margatesands | OPEN POST

You think I don't fucking know what I'm talking about when it comes to crazy?

[And here comes the laughing again. Somehow, he doesn't think the Photojournalist is going to find that laughing all too disconcerting. And maybe that kind of pisses him off, too. The guy shouldn't have this weird fucking ability to shake everyone up so much, just by talking. Just by doing whatever the fuck it is he's doing. Chef had known for the minute he saw the guy that he was bad fucking news. Everything he's seeing here is just confirming that belief.]

And seeing something in me means he had to fucking...

[He trails off. He doesn't want to put it into words, what he's pretty sure had happened. As long as he doesn't say it, he can deny it, right? He can pretend that he's still as alive as he ever fucking was. If you can call living like that being alive.]

What the fuck does he see in you?

[Is it a rude question, purposefully meant to sting? Maybe. Maybe. He can't pretend he's above being an ass. And he sure as hell can't pretend he's above wanting to rattle this fucking Photojournalist when that's all the guy's ever done to him.

That's probably why he's still laughing.]

Nah, nah... He doesn't really see me. Not really, not most of the time. I'm like... I exist on the periphery, all right? He knows I'm there but He doesn't really need to look at me, just needs to know someone's listening, and that-- That's what I can do. That's what I do, and once in a while He sees me, like I know He's looking at me, and you know what that feels like because it's, it's the force of five hundred fires it's like looking into the inferno but there's also something... He's got a sadness, man. He's seen things.

[That's sad. That's very... The Photojournalist feels as if his insides just dropped and everything is suddenly hollow, any trace of his smile vanishes.]

I couldn't help Him with that, though. That was... That was beyond me. I wouldn't even know how to begin. "And how should I...?" Yeah. Yeah.

He taught me that. I mean, he spoke it. Maybe just to get it out, maybe just to... to tell the world, but I heard it, I caught it. He had to have someone listening. Words don't work right in silence. Not those words.

Yeah, well, we've all fucking seen things, haven't we? You've seen things, I've seen things, the whole goddamn world's seen things that we shouldn't have, and that doesn't give us any fucking excuse to be some crazy murderous asshole in a fake fucking castle, you know? I'm so fucking sick of hearing that shit, so fucking sick of hearing about how just because people have seen things...

[Means what? Means that they can't be a little crazy? Well, shit, isn't he himself a little crazy? Yes, but he's not going around the way Kurtz is, doing the shit Kurtz does, sending some doomed mission up a fucking river after him just to...

His laughter dies down a little, but he still can't quite keep the goofy fucking smile fully off his face because there's no way to handle this shit other than to laugh, sometimes. Laugh or you'll go crazy. Laugh and you'll fucking go crazy, right? He can scream or he can laugh or he can do both. Maybe sometimes at the same time.]

Okay, so you listen to the motherfucker. You listen to him talk about whatever shit it is he talks about, poetry or literature or whatever he uses to warp your fucking mind. So who the fuck listens to you?

You're asking alllll the wrong questions.

[He doesn't know what that means. He doesn't need to know. He is almost smiling again.

See, that's the thing about this guy. He might call The Man crazy and he might take everything all backwards, but at least he's got a smile going. At least he laughs. Sometimes it's hard to find people who'll laugh and smile!

The Photojournalist shakes his head, tugging at his jacket.] Your captain did. Because he had to. Uhm. I listen to me, sometimes. Mostly I just... Shit, I don't have words. You're listening. [He points, just to illustrate.] But nothing I say is... Uh. Unless it's for Him, it's all like ether, just disappears away, creeps off into the jungle. I'm not-- I was never going to be the one. I was never gonna have the words for it, I'm-- [This time it's a wave of the hand, vague, dismissive.] I've got pictures I don't have words. I was never gonna make it out of there.

And that's all right. That is allll right.

[It really isn't. Probably. But he can't argue against what happened, and he figures it must have been inevitable. The Man had known, after all. And The Photojournalist had had a pretty good idea.]

You only need one witness, you know what I'm saying? That's all it takes.

[He's pretty sure the guy had said something else, too, something that was dead wrong - a lot of what this guy says is dead wrong - but he can't remember what it was. Maybe it just didn't matter.]

How the fuck can you say it's all right? Just giving the fuck up, man, just deciding that not making it outta there is fucking okay? Don't you want to go home? Don't you want to get out of that place? I mean, fuck, look at us now, we're both out, and you're talking like you'd go right the fuck back if you had any choice in the matter.

[And he kind of gets the sense that he would, because fuck, this guy... Maybe it's too simplistic to call him crazy. It probably fucking is. Because the guy might be saying things that don't make a whole hell of a lot of sense and never will make a whole hell of a lot of sense -- because Chef's got to hold a grudge against Kurtz, for the... for what had... never mind -- but at least he's got some fucking conviction in his words. It seems like it's real fucking hard these days to find someone who speaks with conviction.]

So go ahead. Fucking tell me what the right questions are. Go ahead, because I'm fucking waiting for someone to tell me. People just keep saying I've got it wrong, that I'm looking at things from the wrong fucking perspective, that I'm asking the wrong fucking questions, but nobody tells me what the hell I'm supposed to do instead. It drives a guy crazy. It drives me fucking crazy.

[Isn't this great? Isn't this fucking wonderful? The two of them, in some weird no-man's land, both as crazy as can fucking be (arguably, arguably, although maybe they'd both deny it) yelling at each other because their craziness doesn't mesh quite fucking right.

It's laughable, but then, what the hell isn't?]

[Of course he'd go right back. Maybe a part of him - maybe even a lot of him - knows that he's better off away from there, but he can't stop thinking about it and he can't stop thinking about Him and anyway, he's meant to be there. Someone's got to be there, and what if that captain went and...

There isn't anywhere to be outside of the compound, anyway. Isn't any such thing as home - that concept doesn't even make sense anymore - isn't anywhere else he would feel right. And what's this guy know, anyway, what's he know that makes think he knows the score, thinks he knows better than The Man?

The problem is, this guy's not listening. Maybe The Photojournalist is saying it all wrong. Maybe he's getting the words jumbled again, but he knows there's something to what he's saying, and the guy just isn't trying to understand. He didn't try to understand at the compound, and he's being just as... just as close-minded about it here. Why can't he just try for a moment to listen, really listen? Probably if The Photojournalist told this guy the right questions - not that The Photojournalist knows what those are, but if he did - the asshole still wouldn't listen. He'd keep going on about how The Man is "crazy" and how everything's fucked up and how The Man is wrong and--

And The Photojournalist is getting tired of hearing it. Because it's wrong. It's wrong.

He moves toward the guy, tapping a finger against his head.] No, no... How about this. How about I've got a question for you.

See, Jack, it sounds to me like you're doing an awful lot of saying what's wrong. Sounds to me like you think you've got answers. Where to go, who's crazy, who's got the right to act, who deserves to... who deserves to live.

But I have a question for you. You tell me, Jack: what do you remember?

I mean back there, I mean back in the compound, I mean middle of the night dead in the water, I mean the noise that pulls you out of sleeping, I mean Him.

I mean what happened.

What do you remember?

I don't know shit! I don't know shit, okay! None of us know shit!

[Because it's so much fucking easier, it's so much fucking easier to just start yelling when confronted with questions like that. No, he doesn't want this fucking Photojournalist guy up in his face and no, he doesn't know what the fuck he's supposed to do with a question like that because...

What does he remember? What the fuck does he remember? Even if he did remember, he doesn't want to fucking think about it.

It'll drive him crazy. It'll drive him crazy. He already fucking is crazy, he's been crazy ever since he nearly got fucking eaten by that goddamned tiger, or maybe even before that, but that's what had really done it, that's what had really driven him nuts, and...

Now the fucking Photojournalist is trying to make him more nuts. Fuck him. Fuck him fuck him fuck him.]

I don't remember anything! I don't remember a goddamned fucking thing! I remember being on the boat, and then I remember being here, and there was nothing in between, not a fucking thing. You want me to remember something that I don't want to fucking think about that might not have happened anyway because you don't want to deal with the fact that you're... you're...

[What can he even say that's going to be as hurtful as this shit the Photojournalist is saying to him? Personal insults don't seem to do much. Insulting Kurtz does, but that seems to lead down the path of being reminded of what had happened at the fucking compound, and that's...

A mess? To put it fucking mildly.]

We're all fucking crazy. We're all fucking crazy. But at least I fucking accept it. I know this fucking place drove me nuts. I know it. And all you wanna do is talk about some thing that fucking 'happened' back there that I can't even remember. Why? What the fuck're you trying to avoid? What the fuck don't you want to talk about?

[He takes a step back, blinks, spread his arms. That wasn't really an answer, but it's better than what the guy had been trying to say before. He's still trying to play Mr. Right and he still isn't looking, he won't even try to look, but it's an improvement, or at least a change.]

That's not the question. [That gets a laugh, head ducking to the side. This is almost fun. No, not really fun, but... Better than hearing the guy just attack, attack, attack Him. And it's good to get people on unsteady ground. Makes them... think about their situations more. Maybe see a new light on things. Wasn't that something He had said? You can find more truth by making people sit with what they don't want to hear. The Man hadn't phrased it like that, of course. The Man had had far better words for it, but The Photojournalist thinks the right idea is there somewhere.

Maybe if this guy's rattled enough, he'll start seeing sense! That wouldn't be bad, at all.

Not that The Photojournalist's words and actions have been particularly intentional; as far as he can tell, most of them just kind of happen. He tries to speak, he tries to move, and maybe something happens, maybe it doesn't.]

Hey, if you really can't remember, that's your business. I'm just asking. I'm just asking. And you don't have to shout about it. I'm right here. You know me; I'm all ears. Yeah, I've got listening down to a real art form.

I'm just very curious about what it is you don't remember.

But if you don't know... [A shrug.] I guess that's life! Or not, ahah.

Edited 2014-03-18 22:59 (UTC)

I don't fucking remember what..

[What? What? Fucking what? It's like the worst goddamned itch that he can't possibly fucking scratch and he's almost certain he's going fucking nuts just contemplating it except that of course he was fucking nuts anyway, wasn't he? Well, the fucking Photojournalist should know. He should know all about fucking nuts. He's the undisputed champion of it around here, right? Or maybe not. Maybe they're both fucking crazy. Maybe they're in direct competition for the fucking nuts title.

He can't remember the...]

I don't fucking remember dying.

[Oh. That. That wasn't so fucking hard, was it, except he hadn't known that those goddamned words were going to come flying out of his mouth until they had and now he's staggered by the fucking terrifying depth of them because yes, yes, he's...

Fucking dead.]

It seems like the most fucking important thing that probably ever happened to me and I don't fucking remember it and all I know is I didn't fucking want to die there, anywhere but there, I didn't even care about being fucking dead so long as it wasn't there but I guess we never fucking get what we want, we never... fucking...

[And now he's just trailing off into that altogether too unhinged goddamned laughter.]

Heyyyy... Hey, pal...

[He reaches out, and he'll put his hand on the guy's shoulder, maybe give it a shake, if the guy'll let him. He doesn't know if this is wise. He doesn't really think about it. All he knows is that the guy isn't looking so hot and maybe the guy went a little too far into something he shouldn't have touched. So he just wants to let the guy know he's here.]

It's all right if you don't remember! [Even though he should. Even though he should remember because it had been The Man who'd come for this guy, and because no one should forget The Man, something like that should be branded into your mind. How could you forget that? How could you see Him come to you like that and just let it slide away? Maybe He hadn't wanted the guy to remember. Maybe that'd been part of His plan.]

There's nothing wrong with that.

Hey, ah... ah... You know, you know, I remember it. Just coming at me, tearing through like I was nothing at all, and that jerk just staring stone-cold just like he was doing his job. 'Cause he was, you know. But that wasn't... That wasn't... [He wants to say 'fair,' but somehow that doesn't seem right here.] Hell, I don't know, maybe it was right, maybe it was what He wanted, I--

I'm just saying, maybe you don't need to remember?

[He can't always talk about it. Sometimes he can't even think about it, but right now it isn't so bad (and it's always, it is always easier to go than some places, some memories that won't work right). It was just something that happened, and here he is. Still standing. Still... somewhere.]

[That is... that is definitely a fucking hand, on his fucking shoulder, and he's about three seconds from batting it away or maybe for punching this guy right in his fucking face for bringing all of this up but... that's not quite right, either, is it? Because, fuck, it's not this guy's fault he's dead (no, it's the fault of that goddamned crazy fucking Kurtz, and yes, he's still going to call him fucking crazy, even if the Photojournalist isn't going to agree with him) and in some weird way, it kind of seems like...

Well, fuck, is this guy trying to help? It kind of seems that way. It kind of fucking seems that way. He's doing that thing people do, where they try to relate their own fucking experiences, and usually Chef dismisses that as bullshit because unless you've really been through the same fucking thing as someone else, how would you know if you can relate? But shit, the Photojournalist's dead, too, isn't he? Dead in a different way, but still fucking dead. It all equates the same. Death is death is death.]

Yeah, but maybe I fucking want to remember. Maybe it seems like the kind of thing I should remember, because what else is going to ever be more fucking important than that? Being here isn't more fucking important than that!

[But he has something else to say, too. He can't just leave it at that, can't just leave well enough alone and not talk about what had happened to the Photojournalist, because fuck, the way he says 'He' like he's God is just fucking insane, just fucking awful.]

It wasn't fucking right. It doesn't matter what the fuck 'He' wanted. Someone killed you, that's not fucking right, that's never fucking right, only... only, shit, it's not like I'm so much better. I don't even know how many fucking people I've killed.

Yeahhhhh, that'll fuck you up... That fucks a lot of guys up, even if they don't come out and say it. You think most of those kids have killed anyone before? Most of those kids haven't killed anyone before. They don't know what to do about that. They were never meant to, they can't reconcile themselves with it, so they just break up. It just breaks them up, slowly, piece by piece.

That's the problem. You've got to know why you're doing it, see the big picture and your part in it, you've got to have cool logic. If you don't have that, man, you're a goner. That's why this war's just destroying everybody. Everything. Nobody up that chain of command cares about connecting the dots.

And everybody... Man, we are all afraid of death. I mean, most of us are. But, you know, the end comes. Hits you when you're not looking or, BANG, staring you right in the face.

[He'd seen it coming, all right. Heard the click and knew he was caught, and the absence on the guy's face had just about destroyed any hope The Photojournalist might have had of talking his way out of it. Colby wasn't going to listen to a fucking thing. Colby had been dead behind the ears almost since he came in, so sure, The Photojournalist had known what was coming.

He'd been shot before, but never like that. Of course he hadn't. In the moments before death, it had burned all through him, thrown everything awash in electric dismay, and all he'd wanted, all he'd wanted to hear, to see...

Like this guy said. You don't always get what you wish for. All The Photojournalist had had was Colby, and the captain there somewhere.]

I ran back into it. And you came to us. Shit happens, man. Shit just happens.

And, ah... If you want to remember. It'll come back to you. It's gotta be there somewhere. [Will this guy go there, after all? Will he be able to recall what must have happened? The Photojournalist has pieced it together well enough to have an idea of what must have occurred, and--]

I mean, man. I saw you. I have... Well I don't have photos yet, I don't know where to develop them here, but I got you on film, all right.

How about you?

[That's a pretty vague fucking question. Maybe he'd better elaborate on it. Does he even want to know the answer? Fuck, there're a million questions and all of them probably have answers that're unpleasant as hell, in the end, and go fucking figure, he's going to ask all of them, because he doesn't know how to keep his curiosity to himself.]

I mean, have you ever killed anyone before? I mean, fuck, you're a fucking photojournalist, but like you said, shit happens, and who knows? Maybe you shoot people with your camera and with a fucking rifle, right? I don't know shit about you. All I know is that you're fucking...

[Fucking what? Fucking crazy? Fucking dead? He's undoubtedly both of those things, but then, so's Chef, so who's he to judge the guy for it? And some of what he's saying... Well, fuck, he's loath to admit it, but the guy has a fucking point to some of what he's saying.]

Don't ever fucking develop those photos. That's not right, that's not fucking right. You don't fucking show a guy a photo of his own dead body, man, you don't do that. That's fucking wrong.

[The Photojournalist won't fucking listen, and he knows it. He'll develop the photos if he ever finds a way. He knows that for sure.]

That depends. On whether you mean... I mean, did I hold a gun to any man's head, did I pick up a rifle and fire away at whoever happened to be standing around, soldiers, women, children, you name it 'cause who knows who the enemy is anymore? Nah, man. I know some guys who did, but me, I don't know anything about that. Hell, you give me a gun, I'd probably end up putting one through my foot, you know? Yeah, I'd be... bleeding all over the place.

[He shrugs; it's true! He'd tried out a Marine's pistol once, just for a lark and because the kids on base had been bored out of their skulls. The Photojournalist hadn't liked the feel of it. Hadn't liked not knowing what it could do to him or to anyone else, and his hands had started to cramp up; it'd taken the rest of the day for him to feel all right again.

Guns don't make sense. If he had to use on, really had to, maybe he could. But he'd rather hold a camera any day. Cameras make sense to him, even if the shit he's taking pictures of is pretty awful. ...kind of like this guy had been, actually. Wow, yeah; this guy - what was left of this guy - had been a mess.]

But I mean there's, there's culpability outside of pulling the trigger. I mean, I've got eyes and I've got pictures and I've been there, so what was I doing, huh? What am I doing now? What am I-- You can't judge it, man - or maybe you can judge me, because I'm not up there, you know? - but you can call it what it is.

If you know it. If you can sniff it out.

[He stares for a moment before dissolving into a fit of giggles. Shit, something's funny. Something's usually funny.]

Anyway, man, I was just trying to help you. You know, give you something to remember yourself by if you wanted. I didn't mean anything by it. Hell, you don't have to look. If you don't want to look, I won't show you anything.

I know there are a whole lot of fucking ways other than shooting people to be responsible for their deaths. Hell, I'm probably responsible for about a million fucking things I didn't directly cause. You don't need a big goddamned gun and a bunch of bullets to ruin a fucking life. To end a fucking life.

[And fuck, there's such a big part of him that wants to blame the Photojournalist for what'd happened to him in that goddamned compound, for the fact that he'd gotten fucking murdered by that crazy fucker... was he crazy? Probably. Everybody was fucking crazy.]

Culpability.

[He doesn't have a whole fucking lot to say about that. He's just repeating what the Photojournalist had already said, rolling around the word in his mind and out loud as though saying it really means anything. Or, shit, maybe he's just acknowledging that that's a good fucking word. Useful. Really fucking useful. Because they're all culpable for something in the end, aren't they? Isn't that the whole fucking point of life?]

I'm not gonna fucking forget myself. What kind of weird fucking statement is that? To remember myself by? Shit, I'm right here, dead or not! I'm not about to forget about existing, fuck.

[Those giggles are making him uneasy -- which, he has to admit, is probably pretty fucking hypocritical for someone who breaks down into unsteady laughter all the fucking time himself -- and that statement's making him even more uneasy. To remember himself by? It suddenly seems all too likely that there's a possibility, a pretty fucking strong possibility, that he really could forget himself.]

Yeahhhh... Don't think it's not possible, ahah.

[He rubs at the back of his head, not exactly looking at Chef, not exactly looking at anything. There are so many ways to forget, and it really isn't so hard to just... sort of start to drift. Open your eyes, find you're on a whole different planet, or maybe you're just on the same planet and everything else about you floated away. Yeah, yeah, maybe that was it, and fuck that, he's not gonna talk about it. Not going to push that one, no-sir.]

You said you didn't remember. You know, how you kicked the bucket? So I thought, you know, visual stimulation, maybe seeing it would break all of that forgetting. Activate your mind, take you, ahhh, "down the passage which we did not take, toward the door we never opened." If you wanted to know. You don't have to know. No one's gonna make you know. [He smiles, spreads his palms just to show that he at least intends no harm.]

See, man, that's your business. That's your responsibility, uh-huh.

Yeah, but look, man, if you were fucking dead...

[Oh. Fuck. Well. He should probably remedy that stupid fucking statement, huh? Maybe he should make it a little more pointed, get the message across a little stronger. It's not that he wants to give this guy too much shit -- okay, fuck it, maybe he does, maybe just a little -- but hey, the guy's getting under his fucking skin, and what's he supposed to do about that? Just sit there and fucking take it? No chance.]

Right. Let me rephrase that. You are fucking dead. So if you didn't fucking remember how you died, if you didn't have a clear fucking memory of that shit, and someone offered to provide you some visual fucking stimulation? You probably wouldn't be too fucking happy about that, would you?

[Or maybe he would. Fuck, this guy's weird. He'd probably enjoy seeing his own dead body. He'd probably think it was some kind of great fucking metaphysical, existential bullshit, when all it would really be would be fucking creepy and wrong.]

[It's very odd that he is dead because he's also alive, or at least he feels as alive as he ever did before. Is he still dead? maybe you never stop being dead, even if you've been brought to life in a place like this. Or maybe you never die! Yeah, but that's kind of a silly thought, because he definitely died, remembers the sharp snap before the cold filtering away, remembers the way it felt like everything, everything just draining from his body like the world'd been shaken and he'd fallen out and the color was falling out and nauseating, it'd been--

Shit, man. Shit. That's just going to get him down. It's all done with now. It happened, it just happened and he's still here, right?]

Hey, I don't know... It doesn't matter about me.

Because anyway, I do remember. [Isn't that great? He remembers dying, even if he doesn't remember... Ahhh hah. Things. Just... things.] I don't know what I'd... hypothetically what I'd want to know if I didn't. Maybe if we traded knowledge, maybe then I'd know. Can you do that? Can you trade memories?

...Nah, probably not. Wow, ahhhah... You know, if we could trade memories? Just swap yours for mine, say some of the things happened to you really happened to me? If we could do that, we could trade deaths.

...Yeah, just think of how great that'd be.

You keep saying it doesn't fucking matter about you, like you don't fucking matter at all. Is that what you think? Because that's bullshit, man, that's bullshit. You matter just as much as everyone else.

[It's like a twisted fucking version of a pep talk, in a weird way, and he's not sure why he's giving it, except it really kind of pisses him off that this guy never seems to want to talk about himself, that he just wants to say this fucking crazy shit (is it crazy? Is it really? Probably not, and that scares the fuck out of Chef) and talk about trading fucking memories and... Well, on the other hand, this guy had been stuck in that fucking compound for a long time, hadn't he? Wouldn't anyone go crazy there?

And who the fuck is Chef to judge anyone for going fucking crazy anywhere, right? He'd gone crazy on that goddamned river, and he knows it. Maybe he'd been a little crazy before the fucking tiger had nearly killed him, but that had been the last fucking straw. He knows he's verifiably, completely, one hundred percent fucking crazy now.]

I don't think I wanna trade memories with you, man. No offense, but fuck, you've got some stuff in there that I don't think I ever wanna see. And I sure as fuck don't wanna trade deaths with you, either.

[Or does he? Which death is better? Shit, it turns out the same way in the end anyway, so does it really fucking matter? Probably not.]

OPEN POST

Re: Sure. JUST KEEP ON SMILIN BRO.

OKAY!!?!??!!!?!

Re: TOO BAD YOU'RE JEALOUS OF THE LEAF HAT

TOO BAD YOUR SEVERED HEAD COULDN'T WEAR IT ANYMORE.

Re: TOO BAD IT'D STILL LOOK BETTER ON MY SEVERED HEAD THAN ON YOUR CRAZY ONE

WOW. WOW MAN UHHH... I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS??

Re: FRIENDS UNTIL DECAPITATION IS DISCUSSED YEAHHH

BROUGHT IT ON YOURSELF DUDE.

Re: So... Mean...

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