Finger Training

[Minister of Gloom]

So, as I said, no time to actually write a chapter this month. I have to be back in the base in a few hours and such, very depressing. But I did have time to kitbash this little two-pager here, so I won't feel so bad about abandoning everything like that! And because I do love to indulge your literary masochism.

For the sake of it, I decided to try something a little different this time.

Walking in Circles

There's a weird feeling around the house these days, like everybody is bothered about something, and we all really know what it is, but we are afraid to talk about it? My big sister would say something like… "An air of uneasiness", or maybe something like "atmosphere". Some people who meet her think she doesn't speak much, but it's not true. She's really very good with words; it's just that there are people who aren't good at listening to her. And she doesn't like talking with some of them, but if she did, I'm sure they wouldn't have a lot of trouble understanding what she's saying.

But she used to speak to me a lot, and I'm missing that. Other people are fine too, but my big sister is… herself. And that makes it all different.

I feel like even my thoughts about speaking must be awkward compared to hers.

And meanwhile, the house feels weird, maybe like an atmosphere of uneasiness or some other pretty expression like that, like everything is happening in slow motion, movements are heavy, and time ticks away very slowly. Mom's going a little crazy, too. All of us have it difficult, but you can really see that she's taking it the worst. Walking around in circles all day, trying to distract herself, except when she's waiting for a phone call. We all wait for phone calls: we sit silently, I fidget a little, and I'm not sure if it's like waiting for fireworks on a holiday evening without breathing or if it's more like hiding in darkness from something chasing you, and we all just want it to be over.

My friends are telling me I'm being silly, but even if they're right, I don't know what I can do about it. One of them said once I only talk about her as of late, and I tried to stop but it's really bothering us all. I'm trying to busy myself with school and clubs when I can, and it works, somewhat, when it's possible. She used to help with my homework all the time, and even when mom and dad can do it, they aren't as nice or good about it as her. Once school is over I try to go out as much as possible, sometimes to hang out with friends and sometimes just to walk around town on my own- being around the house is depressing when mom and dad are there and even more so when nobody is. Our house was never empty like that before. We don't really know what to do yet, it's troubling.

We sit around together sometimes, and we talk about all kinds of things, but we usually don't care about them. Like we got tired of talking about her, but it's the only thing we can think about, so other talk isn't very good. We tried watching TV together, but none of us really like TV anyway. Grandma asks sometimes why we even have one, and maybe she's got a point, like grandma usually does- meanly and bitterly. Mom hates her, so she doesn't come over often. Right now, though, I think maybe it could be nice for her and grandpa to. Someone needs to, or all the silence here would… stay silent, and lonely, and weird like that. It shouldn't have been, but it is, and we'll get over it eventually; I mean, it's only been a few weeks, barely, but it's still not fun right now.

So we try to play boardgames, but it's not as interesting without her .She was very good at those kinds of games. I'd move her pieces for her, and usually she'd win, or she'd give me tips on how to win so I could, like she was teaching me.

Even things like eating dinner feel weird without her around. It ends way too quickly, and for the last week or so mom didn't feel like cooking as well or as much as she usually does. We've never ordered so much food before, and to say the truth, it really can't compare to mom's cooking.

Sometimes I'd make lunch for the both of us, when nobody else was at home. It was nice to cook while speaking to her about all sorts of things, and sometimes she'd help me a little. Mom really didn't like it when she did, though, she said because it was dangerous and irresponsible, so it didn't happen very often. But my sister can do things that don't involve fire, or knives, or heavy objects, and she likes to, and I'd be happy to let her if it meant her being around.

Mom and dad often sit around now trying to read books. If I'm at home and I'm bored, they tell me to read a book too, but it only helps for so long. I used to read books with her all the times, and it doesn't feel as nice to do it alone. We'd sit side by side on a bed, or a sofa, or even in a chair (because both of us are pretty small), and I'd turn pages, and sometimes she'd help me with words I didn't know, or just explain things. I think she's better than most people at explaining things like that.

I like to sit together with her, to feel her breathing, or touch her hands. She gives off a calm feeling, like safety, and she moves very gently and slowly. Her touch is light like air, like something spiritual. Very little, but more powerful and more meaningful than people who hug and punch and catch all the time. Other kids don't understand it like I do, but I don't mind that at all. And we do hug- I love her smell, and I love running my fingers through her hair, and she likes it too. She doesn't usually run her fingers through my hair, but if she does, it's very nice.

She said once, on another subject, that when there's touch, heat moves between things- the hotter thing becomes colder, and the colder thing becomes hotter, until in the end they should both have the same temperature. Touching like that, moving heat from my skin to hers and sometimes back, feels good. If you asked me what love feels like, I'd say it probably feels like holding my big sister's hand, or just sitting together on the same chair, resting my head upon her shoulder (and she rests her head upon mine, because she's taller than me), and feeling the warmness of her skin, and listening to her beating heart. That's what I think love feels like. Her skin is soft, and very pale, so pale that some people think she's sick or something, or that she doesn't get enough sunlight. It angers me when people say it like that. My sister is not some… potted plant or something, you can say about her things like "she doesn't get enough sunlight". We don't water her (even if sometimes she says it's like that, because we help her drink some things, but she's only joking).

And besides, we do go out often. Or at least we used to, and that's another thing I miss. Holding her hand while we walk together outside, sometimes speaking like we do, and sometimes just enjoying the air. When I walk with friends or with mom and dad, everything happens very quickly, and there's no time to enjoy those little beautiful things, or think about what you say. My sister, with her crutches, walks slowly, and it just feels like being in another world- a quieter place, with no time, just light and soft sounds and silent words, when there are words.

She could say the most foolish thing, I think, and it would still sound like wisdom, because of the way she says things. But she doesn't say foolish things; or at least not nearly as often as other people do. She only speaks when something needs to be said, and that's the best way.

And I like her pale skin. I'm with her in the shower a lot, and I dress her up when she's done, and sometimes I wish I could have skin like that. I tell my friends I wish I could be more like her, and they think I'm strange, but like I said, none of them really understand. And if it's okay with her, it's okay with me, too. When new friends come over, sometimes they see her and ask all kinds of questions, and if mom's around she tries to change the subject or take us to another room. If she's not, I just explain how they're not right.

She doesn't usually mind when they do that, as long as they remain polite about it. Those who don't I don't bring over anymore after that. I don't get along with this kind of people, and I don't want to; they aren't worth my time, or hers.

She said going to that boarding school far away was important to her, that it's what she wanted, and whenever there was talk about it she got so angry it sounded almost as if she didn't like it here. She told me that she did, and I believe her, but still, I miss her very much. And it makes me feel horribly selfish, when I think that I want to believe that she misses me as much. I don't want her to feel bad about me, and I think I feel bad right now, so that would be it. If that's what she wants, if she's happy like that, that should be good enough for all of us.

Even if we worry about her, even if we go a little crazy at first, and we don't know what to do. Even if we don't know whether we should be happy or sad when she calls us, when she says that she's alright, and that she likes it there, or that she misses us. If she misses us.

With time, things will definitely get better.

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I know, I know, some things need to be improved, badly. It's that kind of chapter. Please tell me what you think, though, and I'll do my best to fix those problems next time. Who knows? Maybe I can even try to write more of those for the time being... maybe focus each one on another side character or something like that. It was an interesting experience, trying to put myself in the head of a character other than Yuno, and imagine what their opinion of the situation would be.

Everybody I write about is so fucked up...

[Mirage_GSM]

It's an interesting take, and your grammar has improved a lot since your first stories, but that girl is awfully mature for the younger sister of a middle schooler...

[scott1and]

I thought it was quite sweet, although as mirage said she did seem very mature for her age, and it is quite sad that the whole family has fell apart now that Yuno has left the household. Good to see that side of the story though. And it's nice change of perspective, although I do prefer Yuno

[Minister of Gloom]

Was she too mature after all? I was worried that her point of view was so childish as to be uninteresting. I carefully modeled it after a mirror of Yuno's, so to speak, then removed everything I thought was too advanced for a girl her age.
Guess I'm not much of an expert about child development. I tried to stick to the principle that while she knows less and understands less than Yuno does, Mika needn't be less observant, especially about things so close to her. Maybe you can argue that Mika's just mature for her age or something. It wouldn't be without reason: if you're willing to believe Yuno, their parents essentially cut Mika's childhood short as soon as she was old enough to become another babysitter for Yuno. Maybe that's why she's so messed up (I think in some ways she actually sees Yuno as somewhat of a surrogate mother, since her actual mother never gave her much attention).

As for the family falling apart, I don't think it really is. Like Mika said, they just need time to get used to this new, unknown situation. In the long run, it'll almost certainly do them all good. A family can only exist for so long in a healthy state for the sole purpose of taking care of a single disabled kid (who doesn't even want it).

Anyway, I had enough time to put together another microchapter this week, once again one written in a broken, experimental, almost cryptic style.

Fiddler On The Roof

"Where did you put them?", the little boy cried again in frustration, not moving his face away from the cabinet full of open drawers he was currently shuffling through, throwing random pieces of random junk all over the place in frantic anger.

"This is not funny, guys! Where are my pills? I need to take my pills."

The voice of a young man, annoyingly amused, reached easily through the thin walls all the way from the living room and around the short corridor. "Wherever you put them. Can't it wait for later?"

This made him even angrier, and he knew that they knew that perfectly well. "No, it can't wait for later! I put them right here and now they're gone. You moved them, didn't you?"

"Why would anyone here want to move your medicines?"

"I don't know why! If any of your actions made sense, you'd be me."

"Don't make threats like that!"

The sound of loud laugher followed, and the little boy just rolled his eyes and kept looking.

"Did you try the closet?" another voice sounded through the door, this time a little more concerned and a little less mocking. It wasn't, however, any more helpful.

"I did, they weren't there. And just so you know, if I ever find them there, someone would pay. This place should be quarantined."

The room was as it always was, a stinking mess of old, sweaty cloths of all kinds, old remains of food and drink, books, comics, office supplies, more dirty cloths, and other assorted pieces of junk that none of them cared enough about to pick off the floor and that he most definitely wasn't going to if they weren't, so long as his own little corner of the old warren was kept squeaky clean. By his own self, mind you, and not nearly to the degree that he would have liked, but there's only so much that one can hope to do about such matters when forced to share his room with a pack of retarded, inconsiderate, perverted baboons.

Treading carefully through the dump that was the room's floor, the little boy (who absolutely did not like being called that) made his way to the island of relative cleanliness in the corner containing his bed. His neat, tidy, clean bed, into which he wished very strongly he could just disappear right now and sleep instead of having to deal with the people outside, and too which he gave a sorrowful mental farewell when the noise coming through the thin walls reminded him once again that he couldn't.

He had to climb a ladder to get to his bed. One would think that they'd be so kind as to give him the one closer to the floor, considering relative sizes and all that, but this was just one of many cases in which his repeated requests were silently ignored. On the bright side, sleeping on the top bunk meant sleeping somewhat above the almost tangible cloud of stench that filled the room at all times. He was pretty sure there was a section of hell that smelled like three teenaged boys with zero respect for any kind of hygiene living together in a tiny room.

He reached to one of two boxes lying under the bed and continued his search but only turned up more junk. The other box contained something far more precious than any of this, and he guarded it with such zeal that he was absolutely sure, without a doubt, that there was no need to disturb it right now over petty matters.

"Are you doing this on purpose? Am I really asking that much of you idiots? Just don't touch my things. If I put something somewhere, it's so that it'd be there the next time I look for it."

"Chill out, will you? Nobody touches your things!"

"Why do they keep disappearing, then?" he replied, flexing his fingers in frustration, muttering "…must be the cockroaches, right? By this point, they probably have their own culture hiding under all this junk", under his breath.

"Look, can't you just come out for now to at least say hello to your grandparents? This is all for you, you know."

"I never asked for any of this! How is this for me?"

This was all so stupid. He hated birthdays, and his own more so than others. And his family most definitely was not making it any easier on him, not that he really expected them to.

"Try the medicine cabinet in the bathroom", his father suggested from behind the door. "I might have put it in there while cleaning."

"Cleaning", his… Nobody "cleaned" this room, unless you count the aforementioned bugs eating junk off the floor. Everybody else just made the mess a little more chaotic by misplacing the few things that weren't already.

The door creaked annoyingly as it opened, a high-pitched that announced to everybody outside the room that the boy was leaving. It shouldn't have, of course- he had asked them to oil the damn thing about a million times over the last month or so, told them that the sound was making him nauseous and that he couldn't concentrate and that they really should care a little more about the fact that their own home was one flake of paint off the wall away from crumbling over their heads.

In other words, he had asked for way, way too much. Responsibility? Not in this house, no sir.

The entire family was waiting for him around the dinner table on the other end of the short corridor. As in, the entire family. The whole clan, a throng of loud, obnoxious idiots of all shapes, sizes and ages which, all of them put together, might have had a brain half the size of his own. And this wasn't about him being a genius.

Right now, they were all looking for him, expectedly, curiously, some of them nervously, as if waiting for him to say something. He pointed back at the room and, looking at his brother with the calm, creepy single mindedness so typical to him said "Next time I'm forced to dig through your dirty magazines to get to my drawer, I swear I'm going to set them all on fire. And judging by the smell, your part of them room might very well explode."

Not bothering to wait for an answer, he made his way to the bathroom, shutting the door behind him and picking up the stool he needed to stand upon to reach the medicine cabinet above the sink.

He had to look at his own image in the mirror to open the thing. It still took him a few moments to recognize the figure- it looked almost alien without the long hair. It was his own decision to cut it, of course, but it still looked weird, and felt weird. Her once long hair was now cut, neatly and elegantly, over even the end of the neck. She told her parents it interfered with her playing, and of course they immediately approved without a question, because questioning those kinds of things took more intelligence than both of them had together. The truth of the matter was that although long hair did interfere, somewhat, with some of the more delicate movements involved in playing his instrument of choice, it was wholly a none-issue to someone of his level of skill.

The truth of the matter was that such long hair simply looked silly on the head of a boy. She liked it, but it's not like he ever had any say in the matter.

Stupid doctors, stupid parents, more stupid doctors, more stupid parents, stupid teachers, stupid brothers and people in general. All it should have taken was one person with half a brain and none of this would have been a problem.

The little box of pills was, in fact, inside the cabinet, and so he took his dose for the night and got off the little stool, straightening his dress on the way back to the door.

A very nice dress, all things considered, and he hated it too, for much the same reasons. He shouldn't have been wearing dresses. All of this shouldn't have bothered him, and in a world where things went right for a change, it wouldn't have. It was a pretty dress, and everybody said so, and it felt comfortable and familiar and all, and but the whole thing just felt wrong.

Boys don't wear dresses. And no matter what he wanted to believe or think (and by this point, he had no idea what that was anymore), that is what he was. Factually, scientifically, biologically, in any way that mattered. Everything else was a mistake, a series of unfortunate occurrences and misses and fumbles made by a whole line of people too stupid to do their jobs, and he had to suffer for it.

Everybody still looked at him when he approached the dinner table, before resuming their chatter a second after he climbed to his seat. They asked him whether she felt alright, and he lied, and they asked him how she was doing, and he told them the truth, and they pretended to understand.

His mom made her favourite kinds of food, and everybody complimented her, and talked about her, and all he could think about was just how much he hated all them and wanted all them to go away and leave him alone. He wanted to go somewhere quiet and play a little for himself. To compose something nobody but him would hear.

He hated his birthday with a passion. It pulled all of his stupid relatives out of their lairs and into his home, as if it wasn't crowded enough already as it was, and all they did was make noise and ask stupid questions and touch and humiliate and bother him.
It also reminded him of all sorts of things he didn't want to remember.

A tiny girl with long hair sitting quietly in a hospital, waiting for her doctor to come out, bored out of her mind. She wished she had brought a pen and a notebook with her- at least she would have been able to pass the time in composition. She couldn't wait to let out all of this anxiety and confusion and frustration of the last few days in the only way she knew: to put them into music. It wasn't a bad way.

One nurse who passed by told her she recognized her from some talk show. The girl smiled and asked a few questions and in a few seconds it was painfully clear the nurse didn't have the slightest idea of what she was talking about. She was as boring as anything else about the hospital, and as smelly, and eerily quiet.

Back then, they thought the little girl had some kind of tumor. It certainly hurt like one.

Looking back, he almost wish she did have one. It probably would have made things less complicated.

An hour passed. The "party" went on around him, loud, smelly, pushy, inconvenient, utterly boring. And everybody expected her to have fun, because it was, after all, her party.

"If you think any of this is going to make me change my mind, than you're wrong. I'm not going back."

"You know it's not about this."

"Very well, because it wouldn't have helped. I've made my decision."

His brother laughed. "Don't worry about that, always a place for one more freak in the show."

Another hour passed.

Once, people five times her age used to shake her hand with a look of amazed pride and awe on their faces, to excitedly tell her what a wonder she was, what a marvellous performance she just gave, to keep going, to make her parents proud. Now those same people looked at her with badly disguised pity and told her how brave she was. Once, people had asked her how many hours a day she spent practicing. Now their questions have become invasive, disgusting, intimate, frightful.

Why did so much have to change over so little?

The party went on and on.

"…I need to go somewhere", he finally said, after a while of silence amidst the general background noise of the living room full of people. He was almost certain nobody had listened, anyway.

He went back to his room, trekking through his brothers' junk all the way to the case under his bed, taking it with him.
Nobody even bothered to look when he left the apartment silently, a tiny, dark figure of a ridiculous boy in a dress.

He made his way up the stairwell without making a sound, determined and agitated in the way he usually was around that time of the year, more so this one. The roof of the building was empty, and covered by the cold, howling night wind, the shadow of the city spread around him, huge, impersonal and uncaring.

There was nobody around to stare at him, to ask stupid questions, to poke, to bother. He didn't mind the cold.

He took the violin out of the case, lifting it carefully, lovingly, with a tenderness reserved only for it that he rarely showed anyone these days.

There were bothersome things in his mind that had to be let out.

He only knew one way.

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I had to edit this chapter a fair number of times before I was mostly satisfied with it. Some versions revealed too much, some revealed too little. On the one hand, in case this story ever actually continues, I don't want to spoil anything really important. On the other hand, it most likely won't, and I don't want characters to "go to waste". I spent precious calories thinking about some of them!
The result is, as I said, cryptic. Unclear. Hopefully not too hard on the eye.

The cutting of excess material was rather brutal, I have to admit. Paragraphs were removed that probably shouldn't have been, but to rewrite them so that the flow wouldn't be ruined would have taken too long. I'm sorry.

Tell me what you think, and have a nice week. I'll post another chapter next week, most likely, when I'm back from the army, even though none of you would be here to read it, what with the actual game coming out and all that.

So, anyway, good night.

[scott1and]

That was...interesting. But as you say it was meant to be cryptic, and from I read I'm guessing it has something to do with a girl...trying to be a boy? Well the parents called him/her a girl so I guess it could be them being supportive, but either way I'm guessing there's some sort of gender based situation here.

[Mirage_GSM]

So that's... her... Very nicely written, but I better not comment any further lest I give somthing away that I shouldn't...

Two little things I noticed:

...and too which he gave a sorrowful mental farewell...

The door creaked annoyingly as it opened, a high-pitched sound(?) that announced to everybody outside the room that the boy was leaving.

[Minister of Gloom]

So... It's been a while, has it not? Lot's have happened. In this website, on the internet, in my life. I'm going to go ahead and assume that in your lives, as well. It seems that I have found the worst possible timing for joining the army, right when the activity on this forum, and all activities related to KS in general has reached it's natural peak. As you may have been aware, I've been lurking on those forums for a while now, when I had the time, but I simply couldn't bring myself to post. I don't think I'll ever be able to post again with the same regularity as before- it's not just a matter of not having time, it's because... I don't know how to explain it. It's the feeling, perhaps? Everything is alien. Everyone is a stranger. Back before the game was released, I could afford to log into this forum for a few minutes every day and read literally all posts made on the previous day, and consider a possible response to them. The forum was just the right size for this to be possible.
With the game now released, the amount of users on this forum has increased massively, and every day sees as much activity as a month did back than. Combine this with the fact that I don't have time to log in on most days and that basic training left a whole month blackout in my presence here right at the most critical time, and the end result is, quite simply, that the forum has left me behind in the dust.

As for this story, well, writing it has been difficult, too. There's very little time, of course, and finishing the game has been a crushing blow to my motivation in writing this. You see, I never assumed that I was anywhere near as good as any of the people who worked on writing the game, I mean, that's only obvious- and I never assumed that my story would be anywhere near as good as even the worst parts... But after finishing the game, I have realized that the quality of the finished product has simply left me humbled. I'd expected it to be excellent, but nothing like this. Compared to the canon I'm supposedly working with in here, I simply cannot shake the thought that my characters are laughably flat and uninspired, my plots are cliched and my writing is tasteless and dull. More than ever before, while writing, I feel as if I'm sinning against the canon. My feeble attempts at writing fanfiction do no justice to the original work, and I feel that in this, they fail.

And yet, I continue writing, perhaps driven onward by the same irrational regret-born desperation of those who have already wasted too much time and energy on an obviously unsuccessful operation to admit defeat and surrender with grace. It's been long, and I've done little work. For now, this will have to do.


That Famous Monologue

"To be or not to be: that is the question:"

Such powerful, memorable, wonderful words! Such a thunderous beginning for a monologue so passionate and heart-breaking, an expression of such terrible dreams, such dark fantasies, of the sorrow and anger and hope of one poor, poor prince of Denmark.

Act 3, Scene 1, beginning with line 56. If it isn't the most famous monologue in the entire history of theatre, than I am fairly certain that it one of the most. For many people, this one line that opens it might as well be synonymous with the entire concept of dramatic theatre. They think "drama!", and the image that immediately appears in their minds' eye is that of a young, troubled man pacing back and forth nervously while loudly contemplating life, death, eternal sleep and the arrows of outrageous fortune.

What a fascinating and deeply disturbed person must have prince Hamlet been, don't you think so?

Death, that undiscovered country that puzzles the will. Shakespeare, like many great playwright before and after him, seems to have loved writing about death. Tragic, touching, epic death, tugging the heartstrings with its grim beauty as often as with its utter needlessness.

The wise, the young, the beautiful and the hopeful- they all seem to be doomed to a terrible death in such stories. Suicide, in particular, seems to have been a favourite of him. Shakespeare's characters took their own lives at the slightest provocation, sometimes!
It's got so ridiculous at some point that even the man himself couldn't help but laugh a little about it. "A Midsummer Night's Dream", another play of his, and one of my favourites, has a part towards the end in which a group of bumbling peasants perform a play within a play for the king's wedding. Their story, some kind of generic romantic tragedy of sorts, is all a big parody of Shakespeare's own writing: the two lovers separated by a wall instantly declare in the hammiest, most melodramatic way imaginable that they will kill themselves simultaneously, the default solution for all hardship in the playwright's own works.

But even if it is all foolishness, even if the idea behind it is foolish, can you deny that there is a beauty to it? There is not a man alive whose mind such thoughts did not cross at least once, whether in darkest dreams, or during those torturous hours of lying down in a bed with their eyes closed, surrounded by silence.

At times, everybody sinks into pits of rage and despair which seem bottomless and inescapable; but to make this final step, this final push towards the unknown, the absolute, takes a courage few possess. They say suicide is the most cowardly and selfish thing one can do.

A part of me wonders about the absurdity of that statement. How brave must everyone else be?

Death, the one thing in the world that is truly perfect and complete, irreversible, inescapable, the all-pervasive truth which we all must ignore for our sanity to remain intact- it repulses and fascinates us so much. It disgusts us, frightens us, attracts us, invites us.

Death is much like sex, in this regard. A smart man from Germany said so once. That all human action and thoughts originate from those two basic, similarly contradictory desires or aspirations- those Eros and Thanatos, named after Classical gods. Our mortal existence is defined by our drive to maintain it and to end it. The wish to ensure being and to destroy being, a yearning for a peace that cannot otherwise be achieved.

Such stories it tells! So beautiful, so dangerous, so mysterious.
Could Shakespeare- could anyone, be blamed for being enthralled by such ideas?
It scares me and excites me so much, just thinking about it. In my age, I doubt that I've known real love, but if such a passion would be nearly as magical and compelling, how wonderful would it be?

Don't get me wrong, it's not like I want to kill myself or anything. If there's one truth by which I want to live my life, it is that they are worth living. No matter how horrible it gets, and I think in my case at least it did get pretty horrible for a while; life is still too precious to throw away like this. Every moment in life can be wonderful, if you look at it from the right angle. Even in great sadness, joy can be found. Even in gravest misfortune, there is solace.

This is what I told myself every day. I had so much time to think about it, and there was a finite amount of other things to think about. Leave a person in the state I was in for long enough alone with their own thoughts, and they will inevitably drift towards this direction- the secret is knowing when to pull back, to recognize when you've gone too deep and another step might be one you'll regret.

It may be sound a bit pretentious of a teenager to say, but I really do think that I've had more than enough regrets for one lifetime.

But that fear, that repulsive, bewitching allure, that call which beckons in the night, is always there.

I might just have an unhealthy obsession with death. Maybe it's normal, given the circumstances. I'm pretty sure it is- I've been to my fair share of support group meetings and I've talked to my fair share of psychiatrists back then.

It's perfectly normal, perfectly understandable. And still, it's frightening. A two-faced confusion like this is frightening. Sometimes, even I can't understand myself anymore.

So I tell myself that everything will be fine, you know? This is the simplest way to do this. What's done is done, and crying would neither change the past nor make you feel any better about it. Tears pull more tears after them, and before you know it you've cried a river and made a scene of it.

So you don't cry. It's really that simple, ultimately. And why would you? Life really is good, all in all. It's not a delusion, or a fantasy, or escapism. When you think about everything in proportion, life is great, awesome, terrific. To wake up in the morning and be greeted by warm sunlight is great. To eat a tasty meal is great, especially if you do it with the people you love. To study, to play, to think, to talk, to make, to be with friends, to simply be- all of it is so great, you wonder it took such a mess to make you realize that.

"The show must go on"- I like this saying. I also like "break a leg", but that's like a personal joke of ours. Not that I'd mind to. It'd probably take me a while to notice if it happened, too.

Death is always there: in our stories, in our dreams, in our fears and our hopes. It exists in the core of our subconscious. Perhaps it guides us. Perhaps it's our only motivation for doing anything. Perhaps it really is beautiful, and mysterious, and a part of us would like nothing more than to check it a bit more closely.

And perhaps it's all there is, if you go looking for meanings or purposes.

So what?

Does life, in the end, need a meaning, or anything like that?

Maybe life really does exist in the shadow of death.
Maybe that makes it all the more beautiful, you know?

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There is one more "microchapter" like this waiting to be published (focusing on yet another secondary character whose story I'd assumed was at least mildly original and interesting until a while ago), but I believe that next time might actually be a real continuation of the story. Possibly- I've been working on it for a long, long while now.

Also, on a sidenote, I think I might have just met and dealt with the Israeli version of Emi Ibarazaki as a new recruit a few days ago as part of my job here in the IDF. I'd tell you more about this funny (and heartwarming) little incident, but I'm not allowed to. This makes me sad.

For now, Good Night Unto You All.

[Homeless]

Man.... I work with people who have physical and developmental problems, and after reading Last Night, I have to say, you hit the nail on the head with that one. I've talked to many of the people I've supported over the years and they talk almost exactly like that. Keep up the good work.

[Minister of Gloom]

Why, thank you very much! Be certain that I am making my best to do so as we speak. It's difficult, but I'm sure that one day...