die for one mistake - or for a mistake she didn’t make.  

“Why so quiet, little Renfield?” he kept his voice gentle, as was his smile.  “Why so sullen?”

She took a deep breath, and finally met his eye.  Her face was hardened.  “Because I know the truth. Master.” The last word she almost spat.  His expression didn’t change. 

“And what might that be?  That you’re not safe here - not cared for? I think you know those are lies.” 

“Lies?” Her lip curled.  It was so strange to see one of his food animals to express emotion, he was glad that he was allowing the situation to play out.  “You lie to us about what the outside world is really like.  You lie to us, tell us we’re animals who can’t love.  You lie and then ask us to trust you blindly.” 

“Love.” He chose that word to echo.  “Love lies to you, Renfield, more than I ever could.  He spread this, didn’t he? Told you that love is a feeling here.” He put a finger against his own cold heart, then shook his head. “Your emotions, your heart, they lie.  But I wouldn’t. Don’t listen to your heart, little one. Listen to me.” 

“And was what I felt for my daughter - was that a lie?” she demanded, voice starting to rise.  This outburst was more than he’d been expecting, but he allowed it.  

“You should not have seen her for long, Renfield.  Moments at most.  We try -” 

“To what?” she cut him off.  “You try to make us like animals.  Cut us down to something less than human.  For what? For food? Because you’re too lazy to hunt?”  She took a deep breath.  “Or too afraid?” 

His expression didn’t change, as he made up his mind.  He would give her a few more... semblances of a chance.  But that was the moment he decided she would be the example he needed.  

Instead of striking immediately, he reached out, knuckles bent as if intending to stroke her cheek.  “Perhaps I’m not afraid for myself, little Renfield.” 

She pushed his hand away. He saw it coming, but allowed it.  The action distracted her from his other hand rising, then seizing her throat.  Her eyes widened in panic as she realized she had finally broken her boundaries, leaving her vulnerable.  He had lost his temper.

“I was going to be patient with you, Renfield,” he murmured, low enough for only her to hear.  “I was giving you a chance.” 

He pressed his nose to her neck, inhaling deeply, feeling her attempts to breathe, as she began to struggle against his grip, feeling her flow of air being cut off.  He pulled her closer, releasing her neck only to put his arm around her back.  She fought him, now.  Simple instinct that even the most carefully trained Renfield would find difficult to resist.  

And then he just held her, until the fighting stopped.  Pressing her close, nose still in the crook of her neck, but doing nothing more than keeping her still.  When her body was quiet, he took a gentle nip, drawing blood.  She might have left the room whole if she hadn’t pulled against him at such a small nip.

He was gentle at first, then bit down a little harder as if this was a regular feeding.  She didn’t begin to fight until she felt him adjust his fangs a little more, sinking them in further - searching for, and finding, her carotid artery.

She didn’t stand a chance after that, no matter how much she struggled.  And when he was done with her, he threw her body like a broken toy toward the door.

He breathed deeply, turned toward the door.  The Renfields who had followed her stood in shocked silence.  He swallowed one last time, licking the last of her blood from his lips, and examined each of their faces.  Each wore a mixture of horror, disgust, and terror.  

“She was fortunate.” Erik gathered himself, and began walking toward the doorway.  

He stepped over her body like it was a stain on the rug, never stopping his progression toward the Renfields in the doorway.   They slowly backed away from his approach, all thought of rebellion gone.  As it should be.

When he stopped, his stance made my power over them very clear.  

“She didn’t have to suffer, because I felt the need to make a quick point.”

He looked each of them in the eye until their faces turned away.  The last one tried to rebel - a young man not unlike the one who had gotten away.  He held Erik’s gaze as long as he could, but eventually turned his eyes downwards. The Unseelie king noticed his hands clenched tightly into fists.  

That wouldn’t do at all. 

The others began to back away from him, now, as Erik changed course slightly to stop in front of him.  He was fighting back every instinct the Golden Crown had made sure to carefully breed into him - into all of them.  With a deep sigh, as he now refused to look at the king, Erik placed a hand under his chin, tipping his head back, all his resistance futile. Erik leaned in very close to his face, his tone softening to counterpoint the smell of blood on his breath.

“Next time, I won’t be so gentle.” Erik held his gaze for a long moment, making sure his point was crystalline before releasing his chin and leaning back into a standing position.  

“Now, I don’t think I’m quite sated yet, and you will do well enough for tonight.” He waved a dismissive hand toward the others, who wasted no time in getting away, closing the door behind them.  Leaving the boy to their master’s mercy, as a herd would leave a calf to the mercy of a dragon if it meant saving their own lives.

When all else failed, Erik thought with a smile, baring his victim’s arm with a tenderness contrasted sharply as his teeth against his intent - when all else failed, fear was the best means for keeping the peace. 

[paraclete0407]

BlackPink the KJI turn of K-wave, literally walk away.  I don’t like to reprise my condescending voice from the past with phrases like ‘complete retard’ and ‘s-s---k Tory-toff’ but there were some brain-damaged individuals on 4chan KPG who really loved Rose from BP - three times love, tragically like... I was at Boy Scout camp at 13 learning to sail a ‘Sunfish,’ Camp Wakpominee, this kid couldn’t stop singing ‘You are my sunshine.’  Cram-school kids singing commercial jingles(?!).  One of the best or the most ‘enriching’ of experiences in my life was learning Latin and sacred music in high school after an MS career of patronizing pedo empowerment-palaver but still it might’ve been better just to hang in with the United Methodist Church despite allowing women to teach and being clannish and political and [I don’t want to say] - it’s not really that but the desire for intellectual independence

I had a speech-impediment till HS and learned to pronounce things through singing; have come to think much of SLP (speech language pathology) was a predatory or dummy industry though I don’t really know - dept. of how do you utter real / authentic words to a fake face.  Campaign to destroy authenticity / ‘let us now lay burdens on our children we are unwilling to share’ although it could be JFK RFK MLK assassinations, 1970s ennui / malaise, Carter telling everyone ‘you’re bad and sad’ but having no real plan, urgency, intensity, passion and sundry knife-fights had inflicted clinical depression on the Boomers first of all

I tried to make sense of ‘crucify with spiritual weapons’ but came back now to what’s the worst thing that happened to me but fretted I would invent something that didn’t happen or flatter my vanity with ‘career patient war-stories.’  I’ve been hazed again and again and still not ‘washed.’  Maybe the fault was all mine for a superiority complex or maybe for going out.  Public school / Democrat or perhaps popular democracy philosophy of 2 wrongs make right, our wrongs make right, the more wrongs the better, ‘Pieta’ Tammy Baldwin.    

‘MinjuSchizo’ (me) tried to bypass Rose-tard since xer had a ‘Gay and Melancholy Sound’ + could be a schtick but IDK.  Bad people still want good things like Snoop having a diamonds are no longer good.  IDK why I have been this student of the pathetic.  ‘And it may that in 2221 they’ll say in 2021 Man once again feared his best dept. of Nelson Mandela ‘we fear we are strong.’  ‘Itching ears.’  I don’t like talking poetically about clear and present threats to well-being tho b/c it makes it seem like Broadway.  ‘This is a God that is like us’.... am I missing the mark?

‘Converging and coalescing’ - Hayao Miyazaki anime was a mistake, 100% pedophilia; BlackPink, 100% obliteration.  The best anime film arguably as Whisper of the Heart b/c it’s about wanting to be an adult but the guy who made it blew hiw own health out permanently (karoshi?), made ultimate animated motion picture, perished on 1st film.  Asian adoption also pedophilia, Latin American dictator pedophilia.  I’m ot even gonna say b/c Koreans discovered Freudian psychology like Freud’s read of Lear a bit too late and Freudianism makes some people in to demon-children.  I’m put in mind if Spider Eaters and The Vagrants where at the end of the CultRev it as, ‘Nope!  Red Guards got too mentally ill - time to blow them all away with general infantry.’  I kept telling my parents Maoism just leads back to old-fashioned hierarchy, authority, defined roles.  This MO silences a lot of people; in KR saintly leaders got tortured, sat on death-row to make something better.  In America they wanna dismantle everything or contract everyone or I really don’t even know.. No honest military police in ‘Waukee just go-getting careerists who joined up for pay.  Another former president of the ROK said his mom refused to let him take pay for serving neighbors - my only mistake was asking anything lately.. 

But I don’t know what will happen one hour from now.. 

I was only following Yuna Kim and Taeyeon on IG b/c I don’t understand social media then my old friends who never quite included me started tracking me again IDK if it is just AI making them do it; I reduced from 2 to just Taeyeon... IDK if I should say this but her lower legs gave me a feeling, new flowers every day but IDK, I used to think of her as this celebrity whom my scholarly genius could surround but I sincerely wish she’d pull an Elizabeth Taylor or Christina Aguilera; I still remember ‘the Most Beautiful Journey’ though in retrospect; anyway I know guys from all over this world are sending her presents 24-7-365 but I bet she’s more sophisticated than me in retrospect or all celebrity-culture is ‘stupidly simple’ (Daul Kim) and female-fetishization / Goddess-worship really is just mother-fear or Fear of Men or ev1 really was just hoping to avoid Holiness and masculinity.  Still listening to that wave-song I am like, ‘I know who you are,’ unlike my literal parents, and nearly ev voice in Milwaukee is just totally fake voice - I do not mean phony or what but just like, there was this Do As Infinity song ‘kimi wa dare, boku wa dare.... no yoru lose yourself’ - Night Falls Over Milwaukee, beyond respecting lies like KJI said ‘I raped and trafficked 11-year-olds to get nukes’ - that is kind of sincere’ I guess but being beyond whether a lie is a lie or not even neway I do still think a lot about ‘In Sunlight and in Shadow’ as ell and wanted to cast either SJH or Cha Yeryun (ultra-underrated) in the Korean version... 

I guess ‘not care lie or truth’ alas is part o the condition of ‘fiction’ which puts me back with my cousins and the doll-house, endless make-believe and RPG’s..

My other ‘sacred possession’ in the past was SNSD’s ‘Sonyeo Tokyo’ photobook that I used to make poems for; Seohyun was my favorite when they kicked out and bullied her again and again.  For a time I had a little ‘consolation-prize’ gesture I would tell myself which was ‘walking out of dinner party hand-grenade over left shoulder on to middle of munchies table cuz you guys are wife-bought-me-sex-slave-CCP-naked-sushi human trash’ - I also don’t know what they mean + it’s ancient history.  The dream was not a dream / the style was not a style / love passed through here a while / and... that picture of the Japanese sea with its particular mercury but at times liquid gold; there are times as Blaise Pascal might put it to say ‘Sea of Japan’ as well as ‘East Sea’

When I taught at [Beauty School] my fav song was BTBAL with its repeated syntax ‘The reason’ like ‘The reason why the wind shines / the flower falls / night surrounds you’ - but that whole self-regard-system might be going out the window dep. on your reading of Isaiah and ‘ladylike’ ~ as back then I wrote giant lists about Seohyun, EA-A / teenagers, stress-management; now everyone’s just stealing my words.  At times I feel I see their souls are just dangling them down through their spine with no real [avidity?] but I guess it’s getting better of late(?) ~ I took the escalator at Whole Foods and keep thinking of last ultimate love-rejection and how retard at HS was like ‘Teacher I don’t like your sock’ - Me, ‘IDC’ - but this was poor-in-spirit who probably knew exactly what he needs to know whilst I am like 9-gifted fortunate son and I can’t totally lock in if I believe my sister’s suitcase-nuke prophecy or its a joke-metaphor abt my fanfics and stuff on my drives / that I had a private life

+ also these beautiful disabled or simple people and communism is like leave none behind - like no Uighur to tell what happened or Khmer Rouge killing like 25% of pop, emptying the hospitals, glasses-wearers die, they still think Santa Mao is going to pull the homeless of the street; ‘Humana Vitae’ predicted this all so did GnR’s ‘It’s So Easy’ but guess what about ev1 pleasing you

[kae-karo]

Life and Death

Life and Death (AO3)

6.3k word count

Summary: "The worst part, of course, is my counterpart. Complement. Opposite. Life. He is...something else. Light, happiness, and beloved. By everyone. He’s been revered since the beginning - I was jealous for ages, and I won’t lie, I threw...more than a few tantrums just to spite him. But it never mattered, he’s still always the favorite, always inspiring, always creating where I only destroy." (Dan POV). Or the one where Dan is Death, Phil is Life, and Phil starts following Dan around.

Look, okay, I don’t hate my job. Somebody has to do it, and I’ve been doing it since the beginning of time, so I may as well keep at it. It can just get...a bit exhausting. Especially after this many millenia. There was a pretty cool period of time where I was actually worshipped as Death, but now most people either hate me - the concept of me, I guess - or are absolutely terrified.

I’m not a bad guy, mostly, but if nobody ever died, the world would have a lot more issues. And I don’t make all the decisions - that would basically be impossible, even for an immortal being, to be there every time a person dies - but I still get all the negativity. Which does wonders for my self-esteem.

The worst part, of course, is my counterpart. Complement. Opposite. Life . He is...something else. Light, happiness, and beloved. By everyone . He’s been revered since the beginning - I was jealous for ages, and I won’t lie, I threw...more than a few tantrums just to spite him. But it never mattered, he’s still always the favorite, always inspiring, always creating where I only destroy.

I’ve given up that petty hate; it’s long since devolved into a depressing apathy. I do my job, I make some decisions, I am despised, and - above all else - I avoid hospitals. They’re the one place I’m most likely to see him.

But, as it happens, the universe has demanded that I’m in one right now, and I wander the sterile halls silently. Nobody looks at me, their eyes naturally averting from my presence, and it only takes me a few moments for the tug in my chest to drag me to the ER. I place my hand on the door and take a deep breath. This never gets easier. Millions of years, and it never gets easier.

I slip inside the room, eyeing the mother and her unborn child; in a few moments, they’ll both pass. I cross the space, reaching a hand out to the woman. I can feel the intensity of her pain, but she’s desperately clinging to life regardless. They always do. They always fear me. My hand is only an inch from hers when an unexpected warmth blossoms on my shoulder.

I freeze, then turn slowly toward the source. A pale hand rests there, and I inhale sharply when I realize who it’s connected to. I pull back from the woman, meeting Life’s bright blue eyes with my own - I wonder if mine look as dead as his look alive.

“What?” I grind the word out, aiming for annoyance and ending up with something more like malice. But of course he’s entirely unfazed, and even has the audacity to smile at me. I shrug my shoulder, and his arm falls to his side.

“Please, just wait a few moments,” he’s smiling, but it’s softened into something a little solemn, and I crinkle my brow. Not only has he never , in our entire existence , spoken to me, but he has certainly never requested anything. Not for a life to be spared, though he is the very embodiment of it.

“And why on earth should I?” I ask indignantly, even crossing my arms. Okay, I get that I’m being a petulant little child, but what right does he have to come and ask me for a favor, ask me not to do my job? Instead of responding, he points to the woman. I sigh and follow his gaze, watching the child’s future evolve before me: they’re someone impactful, and I shake my head. I can’t believe I’m doing this.

“Fine, just long enough for the child to survive.” I agree. He smiles brightly, and I expect him to disappear, but he doesn’t - he’s leaning against the wall by the door, far from me, though I can swear I still feel warmth radiating from him. I know how to do my job, and I said I’d let the kid live, don’t you trust me? The moment I have the thought, I roll my eyes. Of course not, why would he? I’m everything he isn’t, everything bad and awful and malevolent.

Several minutes pass, and the child is born. I approach the woman; she’s now accepting of my touch. I almost expect another hand on my shoulder, from Life, but he remains in his corner and her eyes drift shut. When I leave, uncomfortable with being so close to my polar opposite, he trails behind me as I make my way down the corridor.

“Why are you following me,” I deadpan, and he breaks into a light jog to catch up. I’ve been speed-walking to get away.

“Because you still have a question, don’t you want me to answer it?” His tone isn’t taunting, but I wish it were. Of course it isn’t, he’s too good to goad you. You’re the only one who’d do that.

“Fine, yes, I am insatiably curious, please grace me with your wisdom,” I stop and bow toward him dramatically. And he actually laughs at me. I stand, crossing my arms again. The embarrassed blush that creeps to my face pisses me off even more. Probably just from that stupid warmth he keeps sending out . “Why that one? I’ve taken a hundred billion lives and you’ve never said a word. What’s so special about that one?” Honestly, though, I want to know the answer, and I hope he’s not just messing with me. Nope, he’s too good for that.

“It was important,” he responds in the most vague way possible, and I actually throw my hands in the air.

“Well, thanks, captain obvious, glad we got that out of the way. Why that specific person ? Are they so much more important than all the others I’ve taken?” I’m kind of shouting, and eyes are locking on the two of us from every direction. I am definitely not used to this level of attention; it takes me a few seconds to realize that nobody’s actually looking at me . They’re focused on him . Of course they are. I’m nothing worth looking at, but he shines like the sun.

I stomp away in a huff, desperate for air. It’s blisteringly cold outside, and the hibernating world of winter has always given me comfort.

And of course he follows me out. I settle myself on a bench near a collection of dead plants, rolling my eyes as he sits down beside me.

“First of all, you’re uncomfortably close - how often do you actually interact with humanity? Ever heard of personal space?” I spit the words at him, but he just smirks and shifts away. “And second of all, can you maybe tone down the life thing? You’re kind of killing the vibe…” I trail off, gesturing to the sprouts of green shooting through the grayish piles of snow. He mumbles something under his breath and chuckles, and I glare at him.

“What?” He looks a little guilty, and it only spurs me on. Not so nice, now, are we? “Tell me what you said, or I’ll go back in there right now and finish my job.” It’s an empty threat, but I refuse to admit that letting the child live was a good decision. Not when he was the one to request it.

“I said I’m not the one killing anything,” his voice is low and soft, and a small smile tugs at his cheeks. I think my jaw actually drops, and I can’t tell if it’s shock from the joke he just told or indignation at the fact that he just joked about me . He laughs now, more fully, and some of the sprouts that have grown are now blossoming into tiny white flowers.

“Stop that! Why are you even here?” I stand, searching for anything normal, anything comfortable, anything that isn’t him . I find myself actually hoping for the tug in my chest that will lead me to the next decision I need to make, the next life I need to take. At least I understand that.

He doesn’t respond, so I pick a direction and start walking. Crowds flow around me without looking, and it’s...not better, but it’s something. It’s familiar. I don’t stop until I’ve found another bench - no plant beds around, no sleeping trees, nothing he can affect if he follows me. Which he does.

I watch him approach out of the corner of my eye - it’s like watching actual happiness in human form. Couples kiss as he passes, children jump and smile and tug at their parents’ hands, even the solitary businessmen smile into their coffees and drop spare change in beggars’ cups. He is everything good, and I am everything else. I drop my eyes to the concrete at my feet.

He sits next to me silently, a little farther away than before. I wait for him to speak, to explain, but he doesn’t. Just sits. I look up - not to meet his gaze, but to stare ahead of me. To people-watch. If I wanted, I could do the same thing I’d done with the child at the hospital - see entire lives unfold before me - but sometimes it’s better to just get lost in the present.

I’m usually...okay, perhaps not patient , but certainly stubborn enough to hold out against an opponent, but my curiosity overwhelms me. It’s dark now, and he’s hasn’t said a word since we sat down.

“ Why are you here? Why won’t you leave me alone? ” I whisper-shout, finally turning and facing him; he’s just leaned back casually with a contented smile on his face. His fucking eyes are even closed, like he’s just been asleep for the past few hours. I’m tempted to poke him, in case he is sleeping. Or punch him, not sure which. Though I’m leaning toward the punch .

“As I said, this is important.” His eyes don’t open and his tone is exceptionally calm; it only fuels my frustration.

“Could you be a little more vague, please? I let the kid live, I’m not going back just to spite you, alright? I’m done with that shit, it isn’t worth my time.” And those were some of my biggest mistakes. I don’t say that part aloud, instead crossing my arms with a huff. He chuckles again, and I can feel the warmth that pulses from him as he speaks.

“Death, you are-” I cut him off immediately, holding up a hand.

“ Please . Don’t.” I clench my jaw. It’s one thing to hear it from humans who don’t know me, but to have the being paralleling my existence address me as ‘Death’… “If you have to call me something, call me Dan.” I amend quietly.

“Of course,” his tone is completely serious, no longer light and joking like it was earlier. “In that case, please call me Phil,” I nod, though I’m not sure when I’ll ever need to address him. Or why he’s even still here . I drop my head into my hands.

“Right, can you please just tell me what you’re doing here?” I ask, exhaustion at the entire situation wearing me out.

“Helping.” He answers with a shrug, which I catch from the corner of my eye, and I almost scream. That would definitely draw attention . Instead, I take a very deep, steadying breath, and lift my head.

“Okay, fine. ‘Helping’,” I toss up the air quotes. “And how exactly are you meant to be ‘helping’?” I turn toward him, hoping a different line of questioning will get me a clearer answer.

“I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?” He smiles wide at me, and I can only blink in response. He’s impossible. I’m suddenly thanking every star in the sky that this is the first time I’ve ever had a conversation with him. Then I’m doing my best to find an excuse, a reason to walk away. A reason for him to leave.

I come up hopelessly short.

“Don’t you have somewhere to be, stuff to do? Life to create, and all that?” I ask with a wave of my hand, leaning back against the bench. At which point, I realize I’ve set myself up for a snarky comeback - ‘ don’t you have somewhere to be, lives to end, and all that?’ . But he probably wouldn’t say that. Just me.

“Life creates itself without me, just like death manifests without you.” He doesn’t move, and I exhale slowly, watching the cloud of my breath dissipate before I continue.

“Are you going to just keep following me?” If he won’t tell me why he’s here, maybe he’ll at least explain what he’s doing, what I can expect. He doesn’t respond, so I glance over to find him nodding. “Great,” it takes a force of willpower I didn’t know I possessed to stop myself from asking him, once again, why . “Well, I’m going back to my flat.” I stand, and he does the same, trailing behind as I begin my trek through the dark streets.

I stop after a few blocks of walking in complete silence - he’s still several steps behind me, and it’s starting to feel awkward. Well, more awkward than this whole situation is to begin with.

“Okay, the following thing is a little stalker-level creepy. At least walk next to me.” I don’t turn toward him as he catches up, but he must be smiling, because I feel a small wave of warmth wash over me and I shiver a little. I’m used to the constant chill - even the summer heat doesn’t affect me - and the feeling is unexpected.

“Cold?” He asks. I don’t answer, but another warm breeze kisses my skin anyway. I’m surprised at how pleasant it feels. We continue on for a while, both silent now, and I don’t realize I’ve drifted closer to him - to the warmth, not to him - until our shoulders brush. My next step takes me farther away, and I’m saved from having to acknowledge the moment when I realize my building is ahead.

“That’s me,” I point, quickening my pace, and he follows. I unlock the door and step inside, jumping when I hear a slam; I spin around to see Phil’s not behind me. “What…” I pull the door open again to find him sat on the concrete stairs. “What are you doing?” I’m beyond confused now. Is he following me or not?

“You don’t want me to follow you, so I’m waiting out here.” He says, like it’s some well-known fact. He’s leaning back against the railing, black hair stuck up at odd angles from the wind and metal bars.

“Well, no, I don’t, but you can’t just...sit outside all night.�� I don’t really have a fantastic reason why he can’t just sit out all night - surely, if the summer heat doesn’t affect me, the winter chill won’t affect him - but it seems... wrong to just leave him. I heave a sigh, then hold the door open. “Alright, come on.”

He smiles brilliantly at me, and I can’t tell if the wave of heat that rushes through me is an effect of his liveliness or something from within me. He smiled because of me, because I did something...nice.

I lead the way up to my flat, which is really a giant studio-like space with few furnishings - I’ve never been big on things. Phil roams the area, stopping to look at almost everything. He finds his way to the kitchen and actually pulls out all my cups, mugs, and silverware, inspecting each in turn.

“Okay, seriously, have you never seen a fork before? A cup? A spoon? Hell, we’ve been around long enough.” He’s holding a fork up to the overhead light and staring as if he’s trying to memorize the way the tines cast shadows on the countertop.

“Sure, they all look familiar, but not everything sticks,” he glances over at me, tapping the fork against his head with a grin and resuming his exploration. It doesn’t stick?

“And what’s that supposed to mean?” I ask, somewhere between confused and concerned. Not concerned for him - we’re two of a kind, in a way, I just want to be sure nothing bad will happen to me. I follow behind him, hoping to get a straightforward answer.

“Exactly what I said. Things don’t stick,” I’m at my fucking wit’s end with him, so I grab his arm and spin him around.

“No, you need to explain this, fully explain it, right now.” I infuse as much anger as I can, trying to drown out my fears. Whatever it is, surely it doesn’t affect me as well?

“Calm down,” he smiles at me, and I drop my hand. He paces over to the couch, still holding the fork, and gestures for me to join him. Several long moments pass after I’ve sat before he continues. “I’m creation, right?” He looks at me, as if actually asking for confirmation, so I nod. “So I’m in a constant state of being created and recreated. Not everything...stays up there.” He taps the fork against his head again, and I try to process what he’s said. What, like amnesia? Or something else?

“I can tell you’re worried,” he smiles, and the warmth hits me again. “It’s different for you, you’re different. Not a creator,” he adds, and I duck my head. Would it be worth it, not sure what I might forget, if it meant I wasn’t a destroyer? I’m startled by a hand covering my own. “I’m sure you remember everything ,” he adds reverently, and I feel a soft tap against my own head from the fork.

“Yeah,” I mumble, standing to find anywhere else to be, anything else to say. “So,” I clear my throat, “do you eat? Sleep?” I don’t need to, and I doubt he does either, but I like to. It fills time. In the kitchen, I’m trying to put everything back in the cupboard; I almost drop the glass I’m holding when he appears behind me. Did he just...apparate? I shove my jealousy down. Just...be nice. Maybe he’s just trying to get you to be nice, then he’ll leave.

“Oh my god, do you have any cereal?” He asks the question like he’s talking about ice cream, and I stifle a laugh.

“Yeah, take your pick,” I offer, opening the pantry. He pulls out each of the boxes in turn, finally settling on Crunchy Nut, and walks over to plop himself down on the couch. I blink a few times as he opens the box and sticks his hand in, pulling the dry cereal out and eating it by the handful. What the ever-loving fuck is going on?

I drag my hand down my face in exasperation, but I can’t manage to be fully annoyed. He looks a little like a lost puppy, and really happy. To be shoving cereal in his face, but still. It’s not often that I actually make anyone happy .

“If you, uh, want to sleep, you’re welcome to take the couch,” I offer; he smiles at me and mumbles a ‘thanks’ before returning his focus to the box in front of him. I blink a few times, amused, then wander over to the bed. Sleep has always been a convenient way to escape for a while. Existence, sometimes, is hard to deal with.

I’ve switched all the lights off and been laying under the covers for almost an hour, though, and sleep won’t come. I want to blame the faint glow coming from the couch, but it’s more the source of the glow that’s keeping me up. Does he really have so little control that he can’t turn himself off? The warmth and plants are one thing, but this is actually impeding my sleep. The glow, not my wandering thoughts about the enigma of a person who’s causing it.

“Phil?” I call into the darkness, but don’t get a response. Jesus christ... I pull the covers off and stalk over to the couch. Phil’s fallen asleep with my fucking Crunchy Nut still in his hand . I reach over, planning to jerk it away and wake him up, but he hums slightly and smiles. Groaning, I gently tug on the box until he lets go, curling his arm up by his head. Of course. Not only is he the favorite, but he’s cute, too.

I try to pretend that thought didn’t happen, shuffling to the kitchen by his glow and replacing the half-empty box in the pantry. So he’s cute, so what? Objectively, he’s attractive. That doesn’t mean anything, certainly doesn’t mean I’m attracted to him. As I burrow back under my duvet, I dig into my hatred and jealousy for the man sleeping on my couch, letting it paint over any kindness I felt. Besides, he probably hates me, too. I destroy everything he creates, eventually .

I sleep more fitfully than usual, my dreams offering no escape from my strange predicament and - if possible - making the whole situation a hundred times worse: every nightmare of insecurity, of jealousy, of the mistakes I’d made in the past makes a resurgence, broken up by fantasies of the man I can currently hear crunching on more of my cereal.

“Phil, are you eating my cereal again ?” I half-shout across the space. A shock of black fringe pokes out from the kitchen, followed by an extremely wide smile. Close-mouthed.

“Sorry, I just got hungry!” He announces around the mouthful he’s chewing. I roll my eyes and fall back onto my pillow. And leap out of it immediately when I feel the familiar tug in my chest. It’s strong, which means someone nearby and soon , and I throw on a pair of jeans and a jumper before rushing to the door.

“I’ll, uh, be back later. Got something to take care of,” I feel awkward saying it, like he should be mad at me just for doing my job. Everyone else is, and he has more right than any of them .

“Don’t you mean someone ?” My hand freezes on the doorknob, but there’s no anger in his voice. In fact...I spin around to find him grinning at me. Did he just make another joke? “I’m coming with you, obviously,” he announces, setting the empty box of cereal aside - he can’t be serious, about the cereal or about following me...

“You don’t…” I try, but he’s already standing uncomfortably close, gesturing at me to open the door. I sigh, and we make our way toward the tug. Maybe if he sees me do this, he’ll be as disgusted as most people are and just leave me alone.

The thought squirms in my stomach uncomfortably.

I try to offer him an out - more for myself than for him - when we arrive, but he declines; he’s currently leaning against the wall like he was in the hospital. The man on the floor had a heart attack; he’s older, had a pretty good life from what I can tell, but he resists me all the same. I falter as he whispers the words of that famous poem.

“ Do not go gentle into that good night, ” I know he can see me, he knows what I am - they usually do - and he’s fighting back. The warm presence of Phil in the corner makes me hesitate - I don’t want him to watch me destroy what he’s created . A burst of bitterness, of jealousy, runs through me at the thought and it spurs me on; this is it, this is what I am. I am all things horrible, look at me and hate me like everyone else . I touch the man’s withered hand, and his eyes flutter closed. I don’t look at Phil when we leave.

He doesn’t speak as we walk back to the flat, but he hasn’t been very talkative up to this point. I stay a step ahead of him, wallowing in my little pity party. He could never see me as anything other than a destroyer, my dreams meant nothing, they can’t mean anything because it’s stupid of me to even think that way. The thoughts and silence continue well after we’re back in the flat, after I’ve spent hours distracting myself via the internet, and I try not to acknowledge Phil at all.

Until I hear a soft sound I can’t identify. I glance over as nonchalantly as possible - he’s sat on the couch with a steaming cup of coffee in his hands and a blanket draped over his shoulders. Is he...cold? Surely not, though the blanket and coffee won’t help…

“Are you…” I leave the question hanging as he glances over, offering me a thin smile.

“You’re in quite a mood, to make the entire flat colder than it is outside,” I exhale, about to ask what on earth he’s on about, but the cloud that escapes my lips answers my question for me.

“Oh, jesus, sorry,” I take a few breaths and squeeze my eyes shut, trying to dissipate the anger and bitterness I’d let consume me for the past few hours. Unaffected by my own chill, I’ve never had to regulate my mood before, and focusing on the thoughts only seems to make things worse. My eyes fly open when a warm hand takes my own, and Phil’s leading me to the couch. “What…” I ask, but he shushes me, and we sit down.

“What makes you happy?” He asks it so casually, and I’m embarrassed to find I don’t have an answer. “Take your time, just picture it in your head,” he adds, and I close my eyes, searching for something - anything - that makes me happy. Frustrated, I quickly give up; I return my focus to the cold, trying to make it go away, when I feel Phil’s hand again.

He doesn’t speak, just holds my hand, so I keep my eyes shut. I’d be lying if I said my breathing was steady, and I hope he doesn’t notice the erratic puffs of steam that are surely escaping my mouth right now. This is exactly what you were supposed to forget from last night , my brain chides me, but - much like the negativity I’ve been concentrating on all day - trying to forget only brings every moment of those dreams to the forefront of my mind.

After a few moments of silence, of Phil’s hand in mine, of trying not to relive those fantasies and failing miserably, he pulls out of my grasp. It takes more effort than I care to admit to stop myself from reaching for him.

“See, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” I open my eyes to see Phil sat across from me, smiling brightly. The atmosphere has warmed significantly, probably in part due to how happy the man across from me looks. I try not to think about the role I played in the change of temperature. Or the role Phil played in my role. I stand, swallowing thickly.

“What were you thinking about?” Phil’s voice behind me makes me jump, and I blink a few times. How am I supposed to answer that?

“Uhh…” I rack my brain. I literally couldn’t come up with anything that makes me happy aside from him, but I can’t very well tell him that. Nor can I tell him exactly what I was thinking about; some of those dreams got into dangerous territory.

It takes me a full ten seconds to realize that the feeling in my chest isn’t the fear of explaining what happened in my head, but another person I need to take. It’s fainter than before, so I announce my plans to shower and head out.

“Okay!” Phil turns toward his newest fascination, the half-dead cactus I’ve had sat on my windowsill for the past couple weeks. I thought it’d be fun and easy to care for, but I keep forgetting about it.

By the time I step out of the shower, the tug at my chest is more urgent, and I dress quickly. I don’t say a word to Phil, though he follows me out the door, and I hail a cab. This person is across town, a good half hour by car, and I don’t feel like walking.

“Why don’t you just, y’know, go there?” Phil whispers when we climb in the backseat. I try to ignore the shiver that crawls up my spine with his lips that close to my ear. Fucking hell, I am not attracted to him .

“Go?” I know he means something by that, but it only hits me what exactly he’s referring to after I’ve already asked. “Oh, no, I can’t do that,” I shake my head, letting the bitterness creep in. “I can’t do anything like that.” I let my breath steam up the window instead of facing Phil.

“Oh, well, that’s good.” My eyebrows raise, but I don’t turn. “It always makes me so dizzy, especially if I have to go far,” I turn to find him staring out the window now, and I drop my eyes to study my shoes. The rest of the ride passes in silence, until I ask the driver to drop us outside the park. It’s not where we need to go, but I have to do the rest of this by feeling, so it’ll have to do.

I’m looking through the doorway once we arrive at the small house. It never gets easier . The little girl is laying in a hospital-issued bed in the family’s living room, and I can barely see the rise and fall of her chest. Again, I offer Phil the option to stay outside. Again, he declines.

Normally, I could steel myself enough to walk in, take her, and walk out. With Phil standing there, it feels impossible. How do I take a child, someone you’ve created, someone with so much life ahead of her? The thought of him hating me sends a spear into my chest, and I step back.

“I...I don’t think...I can’t…” I stutter, eyes fixed on the girl. “How…” I turn toward Phil, and he’s watching me. Just watching. How does he not hate me already? He knows why I’m here. I collapse to the ground, hands covering my face. I inhale deeply, trying to calm myself, trying to find the resolve I’ve been able to tap into every single day until now. It never comes.

Instead, I feel a hand take mine, drag me from the ground and into the room. Phil’s leading me right toward the child, and I’m too dumbfounded to pull away. In moments, we’re standing beside the bed, and Phil’s hand is holding mine. The girl stirs slightly, and I wonder if it’s because of Phil’s presence. Why is he…

Her eyes open, and widen in fear when she sees me. Why would he wake her, if he knows I’m struggling, if he knows she’ll be afraid?

“Hello,” he smiles down at her, and she turns to him. And calms completely. “This is my friend, Dan, he’s going to take you somewhere really special. You don’t need to be scared, he’s really nice. Are you ready?” I’m mesmerized by his words, so much so that it barely registers when the girl smiles and nods. Then Phil raises our hands until mine is hovering just an inch above hers. I can’t move, but it turns out I don’t need to - she lifts her hand to meet mine, and her eyes flutter shut at the contact. She dies with a smile on her face.

I can’t think, I can’t even breathe properly, and I stumble away.

“What...what did you do? Why?” I almost forget where we are, what’s going on, but Phil’s hand is still holding mine, and he leads me from the room before the family can recognize that I’m here. As we step through the front door, my ears pop and we’re suddenly standing less than a foot from my bed. I have exactly three seconds to notice this before my vision blacks out, and I collapse onto it.

I wake with a start, trying to remember where I am and how I got there - the ‘where’ comes quickly, the ‘how’ does not. I shift against my pillow, which - ohshitohshitohshit that is not my pillow . My head is resting on Phil’s chest , and his arm is wrapped around me. I try to stay still so I don’t wake him when the reality of the situation hits me. Whatever happened, I passed out, and his arms are wrapped around me. I bite my lip to prevent the giggle that threatens to escape. This is what happiness feels like . The thought is as unbidden as the fantasies that caused it, but I don’t fight it this time.

Instead, I bury my head back into Phil’s chest and live inside this tiny happy world for a few minutes. I actually almost fall back asleep, but he shifts against me and I’m wide awake again. Please don’t move, I’m happy, I like being happy .

“Are you okay?” His voice breaks into my thoughts, and I try not to let out a disappointed sigh.

“Yeah, I’m alright,” more than alright . I don’t say that part. Instead, I sit up, though I’m afraid to meet Phil’s gaze as the events from... was that yesterday? What time is it? I can’t figure it out, the sky is dark outside, but everything that happened before I passed out comes crashing back into my head like a tsunami. I stand abruptly.

A chill settles over my skin as I leave the warmth of Phil, of the bed, and I make my way into the kitchen. Food is another distraction. Food can’t hate me.

“Are you sure?” Phil’s voice carries from the other side of the room, but I can’t look. How can I, when I can’t meet his eyes? Why is he even talking to me? He watched me steal something precious from this world, something he created, a piece of him, and he’s still talking to me? My hands shake as I spread the butter on a half-burnt piece of toast. As I pour a cup of coffee. My eyes stay fixed on the countertop.

“I’m fine, really,” I think even my voice is shaking. How could he even touch me, knowing that same touch takes lives? I know I’m spiraling, but I can’t stop myself. Why should I? I am destruction, I deserve this. The coffee is bitter, but I drink it anyway.

“You’re not,” his voice is soft in my ear, and I squeeze my eyes shut. The mug in my hand hits the countertop harder than I mean it to. I’m stuck between wanting to run and wanting to scream, but I do neither; I drop to the floor, right there in the kitchen, and lean my aching head against the cupboards.

“ Why don’t you hate me? ” The question feels like poison on my tongue, something painful and vicious. But I have to understand. He just forgot, it didn’t stick, that has to be it. “You forgot, didn’t you?” I ask, looking up to where I think he’s standing, but I find him sitting next to me. I want to protest when he slides closer, shoulder touching mine. I don’t.

“I didn’t forget,” he insists, but I shake my head. He has to have forgotten, how could he be here, how could he not hate me, if he hadn’t forgotten everything I’ve done? Everything I do?

“You don’t understand, ” I lift a shaking hand and drag it through my hair as I take a breath. “Years of genocides, of mass killings, letting serial killers run free, taking the lives of the innocent, the helpless,” my voice drops to barely a whisper, “children, children with their whole lives ahead of them.” I let my eyes drift closed, though I can feel tears welling up. “This is what I do. I take everything from you, I destroy everything beautiful you’ve ever created. That is all I do. All I can do. Why don’t you hate me? ” I wait in silence, expecting the warmth to fade, expecting him to get up and leave me.

I almost pull away when a hand rests on my knee.

“I haven’t forgotten, but please don’t be upset,” his voice is low and quiet, but it doesn’t stop the tears from falling down my cheeks, flowing freely now. “I don’t think you understand,” he says, and I can almost hear the smile in his words. He’s joking now? I don’t question it when the hand disappears - right, leave me, leave me to my self-destruction. It’s all I’m good for . I do question it, though, when his arm wraps around me and pulls me close.

“Life, the life I give, is beautiful not because it goes on, but because it is finite,” he continues, and the rumble of his chest against my ear is soothing. “I give them possibility, but you…” he trails off, and I wait for it, for the inevitable punch to my gut. “You give them purpose .” My eyes fly open. “How could I ever be mad, ever hate you, when you give my gifts such meaning?”

He lifts my chin, and I stare at him through a blur. The waterworks haven’t stopped, but they’ve slowed, and I take a shaking breath when his thumb wipes a falling tear from my cheek.

“Please don’t be sad,” his voice is a whisper now, and I’m hanging on every word. “Your existence is more beautiful than anything I could ever create. I hope I can make you see that.” My heart almost stops in my chest when I realize he’s leaning in, bright blue eyes watching me closely. His lips meet mine and I can’t move. I don’t want to.

This is happiness.

[northeastern-deirdredunham]

Reopening with Closing Remarks

Hi blog friends, last I check in with you, I promised to post my closing remarks from Manchester Community College’s Girls in Technology day. If anyone new here is tuning it, this is my story in engineering and how I ended up where I am now. 

Unfortunately, reading this won’t be as good as hearing it...so I guess now you just have to come to Northeastern and take one of my tours to get the next best thing. Read my speech under the cut!

My  name is Deirdre and I’m a third year student at Northeastern University studying bioengineering and computer science and I’m currently working at Farm Design, which you heard a little bit about earlier. But you heard me right, I’m a student. I’m not some crazy accomplished engineer, scientist, or CEO. I’m still learning and I’m still making mistakes, so I wanted to talk to you here today student to student. I want to share my experiences.

How did I end up here? Up until high school I was absolutely convinced I wanted to be a pediatrician- heck, I couldn’t even spell pediatrician back then. I was arm twisted out of taking Latin by my woodshop teacher, and I found myself in Intro to Engineering Design instead through a program called Project Lead the Way.

One day I was sketching in my notebook a *real* engineer came up to me, excited about my sketches, and asked if I was interested in studying engineering. Here’s the thing, if you’ve ever had someone you think is cool ask you a question, you don’t want to disappoint them. So I stuttered out, “YES! Bio engineering!”. No lie, I thought I made up this engineering discipline on the spot, but this engineer seemed pleased with my answer and moved on.

It turns out that bioengineering is very real and now I’m in the first graduating class of the major at Northeastern University. So what actually is bioengineering? Bioengineering is a lot of things, bioengineering is modifying cell protein receptors to enhance drug delivery, it’s creating medical devices to make processes more efficient and safe, and it’s reading signals sent from the body to help us understand the many unknowns in our brain. In short, bioengineering is anything that involves an engineering and problem solving practice that interfaces with an organic living body. Many other disciplines can go into bioengineering fields without being bioengineers, it’s all about what blade you really want to sharpen.

In my journey, I became fascinated by the world of prosthetics and how the human body interacts with the world around us.

I’m a musician, and maybe some of you are too. Can you imagine playing your instrument with only one hand? Can you imagine playing soccer with only one leg, or can you imagine living your normal day to day life without part of your body? I’m beginning to imagine as I learn more about the advancements in the industry, and I want to make this “imagination” dream into a reality for millions.

But let’s step back a second, because this makes me sound like I have my life together. Maybe you don’t know what you want to do with your life yet. That’s okay, most people don’t. Did you know the most popular major for incoming students at Northeastern is “undeclared”. Everyone is different, and everyone will have a different journey as you find out what you like. Maybe you’re like me and you have some clear goals for the future, but it wasn’t always like that. One time I was presenting about engineering at my former middle school and I asked the kids if anyone knew what they wanted to be and one kid in the front of the room raised his hand and was like “I want to be a journalist but I know that’s nor a profitable field, so I’m also considering going into a science field”.

Excuse me. 

This kid had his life more together than I did. In case anyone’s curious, he’s now in college studying theater so?

I also want to say that a lot of this whole growing up thing is not about what you studied and where. I’ve learned that it’s about your experiences, those are the things that will set you apart. So go to a school that works for you and feels right.  My old AP Econ teacher used to tell us to throw a dart at a board to pick a college because it’s also hard to know what you want until you get there.  Degrees and nice titles have been said to be able to open doors, but I believe with the right tool set from experience, you can just pick the lock.

In building your repertoire of experiences, don’t be afraid to try new things or give things a second shot. I’m a really sore loser to the point where I refused to play games or sports because it gave me the possibility to lose. When I got to college, the friends I made happened to be super into board games. Well, that’s just *perfect*. After months of them pestering me to join, I decided my friendship with them took priority over my dislike of losing. Well, I lost in the first game I ever played with them and I continue to lose most times we play, but the weird thing is…I had fun? Later that year, we founded Northeastern’s first Board Game Club. Needless to say, my parents were shocked, but I was proud.

Take advantage of any and all opportunities to discover and learn. You’re here now, and that’s a fabulous first step! Maybe from this event you’ve realized you are hooked on STEM, maybe you’ve realized this isn’t for you, and maybe you’re indifferent. The point is, you did it. At Northeastern, we have this program called co-op which allows me to take these 6 month internships 2-3 times within my academic schedule. Co-op for me is less about building a resume, but instead discovering what I like and don’t like.  It’s a chance to make mistakes before you enter the *real* world, you still have the crash pad that is college. You can change your mind, tweak your path, or dive deeper into your passions.

For me, I quickly discovered that I loved computer science and wanted to integrate that into what I did.  I took my first coop in robotics/comp sci at Corindus Vascular Robotics and learned so much about the back end of software development, diving into the nitty gritty of what actually tells these systems what to do. Since college, I learned about a super cool field called biomimicry through one of the research labs on campus. Biomimicry is essentially the replication of a living system or functions of a living system; nature has spent years perfecting design, so why not save those millions of years of work? I currently do research at Northeastern’s marine science center, designing, and testing biomimetic robotic lobsters. It turns out all lobsters can smell nitrous oxide, and all bombs let off nitrous oxide. But apparently it’s inhumane to send an army of lobsters under water to search for bombs, and even if we could do that, how would they relay the information? At my lab, we are building lobsters that can see, smell, and think for themselves that will interact with the environment the same as a real lobster. How cool is that? Learning about this field got me super curious about what other hidden engineering functions nature has designed for us, so this summer I am heading off to Oxford, UK, for 5 weeks to study engineering design in nature.

I once had a professor in college that asked, “Deirdre, what makes you happy?” I told him making people laugh, building things, and seeing people benefit from my hard work.

Then he asked, “Why? What about those things make you happy?” I still don’t know how to explain the feelings and emotions that bring me joy from these things. So I want to ask all of you, what makes you happy? Figure out your answer, and whether or not you can answer the why, hold those things dear. I actually think the harder it is to answer “why”, the stronger the feeling is. You can actually use those little things to make a life and a career.

So I leave you with this:

Do not fear failure, stay curious, be innovative, be patient, create, make, but most importantly, be you. Be part of the 17% but also be part of the 100% to make this world one that makes you happy.

[dreadfuldetour-blog]

A Journey for the Living

I can only imagine what my boss was thinking when I looked over at her, my hand on my chest, as I said, "Is your heart supposed to beat this fast?". She asked me what I meant and I remember saying that I couldn't breath, and my head slumped over. She rushed to my side, but I can't really tell you what happened after that. I didn't black out, I was conscious the entire time, but any memory I have of that afternoon is fuzzy up until I found myself in my parent's living room, tucked into my mother's armchair, breathing and staring blankly at the world around me. They told me what happened, that I had an asthma attack, that it took a long time to finally get me out of my office, down the stairs, and out the front door. I was alarmed but I took it in stride. Things like that didn't happen very often, and they were usually triggered by some kind of source, like smoke or the cold, but I just accepted that my lungs were garbage and were going to cause me some strife for no reason.

The following Saturday, my brother and I went to pick up some new headphones. I'm a bit of a snob when it comes to sound quality, especially when I'm listening to music constantly, and my last pair of headphones had bit the dust a few weeks before. It was a perfectly normal trip to the store until we were on our way back home. I don't remember what my brother was talking about, but I started to notice that the world was passing by slower and slower. I looked around me, staring out the window, trying to focus in on objects, but I seemed to descend into a dream, the real world dissolving. The last thing I remember was looking at decorative construction vehicles along the side of the highway and thinking 'those are some expensive lawn ornaments'. Then, nothing, until everything faded back in and I found myself strapped to a stretcher in the back of an ambulance as a paramedic hovered over me. He explained to me that my parents, who were trailing behind them, had called the ambulance because I was having what they thought was another "asthma attack" and that I was on my way to the hospital. He then proceeded to ask me if I had any history of anxiety.

The answer was yes. A few years ago, when I was living in Halifax, I was diagnosed with mild anxiety and told to treat it with a proper diet and exercise. At the time, that worked. I could go outside again, I could sleep through the night and not wake up shaking and crying. I could look people in the eyes and go out to gatherings comfortably. I had plenty of anxiety attacks out east, but they were nothing like these new episodes.

In the hospital, my family watched as I would fade in and out, over and over again. It would start with the inability to speak, I would glaze over, stare out around me, my hands would fold towards me, then my legs would kick out and I would go into what looked like a seizure. Over and over and over again, my body seized, my mind wandered into a frenzy, and I eventually fell into a deep sleep. My mind was exhausted from the stress and panic. Then, I would wake up and do it all over again.

The weeks that followed, my world was solidly planted under fluorescent lights. I continued to have episodes, continued to wander in a haze, and I looked out at the world like I was observing a terrible dream, never participating in the colours. We had so many questions and very few answers. Did I have epilepsy? Was there something else wrong with my brain that was more severe? Did I actually have anxiety attacks? What did that mean? I remember laying on my parent's couch, desperate for some solid ground. Thank God it didn't take long to find a stepping stone.

As we searched for a family doctor, I started therapy. She had me do a test to help gauge where my mind was at. When she read the results, she looked up at me and asked me if I wanted to die. I said no.

We found a doctor, but our first visit was set to only be a paperwork appointment so she knew what kind of patient I was going to be. In my hands was a letter from my therapist with the results from her test that she wanted me to hand the doctor. When she refused the papers, saying that this was only to be a basic appointment and that she could look at it at our next meeting, I started hyperventilating. I couldn't do this anymore. I couldn't step into the washroom and refuse to look at myself in the mirror. I couldn't handle that numbing haze around me that swallowed up any sense of joy. I couldn't handle the feelings of self hatred and destruction. I couldn't lay awake at night begging God to let me go. So, I begged her. I don't think I said anything legible, to be honest, but I know she understood. She paused, and I saw her realize what was going on, and the compassion met me. She took the papers, and she immediately put me on medication. She wanted to see me every week and told me to go to therapy just as often.

If you have never had anxiety or depression, it can be very hard to understand. To be honest, I don't know if I can explain it to you in a way that makes sense. Let's try an exercise that might shed some light on it. I want you to think back to a moment when you called yourself stupid, or something else negative about yourself. For a moment, you might believe it, but then other thoughts come to your defense. You think, no, you're not stupid, you just missed the mark on that occasion. You made a simple mistake, and it is not a big deal. You have the ability to fight those thoughts, to defend yourself. You can think something positive, and so you feel positive. Simple.

If you have anxiety / depression, you lose that ability. You can't defend yourself. That initial feeling of "I am stupid" does not go away. It grows until it swallows you whole. Every instant of every day, these thoughts bombard you because that's all you can know, that's all you have, and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it. It's like being on the highway and never being able to change lanes so you get stuck behind someone slow, or someone is tailgating you whilst honking their horn. There is nowhere for you to go.

What I realized through therapy was that this hadn't happened all at once. It had been a slow build up, and I had probably always been programmed since childhood to have these ruts in my brain that dragged me into depression and anxiety. Basically, I was on my highway and I accidentally got into the wrong lane and things just got worse and worse over the course of about six months without me realizing it. It was a slow progression and I ignored the symptoms. I ignored the breathlessness, the heart palpitations, the crying every night, the haze I was always in, and the numbness that beat low in my chest. I had been sucking it up, I had been surviving, because that's what I knew to do. You put your head down when things got hard and you got through it. I couldn't know that this wasn't a situation that had an ending, but rather a process that I was going to have to go through one day at a time in order to get out of it.

As a Christian, not having hope or joy or any other gifts of the spirit should be a huge red flag. I thought to myself that I must be an ungrateful child, unable to thank her Father for all He had given her. I couldn't look at the world and wonder at anything anymore. I didn't feel peace, or kindness, or love towards anyone, much less myself. I thought I was cut off because I didn't have all these basic traits anymore, these basic gifts, the basic evidence that I still loved God. That isn't a great place to be as a Christian, and it's a cycle of hate pointed directly at yourself. Again, you can't reason yourself out of it because you don't have that defence mechanism in place to help you. You believe every vile thing that comes into your head, and you sink deeper and deeper into despair.

I have heard many times over the last few years from Pastors and preachers that your emotions lie and you can't trust them. At the time, it didn't sit well with me but I couldn't yet describe why. At the time, I think I thought that the pastors were wrong because emotions are a huge part of our humanity, but that answer isn't complete. In actuality, your emotions are very honest. They tell you exactly what you're thinking. If you want to control your emotions, you have to be able to harness your thoughts. We have to hold them captive, filter them, and sift carefully. From it flows all things.

Now, imagine you're sitting in a sermon and your exact issue is that you can't control your emotions because you have anxiety and/or depression. The pastor tells you that your emotions are a lie and you can't trust them. That terrible distraught feeling in your chest, your constant companion, swells up, choking you. You feel guilty because you can't do this simple thing and just be okay, just be calm. Your emotions are lying to you and, as an adult, you should be able to hold it together. You leave your seat, discouraged and overwhelmed because you are not able to feel joy. You are not able to push away the emotions and you are not able to control them. The spiral continues.

The most important thing I can tell you is what I have already stated: your emotions do not lie. They are symptoms of your thoughts. If you can think yourself into a different emotion, you do not have anxiety and depression. You can thank my therapist for that nugget.

Now, I can't give you the perfect piece of advice or healing session to get your fight back if you do struggle with mental health. I don't have to tell any of you that brains are complicated organs that can do terrible and wonderful things. I am not qualified to tell you how to move forward with your own mind, but I can tell you what I did and what happened to me during the last few months that have helped. Take from it what you will.

First thing to mention is prayer. I'm a Christian so step one is always talking to God. My personal prayers are never organized or structured. I never go through a laundry list of things and finish it off with an amen. It's fragmented, and it flows like a conversation. During the last few months, I wouldn't say any of my prayers had flow to them. I went from screaming, to crying, to begging, to passing out very quickly. One consistent thing were those naps afterwards. Wearing myself out was a handy way to get some shut eye. I would also say that my brutal honesty was a welcome change. I lamented often, running my mouth, and telling God every day that I didn't want to wake up. He would tell me I didn't have to, and I would go back to sleep. Fighting can look like sleeping, apparently.

Second thing I would mention is how often you'll get advice and diagnosis from people around you. They mean well, and you know that, but I have never been so annoyed by my loved ones. Anyone I've spoken to who has also dealt with anxiety and depression say that one of the hardest parts of fighting is dealing with the people around you who don't get it and still try to give their pieces of wisdom. Again, they mean well, but I highly recommenced you talk to people who get it. Don't cut the others out unless they're being real jerks about the whole thing, but do what you can to find people who you can just talk to and compare notes. That feeling of explaining something to someone, and you can tell just from how they respond that they totally get it, is a huge respite in the storm. Mental health can be a very lonely place, and having people say "Oh yeah, that's normal. I went through that," is a reminder that no, you are not alone in this. You are not nuts. You may not feel hope right away from their stories, but that's normal too. The feeling of being safe in a conversation is so important when you're trekking through this low point. That's probably because you're not even safe in a conversation with yourself.

Third is try to take care of your body. I lost my appetite so I had a really hard time with this. I would forget to eat all the time and even when I thought "Oh yeah, eating in a thing I need to do", food just didn't interest me at all. Thank God my mother is the way that she is, or I would have shrived into nothing. Almost every day, she would make sure that I ate something. She would bring me food, she would make sure I was at her place for dinner, and she would ask me constantly if I had eaten, when I had eaten, and what I had eaten. I was annoyed a lot, but at least I was annoyed with a belly full of food.

Fourth is knowing who you are. My identity comes from Jesus, and I know He didn't create me to have mental health issues. Those things are caused by a million outside factors that he allows because free will is a thing He respects. People made decisions, people got hurt. Tale as old as time. I am 100% certain that I'm not taking these issues with me when I die. Mental health is a thing of this world, not the next. Now, I'm no expert on heaven, but I like to think I'm going to retain some of who I am when I go because He made me. He knows who I am, and so I know who I am, or I'm supposed to. Having an identity and knowing that mental health is not who I am helped me a lot. I didn't always think I had hope, but knowing that my personality isn't a broken, crying, weak, little girl did at times bring me strength when I needed it most. I'll give you an example.

There were a lot of bad days, but there was one that scared me the most. I had been feeling tense all day, and I could not calm down. Something had happened, and I had rushed home to be alone. When I came into the house, I went right for the closet. In the closet are a collection of cleaning supplies lined up on shelves. I started reading the backs of them, searching for a solution, frantic and shaking. Suddenly, I knew this wasn't me. This wasn't who I was. I do not want to die. So, I called everyone nearby I knew who would help and I got out of there as fast as I could. Knowing who I was helped save my life.

I would say that five is try to do something every day, but I had to learn to be okay with not doing anything. There were days all I would do is lay in bed hating myself. There were days I would do one thing, like shower, and I had to try to remember that it was okay I didn't do a million other things. I did one thing, and I did it well, and that was all that was expected of me. I had to stop listening to the people and thoughts in my head that told me I should do more, that I needed to do more in order to get better. Yes, I had to be proactive, but I had to be careful about how many things I put on that list. I knew I had to go to the doctor and I had to go to therapy. Those were absolutes. After that, it was a gamble. I had to push away the thought that I was lazy, that I was useless, and that I wasn't doing anything so I should just die. There were days I could get up, shower, eat, and carry on pretty well. Other days, I couldn't do a thing. I couldn't get up, I couldn't get out of the fog, and my only company was God when I could pull myself out of despair long enough to say His name. Sometimes, I couldn't even do that.

What can you say to a person whose in a place like that? What can you do? I can't imagine how helpless the people around me felt. Often, I would just imagine them being frustrated that I wasn't doing anything, which didn't help at all. People wanted to help me because they loved me, tried to tell me to hold fast to hope, to hold on tight to God, but none of them inspired anything in me. No one could change my thoughts, after all. The things that helped the most were people accepting me exactly where I was and believed me. When I said that I couldn't read or write, they believed me and brought me comic books instead to look at. When I said I needed a distraction, they sent me lists of shows to watch that might make me laugh. When I called them, crying and hating myself, they would listen and know that I meant it, that I wasn't just being dramatic. When I said "Help, I'm at the end of my rope", they said "I'm coming over". I can not properly describe to you the thankfulness I feel now towards the friends and family who said they loved me just by accepting that I wasn't okay. I didn't have hope, but I knew they did, and they showed it by showing up.

God did this a lot. I always assume He has expectations of us on a day to day basis, and failing at those things means He gets frustrated. To be honest, I still hang on to those thoughts now, but it has gotten a lot better. There were plenty of times I would ask Him what He wanted me to do that day to make Him happy, and He would say "Nothing. Just rest". I hated that. In my mind, I always had to be doing something to make people happy, to earn their respect and love. Unconditional love is very hard for me to accept. Honestly, I hated it at first, but knowing that God wasn't going anywhere even if I didn't check all the boxes was a huge relief. Eventually, He told me to try to write out some lamentations. I have pages and pages of very simple phrases, fragmented thoughts and feelings, and all of them display a journey of honesty with both myself and God. It was some of the hardest writing I've ever done, but it has also been the most impactful. I cried after every session.

The first time I realized that I was getting a lot better was when I thought to myself "Wow, I did a good job" and I genuinely felt proud of myself for a moment, followed quickly by shock. Do you know how long it had been that I had such a simple thought like that? That something like that came to mind so automatically? Years. Literally years. I had forgot what being proud of myself was even like. I couldn't really describe it before that moment. Man, what a nice feeling. I cried again, reveling in simple pride.

Things started coming to me. When hope reached my thoughts, I cried. I knew that there was an end, that things would be better, and I could live better than I ever had. I could rewrite the automatic words in my mind, repave some roads, and rewire my brain. I started being able to fight the thoughts, to defend myself. I could keep the hate away and finally believe the good about myself. I could finally use sober judgement when it came to looking at myself and my life. The other day, I noticed how beautiful the sky was for the first time in over a year. In some instances, it feels like the first time I'm experiencing the world. I'm not kidding.

I'm not done yet, but I'm so close to getting back to real life. I'll be able to go back to work, pick up my friendships I've had to put on hold, go for long drives in the country, and go back to enjoying public outings. Even writing this entire story is a breakthrough because I've been too unfocused to even be capable of writing or reading. I wrote this entire thing, all at once, without a break. This would have taken me weeks and a lot of frustrated tears, but here I am. Thank God.

There are a lot more thoughts I haven't processed, but I wanted to tell this story for a few reasons. One, I wanted to write to anyone who has gone through this or is still struggling. Maybe something in it sounds familiar and that can bring you some comfort. Two, for anyone who wants to understand what the journey can look like for some people. Three, for those loved ones who haven't been a part of it but wondered why I dropped off the map. I care about you, but I've never been a very good juggler. Let's connect. Four, for those who have been here during this process and have done their best to love me. Thank you for your patience and for everything you offered. Even if I didn't say it, I really appreciate it. For everyone who prayed, thank you. Five, for myself. Writing is the best way for me to process and I learned some things by pushing myself to put it all together like this.

Lastly, for anyone who needs help, please do not try to go through this alone. I know you think no one cares, that they won't believe you if you tell them, that you are not worth their time, but you need people. They have the strength to hope for you when you can't. I am happy to be one of those people for you. We can do this.

Love, Someone who really loves sandwiches and will go eat one right now because this project made her hungry.

[rcknfw]

https://weheartit.com/articles/321272613-to-my-dearest-friend-who-i-hurt-terribly-and-miss-so-badly?

Hi there. We've spent so much time together, yet I don't know how should I start this letter to you. I am still heartbroken now, but that doesn't matter I don't think back to the days and night we spent together, laughing and enjoying each other's company, just being ourselves and having a great time in general. Every now and then it just crosses my mind and all I get to feel is disgust for the things that I've done to you.

I'm sure you are something great and wonderful on this earth, you've been so good to me, forgave me every time I made a mistake, you've been there for me every single time, no matter how bad I hurt you or how wrong I was about the decisions I made. You have been there when things went wrong, you went through hell for me, I made you do that. Yet no matter how much pain I brought to your life you have always been there for me, you've always stayed. You have treated me like I was made of gold, like there was nothing greater than me in this world even when I let you down, even when I acted completely silly and childish ; and that says a lot about you. You accepted my flaws and you always came back, no matter how we argued and that's something very rare nowadays. Your friendship has painted glorious colors in my life and it has lifted me higher, made me see the world in a different way, it has changed me, helped me grow, it was definitely a blessing.

You may think that letting you go was something easy for me to do, or that I didn't even think about it when it happened, and I don't want to lie. That is somehow true, because when you left, I was, already, so heartbroken that I completely refused to think about it and decided to ignore it. You know I've lost two amazing persons I had in my life and it was awful, devastating for me so I was just in denial. I remember we tried to say goodbye to each other more than one time but when it actually happened, it really hurt. It was awful to see you leaving me at that time in my life, as I was still struggling to live, to cope with the great loss of a very loved and meaningful person I had in my life back then. Yet I cannot blame you for leaving me because I know at that time it was bringing you more pain than happiness seeing me in that state .

I don't think you're told how wonderful you are enough. You have so many things that distinguish you from the others, it is so cruel that you don't see that. I think most people use to take you for granted, you are much more than you actually think you are. There's no one like you. Not a single soul out of the eight billions on this earth are as tightly bound to mine as yours used to be. It's crazy how we used to share things and create wonderful memories together. You've been a great person to me, so kind, caring and patient with me, you always returned to me even when I pushed you away, and you never truly left, you always stayed there and dealt with my bullshit. I genuinely think people around you don't appreciate you enough for who you are and what you are doing for them . I know the last time we spoke your life wasn't as exciting and great as I'd want it to be, I remember a lot of shit was happening to you, yet I couldn't do anything to fix that, no matter how much I wish I could've. I truly hope that everything's fine in your life at the moment. I know you are going to meet someone else, eventually and you are going to be doing great with them. You will shine brighter than you ever did with me, while I was still in your life and I am sure of that . You've been a gift from God for me, but so much has happened and I couldn't deal with everything. I regret losing you so much but somehow I've come to realize that you had to leave because you definitely deserve so much more than I have to offer. I do believe you will meet someone else and find happiness once more.

Indeed, I never planned to let you go but unfortunately it seems that I am not the one for you.

What I would like you to understand now is that I didn’t mean to hurt you in any concrete form of the word. I am deeply sorry for the way things turned out to be, I am sorry it was impossible for us to stay friends, I am sorry I couldn't keep such a precious person in my life, I am sorry for the way I have treated you, I am sorry for falling so badly for someone that wasn't you. Never in a million years, in any condition you deserved what I have done to you and now, when I think about it, it just brings disgust and antipathy to my life. I can't bear the thought of what I did to you and how I treated such a gentle soul. Sometimes, I do hate myself and I think that I deserved losing the one I fell for so deeply. Sometimes I believe it was karma I think the worst part about words though, is that you can’t shove them back onto your mouth and down into your throat. The way it ended between us was unpredictable yet so inevitable. You are a good person and I’m sorry that there was ever a time when I did not let you live up to that standard.

I've been such a cruel woman to you, yet I acted like a kid, no one deserves to feel what I've made you feel like. You have been so kind and gentle with me, but I acted literally like the most heartless human there is, you never deserved what I did to you, and I deeply regret the moment I came back into your life and made you leave everyone for me.

There are so many reasons why I should stay out of your life now, and that's why no matter how much I will miss you, or how strong my feelings for you will be, I will never return to you considering how much pain and sorrow I bring to your life. I wish I had the right words to tell you how horrible I still feel about everything that has happened between us, but the feelings are so overwhelming that it makes me feel like I will never find the right words to describe it.

I made mistakes that were beyond stupid, I should've told you I was falling for someone else..I know that you think back to the things I've done and it makes you hate me now, I am aware of the damage that has been done but I want you to take into consideration the fact that I was damaged as well.I just want to say I'm sincerely sorry for putting you through so much shit.I thought about what I've done and it's made me miserable for the past couple of months, I just want you to know that I still do care about you and I'm not as careless as I seem. I’ve been terribly wrong to be so inconsiderate and act the way I have. It's been so hard to but all my feelings into words but I hope this will be the last time I will write or reach to you.

Finally, I am wishing you the best and I pray and believe you'll get it because you're such a fascinating person who loves so deeply and with so much passion. You have been an amazing person and I will never be able to put into words how grateful I am that once I've met you and there was a time when I had your love and friendship. Yet I took you for granted and you didn't deserve it, at all. All I've got to say in the end is that it was worth it and that over time, you will heal. Your constant tears and sadness will eventually evolve back into smiles and laughter, and please believe me when I say this, because it is not poetry. I am sure you already realized that your life does indeed move on with or without me in it. You love and you lose, but it's always for the better. It takes a lot of time to find the value in pain, but once you do, you will realize that the impact that a love has on your life will last forever.

You may have come into my life for what only felt like seconds, but you left a mark that will undoubtedly last a lifetime. I was not made for you, and how I wish you could forgive me that I couldn't lie to you, I couldn't act like everything was right when it wasn't. There was a wall between compassionate and passionate love, there was a difference between what I felt for you and what I felt for him . He hasn't stayed that much time in my life, he hasn't been there when things went wrong in my life but still I did love him with passion and that passion is never going to die. On the other hand. you did all the things he didn't. I had more time to spend with you than with him and you proved me that you're a great friend and lover and whoever gets to have you will be a very lucky person. Please understand that I will always respect you and you will always have a bit of my heart, but I couldn't have lied to you and told you I've loved you as I've loved him. These are two different types of love, yet it doesn't mean I'll ever stop caring about you.

So for that, I thank you. I wish you had stayed. but I do understand that it was meant to be this way. I thank you for teaching me so many valuable lessons, for helping me see the world in a different and better way; for appreciating the littlest things in life and for never taking things for granted again. I wish you all the best. So please, hear me out, for the last time in a lifetime: always embrace your feelings and love with all your heart, body, all your existence. Love with all your soul and mind, no matter how much it'll hurt in the end. I don't think I will ever understand the way you loved me but I am sure that it was strong and deep and beautiful. Please never try to get rid of the feelings and emotions you have in your heart, acknowledge them. Loving so deeply is what makes the one so special, pure and worthy of appreciation and respect; I strongly believe this is what makes us beautiful and passionate. I can assure you, if it'll end, you'll say to yourself "for this type of love, friendship and experiences, life is worth living" . Life is made for these beautiful, great, lovely yet very painful experiences. Love with all your soul and mind ! Your beauty will grow with the passing years as you let yourself see the charm and elegance in things, people, fall for them, and love so deeply. Always forgive and be full of passion. Please never forget the things we've done, the days and nights we spent together, the experiences we both shared and the memories we created.

And so though you may not always be in my life, it is a fact of life that most people won’t be. But to the ones who come and go, it is the ones who leave a part of them with you that matter. The ones who come and go, but also choose to allow a piece of their heart to stay forever.

"For beautiful eyes, look for the good in others; for beautiful lips, speak only words of kindness; and for poise, walk with the knowledge that you are never alone. Passion will meet love and and it will bring you to your most vulnerable state, yet it will make you feel the strongest you've ever been. You don't have to search for it, passion will find you, open your heart."

[boogadee]

I think this needs to be said because I do not want to let you go again.

I want you to be happy.

That is the only thing I have ever wanted for you. That's why I stopped texting you after every holiday, why I disappeared into my apartment, why I wanted to move away. I wanted you to forget everything about me and find a real man who could make you happy and wasn't so stuck on his past that he fucking ruined a perfectly good evening.

That's why when we started talking again, I was patient with you not wanting to rush into a relationship again. I understood that you were still confused and that you were afraid of what your parents would think. I didn't blame you for a minute and I didn't take any hurt from it.

When I shut down after a fight, it has 0 to do with me being mad at you, because I can promise you that has nothing to do with it. It's because I feel like an idiot. It's because I don't ever want to give you the impression that I'm not hearing you. Your feelings and thoughts are just as valid as mine, and when you are concerned about something, I don't just push it away as baseless criticism like I used to. I entirely understand that I'm way too skinny and my emotions are a disaster. Both of those things bother me beyond belief and its been frustrating being ordered to focus on school over either of those. It was equally as frustrating being brought out of the country when I really wanted to just go look for a fucking doctor and be done with it. I do hear you. I'm not blind to what my issues do to you, and though I'll never be like my dad, I refuse to ever let you be unhappy because of my own mistakes or lack of action.

You were a rock when you shouldn't have had to be. You were a therapist when that wasn't your job. You were a worrying girlfriend when you should have been having fun. And all of those things stick with me. All of the shit you shouldn't have had to do. And when I look at everything, I wonder how on earth you could still be here.

I love you. I love you beyond what you could ever hope to understand. I loved you enough to let you leave, and I loved you enough to let you back in when you wanted it. But if I'm not providing what you need, you have to tell me. And if I don't do shit, you have to leave. I don't want you to, I don't ever want to watch you leave again, but I don't want you to stay with me when it's hurting you.

You deserve so much more than you could ever realize, and no matter how much I tried to hate you in the past, I couldn't. Those 6 months were spent constantly thinking about how fucking stupid I was for making you leave. It haunted me like a psychotic spirit, never letting me sleep unless I made myself pass out, never letting me breathe unless I smoked something. It was hell. But I would go through every second of it and more if it meant you could be happy.

This Monday I'm calling multiple doctors, namely your GP, a psychiatrist in San Antonio, Katherine B, and Tim's physician. I am going to explain to each of them what I'm experiencing and how much I want it to just go away. I finally have the fucking permission, as an adult, to do that. I am not going to stop calling doctors until I find at least one human being willing to see me. I do not give a fuck how much money it takes, I do not have the option to live in my own hell anymore.

I do not blame you if you can't do it anymore. I will express how much I love you, but I will not, by any stretch of conscience, let it drag out a few weeks because I think I can somehow get you back. I will not lie and say it won't hurt me more than anything, but I can suffer if it means you'll be happy.

Do not mistake this as defeat. Do not mistake this for me wanting to leave, because among wanting you to be happy as one of the most prevalent desires on my heart, being the one to make you happy is the second most desire. I have loved you for years, Victoria Knight Hyman. I wanted to be by your side through every minute of it. I've wanted and continue to want to be your husband, and I will fight for that opportunity until every bone in my body breaks and I literally cannot do it anymore.