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.

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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