maybe i'm just tired

[RobertMason]

Sorry. I've been really busy lately. New job and all that. It took me more'n a week just to get around to posting this.

Expect updates to resume by Saturday after next.

[Aggie]

 

Yay!  Thought you had ditched us for better critics.



No worries on being busy - laird knows I can sympathize.

[RobertMason]

Many, many apologies about the delays.

I'll be able to get back in a few days, but in the meantime, take this small piece.

Transcript Five

SHEILA THURGOOD: Hello, Marie. I didn't expect... That was probably silly of me.
MARIE GRAYSON: H-Hello.
(there follows two minutes, thirty-eight seconds of silence)
ST: Marie?
MG: (whispering) They... they shot him. He's... I've spent the past two days trying to snap out of this, but I can't, I can't , I can't do it, I can't stop thinking about it, and, oh God... He's...
(faint sound like crying)
ST: Shush now... It'll be, this'll work out, somehow. Be strong and carry on. That's what we're supposed to do. It'll be— shush now, Marie. Calm down. Deep breaths. Just keep leaning on me. In, out. In, out. That's it. Just breathe. It's okay. It's—
MG: It's not. It isn't, and it can't be, how can things be right?
ST: People don't live forever Marie. Everyone dies, whether that pale figure takes us in the morning or in the evening of our life.
(faint sound stops suddenly)
MG: You read Rebisceau?
ST: Of course. (pause) I thought that literature might help bring you back.
(silence)
MG: Sgoldstino is dead.
ST: I know.
MG: What are we going to do?
(pause)
ST: I don't know, Marie. I don't know. But Goldstein would want us to move on. The next few steps are going to be so much harder, they're going to hurt so much, but we're going to have to press on, and...
MG: Lose ourselves in the struggle.
ST: Exactly as he says it.
MG: Doctor Thurgood?
ST: Yes?
MG: Thank you.
ST: You're welcome, Marie.
(silence)
MG: I... haven't stepped out of my room since I heard. Not until now. My parents probably think that I'm still in there. I don't want to see my mother.
ST: Why?
MG: The war is going to get worse, and I don't think that it's going to get better. I don't want to see my mother when she realizes what I have. She's been pinning everything on this. It's okay that we're distant from each other, even though she still tries to keep me as close as she can, because once the war ends there will be more than enough time to fix the damage. The war was going to end soon. She was sure of that. The only alternative, after all, was that the war would get worse, and she wouldn't let herself imagine how that would happen. She couldn't bear to. She had to keep...
ST: Tomorrow morning isn't going to be very spectacular. We still need to march forward, though. This is a setback. We will march forward, though, and we will come out of this.
MG: Not like we were before.
ST: No.
MG: I depended on him. If Sgoldstino could hold off the Bolsheviks, then... Chicago always felt so much easier... It was still hard, but it wasn't as hard, when I remembered that some of the problems were being kept away. I counted on Sgoldstino to keep me from having to worry about anything past the city limits.
ST: He wasn't a military genius, Marie. He was just the object of our faith. Sgoldstino was the one with the words to reassure us.
MG: But he kept them in check. All the power that the government has... Zelia won't see another person like him in her life, able to be trusted with everything we gave to Sgoldstino. It won't take much to make us like the other side. The military hasn't lost any of its minds, but Congress... It barely exists. When Sgoldstino wanted something, he got it. And I-I could trust him with that sort of power. It's too much to hope that Dallings is the same.
ST: March forward, Marie. March forward. Sgoldstino wouldn't have chosen someone horrible as his successor, would he?
MG: I had faith in his integrity and his ability to keep us united, and to know enough to let the generals do their job, instead of harrying them and impeding them. (MG sighs) I never said that I had faith in his ability to see into the mind of another person and know for sure that they were totally incorruptible.
ST: Then have a little faith in the people. Right now, it doesn't matter what Dallings does. Dallings knows the military well. We shouldn't have any problems there. If we can stick together still and prove that we don't need Sgoldstino to keep marching forward, we can still win the war.
MG: Does it matter who wins, if we're Bolsheviks at the end?
ST: Let's worry about one thing at a time, Marie. Things will be hard, but we will march forward.
(forty-three minutes of silence follows, with nothing but the sound of breathing in the background)

End of Transcript Five

[Aggie]

Hurrah!