maybe i'm just tired

[RobertMason]

Hello! maybe i'm just tired has its roots in an attempt to mix together the magical girl and Lovecraftian genres into a horrific, but working, mixture, and while the degree to which it hits on the former of the two is up for debate, I'm not too concerned with that anymore, since the story and universe have spun off into something coherent anyways, and the attempt at a fusion was only a means to get my brain started on a path for worldbuilding.

The story takes place in the late 1950s, in an alternate world which is greatly based off of the world shown in The Repairer of Reputations, a short story in Robert W. Chambers' 1895 anthology The King in Yellow. The anthology is also the basis of a lot more of the novel, and while the universe at large is more based on Lovecraft's works, the plot of the novel draws more elements from Chambers.

I'm not too concerned with matching exact speech patterns as they would have been in the 1950s (at least for the time being), since I'm more concerned with getting the actual content out, and then editing it to match more closely. The same thing applies to slang, since I've found that I write it more realistically when I change things after, because otherwise I tend to use it a bit more than it should be. There are a few exceptions here and there, most notably with the word "fug(ging)," which, according to what I've read, was used commonly in sci-fi stories of the time period in order to get past censors while also getting the point and feel of the word across to the reader. The use of that word, as opposed to its counterpart, seemed to fit Marie.

The novel alternates between transcripts of the taped sessions Marie is taking with her new therapist, Sheila Thurgood,* and then periods of prose, usually around four thousand words long (although the first "interlude" is much shorter).

I'll normally be posting an update every Monday, but I'm putting up something now so that I can't put it off or forget about it any longer.

I'm not going to be doing much wandering around on this site and will primarily be looking over stories based on what's recommended to me, but if you comment here, and you've got a story somewhere on this site (or anywhere else, for that matter), give me a link and I'll make sure to return the favor.

Ask as many questions as pop into your mind about the world, and please tell me whether these are things which you think most readers would want explained now, or if it's just a question which has popped into your mind and which can be be answered later on in the story. I'll still answer it immediately, but I'd like to know if the story should be edited to answer that question earlier on (if, indeed, it's something which had occurred to me as a question which someone would ask in the first place) or if it's fine being answered later on in the story.

Anyways...

*Surprisingly, the last name came out of a random generator based on the US Census, and so there's absolutely no meaning behind the choice of name.

[RobertMason]

SHEILA THURGOOD— Do you know why you're here, Marie?
MARIE GRAYSON— You think I killed my boyfriend.
ST— You did kill him, Marie. They found you standing over his body with a black knife, crying. Your clothes were soaked with his blood.
(MG sighs)
MG— I liked that coat, too. That wasn't my boyfriend. That was just something which had been wearing his skin.
ST— Nobody blames you, Marie. What he did to those other people... You're not in trouble. But you need to move past these delusions of yours. There was nothing in your boyfriend's body.
MG— You don't understand. The Horror Artist was using him the way you use your body. It was in the place where his soul was, originally.
(pause)
ST— I see. Perhaps we should talk about something else for now.
MG— If you want. How much longer do we have?
ST— Fifty-nine minutes and slight change, Marie. You just got here.
MG— And I'd like to be out of here, too.
ST— It says here that your full name is Marie Blue Grayson.
MG— And my parents call me Rhodes.
ST— Your middle name is—
MG— Odd? Yes. My mother's a fun sort, like that. She really liked the color blue. So of course I'm the only one of her children to get the oddball name. Although I suppose 'Zelia' isn't the greatest name, either, but you can blame my father for that one.
ST— How did you get your nickname?
MG— We lived in Newport, Rhode Island, till just barely after I turned eight years old. I was always getting Rhode Island mixed up with the island of Rhodes. I spent several long summer days looking for Greeks. (pause) I never found any, except for our next-door neighbors. It took me awhile to believe that they were actually Greek, though, since they didn't speak the language.
ST— Did you?
MG— Yes. Well, sort of.
ST— Really?
MG— You can't live on Rhodes without speaking Greek, was always my line of thought. I certainly can't speak it— speaking a language is always harder than understanding it, for some reason— but I could sort my way through a basic conversation, if I had to. I can't do that as much now, anymore. I'm out of practice.
ST— How did you learn?
MG— My grandfather. On my father's side. (MG chuckles) The old man was responsible for a lot that happened to me. He had these old English-to-Greek dictionaries, from back in the day.
ST— Back in the day?
MG— I don't know. He always told a lot of stories, but half of them were obviously too tall for life, so I'm a bit hesitant to put much trust in the other half. Which isn't to say that he was a liar or anything. I was little girl asking for stories, and I wanted them to be entertaining stories, not boring old tales of the time they had skunk for dinner instead of possum. Come to think of it, it may have been the old Greek that I learned. (MG chuckles) At least I might be able to understand Socrates as he calls me a fool, if I ever get my hands on one of Wells' fancy machines.
ST— Could you tell me one of these stories?
MG— Yes, I could.
(long silence)
ST— Marie?
MG— I said that I could, Doctor Thurgood. I don't want to, however. The stories were private things, you see. Between me and my grandfather, and the walls of his house.
ST— I see.
MG— That's good. It'd be awful if you had suddenly gone blind. They might start wondering if I had something to do with that, and I most certainly did not.
ST— So what's your family like, Marie? I see here that you have two siblings, and then your aunt and three cousins are living with you as well.
MG— Do you have my whole life's story on there? Perhaps you could take a look there, and see what stories my grandfather told.
ST— Why are you acting like this, Marie?
MG— Because I'm bored, Doctor Thurgood. This place is dull, and I'm irritated, and there are a hundred things I could be doing right now instead of talking to you, and I am most assuredly not insane, which means that there is no reason for me to be here.
ST— You don't need to be insane to need therapy. Even trauma—
MG— And here I want to laugh, when you talk about trauma. I've had some horrid experiences in my life, but I'm fine. Really.
(ST sighs)
ST— Perhaps this is true. Nevertheless, it was determined that you would have to undergo therapy with me for one hour every week, until either I decided that you no longer needed these sessions, or you came of majority. So since there is no choice for you, except to come, perhaps you should make the best of it.
(pause)
ST— I am not asking to become your friend, Marie. I know that's a stupid thing to ask for even in regular day-to-day situations. It's even more unlikely here, since you're not coming of your own free will. But I would like for you to talk to me, Marie. Please.
(short silence)
MG— Thirty-eight.
ST— Excuse me?
MG— Thirty-eight weeks till I turn eighteen. I'm trying to figure out whether to just sit it out or not.
ST— You're talking now. Why not keep on talking? If you do, maybe we'll be done with this in a few weeks. Wouldn't you rather talk for a few hours, instead of come here and say nothing for an hour, once a week, for thirty-eight weeks?
MG— I'm pretty damn sure I can outlast you. I'm very patient.
ST— Please, Marie? This isn't helping either of us.
(pause)
ST— Thank you. So it says here that your aunt's last name is Grayson, as well. Did she change it back at some point, or was she—
MG— The kids aren't bastards, if that's what you're asking. And you are. I see the look on your face. Her husband is, though. Figuratively speaking. He was my father's brother. He was a beater, too. Broke her nose three years ago, and that's when she finally decided that she'd had enough of him.
ST— So then how did she end up staying with your family? I would have assu—
MG— Because blood isn't always thicker than water, Doctor Thurgood. My father, after he found out what had been happening to his sister-in-law, decided to pay his brother in kind. My uncle didn't get out of the hospital for three weeks. Then he decided that he'd feel much better if Aunt Mandy moved in with us. She had three kids, one of them three years old, and she had to work, just like everybody else.
ST— Of course.
MG— He was also worried that his brother might decide to pay her a visit. Entirely unnecessary, of course, since I'd followed-up on my uncle on my own time.
ST— What do you mean?
MG— If you want to say that I killed my boyfriend, then fine. We've hardly discussed that matter at all and I'm already tired of it. But he certainly wasn't the first person I ever killed. Thankfully, her kids take more after her, except for Fran, who's six, now, not three. She's got blue eyes, like her wife beater of a father. I prefer to think of her as having my grandfather's eyes, though.
ST— Are you— are you saying that you murdered your uncle?
MG— Sure, sure. Well, I was there when he put the gun in his mouth, if that helps. I didn't leave a mark on him, but he didn't even think of shooting me, when he got his gun. He just wanted it all to end, very badly.
ST— Marie, this is very serious. If you're joking, I—
MG— I'm not. But does it really matter? You think I'm insane. Well, then, here's some further proof that I'm utterly mad and never touched the bastard. Look up the records. There wasn't so much as a scratch on him. Except, of the course, the bullet wound. But that's a given, I would think.
ST— Then how did you hurt him?
MG— When I touch people, I can make them scream in pain. Somebody described it as being as bad as getting stabbed in the groin with a red-hot knife with barbs and nasty prongs, and then having someone twist it sharply. (pause) I've improved my technique since then, though.
ST— Perhaps we should talk about something else.
MG— Perhaps.
(pause)
ST— How is school?
MG— Say, is there any point to the twenty questions? Shouldn't you have this information already?
ST— I'm trying to find out how you think, and how you look at things, Marie, and no, I don't have all of this already.
MG— So long as you don't make me look at a bunch of stupid ink blots. (pause) Oh, please. Are you serious?
ST— There is some vagueness with the method, but as yet another tool for me to use in order to understand you, it works very well.

Edit On second thought, now that I see how long this'd look in this forum, I'll just post 2,000 words or so of transcript a day, and a scene a day when it comes to prose, instead of a whole batch once a week.

[Aggie]

Daily instalments - lovely!

Some nice deadpan humour in there, Cap'n.

[Darlica]

You already have me looking forward to the next scene!

[Sibling DavidH]

I really like this.  Also, a play makes a nice change from the more usual narrative.  When are the squidlings going to make their appearance? 

[Swatopluk]

Also feel free to let them sing from the Choral Squid Songbook(s)

[Sibling DavidH]

I just knew you were going to say that .... 

[Swatopluk]

A bit of self promotion from time to time may be tolerable.
Haven't found a producer yet that would put up with singing cephalopods
I think even the Muppet Show never had squids (just shrimps and lobsters)

[RobertMason]

I really like this.  Also, a play makes a nice change from the more usual narrative.  When are the squidlings going to make their appearance? 

Here and there. I'm afraid that it'll be a bit until anything EXCITING happens, but you should notice a familiar face on Monday, during the prose interlude.

Also, it's not a play. It's just that this portion of the story (as with many other portions) is a transcript of a recording.



And Transcript One resumes...

MG— I like Mrs. Catton.
ST— Excuse me?
MG— My school. You wanted me to talk about it. Mrs. Catton. My history teacher. I like her.
ST— Ah.
MG— She tends to get very focused on things. Give her a good conversation— I find that Rome, especially Byzantium, does the trick best— and she'll forget about everything else. Half the time, she doesn't even notice that the rest of the class is leaving. The rest of my class gives me a bit of respect that I'd been missing before, for being the one who usually takes the fall.
ST— The fall?
MG— I'm the one who draws Mrs. Catton into the "zone," as we call it.
ST— Do you do it because you think that the rest of your classmates like you better because you distract her?
MG— (MG snorts) I honestly don't care what they think. It's not that bad. I like our discussions. Sometimes, I think that she's not as madly focused as she seems to be. We still do pretty okay on the tests and quizzes, and if she never has the chance to hand out homework, she doesn't have to spend any time grading it, now does she? (pause) And perhaps she'd rather talk with one interested student than lecture to thirty bored kids who would rather be anywhere than her class, or school at all, for that matter.
ST— Do you do well in school?
MG— Mostly. I find mathematics, by Mr. Jefferson, a bit hard. It's all intuitive jumps for me, and I can never quite do it longways. I'm used to systems which make less sense, if that makes any sense.
ST— No, it doesn't.
MG— Well. Mr. Jefferson does what he can to help, but he's not especially patient, and really, I don't blame him for being irritated with me at times.
ST— What is your family like?
MG— We're very close. My mother can be a bit of a tease, but she means well. She just doesn't usually notice when she's hit a sore spot.
ST— Has she ever said anything that hurt you?
MG— Not really. She sells shoes right now.
ST— What about your father?
MG— He's with the April-and-October Army Guard. He just got back from two weeks of training to find out that his little girl had killed her boyfriend, and was being put in therapy. Father sounds like one of those people who's swallowed a dictionary. It's a family trait, I think, although I certainly haven't inherited it, so it seems to have stopped with him and his brother. But my grandfather was like that. I remember that. I remember a time when he seemed like he knew everything there was to know. I never exactly got shown otherwise, actually.
ST— Has he always been with the Guard?
MG— Can you not be?
ST— You can be active, Marie.
MG— (MG chuckles) And now I feel exceedingly stupid. No, he's never been active. He probably would have done it, when the Bolsheviks invaded Spain, but I was three at the time, and he decided that raising me would be more useful than being just another body on the front lines.
ST— What does he do now?
MG— Factory work. Planes, I think. He switched over to it only a few years ago, and he doesn't really talk much about it.
ST— Or do you not really ask much about it?
MG— He doesn't talk about it.
ST— So your oldest sibling is eleven?
MG— Howard? Yes.
ST— How did you feel, when he was born?
MG— Are you asking if I was jealous or something?
(pause)
ST— That wouldn't be an unexpected feeling, but I wasn't asking about that specifically.
MG— He was a tiny crying lump that ate, cried, and crapped. Mom watched over him, but what did I care? I was busy making pillow fortresses in the backyard because Mom wanted me to get some fresh air, and playing detective in my grandfather's coat, searching for the Green-Eyed People.
ST— The Green-Eyed People? Who were they?
MG— I don't remember. Maybe they weren't anything special at all. I had forgotten about the whole thing for the longest time.
ST— You've always been a loner, haven't you?
MG— No, not at all. I admit, I didn't really have much of a social life in Newport, but when we moved here, I had friends. Lots of them.
ST— "Had," Marie?
MG— Had, have, whatever. I'm fine. It was a small town. (MG sighs) Look, Doctor Thurgood. I have friends. I talk to people. I'm not some sort of freak who holes up in her room all day and night and doesn't talk to anybody at all. Newport was full of old people and annoying people, and I was too young to think old people were people, and too young to have enough patience to deal with the annoying people. So I played by myself. Nothing wrong or odd with that. Look it up in whatever textbook you learned your psychology nonsense in.
ST— No. Nothing wrong or odd. You're entirely correct. I was just remarking on the tense you used. What sort of music do you like, Marie?
MG— Anything you can waltz to. And you can waltz to a lot of things, if you've got a good enough imagination. John was so-so, but I had enough imagination for the both of us, when it came to it. (pause) I suppose your papers—
ST— No, but I still know. John Fallman. Your boyfr—
MG— So. Questions, right? That's what we're here for? You ask, I tell. Not the other way around, right. Questions. Now.
(pause)
ST— Why don't we go back to Newport for a little while? You seem to have fond memories of it. I think that might be better for both of us.
MG— Sure.
ST— You were talking about the games you'd play. Did you just wander around your house as you searched for the Green-Eyed People?
MG— And the Greeks. Don't forget the Greeks. I looked for them, too.
ST— But the only Greeks were your neighbors.
MG— Yes. (MG chuckles) The Pavlous. I eventually asked them about their great-great-great-great-great-grandfather's experiment with dogs, and asked if he'd done anything with Schrödinger's cat.
ST— Excuse me?
MG— Pavlou, Pavlov. I was young. I got things mixed up, and Pavlov was a thousand years ago to me. Like with Rhode Island and Rhodes. I spent a full minute just saying "great" over and over and over again until I finally said "grandfather." They were most horribly amused. My father was very interested with Schrödinger's cat idea. I just thought that it was a horrible thing to do to a cat. Did you know that Pavlov died the year after Schrödinger started talking about his paradox? I know somebody who carried it out, although it was with lizards, not cats. She didn't care about lizards. When she went to the box, she saw a dead lizard. But she also saw a living lizard. And, apparently, several lizards which were dead and alive to varying degrees, or changed from dead to living and back again in a cycle lasting a few seconds. She saw all the possibilities, she told me, all at once, sometimes shifting back and forth, here and there, and sometimes she'd respond to things I was going to say but decided not to.
ST— Who was this?
MG— I don't know. We kept our masks on. We always keep our masks on. She was two years older than me. I think she's dead now. There was this creepy house, where we lived in Newport.
ST— Excuse me?
MG— You were asking about where I played my games. I'd wander through the whole town, but the creepy house, that was Detective Blue's secret base. It was old. Really old. Nobody had lived in it for, oh, must have been.... Fifty years? The thing was falling apart. We'd tell each other stories about it.
ST— Who would?
MG— The neighborhood kids. They were annoying as anything, but still, when somebody was telling one of these stories, everybody else kept their traps shut, and the kid who was talking wasn't annoying so long as he kept telling the story. We were terrified of that old place. But I still snuck in all the time. Nobody would bother me there.
ST— How much of a factor was that in your decision to go into the house?
MG— Not as big as you'd think. It was scary, whenever I'd hear the stairs creak, but it was such a good scare. I always loved it. There were all sorts of games I played there, all by myself. I could be Detective Blue and play another game at the same time, after all. I was very good at multitasking. (MG chuckles)
ST— So why did you like it so much, if it wasn't because you could be alone?
MG— It was so old. There was a history there. You could feel it. It felt like my...
(short silence)
ST— Like your grandfather?
(short silence)
ST— Where do you go now?
MG— I go to drug dens, Doctor Thurgood, and I threaten to put holes in junkies' heads if they don't tell me what I want to know. I go to seedy apartments, and I break up screwed-up events that make it look like somebody was getting the wrong idea about the proper relationship between a man and a goat. (indistinct noise, thought to be fake gagging) I stand at the top of fifty-story skyscrapers besides some sort of many-limbed, dragon-winged snake with a lobster for a head, talking to him about all sorts of crap as it and I wait to check the imports coming in from Neptune. We talk and we talk, and I realize that I'm pretty damn lucky, all things considered, because my world isn't gone, and the human race hasn't been reduced to eleven thousand refugees, all hunted by Him Who Is Not To Be Named.
(long silence)
ST— Do you feel like your life is in order?
MG— Not really, I guess. Things are really chaotic. It's all a mess. There was this one time I just found myself standing on the roof of our house. I still don't know how I got there. Maybe I was so tired that I didn't really notice what I was doing, or something. Probably. Maybe I was sleepwalking. Maybe my leviathan took over the piloting job. That possibility worries me. I'm not always all there. The only time everything snaps together is when I'm fighting.
ST— Do you want children, Marie?
MG— Of course. Well, I want children. I don't know if I should, or if I'll ever be able to.
ST— Why?
(MG snorts) Just because...  But I want children, yes.
ST— If you could keep only the things you could fit in one suitcase, what would you pack?
MG— My grandfather's leather coat, food for a week, Gordon Pym, Les Misérables, The Raven and Other Poems, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, At the Mountains of Madness... Oh! Hygienic items. I can't forget those. A few blank notebooks, too. And pens, of course. I don't think I'd be able to fit anything else in.
ST— So you like H. P. Lovecraft, then?
MG— Some of his stories. He was pretty funny, sometimes.
ST— Funny?
MG— To be honest, doctor, I've seen loads worse.
ST— Would you mind giving me a bit more detail?
MG— Yes.
ST— So who's your favorite author? Poe or Lovecraft?
MG— Only those choices?
ST— You mentioned Gordon Pym, and a collection of Poe's poems, and then two of Lovecraft's books. Unless you prefer Hugo?
MG— You're a reader?
ST— A bit. You look surprised. Although it doesn't take a reader to know who wrote Les Misérables.
MG— Well, you're actually half-worth something. And tell that to my classmates. All they did, when I asked them about it, was mispronounce it as "Less Miserables."
ST— You judge people on whether or not they read?
MG— And know literature, and so on. Yes. Partially. Why not? It's a very good system. Perhaps there are some people worth knowing who don't read, but I've never met someone not worth knowing, among the ranks of the obsessive page-turners. Even if they were jerks, they were still interesting to talk to. Lovecraft isn't really my favorite author. It's a toss-up between Edgar Poe and Samuel Clemens. I liked The Count of Monte Cristo better than anything else that those two wrote, but I didn't like anything else that Dumas wrote, so while The Count is my favorite book, Dumas certainly can't claim to be my favorite author.
ST— So do you normally dress like this?
MG— I go for things that are simple and will last, and then out of those things, I go for the cheap. Well, the boots weren't exactly cheap, but these things will probably outlast me. (pause) That'll be easier than it sounds, though.
ST— Why do you say that?
MG— I don't know how long I'm going to live. I don't exactly... (short silence) Look, are the Russians currently kicking our asses in Portugal, or are they not? Yes, Sgoldstino says it's all going to change, but really, it's not going to change for a good many years. At best, we're keeping them contained, so long as you don't give a rat about whether or not they take Portugal. Maybe in another ten years, the tide will have turned all the way, and we'll be able to start beating them back.
ST— Do you... like President Sgoldstino?
MG— Do you really have to ask that, doctor?
ST— It's a bit unclear as to whether or not you have something against him. You mentioned how he says the war is going to—
MG— Okay, okay, yeah, I see your point. Asking if I'm a schizophrenic is probably going to get you a 'no'— maybe not, though, but it depends on which personality is in control at the time— but if it doesn't get you a negatory, you know where my problems are.
ST— I'm not... (ST sighs)
MG— Yeah, I know that's not what you meant, but if I gave any other sort of answer, I'd be insane. But no way, no, no. You're not finding madness in my politics, Doctor Thurgood. Republican, all the way. Does anybody still call it anything but the Party, anyways? (pause) Void, doctor, Mr. Jefferson at school is a damn Democrat, and even he calls it the Party, and voted for Sgoldstino for the man's past three terms. So yeah, I'm a Party girl, all the way. (MG laughs) J. J. Sgoldstino for President, all the way, can't wait to vote and put my little slip of paper in there, with all the other millions and millions with his name on it. Honestly, why do we even vote for President anymore? Four terms down, last one had eighty-eight percent in his favor, and that statistic included all the people who were counted as "abstaining," since they didn't bother to vote. Probably because they knew Sgoldstino would win anyways. Let's stop wasting time and paper, and do the voting when he dies, right? Or when the Russians get their faces planted in the concrete. (short silence, MG laughs) I still can't believe it.
ST— What?
MG— This situation is ludicrously improbably. Less than fifty years after Winthrop banned the Jews from immigrating, we got a Jew for President. (MG chuckles) Sarah, from school, is still trying to come up with ways to explain how Sgoldstino isn't really a Jew. I didn't know people were still doing that, but then I hear Sarah, not two months ago. Latest one is that he was switched at birth by accident. But damn, who cares? J. J. Sgoldstino for President, and the Party for Congress, hell yes. (MG laughs)
ST— Is there anyone you don't get along with, at school, or at home, or somewhere else?
(pause)

[RobertMason]

MG— I get along well with most people. With other people, I just keep my mouth shut, most of the time, and I don't say anything, and we do very well, ignoring each other in peace. Everyone wins. But Isabelle... If there's anybody in particular that frustrates me, there are a few others, but Isabelle takes the prize.
ST— Why?
MG— It's her naiveté, you see. She reminds me of... Well... (pause) But she never grew out of the phase where she believed that "True Love" existed.
ST— You don't believe that?
MG— No. Did I love John? Yes. I would have killed for him. But I'm just as aware as the next person— okay, more aware, probably— that it's just all a bunch of hormones and firing neurons and instincts and probably some conditioning in there, too, making me connect "happiness" with "John Fallman." There's nothing special about it, there are no soul mates.
ST— That's rather... cold.
MG— Come on, doctor. Of all people, you, a therapist, should know what I'm talking about. Maybe it's cold, but it's also true. Isabelle? She's arrogant. She's none too clever. She always makes a fool of herself, and she always gets in the way. She's boy crazy. She's a suck-up. She doesn't like being told what to do. She likes Italian food, and she likes rock and roll, and those are points in her favor— even if I only like the latter because it's surprisingly nice to waltz to— but she also likes any boy who'll talk to her. (pause) But I could deal with her, if this was all she was.
ST— But?
MG— She's the damn school bicycle, doctor, and it's a wonder she hasn't gotten pregnant yet, and the most amazing thing of it, the thing that makes me want to knock her senseless and leave her to wake up in a vat full of Welcome-to-the-Real-World, is that she's not even doing this crap for the sex. She actually thinks... (MG laughs) She actually thinks that whoever she's laying with, this night, actually loves her, and that this one is The One. The only thing you need to do to get her skirt off is to talk to her a bit, pretend to care about her, and make her think that you actually give a damn about her. If I didn't like men, I could probably do it. She's going to end up with four kids, and a husband who ditched her for good after six years of ditching her for the night, for whores and booze, three times a week. That is why I can't stand her. That is why her naiveté makes me so furious at times.
ST— Would you describe yourself as being compassionate, or self-involved?
MG— I'm compassionate with my family, certainly. Especially little Zelia. But the past... Over the past few years, I've grown up. I've matured. The past few years have taught me that I can't help everybody, and they just need to solve their problems alone, sometimes. I'll help when I can, but I really don't care, when I can't help them. (pause) I used to feel a lot for people, you know, but over time... I guess I faked indifference, even to myself, so I wouldn't eat myself up inside, and it's turned into real, honest-to-God authentic indifference and lack of giving-a-care. I find it hard to care about people as more than a general concept. I do things for this city— and just the city— just as many times as— maybe more times than— I fight for the people living here, nowadays. Will I help somebody if I've got the time, and I'm not too busy doing something else? Sure. But I do it because it would...
(short silence)
ST— Marie?
MG— I do it because that's the human thing to do, not because I actually want to do it.
ST— Are you afraid of losing your humanity, Marie?
(long silence)
MG— Yes.
ST— Why?
(long silence)
ST— Alright, then. You don't have to answer. But fear is a human thing, too. You're still human, Marie.
MG— Fear is a lukkoth thing, too.
ST— Excuse me?
MG— (MG sighs) Never mind. Let's move on. Don't you have something else for me? Or have we wrapped up all thirty-and-such sessions already?
ST— How do you sleep, Marie?
MG— Well, first I close my eyes, and—
ST— I trust you're not going to turn into an emotional wreck when I tell you to stop with the crap, so shut up, and stop with the crap. You know what I mean.
MG— (MG chuckles) I didn't know you had any bite to you, Doctor Thurgood. Or bark, for that matter. (pause) I don't have any trouble falling asleep. I'm tired, every night. No insomnia or anything. A few times, I've fallen asleep before my head hits the pillow. Don't you dare try to get me on some meds for narcolepsy, though. I don't have any problems there. And it's not like the drugs would work.
ST— Hm. Do you have to wake up early at all?
MG— No.
ST— No bad dreams at all?
MG— I didn't say that. I have bad dreams. (MG sighs) I was walking outside, by the street. It's dark. Just a little bit before eleven o'clock. I was hit by a car. It seems I was hit by a car. You know how you seem to know all sorts of things in dreams. I'm twelve years old, even now. I'm lying on the street, and I don't know if I have a single bone that hasn't been broken, and I'm cursing my stupidity, because what sort of idiot walks around late at night, and I'm bleeding on the ground, and...
(short silence)
ST— And?
MG— And It appears. My Prin— The Redlight. Bleeding, empty eye sockets, and ash-gray hands coming out of tattered sleeves, and a voice like glass being scratched across a blackboard, but it's like a thousand buzzing flies, in my dreams. It tells me that It needed someone to protect the city, as It sleeps. I take the deal It offers me. (pause) It rips out one of my souls and replaces it with a tiny shard of Its own self, and the leviathan in me squirms, assuming control of the parts of me that are broken, and repairing what is now its own flesh. And all that time, it whispered in my ear, in a voice that sounds like a mix of The Redlight's and my own, that it would protect me, just as I protected the city. And like the fool I was, I believe it.
ST— You... mentioned souls in the plural. Do you have multiple souls, in this dream?
MG— Everybody has multiple souls, Doctor Thurgood. Well, women do. And a few guys. It's all got to do with biology. Crazy, messed-up biology. Maybe non-Euclidean biology. (MG laughs) It has to do with the X chromosome. Or something. Women have two souls. Most of the time. You know how it is. K'k't'k sometimes have a dozen. It doesn't matter, most of the time. You die and you're dead. Souls aren't all that useful, in multiples. It really doesn't matter, except for when one gets torn out.
ST— Have you been having this dream long?
MG— Since I was twelve, or thereabouts. It's a sort of on-and-off thing. I'll have it every couple of nights for a few weeks, and then I won't have it at all for the next three or four months, unless I do something stupid. Then I'll get it again for another night or two. Like a reminder. "Don't be an idiot, girl."
ST— What sort of childhood did you have, Marie?
(MG laughs) It was nice. Really nice. I hunted for the Green-Eyed People in my grandfather's coat, and I played card games with him, and looked for Greeks whose last name wasn't Pavlou, until we moved away from Newport when I was just barely eight. In Chicago, I played solitaire, and I still built pillow fortresses outside, because Mom was still bugging me about getting some fresh air. We had a lot of pillows. A lot. You've got no idea how many we had. It was ridiculous. (MG laughs) In my fortresses, with a flashlight, I'd read. And things went south when... Well, stuff happened.
ST— What happened?
MG— Things. It's fine. I'm the portrait of being fine.
ST— What's your first memory?
MG— I was four. It was my grandmother's funeral. My father's mother. There are only glimpses of it, here and there, and nothing else in my memories for a long time. But that's the first thing I can remember. My grandmother was lying in a casket, looking so peaceful. So peaceful. She'd died of cancer.
ST— Do you know what kind it was?
MG— No. I never asked. I never saw a reason to do so. I never really knew the woman. Sure, she was my grandmother, and she probably gave me milk and cookies or something like that, whenever I came over, but I don't remember any of that. I have no emotional investment in her or anything. So what reason is there to force my parents to bring up old wounds? It'll only hurt them unnecessarily.
ST— You're still human, Marie. You care about people, see?
MG— I never said I didn't care about my family. I'd kill for them. I'd torture someone slowly for Zelia. It's other people, people like you, that I don't give a damn about unless I make an effort to do so.
ST— If you weren't human, you wouldn't care about your family. Take it one step at a time.
MG— That's how you lose it, doctor. I've seen it time and time again. Take one step away from humanity, take another, and another. Listen to your leviathan, whispering in your ear as you sleep, weaving fond fantasies in your dreams as you sleep, telling you what you want to hear, giving you approval, telling you that everything's alright, telling that it's going to be okay, it'll protect you, it cares about you, and it's lying, the bastard, but you don't care about that, because the world would be so nice if it wasn't lying, if you really could trust it, and when you do your job, Holy Spirit, it feels so good. (MG sighs) And you take little steps away, because that's what you need to do, to keep on going. Sometimes the leviathan takes you by the hand, and leads you away. Most of the time, you just stand at the top of a high building, looking down at the streets so far down below you, lights like little fireflies, and you can't help but think to yourself how pathetic they all are, going about their lives, without a single suspicion as to what the world is really like, how terrible and cruel it is, and how wondrous, yes, because it is wondrous, too.
ST— But they don't see any of that?
MG— No. You're all blind. (indistinct mumbling, see "post-session thoughts") I used to be really scared. I'm not, anymore. I've grown up. I'm not scared anymore. I'm a little worried, but that's okay. I'm okay. I'm fine. I'll be alright. And all you people, you're all so blind, and the worst part of it is that you don't have to be. You aren't blind by your nature, or because somebody ripped out your eyes.
ST— Why are we blind, then?
MG— You're blind because you choose to be. You're blind because you think— and rightly, I have no choice but to admit— that you'd be a lot happier if you didn't see all these extra things. So you don't see them. My grandmother's funeral isn't really clear, though. Just snatches, here and there. My first real memory, the first one that's clear as day, is from when I was six. It was a rally.
ST— Sgoldstino.
MG— Of course. We were losing France, and we all knew that Portugal was going to be next, and that would be it. The Bolsheviks would have Europe, except for that dinky little glorified airstrip of a country. And if France fell, all they'd have to do is cross the channel, and even that would be gone. (pause) I was six. I didn't know about half of what was going on. I knew that Russians were bad, and we'd been fighting them since the Thirties, but really, I was six. I didn't understand. Except... I knew everyone was scared, and so I was, too. And then there was Sgoldstino, standing there on the platform. He looked so wise, so powerful. He was so sure of what he was doing. He knew that we would win the war, that all we had to do was pull together. Sgoldstino was scared, too, you could tell, but that just meant he was human, like the rest of us. Because the important thing wasn't about whether he was scared or not. It was about whether he was still doing anything or not.
(long silence)
ST— Marie?
MG— I'm worried, a little bit.
ST— About what?
MG— On the one hand, I know it has to be done. If we want to have any chance of beating them, we have to do it. We have to manage our resources. We have to ration. Pretty much every guy I know is in the Guard, and most of the ones who aren't in it are just too young to enlist. (MG sighs) I won't complain if we do away with money entirely, and the only way anyone gets anything is with the stamps. I won't complain if they stop making it a choice between not enlisting and being able to vote, and they just force everyone to enlist, or start up the program with the women, too. (pause) But I can't help but worry that we're going to have to be like them in order to beat them, and when we win, are we going to go back?
ST— The President says we will.
MG— I know. I know. (pause) But things can go wrong, Doctor Thurgood.
ST— Tell me about Zelia.
(short silence)
ST— Marie?
MG— She... She adores me. Idolizes me. If you gave her the right clothes, and the right haircut, she could easily pass at some sort of displaced-out-of-time five-year-old me. She's like my little identical twin, who just so happens to be more than a decade younger. She already has her hair in a crew cut, just to look like me, because Mom got tired of freaking out whenever she saw Zelia with the scissors, trying to give herself the haircut she wanted. She wears Howard's t-shirts, so that she has baggy shirts like me, and she's got a pair of boots I sto— got for her.
ST— You stole a pair of boots?
(pause)
MG— It depends on what you mean by "stole," doctor. The guy who was wearing them was dead as a doornail. She looks so adorable, trying to walk around in those big old oversized boots, determined to wear them everywhere she goes, and never, ever trip over herself. She trips anyways, of course. She's hyperactive, and don't you dare give her sugar after six o'clock, and she's independent, and she loves to run around, and climb trees. Like Mom did, back in the day, when she was young. I never saw the point in trees. Green-Eyed People and Greeks certainly weren't going to be hiding up in them, and if they were, I'd be able to see them.

EDIT Portugal and France were in the wrong positions. I moved them to their proper place.

[RobertMason]

I won't definitely be able to access the computer tomorrow, so here's an update early.



ST— What do you do, during the day? Do you have any sort of schedule that you adhere to?
MG— I wake up at the stroke of five o'clock, and I take some bread out of my stores, and supplement it with whatever else I have at hand.
ST— Your stores?
MG— I tend to... acquire things, during the course of the week. Food, little trinkets, extra ration stamps. My jobs, you know.
ST— What jobs have you done?
MG— I did some babysitting, once, back in Newport, but it wasn't, really. It was more like "let's-pretend-that-Marie's-babysitting-and-pay-her-a-few-nickels-so-she-feels-like-she-earned-them." There was somebody else in the house the whole time, and no, it wasn't some guy in a clown suit in the kid's bathroom, using the upstairs phone to freak me out. Besides that? Odd jobs. Took out trash, walked dogs, pulled bodies out of the water— hey, get that incredulous look off your face, doctor, I'm not kidding, and it pays damn well, too. I've thrown newspapers at people— sometimes really at them, when they've made me angry, or I'm just plain angry at everybody in general— and I've picked up trash in the street, and once I helped to build half a house. Odd jobs.
ST— (ST chuckles) Indeed. Although I hope you don't pull bodies out of the water anymore. That—
MG— Sounds illegal? It's not. (pause) So far as I know, anyways. The guy who was hiring, he was for the city. Sure, the way they got in that river was no doubt illegal— although I suppose that at least a few of them committed suicide— but you have to have somebody fish out the bodies. It's unsanitary, just leaving them there, and you can't exactly expect the gangs to clean up after themselves.
ST— I assume you've had similarly odd jobs besides that?
MG— Oh, yes. Perhaps I'll tell you more about them, if I get exceedingly bored. You would be surprised how much you can get paid, as a thirteen-year old girl, to stand on the corner and— damn it, doctor, not that. You could let me finish before you start getting that horrified look on your face, and I'd certainly have appreciated you not instantly assuming that I'd go and whore it out. I'd stand out on the corner and act as lookout. Lookout. Not whore. Lookout.
ST— I get your point. I just—
MG— Yes, yes, half your patients are probably whores. I get that. It'll do you some good to remember, though, that I am not like the rest of your patients. I'm entirely sane, for one thing, or at least as sane as I could ever be. I like bacon, but I don't eat much meat. I save most of it for my siblings and cousins.
ST— Back to your daily routine, then?
MG— You really need to keep up, doctor. Honestly, is it that hard to keep track of a conversation? We took a little detour, and now we're back on track. You're welcome.
ST— I'm only going to take so much lip from you, Marie. You're not going to snap and turn into an emotional wreck at the slightest sign of irritation on my face, so don't think I'm going to simply let you talk like this forever.
MG— Why do you do it now?
ST— Because you're venting. You're talking more, did you notice that? I could barely get any expression out of you at the beginning, and right now, talking like you are, you're letting me get another look into your head.
MG— Right-o. Sure. I usually try to get in at least a chapter of whatever book I'm reading at the moment— Tom Sawyer right now, for the seventy-fourth time— and then it's time to finish up any homework I have for school. Or start my homework, rather, which is how it is, most of the time. I do my chores in the victory garden we've got going. The garden's my responsibility. It doesn't take as long as they think it does, though. I've got a routine. Then I study, and then I'm out the door for school, or a walk around the neighborhood, if school is out. If I took a walk, and it's a weekend during the school year, I take a nap, to take the edge off of my exhaustion.
ST— Exhaustion? Why are you exhausted?
MG— I don't get much sleep. When I get sleep, I sleep fine. It's just getting that sleep which presents the problem. I do some reading, after my naps. I used... I see friends, on these days, too. In the afternoon, whether it's a school day or it's the middle of break, I go on Patrol.
ST— Patrol?
(pause)
MG— (MG chuckles) I guess I'm still playing Detective Blue, even at seventeen. I spend three hours making my way through this city, checking the places that usually turn up... interesting things, and any other places which have been interesting, lately. I keep an eye out for anything odd— including jobs— and then, if I haven't run into anything, I head home. Most of the time. Half of the time. It's dull. I usually take fifteen minutes to read, three or four times during Patrol.
ST— If it's dull, why do you do it?
MG— It satisfies a need.
ST— What do you mean?
MG— I just need to do it. I feel good, after it. And I... I do jobs, then. Any odd jobs I've come across. (pause) Most... (pause) Half of the time, I'm home, and so I eat at home. I like talking to my family. Sometimes I help Mom and Aunt Mandy make dinner. Or I just make it myself. The other half of the time, I've brought some bread along— I put it in this pocket— and perhaps some other things, and I supplement it with a little bit of whatever I've collected so far that day. I read, then. At those times, when I'm eating at home, I'm usually on a roof somewhere. I like to look at the city from above. (pause) Maybe I haven't really missed that trait of my mother's. I just don't climb trees, in order to get above the ground.
ST— What do you do after dinner?
MG— I follow up on anything I think it important. If it's really important— a good job, or something— I ditch Patrol altogether, but in most cases, I'm of the opinion that I need to make sure nothing else crops up in the meantime, you know? I'd hate to lose a job just because I'm focusing too much on another. My day is pretty much over by half past nine o'clock, and I head home. I usually get back just a little before ten, and then I do schoolwork, and turn in at the stroke of midnight. I don't even bother to get undressed. (pause) Before you get around to that question, if I could wish for anything, I'd wish for three extra hours in the day. (MG chuckles)
ST— What's your favorite game?
MG— Tic-tac-toe.
ST— I certainly didn't expect that answer.
MG— Nobody does. Nobody does. I love how it's nearly impossible to win. Pretty much the best you can hope for is to force a draw. But every so often, when your opponent overlooks something... That's really nice. I win far more games than I've ever lost.
ST— What about your least favorite?
MG— Checkers. It's the most pointless game ever devised.
ST— Some might say that about tic-tac-toe.
MG— Tic-tac-toe keeps you paying attention. You slip up once, in a hundred-round game, and you'll have lost the whole series, because nearly every game is a draw. You can't miss anything, not even once. But checkers? It's the most pointless game ever devised. You move a bunch of little chips and jump them over each other, and, and... It's like chess, for people too stupid to remember how to use more than one kind of piece. I can't help but think that it was invented by some poor fool who was trying to teach his four-year old how to play chess. The kid can't remember all the pieces, and he keeps on stacking pieces on top of each other, and finally his father just goes "Screw this. I've got a—"
(pause)
ST— Marie?
MG— What time is it?
ST— (ST sighs) You can go now, Marie.
MG— Thank you. (pause) Oh, right. "I've got a new game. It's called checkers." Goodbye. I suppose I'll see you next week, if I haven't been killed by then.

End of Transcript One

[Sibling DavidH]

This is very good writing, and interesting, too.  Some creepy stuff in there.

[Aggie]

I'm avidly reading each installment and will continue to do so...  don't take a lack of commentary from me as a lack of interest.

[RobertMason]

When you go "Is thaaaaat..."

Yes. Yes it is. It is he.

And he is just as much of a bastard as you think he is (or possibly more, if you're underestimating just how much of a bastard he is).



It was around five o'clock, on an unusually chilly Saturday, that it started.

The sound of a great many flutes preceded his arrival, as she went along the sidewalk in Downtown, still on Patrol, and a few minutes away from a reading break.

"We-e-ell," said a voice behind her, dragging the word out into three punctuated syllables. "If it isn't the Star-Eyed Girl, my fav-o-rite Cap-tain in allll Chicahhhgo," it continued, pronouncing every singly syllable as precisely as possible, and drawing out several of them, his tongue clicking audibly with nearly every word.

"Hello, Mr. Messenger." Marie sighed, and turned around to face the Black Man, a title which had caused some confusion with certain people when it had been used. While he did usually take on more African features, from his skin to his eyes to his tongue and his teeth and even his clothes he was as black as night, and it was from that (or so Marie understood; she may have been wrong) which he got the title. It was like someone had sculpted a tall, slim man out from tar. Although, his sunglasses had gold rims.

A black, ropey creature was draped over his shoulders, and wrapped around his neck, like some sort of snakelike, hissing scarf, and the creature's single umbrella-like wing dangled over his right shoulder, hanging by his back.

"Oh. Are you not haah-py to seeee me?" Messenger grinned, and sat down on a wooden bench, tapping the space beside him, in a beckoning gesture for Marie to sit beside him. She wasn't entirely sure if the bench had been there a minute ago. Things always appeared when Mr. Messenger needed them, and once they appeared, they had always been there.

She sat down. She didn't really have much of a choice.

"I've seen you eleven times in my life, and each time, you've brought bad news," she responded, trying to ignore the sound of flutes. It was Beethoven or something.

"Now, now, now... I'm huuurt. I really am. I've given you warnings, Blue Star."

"I would really appreciate it if you would stop calling me that. I haven't been Blue Star for several years now."

"You never stopped being Blue Star. You will never stop being Blue Star, deep down in that spot where you're missing one of your souls/essences/bindings." Like a leviathan was speaking, she heard multiple words and meanings all at once. "You never stopped being what you are. You simply started reacting in a hostile fashion whenever people called you by that name, but I, oh I... I'll still call you by the name, even a hundred years from now."

"God forbid that I should still be forced to see you, when I'm one-hundred-and-seventeen. If I ever live that long. Tell me why I haven't killed you?"

"Because I'll be hitting my big one billion mark, this next March," responded the Black Man, "and that means I've got faaaar more experience than you. I could kill The Redlight if I so pleased."

Marie snorted. "You're so full of crap, Messenger. You're not a day over forty million years."  Whether he could kill The Redlight was not brought up for debate. She wouldn't have been able to argue convincingly against the idea, when she herself believed that he could do it should it prove entertaining for him.

"Mebbe," responded the Messenger to Him in the Gulf. "Mebbe. It does get so hard to keep track, after the first ten million or so. You go through quite a few calendar systems by then. Mebbe I'll keep a little eye on you, make sure you last long enough to see for yourself, eh?"

He pulled out a black cigarette the inside of his pocket, and pressed it against his finger before it was stuck in his mouth.

"Why do you do that? It's not like it actually, you know..."

"Says you, Blue Star."

"I swear, you call me that one. More. Time. And I'll—"

"Ah-ah-ah," he said, waving his finger slowly. "Don't make threats you can't carry out... Blue Star."

She closed her eyes, and counted to ten. And then she kept on going, until she hit eighty-four. "How do you look the way you do? You can't possibly be human."

The flutes were playing that hound dog song by Elvis now.

"Do you want the truth, or a lie?" She stared at him. "Stupid question, I know. I'll give you the answer you need, though, whether it's a lie or not." He grinned, baring his pitch-black teeth. "I keep all my fleshy bits on the innnn-siiiide and it's my leviathan that the world sees."

"Why do you talk to me so often?"

"Cause I like you, Blue Star," he said, and she had to restrain the urge to hit him. It would only get her killed. Unless he thought it was funny. Then he would merely laugh, and that would only infuriate her more.

"Why are you talking to me now?"

"I heard about your lossss, Ma-reeee. Take my con-do-len-ces. They're false as fool's gold, and just as worthless. He did you well, and you were far more entertaining, once you met him. Cheers, my good sir!" he called, waving to a passing man. The man nodded a hello, and moved on. He did not, of course, notice anything at all odd about the Black Man. If it was possible to ignore or explain away a situation, it was done.

"That can't possibly—"

"Yer right. I also come to give you a warning."

"Of course. You never bring good news."

"Now that's not true. I brought you whiskey, last time."

"That's not news, Mr. Messenger. The deg slaver in Chicago, that was your news, and the me-deg still have it out for me, I'll let you know."

"But you saved those poor pe-o-ple, in the end."

"While you were entertained."

The Black Man smiled. "Of course! But yes, yes, I do indeeeed come as the bearer of less-than-entirely-pleasant... neeeews."

"Big surprise."

"Oh, don't be like that." Mr. Messenger stood up, and shook his head. "A king approaches this world, and His sign is yellow."

"Can you possibly be any more cryptic?"

"I can tryyyy, if you'd like, but I have a feeling that you were not se-ri-ous-ly ask-ing."

"Gee, whatever gave you that idea?"

"I do not, unfortunately, know all the facts," admitted the Messenger to Him in the Gulf. "I do, after all, regularly wander around the universe, and it's far larger than you think it is, with many layers. I don't have nearly enough time to know everything about e-ve-ry-thing. Do I know more about this king, though? Yes. Oh yes. I know very much. But it is not nearly so en-ter-tain-ing to watch you, if you know everything from the beginning." He paused. "And if you fail, this is only one world, and you were obviously unworthy of my at-ten-tion. Tax-iiii!" he called. "A century is a long time, a decade is a long time, even to many Princes. Immortality does not mean that the days pass by any quicker, only that you have more of them, and a shard is not simply the Prince it came from but in miniature," said the Black Man, before he disappeared into the vehicle which had pulled up.

Marie swung her legs back and forth idly, wondering if there were any Captains she knew how to contact, who were still alive, and sane, and not trying to kill her, and while the answer was not "no," it became such once she went on to decide if she could trust the names she came up with. Perhaps once she knew more about this "King." Probably not, though.

Eventually, she said "Thank you," and then wondered why she said it. Not because the Black Man wouldn't have been able to hear it, but because he would have known what she'd said, no doubt, even had she not wasted any breath on the words.

[RobertMason]

SHEILA THURGOOD— Well. Yesterday was... eventful, to say the least. Intriguing. That might be a better word for it. Yes. Intriguing. And very confusing. I'm certainly going to have an interesting time with Miss Grayson.

She was asking about the time quite a few times. I guess it's not all that out of the ordinary. She didn't want to be here, after all. Besides the matter of her uncle, who apparently committed physical abuse against his wife, Marie seems... not close, but not distant, either. A good enough relationship, I would think. What teenager is best friends with her parents?

She is very close to her sister, though. Her closeness in that regard more than makes up, I think, for any distance elsewhere in the family.

I did indeed check up on her uncle's records, and no, there weren't any marks on him that implied physical harm, besides the obvious ones signifying the entry and exit of a bullet. Was this an attempt to get me off-balance? I do wonder. She was provoking me a few times, poking me, so to speak. Testing the waters. I think she was trying to get a feel for me just as I tried to do the same for her. If she'd driven me off in exasperation, I don't think she would have been exactly disappointed, either.
Marie doesn't really seem all that close to people outside of her family. The girl says she has friends, bur she's slipped a few times, saying something and then quickly changing to something else. Her mixture of past and present tense at one point, when talking about her friends, intrigues me as well. I admit that I don't really believe what she says, about having friends.
There are so many things she's said which are just so confusing. Half of the things she's saying, I don't know if she really believes these things, or if she's just playing with me, trying to see how I react.

(pause)

I'm starting to think that this delusion of hers runs a lot deeper than her boyfriend's death. If I'm right, her belief that her boyfriend was possessed by some sort of monster— the Horror Artist, I believe she called it— is merely one piece of many, and fits neatly in a much larger pattern.

She doesn't really seem to be all that out-of-the-ordinary. Really, my comments about her clothes were born more out of that coat she has, and the military boots, than the rest of it, although her jeans were unusually scruffy. The skullcap is just standard fashion amongst the youth nowadays, despite how odd I think it looks. She was very neatly groomed, but that's to be expected. Her father is a militaire, a reserver, after all. I must say, that's a very nice improvement. I look back on my own generation, at that age, and I have to admit that I'm a little bit ashamed. We weren't exactly very proper-looking. Of course, whoever happens to be listening to this tape will no doubt have seen that firsthand. (ST chuckles)

Marie has a cool— almost cold— and confident demeanor. She didn't really give away much with her facial expressions. Even when she laughed, there was barely a smirk on her face. There were a few times, when she seemed stressed— perhaps distressed is a better word— and she seemed to just "freeze." She would only talk, and look out of the corners of her eyes, as if she were trying to keep a watch out for something. I don't think she's really totally conscious of it. She usually talks with her hands, like a lot of people, but her gestures are sort of cut off. They don't go as far as they do with most people. And it stops entirely, when she freezes.

Something interested I noticed, just a peculiar little thing which I found oddly amusing, was how she shakes her head. She does it with small, rapid movements, barely moving her head more than an inch. It almost looks like she's shivering. (ST chuckles)

She's cold. She doesn't appreciate naivety, and she doesn't really care for couching things in... I don't know how to put it... In fairy tale terms? She's realistic, practical, I think. A bit too much, perhaps. She's worried about her humanity, and caring about people, which is very good. I'd be worried, if I was forced to wonder if I were dealing with a sociopath, but she seems to be alright. She's just distant from people. It's a defense mechanism. I think she's lost some people, or seen too many people hurt.

The dream she mentioned, it started when she was twelve, and she's always twelve in that dream, if I was understanding her correctly. I'll double-check next week. I wonder if it has some sort of rebirth symbolism, perhaps something important happened to her when she was twelve, a sort of rite of passage for her. Or perhaps she's simply had a very odd, probably terrifying, dream off and on for the past five years, and I'm simply reading way too much into it.
She talks about souls, but she doesn't seem to believe in a life after death. I'll have to ask her what she considers the soul to be, or what she means when she talks about the soul. Perhaps she's just using it as a metaphor.

(pause)

Marie doesn't seem to be entirely concerned with matters of legality, and while it's not entirely clear as to whether or not she herself would do something illegal, I don't think she really cares if, in the course of doing something questionably legal— or even unquestionably legal— she helps someone else carry out an illegal act.
She mentioned "Captains." I wonder if she's perhaps part of some sort of organization? Perhaps she is involved with something illegal. Youth gang? Or just a gang?

(pause)

Shortly before we ended, she muttered something. I still can't make it out entirely, but I've listened to the tape a few times, and it sounds like she's saying "I've changed my eyes a dozen times in the past hour, and you haven't noticed once." I'll have to figure out what she meant by that.

Her grandfather has appeared in the conversation, dancing around the edges. She seems reluctant to talk about him, and I'd wager that the only times she mentions him, it's an unintentional slip.

I'll play along with whatever stories she comes up with. I think I'll have more success trying to position her so that she sees how they're wrong, for herself.

End of Interlude One