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prodigalwatcher59 - "I cannot live without my life! I cannot die without my soul."
60 - "Why are your eyes always empty?"
"Why are your eyes always empty?"
I laughed at her; laughed in the face of the mighty god-king with the power to squash me like an insect underfoot, laughed until I was hoarse, not that it was a long ways away considering the copious amounts of Lagavulin I had been imbibing in the last few days. Scotch burned at my throat even more effectively than it burned at my mind and dulled the pain.
It occurred to me that I had not laughed since I stood at the top of the lobby stairs, listening to "You Are My Sunshine", sung sweetly if just the slightest touch flat.
"My eyes?" I asked Illyria. "Why are my eyes always empty? You look at me with those eyes, the ones you turned to granite and marble instead of flesh and blood, the ones you tore all the light from and you ask me why my eyes are empty?"
Illyria's face was as inscrutable and expressionless as ever. "Yes."
"And you have no opinion on the subject?"
She stepped closer. "You are grieving for the shell--"
I threw the bottle across the room, narrowly missing Illyria's head, and I cannot in any honesty recall whether it was an intentional miss or not.
A slight cock of the head was all the reaction my outburst apparently warranted. "You are grieving for Fred."
"A brilliant deduction," I rasped.
"And sometimes, you are prone to violent or hysterical emotional outbursts of despair and grief. I hear you weep, even when your door is shut, and you have not stopped stinking of the amber poison you drink since I have known you."
I shook my head. It was an honest and accurate, if not particularly flattering, assessment of my current state.
Illyria's head straightened, but it was clear I was still a bug pinned to the table, under intense and cold scrutiny.
"Those reactions are at least consistent with what I have learned of human behavior. Your species of vermin are prone to excitability and the chemical imbalances you refer to as 'feelings'. But most often, it is as if..."
The voice trailed off and I looked up. Illyria was searching for the right words. It was a curious and very disturbing moment.
"It is as if you are a shell now."
The sound of my hands closing in slow mocking applause was almost too sharp for my alcohol-addled brain to bear, but I couldn't allow it to show. "Bravo. You see clearly at last."
"But," Illyria maintained, "you only seem a shell, and yet you are truly whole."
"I only seem whole," I rebutted, "and yet I am truly a shell."
"You live."
I shook my head. "You would think so. 'I cannot live without my life. I cannot die without my soul.' Emily Brontë."
"I do not understand."
There was another bottle of scotch in my desk. It required a great deal of concentration, but I did find it.
"You wouldn't."
(479)
60 - "Why are your eyes always empty?"
"Why are your eyes always empty?"
I laughed at her; laughed in the face of the mighty god-king with the power to squash me like an insect underfoot, laughed until I was hoarse, not that it was a long ways away considering the copious amounts of Lagavulin I had been imbibing in the last few days. Scotch burned at my throat even more effectively than it burned at my mind and dulled the pain.
It occurred to me that I had not laughed since I stood at the top of the lobby stairs, listening to "You Are My Sunshine", sung sweetly if just the slightest touch flat.
"My eyes?" I asked Illyria. "Why are my eyes always empty? You look at me with those eyes, the ones you turned to granite and marble instead of flesh and blood, the ones you tore all the light from and you ask me why my eyes are empty?"
Illyria's face was as inscrutable and expressionless as ever. "Yes."
"And you have no opinion on the subject?"
She stepped closer. "You are grieving for the shell--"
I threw the bottle across the room, narrowly missing Illyria's head, and I cannot in any honesty recall whether it was an intentional miss or not.
A slight cock of the head was all the reaction my outburst apparently warranted. "You are grieving for Fred."
"A brilliant deduction," I rasped.
"And sometimes, you are prone to violent or hysterical emotional outbursts of despair and grief. I hear you weep, even when your door is shut, and you have not stopped stinking of the amber poison you drink since I have known you."
I shook my head. It was an honest and accurate, if not particularly flattering, assessment of my current state.
Illyria's head straightened, but it was clear I was still a bug pinned to the table, under intense and cold scrutiny.
"Those reactions are at least consistent with what I have learned of human behavior. Your species of vermin are prone to excitability and the chemical imbalances you refer to as 'feelings'. But most often, it is as if..."
The voice trailed off and I looked up. Illyria was searching for the right words. It was a curious and very disturbing moment.
"It is as if you are a shell now."
The sound of my hands closing in slow mocking applause was almost too sharp for my alcohol-addled brain to bear, but I couldn't allow it to show. "Bravo. You see clearly at last."
"But," Illyria maintained, "you only seem a shell, and yet you are truly whole."
"I only seem whole," I rebutted, "and yet I am truly a shell."
"You live."
I shook my head. "You would think so. 'I cannot live without my life. I cannot die without my soul.' Emily Brontë."
"I do not understand."
There was another bottle of scotch in my desk. It required a great deal of concentration, but I did find it.
"You wouldn't."
(479)
