margatesands | OPEN POST

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OPEN POST

Holy wow look at this open post just look at it isn't it glorious?

Yeah, so, leave me prompts or something.

[Shit. As if this place hasn't been strange enough.

He'd almost expected it, though. To see one of them, maybe all of them. The ones who'd disappeared along the river. The ones who... It was their mission to be there as much as his, sure, but the way it turned out. They should-- It should never have turned out that way.

And the last time Willard had seen Chef... All right. ]

I--

[He was on the edge of apologizing. What for, he doesn't know. Willard hadn't exactly done anything. It'd been his mission, all right, but Chef had had his chance to turn around...

Maybe. Choice isn't clear-cut, not always, especially not on the river. It'd all seemed inevitable, somehow. Like being pulled into the heart of the jungle, the heart of that... it wasn't madness, and it was. Something that defied all concepts of mad or sane or measurement, something that coiled in and called from the blood, begging pursuit, begging an (end)... Something for which there could never be words.

In any case, there's no telling what Chef knows. What he remembers, or even what happened to him. For all Willard can tell, this isn't even the Chef he knew (though it sure sounds like the guy, sure feels like him too in the way of instinctual recognition, a pull that... all right, that makes Willard almost wish he could miss this guy, almost makes him wish nothing had happened/ jesus, all night, all night in the rain and those absent eyes staring into nothing, staring into darkness splashed in mud and Willard had sworn, could have sworn he'd heard--).

Everything overlaps too easily. Here with what he remembers. He's still walking through the jungle. Everywhere he goes, whatever he does or however he tries to forget. He remembers the stagnation remembers the pressure of slow urgency remembers the voice.

And yeah. This guy (a version of this guy? this guy) had been there. And he'd ended up... Fuck.]

Hey, Chef.

[That'll have to do.]

[Oh yeah, oh yeah, he'd know that fucking voice anywhere, even if he couldn't see the guy, because he's been trying to come up with reasons to blame Willard for every little fucking thing that had happened and the way things had turned out (how the fuck had they turned out? Why can't he wrap his fucking head around it? One second he'd been there and the next second he'd been here. Where the fuck is here? That's the million dollar goddamned question, isn't it?)

Problem is, blaming him is pretty fucking hard, when he knows that Willard had been following orders too, and whoever had given those stupid fucking orders had been following orders, and up and up the chain of command it goes until it reaches whoever the fuck's at the top and... who's giving that son of a bitch's orders? God himself? Fuck, thinking about it is going to give him a massive headache.

That doesn't account for the fact that he's still laughing, but who the fuck cares? Willard doesn't care. Willard might not even actually be here.

So what the fuck does he say to that greeting? That it's fucking nice to see him? It's not. It's also not bad, exactly.

Maybe this is the afterlife. What a shitty fucking ripoff if it is.]

So, are you fucking dead, too?

[What the fuck kind of question is that? He could kick himself for being so stupid. He doesn't even know if he's fucking dead. But goddammit, the question's hanging out there, and it's a hell of a lot more honest than a clap on the back and a 'hey how's it been how's it going how's it feel to know that I'd like to fucking blame you but I...'

Well, no, that's not how it's supposed to go, either.]

[That's one question answered. Maybe. It could be that Chef knows what happened (what happens before that final moment comes what happened before the ruinous shadow that was Kurtz had fallen blade in hand, because Willard can see it in his mind Willard had visualized it all too clearly, knew how it would be done the force it would require and how Kurtz would have approached the boat and slithered over the railing, how he would have...), or he might just be wound up about this place. Sometimes the easiest way to explain being here is to call it some sort of afterlife, though Willard can't believe in that shit and anyway, he knows that he never died. Maybe he can't present evidence for it, but he knows.

Death would have been too quick after everything, death might even have been a mercy. ...But that sounds hollow. Too easy to say, and if Willard had truly believed that, he couldn't have survived the compound. The will to life had been necessary. He knows this. He doesn't want to dwell on it.

Whatever the case, Willard had been left to linger; had left himself to linger, to speak it truly (never forget your own role, never forget the hand you had in your disintegration). And he's lingering still in this unknown, impossible space. Nothing to wait for, no way to silence it.]

Not as far as I know.

[The laughter is making him uneasy, but he doesn't know what to do about it. Maybe it isn't his business to do anything about it (jesus, hadn't he learned anything? it can't all just drift by, it can't). Maybe Chef just needs to get it out of his system. Ending up here could do a number on anyone, and Chef hadn't ever (ever in the, what, weeks Willard had known him, but those weeks might as well have spanned years) been the most level-headed guy.]

Hey, ah... You should probably try to calm down.

Really? I thought we were all fucking dead here. I'm dead, you're dead...

[That kind of sounds like a line from a book, or something, but fuck if he can remember which one. It probably hadn't gone that way, anyway. At least he's not laughing anymore. The laughing had probably been bothering the fuck out of Willard. He kind of hopes it had. The guy could stand to be fucking bothered, considering how he...

But no, it's still not quite right, he still can't put all that goddamned blame on Willard and he sure as fuck can't claim to think that Willard isn't bothered (what a tame word. What a ridiculously fucking tame word for the way anyone could ever possibly feel about shit like this. Whatever this shit is.)

And Willard's standing right in front of him and saying that as far as he knows, he isn't fucking dead, so maybe neither of them are, but that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because there was no way in hell he could've survived the...

... no. No, he won't fucking think about it, and besides, he can't remember it, anyway. That's how it works, right? If he doesn't fucking think about it, he forgets it eventually. There's nothing to remember. There's nothing to fucking remember.]

Calm down?

[There's an indignant tone in his voice, like he's offended by the very suggestion of calmness.]

Yeah? And how the fuck do you suggest I do that? You want to give me some fucking great suggestions, because you're so fucking calm all the time, you're so fucking together, you've got so much...

[Why's he lashing out? Because he fucking can, that's why. It still isn't fair. None of this is fair.]

... never mind. Never fucking mind.

[He's tempted to add a 'Calm enough for you, yet?' at the end, but it seems futile.]

[He watches without much outward reaction, letting Chef say whatever he's got to say. It's probably half a miracle that he hasn't tried physically striking Willard. There's a lot of rage working its way through Chef right now, there's a lot of confusion-- That's what Willard reads, anyway, rage and confusion and something a loss or a terror or fuck knows what binding it all together. Willard's seen that kind of undiscerning agitation before. Seen what it can do, how it can turn a man against anyone, himself included.

What he doesn't know is how to stop it. How even to... what, advise handling it? He isn't prone to those sorts of heated emotions, and he'd spent little time among men who fell into them. Had spent little time among other men, period, and just now he could almost, almost wish he'd learned a little more about approaching them.

As it is, he leaves most of Chef's words unremarked. Willard doesn't have any answers. He doesn't even have half-suggestions that could pretend to be answers. Deeming it best not to stick Chef with a load of horseshit, he settles on keeping to what he knows.]

This place doesn't work like that. You don't have to be dead to be here.

['You don't have to be anything, at all.' But that wouldn't help, so he keeps it quiet.]

It's not so bad.

[As what? As the fucking jungle? That's true enough. Mostly. This place has its own drawbacks and plays its own tricks, but it can be relatively... Shit. Nothing's safe, safe doesn't mean anything, but maybe relatively stable?

Compared to the jungle. That's not saying much, at all.

He feels like he's saying everything wrong, as if he ought to be talking about something else, ought to have direct words or maybe... Fuck, maybe talk about the compound. But the words are out already, and anyway, he figures he'd better let Chef decide if he wants to talk in that direction. Maybe he can't go there. Maybe that's better.]

[He'd been kind of half thinking about punching him right in the fucking face for a second there, but that wouldn't solve anything, would it? But why the fuck should he care about solving anything? It's not like there're any answers here, anyway. There weren't any answers there, either. It was all just a bunch of endless fucking questions. Fuck figuring anything out, fuck trying to make any sense of it, it doesn't make any sense, it's just inherently wrong, and that's the worst part of it, that he can know that and it can still drive him fucking nuts trying to figure it all out.

And Willard is so fucking calm, and yes, he's so fucking together. Standing there saying it's not so bad like he has some kind of understanding of where the fuck they are (hell, maybe he does. Willard always kind of seems to know things, doesn't he? Or maybe he just gives off that impression because he's so goddamned inscrutable that he could be thinking literally anything and nobody would have any fucking clue.) Pretending like he knows how this place works.]

Not so bad how? Not so bad fucking how? You mean, like, not so bad compared to that fucking boat?

[But it hadn't been the fucking boat that had been bad, had it? Maybe it had. Maybe it was all bad. All just one endless fucking tour of misery, right through the heart of the fucking jungle, that sounded about right. But it had been getting off the boat that had been the goddamned problem. He'd told Willard they'd go with him up the river to get that fucking guy but he'd said they'd do it on the boat and then they'd gotten off the boat and then...

And then. Well. And fucking then.]

So if you're not fucking dead, what are you? You killed the other guy, right? You accomplished your fucking mission? The king is dead, long live the fucking king, right?

[Are you the new Kurtz, Willard? Are you?]

[This time, Chef does get a reaction. Willard had been prepared to respond to the first set of questions, he'd had an answer ready, and then...

((see the eyes the forms shapes unspeaking waiting as he'd emerged blood-stained still sensitive to kurtz's dying breath still felt it still FEELS it against his skin and they watching accepting and for what for what for hell christ nothing knows why ready to accept, he had SEEN that 'long live the'//

oh christ, oh christ//

and the voice so soft but resonant as if forever / 'if you understand me...' / if you if did you know that IF is the... forever, for thine is the... the... / what you see when waking when wakefulness blends into sleep into madness into whose design, whose design had it been whose will and if his own, if willard had effected through his own power what does that, what DOES that make him and how is he to how to

there is no payment there is no

there is no COST nobody to make you, nobody to say that// the man, the voice, the colonel had said, had said

IF YOU

too strong/ understood too close and knew, he knew and could never know what had been...

you will

and i

and there

will

//horror/))

He doesn't process the space around him for several long moments, doesn't see Chef, doesn't know where he's standing and doesn't care. He looks away, expression a mixture of bewilderment and blankness with a few flashes of visible pain. Rubs a hand at the back of his neck, slow but a little too firm.

He doesn't... He doesn't...

It was the way Chef asked it. If he'd only asked the question. If he'd only asked about the mission.

But the rest... 'Long live the fucking king', oh christ...

He hadn't. He hadn't, and he wouldn't. What that meant, what it would have--

He had seen. And he will not be that. Cannot be that. What it was had (sharp-edge steel cliff breakneck run breakneck fall away as shatters fall away, and done) been impossible. Untenable. Man is capable of all things, but...]

The mission was accomplished.

[The words are distant, but the words are steady. Once he's spoken, he makes himself look at Chef again, though he can't exactly see him. What he sees is past and distant. What he sees is a dying, long-dying man begging for an end and what he sees is a question of power, question of life ('is very long'), question of how nothing, nothing remains standing as it should. Nothing to be trusted. Nothing to be known.]

Edited 2014-03-14 05:23 (UTC)

[Is he disappointed that he hadn't gotten a stronger reaction? Well, fuck, maybe. Maybe he'd wanted to see Willard slip just a little, because he can't be the only fucking crazy one around here, can he? Or maybe he's the only goddamned sane one around here. How the fuck are you supposed to be able to tell? Who determines who's sane and who's crazy? Everyone else had seemed pretty fucking crazy to him by the end of it all, the way they didn't even blink at killing people, people who fucking...

People who...

Yeah, well, that was all it was, wasn't it? That whole goddamn ill-fated trip up the river? A mission to go fucking kill someone. That's what they did. It's not like he can live in denial about that blatantly fucking obvious fact. He's killed people, too. They all have. It's just that there had been times it had seemed... there had been people who had... some of them fucking enjoyed...

Had Willard enjoyed killing Kurtz? He'd accomplished the fucking mission, he's saying that right now, saying it in that goddamned steady voice like it doesn't even rattle him a little bit that they're standing in the middle of somewhere neither of them has ever been before (okay, okay, Willard has been here before, obviously, because he's the one saying it's not so fucking bad, but still, still) talking about the 'mission' like it had been a trip down to the goddamned store to buy some goddamned fucking groceries and

It's sick. All of it's just fucking sick. But he'd always known that, hadn't he? It's not like it's any great revelation. He doesn't have great revelations, he just keeps feeling sicker and sicker. Fuck, wasn't that supposed to be over with once you were floating around in the fucking afterlife? Once you were...

Dead, dead, just fucking say it, you know you're dead, you know it, you know you never got to go home, never got to cook anymore, never got to...

Is he saying it out loud? He kind of fucking thinks so, but he isn't. Of course.]

Yeah, well, congratulations on the mission. Does it feel good? Does it feel good to be the one person around here who fucking accomplished something, who fucking made something of that pointless goddamned... that fucking... that piece of shit mess that you fucking...

[Words aren't easy. Words are never easy. Ranting is easy, but words aren't. He wants to punch Willard in the face. He wants to. He won't.]

What the fuck do you think?

[There's no anger in the words, and though he's looking directly at Chef, he doesn't stare or watch with any particular sharpness.

He doesn't want to go there again. He doesn't want to slip back into it - it's so easy, it's too easy sometimes, the way it'll come out of nowhere, the way one minute he almost knows where he is and the next it's all back to what was and what he doesn't know, can't say - so he'll just... Let it be on the side. If he doesn't poke around Chef's words, maybe it won't be recalled.

Again, just... Let Chef say what he wants to say. Willard doesn't have to listen. If he keeps the words distant, maybe none of it will touch him. Maybe he'll keep hold of his own awareness.

((of course it didn't feel good. not even for a moment, not even after, when it was supposed to feel right, when awareness was supposed to recede and instinct kick in, when it was meant to be animal victory, awareness of power, but power wasn't right that sort of power should never be grasped and he/ willard had balked from it burned so hard against its cut and he will never, he will never

did it, did it/ never for a moment. not what he wanted, not what he had asked.

kurtz had been dying from the start. kurtz could speak of power kurtz could speak of will be he had, he must have known...

what? what did it all...

equations of nothing. don't let that sink in don't))

Don't.

He continues to hold Chef's eyes, keeping himself removed while trying to grab hold of presence.]

I don't know. I don't fucking know. How do you expect me to know anything? You were always the one who was supposed to know shit. I was just along for the fucking ride.

[It feels better to say that, doesn't it? It feels a whole hell of a lot better than saying that he could've fucking left, he could've fucking found a way to turn back. Except how the fuck would he have done that? Hitch a ride back to... where? With who? As far as he's concerned, he'd pretty much been stuck with Willard and his stupid fucking mission and they'd all been in the same goddamned boat.

Same goddamned boat. That's really fucking funny. Funny enough that he's laughing again. Has everything always struck him as so fucking amusing? No? Must just be now. Must just be since he really started going nuts.

But he doesn't want to be too nuts, because if he is, then Willard's probably going to give the fuck up and stop talking to him, and he'd kind of like the conversation to continue, maybe, because it's better than wandering around here all by his fucking lonesome, so maybe he should stop fucking yelling at him and just ask some relevant questions.

Yeah, sure, he can do that.

Just give him a second to calm the fuck down. Right. Just calm the fuck down. Like it's so easy, like it's so fucking easy, like it's nothing at all. Why shouldn't he be calm? Look at Willard. He's fucking calm. He's too fucking calm, but that's better than the alternative.

Supposedly. Maybe.]

So if you've been around here, if you've been fucking hanging around here doing whatever the fuck it is you do, maybe you can explain it to me.

[Still a little aggressive, but it's better. Less shouting. Moderately less swearing. He can sound like he's got it together, he really can. He can stare right back at Willard, too.]

[That was a joke. The idea that Willard had held any actual knowledge, the idea that he'd had any more than a fragmentary idea of what he was supposed to do. He'd felt something, sure. He'd felt Kurtz calling (how, how the hell did that even happen, and why is it so easy to believe? what was it in himself and in the idea of Kurtz that had really drawn Willard up the river?). And of course he'd had the dossiers, but those had only added to the scope of his unknowing. Willard had only been able to guess at what was really going on, and in the end he'd only been able to guess at what the hell command thought they were doing. (Who really wanted to know, anyway?)

In the end, it probably didn't matter much. Whatever they'd wanted, whatever their reasons had been they hadn't been the ones pushing the final acts. They almost might as well've not existed.

Anyway, Chef and the rest of the guys on the boat probably hadn't been keyed into any of that (Chief might've known, probably had known). They must have trusted a ranking officer on special assignment to have answers. To at least have some goddamn clue about what was going on, though at bottom, nobody knew anything about Vietnam, nobody knew anything about the war. There were no plans, there was hardly any logic. Even knowing this, though, it was easiest to assume that superior officers had the lay of the land. More comforting to imagine that the chaos could be kept away.

In any case, he isn't about to lie to Chef about it. What would be the point?]

Hell, I didn't know so much.

[He's missing Chef's question, or maybe he doesn't want to see it, doesn't want to tackle whatever the answer would be.

As if there could be any answer. Jesus, he doesn't know anything.]

What kind of an explanation is it you're looking for?

[at least he's getting a little less fire from Chef. That's something.]

Edited 2014-03-16 01:24 (UTC)

I don't fucking know. I'm not here to put words in your mouth. If I knew what the fuck kinda explanation there was for this place I wouldn't need an explanation. You say we're not fucking dead, so...

[But no, he hadn't said that, had he? He'd said that not everyone here was fucking dead. There's a difference. Willard isn't exactly leaping the fuck up to reassure Chef that nobody around here's dead, so he can keep on making that same goddamned assumption he's been making the whole time: he's dead, dead as can fucking be, but Willard isn't, and this is...

The afterlife? Probably not. It could never be that fucking easy, could it? Maybe that's for the best. Maybe it's just another big goddamned fucking mess, like everything else.

He doesn't want to hear that Willard hadn't known so much. It was a hell of a lot easier to believe that someone knew what the fuck was going on. That there was some fucking point to all of it. That there were fucking plans. He's always doubted it, but he doesn't want Willard to fucking confirm his doubts to him. Fuck it, fuck it, he already can barely think about all of it without feeling like shit.]

... so what the fuck are we? Where the fuck are we? What the fuck do we do here?

[That should cover it, right? That should hit upon just about every relevant fucking fact, shouldn't it? And maybe Willard has answers for that shit, at least, even if he doesn't have any fucking answers for what they'd been doing on that goddamned boat.]

[He's not about to follow up on the issue of being alive or otherwise. It sounds as if Chef suspects something, at least (maybe he knows, somewhere; probably he does), but Willard doesn't think it's his place to bring them directly to the subject. If Chef wants to talk about it... Then they can talk about it. Even though Willard isn't exactly keen on discussing the matter.

It wasn't his fault. Not precisely, and the idea of throwing blame around anymore is laughable. Life's nothing but a poor attempt at wrestling chaos into some semblance of submission, and there isn't anything to blame because there is no final order, there's nothing beyond the human will to keep everything in place.

Shit, that can't be right. Willard might have learned something about that at the compound, but that can't be the answer in the end. There's more to it. There are ways around it. There've got to be.

He's becoming tired of these absent self-debates, trying to figure out what had happened and why, trying to find his way out of the darkswept division he'd fallen into over there. There aren't any answers... But he can't possibly believe that, or he wouldn't still be searching.

And Chef. Shit, Chef shouldn't have been there in the first place. Jay Hicks, all the way from Louisiana. If Willard had made it back down the river - he would have, he's certain, if hadn't ended up here - he would have been asked to write to Chef's family. Maybe he would have wanted to do it. At the very least, he would have owed it.

Maybe he owes something here. Answers, an explanation. Willard doesn't have anything of the sort, though, and he gives a few moments of thought before settling on any words.]

I wish I knew. [Does he? Maybe not.]

As far as I can tell, this place has no explanation. It's somewhere on the outside, or it's a place all its own.

I know what that sounds like. But where we are now... People come from all over. Anywhere, any time. [He's not going to talk about the overlap. About the kid who could almost be Lance. This place is fucked up enough without bringing that into it.

He doesn't feel like standing, and he's fairly certain that Chef isn't going to attack him. Probably. So Willard drops into a squat, looks up at Chef.] While you're here, you wait. And from what I've heard, from here, you can end up almost anywhere.

I've just been here. I wish I could tell you more.

Okay.

[Well. Fuck. He'd really been hoping Willard could provide some fucking answers, something that would make all of this suddenly make sense and be... what? Be fucking easy to cope with? It's probably never going to be fucking easy to cope with, because nothing ever is. If there's one goddamned thing he'd learned on that ill-fated fucking trip down the river -- okay, on his whole goddamned experience in Vietnam -- it's that everything just keeps fucking going wrong, no matter what you do.]

So we fucking wait. We fucking wait, and twiddle our fucking thumbs, and hope that something interesting happens?

[Come to think of it, that... actually doesn't sound so fucking bad. It's better than the alternative, right? He knows better than to actually hope for something fucking interesting, because that usually means something dangerous, and he's had about enough of dangerous shit for a lifetime. After that fucking tiger attack...

He'd probably better not let himself think about that.]

It's not dangerous here, right?

[He just has to check.]

I'm not gonna fucking get shot just for standing here, right?

[No, he's not going to up and fucking attack Willard, because he can't muster up the righteous anger at him that he might've been able to, at once point, so he just stares down at him, looking confused as hell, a little lost, vaguely sick, but fuck, that's always the look on his face, isn't it?]

[Chef's still keeping it cool, and that's a relief. Willard doesn't exactly feel up to facing further shouting fits.]

You got somewhere else to be? [Almost, almost edging toward a tired humor for a moment, there.]

I haven't run into anything.

[It's better than being over there. Anything's better than being over there again. Jesus, once he'd done it, all Willard had wanted was to get that place out from under his skin get it out of his head (as if it's ever gone, as if he still can't feel it aching over him). Forget it, but of course he can't. Some places you never leave. Some places never let you go.

He isn't there, though. What he can say, what he knows is that he isn't physically there, that none of it can reach out and touch him (keep telling yourself that, keep telling yourself it isn't the mind alone keep telling yourself it isn't in you), pull him back in to what could have become, what he'd come so close to. Edge of the human mind edge of the soul. The snail caught crawling along the knife's edge, diamond through the head, it is possible to take existence into your hands possible to become in shattering.

Stop it. Stop it. Doesn't do any good.

Being here is probably better than being back in the world, too. It's easier to live among people, easier to have this shit hanging over his head when nothing is exactly solid. Easier when he doesn't have to find his way in that world he could only see as broken, anyway. He'll probably never see that world again, and maybe it's for the best.]

And I'm not sure you can be--

[Well, fuck. Can he say "killed here," or is that going to set Chef off again? He's probably already fucked it up by cutting himself off like that. Shit. This is one strange fucking situation.]

Some of the places you can find yourself in aren't exactly friendly. From what I've heard. Here, I guess we're all pretty safe. [As safe as anyone can be, but he's going to leave it on a more comforting note. That seems like the better option.]

[And the look he offers Willard, just for a second, is almost edging close to some kind of... fuck, what's it supposed to be? A smile? Yeah, sure, he's capable of doing that, isn't he? If he'd been capable of smiling in a shithole like the one he'd just gotten -- well, fuck, don't think of it that way, that'll wipe the fucking smile right off his face -- like the one he'd just been stuck in, he's sure as fuck capable of smiling here, too.]

Fuck, no, I don't have anywhere else to be. I'm happy to be stuck right the fuck here.

[Happy? Not really. But it's better than the alternative, isn't it, whatever the fuck the alternative is? If this is the version of the afterlife he's going to get (even if it doesn't technically qualify as the afterlife, since Willard here isn't exactly dead) then he might as well make the most of it.

Of course, he's always had a pretty goddamned hard time making the most of anything. He's just one of those people -- one of those people who can't fucking settle down and be okay with anything. And why should he? Most things in the world are pretty fucking awful, when it comes right down to it.

Cynicism? Or just exhaustion with the state of how fucked up everything is? He doesn't know, and doesn't care; it all comes out the same, anyway.]

So, what, there're other places we can end up? Shittier places? Is this some kinda fucking levels of hell type of thing, where it just gets deeper and deeper and deeper and in the middle of it all there's some fucking...

[Well. He knows what his personal final circle of hell would be, and fuck, he's already been there. The thought kind of cheers him up, for a second.]

Jesus, don't you think we've been there already?

[Another suggestion of that tired humor, though it's as true as anything can be. 'You're in the asshole of the world' (wisdom from the strangest places) damn right, that fucked-up journey down to the pit, only there was no way to crawl out the other side, no way to work around that sorrowing demon save to strike it down, and then what was there? It's possible to end the devil's life, but he never was the devil never was the kind of final evil because nothing could be, and if there's no final evil there's no partitioning hell there's no mountain for taking your purgatory. No fucking solidity to it, at all.]

I don't know if it can get much worse.

[He tries not to think about the guy who could be Lance and what that guy had been through. He can't not think about that guy. Lugo. The shithole of destruction he'd been in, but Willard figures it's better not to bring that up with Chef. There's no way of explaining it, anyway. The truth would never make it through, and anyway, Willard doesn't know what the fuck the truth of it is.

That there are places more horrifying, maybe. That what they'd seen in the jungle was only a flashing glimpse of the world's anguish. (He'd thought as much, hadn't he? Wasn't that a part of it when Kurtz fell, wasn't that a part of it when he'd understood the logic of his own actions and how easy, how easy it could be?)

In any case, that was off-subject. That had been a solid world of its own, somewhere. Maybe none of the places around here are as bad as that. Willard doubts it, but he can't say for sure.]

Anyway, some of the places are supposed to be all right. Maybe most of them are. And you might not go anywhere at all. Seems like a lot of us [(that feels strange, grouping himself with anyone, grouping himself with these half-existent beings who might be must be somehow real, but who knows in what way)] just stay stuck here.

[Well, shit, that's what he'd been intending to say anyway, wasn't it? That they've already been to wherever the fuck hell is, and they've come out of it... He'd been wanting to think 'they'd come out of it alive,' but that's bullshit. Willard had come out of it alive. He, himself, hadn't. Fuck, though, maybe being alive isn't the best thing someone can hope for. Maybe there're worse things than being dead.]

Yeah, we've been there.

[He can appreciate that tired humor. Maybe he'd had a hard time appreciating it on that fucking interminable trip down the fucking river -- or maybe Willard hadn't displayed any humor then, he can't remember, and he doesn't wanna think on it too intently. It's a hell of a lot easier to know how to deal with than anything else, right? But fuck, he's not too good at dealing with anything.]

So you're one of the ones that's just fucking stuck here, huh? Which means...

[Which means... well, shit. It could mean just about anything.]

Which means you could run into just about fucking anybody around here, right? Dead people, alive people, in-between people [he doesn't know what that means, but he can't help but consider himself one of the 'in-between people' anyway.] It's a regular fucking party!

You could call it that.

It's been my experience that mostly you run into people you've never met before. [Maybe that's for the best. There are some people he's better off not encountering again. He still doesn't know what to make of finding Chef here.

Maybe all of them, maybe all of the guys from the boat are here somewhere. Maybe seeing all of them again would be a justice of its own. (As if he hasn't seen them already, as if they haven't ghosted through his memories from time to time, though mostly they've been in the background mostly it's been Kurtz and the end. Says something that he doesn't think of them often, but he can't keep everyone's remembrance and they seem so far away.)

Sure, justice. There's a hell of a thought. There's no fuckin' justice. Right now, it's just two guys talking in a place that shouldn't exist. It's just Willard having a conversation with a guy whose head had been severed and presented as a... a warning, a gift, an assertion.

He does not need to think about that right now.]

Anyway, if you want, you can keep to yourself.

Yeah, man, I think... fuck, I think it'd probably be best if I kept to myself. I don't even have any fucking idea what I'd say to anyone. I don't have any fucking idea what I'm supposed to say to you.

[Because the more time he spends around Willard, fuck, the more time he starts thinking about being back there, back on that fucking boat, and it's not as though that was the kind of thing he'd forget, because shit, you don't forget that kind of thing, not even once you're...

Well, fuck, say it like it is. Dead, dead and fucking gone, right?

But dwelling on it, that doesn't make it any fucking better. He isn't necessarily reassured by what Willard's saying. Maybe up until right now, Willard hasn't run into anyone who he knows from... before, from back fucking there, but that doesn't mean it'll hold true forever. And he's also got no idea what he'd think about meeting people he's never met before. They seem pretty fucking terrifying, too.]

I've gotta...

[Gotta what? Gotta do a whole fucking lot of things. Maybe some of them aren't even possible. Shit, maybe nothing's possible.]

I've gotta wrap my fucking head around this.

[It isn't an easy place to be, and it probably isn't an easy place to accept. Willard had fallen into it easily enough, but through the war, he'd learned to accept whatever comes, and after the compound, this place almost seemed fucking normal. He still thinks it's about as normal as any place (because there's nothing normal about any where, nothing normal about the world he'd just come from or the world back in the place that had once been home; everything, everything as fragments, not much fucking more).

Maybe it doesn't work like that for Chef. Willard it prettu sure it doesn't work like that for Chef.]

You don't have to say anything.

[Sometimes words are necessary. Sometimes talking helps. Willard hadn't necessarily thought about that before, but maybe there's truth to it. Maybe even for him... Huh.]

Hell, I can go. [Shit. That probably sounded terser than he'd intended. Willard tries again.] I can let you have your space.

If you decide you want to find me, you'll be able to.

[Willard isn't sure whether he'd prefer to go or stay. He doesn't think into it. Just let it be whatever it is.]

I don't know if I want you to go, I don't know if I want you to stay, I don't know what the fuck I want. Since when has what I wanted ever fucking mattered, anyway?

[Well, fuck. That was more confrontational than it had been meant. It's not like he actually blames Willard for any of what had happened there -- well, not entirely, although it's pretty fucking hard to look at the guy without thinking about wandering around in the jungle with him and nearly getting mauled by a fucking tiger, although in retrospect, maybe that was his own goddamned fault, because he'd gotten the urge to go out there and look for...

What the fuck had he been looking for, anyway? Why did it seem so goddamned important at the time, and so fucking irrelevant now? Is that how everything works? What had seemed so fucking necessary, at that time, that he'd nearly gotten both of them killed for it?

Right. Mangoes. Fucking mangoes. He could go for one of those right now, as a matter of fact. He kind of laughs at the thought, but it's not an altogether happy laugh.]

I'm just gonna sit right here for awhile. I'm just gonna sit here, man, and fucking think about all of this.

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HIDDEN BECAUSE IT'S IN THE JUNGLE???

Re: THAT IS EXACTLY WHY YEP YOU GOT IT

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