Wednesday, October 12th, 2:10 A.M.
It was well past midnight when I got back to the
farm. People don't tell you this, but a
field of corn looks spooky late at night.
About every ten feet or so, I would whip my head around, looking for a
verbrecher in a Spiker Sullivan shirt.
When I got to the barracks, I saw a flickering light inside the main
house. Paranoia does weird things to
you. For instance, paranoia makes you
investigate unknown flickering lights instead of going the fuck to sleep.
Following the flickering lights into the house
caused me to pick up on some sound. Two
sounds to be specific. One was the voice
of a calm, sedate, reasonable person.
The other was of a loud, drunken, way totally pissed off person. As I entered the room where the flickering
lights were coming from, I saw the reasonable one was Spiker, and the pissed
off one was Sam. Sam was watching the
1AM replay of the Spiker Sullivan Show, and, given the many bottles of Ayah
Beer on the floor, was drunk.
Spiker was delivering a long winded speech about how
he is good, the other side is bad, and you should buy his merchandise. Meanwhile, Sam was responding to Spiker by
yelling. I couldn't tell you what Sam
was saying because I could only make out his swearing. I must have made a noise, because Sam noticed
one standing in the doorway watching him.
"Hello Hato!" The way Sam said that was more boisterous and
slurred than I can convey.
"Hi."
"You just getting back from the Damnrodic
show?"
"Dramatica, and yes."
"Did you and Rinoa get all lovey dovey during
one of those pussy slow jams?" At
this point Sam was getting on my nerves.
"Actually, I forgot to ask Rinoa to the
show."
"Damn!"
This time when Sam swore he shook his beer, spilling most of what was
left in the bottle. "Shit, I just
dropped a beer."
"From the looks of things, you've dropped
several." I don't know if Sam
didn't hear me or if he blacked out, but he suddenly switched topics and began
to talk about what he was watching.
"This is a disgrace. This Spiker.
The kind of values this guy espouses.
This is the same kind of shit that brought you here to Dha Chathair,
that drove you from Moenia Prima, that drove the verbrechers of that city to
try and wipe out the opfers. It
astonishes me, because this has happened before. This exact same thing. You'd think that people would think for a
moment and realize what this guy is actually saying to his audience."
Responding to Sam with skepticism at that moment
would have been unproductive. So, I
didn't express my thoughts. "My
grandfather, even to his dying day, said that people will find their minds, and
that peace will be restored."
"I'd like to believe that. I'd also like it if the environment was right
for you to pursue a romantic life, but that may be out of the question."
With a heavy heart I nodded and said,
"Yep. I mean, I want to pursue
Rinoa, or Delany, or anyone else, but I can't.
I need to get to Amcan. I need to
get what's going on to people outside of Dolore."
"Maybe once this whole thing dies down, you and
Rinoa can start being young again."
"Maybe."
Maybe.
Hato Shurtleff
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