sirenspull | VIDEO

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This is…

[A man’s face appears, expression an odd mixture of the sardonic and amiable, with perhaps somewhere a buried uneasiness. His eyes speak of unbelief and an energy without direction.] This is the strangest book that I have ever seen. Consider my very conception of books boggled, beaten into an utter absence of understanding. I have seen a book made… What is it they call this, again? No matter, let us say ‘made monstrous,’ reshaped to suit an unearthly purpose. Am I speaking to you? I’ve no idea who you are, or whether you exist. Yet let me speak! For there is no thrill in life equal to the sound of one’s own voice.

Let it be know to all naysayers and reluctant theorists, to every doubting Thomas, that we truly do exist in the most glorious of worlds, where a man may perish one moment and roam free the next! How foolish we are to believe we might die, how foolish to fear the end when every end is a beginning! Why, just think, we may continue in this manner forever, cycling from one life into another into another, and never forgetting, and never finding darkness. The scholars of optimism would call us creatures of eternal light. Why have we wasted such years in shuddering before the great god Death, when we might in rapture have praise the god Unending?

Will it never, never end. [He blinks, appears discomforted for an instant, than shrugs.]

And here stand I, believer in nothing, adherent to no doctrine. You may count me as lost as any other man, here and elsewhere, now and forever. I am a man without port, a creature lacking in connection. I belong to this world no more than to any other… ‘This world.’ I’ve yet to know what this world is, or if it is a world; if I may be classed as alive, dead, mad. What of these titles? Call me exile, call me one of un-belonging. I will answer or ignore to my liking.

But while we’re at it, a drink? What do you say? Ah, I would give my kingdom for a bottle of wine. Of course, my kingdom amounts to a thimble—That isn’t so, I haven’t got a thimble. But I would gladly take the wine, anyway. Come, lend a hand. If you must have payment, let me serenade you with a harangue or two.

I will tell you what most surprises me: that it is not emptiness that waits beyond, but more life, or whatever we would feign call life. This, well… This puts all of my knowing to shame. [Grantaire smirks, any sign of unease covered.] But that I am accustomed to, for who can trust to knowledge? It has been a joy speaking to you; we must do this again sometime. [With that, the screen blanks, and he is gone.]

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If I can handle the Monday morning med student crowd at Skyeline Diner, I find that I can stomach most of anyone!

[Daedalus is cheerful, even- wry and amicable sorts with boundless social commentary are among some of his favorite people, and he finds himself missing the sharper, intelligent edge and cutting quick questions behind Shiroe Rei Seki's open smiles and boyish eyes.]

Indeed, there's lots to tell of Romdeau, if you have the constitution for such a thing. We might have to see us both well-watered, first.

Anyway, "skepticism is a virtue, in history as well as philosophy."

Although I would be a fool to class myself as virtuous--here adding that in customary fashion, I would be hard-pressed to define virtue--I will readily attest to the merits of skepticism. It has kept me afloat these many years (though one must confess, it gives no port for anchor).

My other sainted aid has been drink: give me wine, and I will be suited to withstand anything. [Battle included, come to that...] Wine and Romdeau, then, seems to me an agreeable combination, and I speak true in saying that I will look forward to your tale.

All in good time. And...what is it you do when you're not drinking, Monsieur Grantaire? What's your profession?

An advocate of and voice for all that has never been. I am one who would open eyes to all that is avoided, one who sheds the light of doubt upon the slapdash palaces of 'what we know.' I am one who divides his living between drink, talk, sport, and--when the fancy strikes--the pages of old tomes.

In short, Monsieur, I am or have been a student. Now... Now even more than usual, I lack definition.

I understand the feeling of purposelessness in a foreign city entirely. [He sighs, picking up a mug that's filled with tea, probably not discernible to any 18th Century Parisian, who wouldn't recognize a fluttering tag of a teabag over his knuckles.]

But that's a nice luxury, to be able to study whatever you'd like with few other societal obligations to carry out- (...well, I suppose drink and talk is social, but...contributing no more than mind?) I am wholly jealous of scholarship for scholarship's sake.

[He sorely misses the boy he'd patronized in higher education here, for that very reason. Daedalus lived vicariously through Shiroe Rei Seki and their Monday mornings in the diner, catching up on his collegiate studies, fueling his broad curiosity. Like all things Icarus-winged and idealistic and destined to torment him for daring to give an honest care, he'd flown away beyond reach too. But that was the island's fault. And it brought new interesting people all the time, but none he'd attached to so strongly in mind and selfish mentoring instincts as Shiroe.

That is why he already likes the idea of someone older, someone even more jaded and heretical and difficult to see a reflection of himself in.]

Keeping those whose raison d'etre is to be a student of the world among us might be a healthier thing for us all in the long run, to have people always at liberty to think. It staves off inertia.

In Romdeau, that was considered too dangerous, even with all our leisure time. A thinking man, with his awakened emotions, threatens every little corner of the system with his instinct to emulate the creators, to refine and reformulate and dream.

How fortunate then, that I am a doctor bound by duty to know certain truths- it's no great liberation, but certainly more than the general public was ever privy to.

The freedom to think may cause stultification just as well as shake it off, but I am inclined to agree: better to see our situation, better to explore it, better to breath the endless and unacknowledging expanse than to be caged in told truths. I would rather drown myself than be drowned by others, or at least drown with open eyes.

I must protest against any allegation that as a student I contributed my mind. Say instead that I contributed nothing at all. And it was not scholarship for scholarship's sake, but scholarship for lack of any desirable pursuit, scholarship to play at filling a gap dimly perceived. I lived as purposeless there as here.

As you say, though--as you note quite well--some use the flame of thought to grasp new absolute certainties and plans for civilization. Just before I left Paris, there was--I was not involved, but there was fighting, what was called revolution. The work of students who clamored and found answers in polished words pertaining to tomorrow and to progress, who sought solution through the reconstruction of the monsters known as government and society. Ideas become action. But what it means and what amounts to, that I cannot say.

Even so, this seems far preferable to a world without thought. What a shame the world must come to that. We are ignorant enough even when permitted freely to consider, and it is this very freedom--some might say--that opens and makes manifest our very humanity. Or what scraps we have that might be linked to such a concept.

['Drowning with open eyes' Daedalus recites silently, the phrase ghosting at his lips in contemplation as he finds no truer set of words for his condition in Romdeau, such that it gives him small chills to recognize exactly what that should mean.

Drowning with wide open eyes meant knowing the function of the Wombsys, humanity's utter dependency on domes and the Proxies, and the implications of their abandonment. It meant realizing the purpose of the Cogito infection. It meant knowing hopelessness, even at the height of all his smug, self-satisfied cleverness- and it meant knowing that a woman he'd loved and would ever love was never made to have eyes that would look back on his with the same affections and awe.

Eventually, once one saw all their was to see, looked into the Creator's eyes and saw one's own utter insignificance, and all the glaring flaws, all that could never in one lifetime by one man's striving be corrected... well, then it was better to shut one's eyes. He did not dream of glorious revolutions. If Grantaire desired those, then perhaps he'd best introduce him to that magnanimous idiot and self-proposed champion of the human race, Raul Creed.

Daedalus Yumeno had brought the curtain down. Because drowning with eyes wide open had taken too damn long for his sanity.

He pulls a cleansing breath, and shakes his head- perhaps he could use a little drink today.]

We think, and... therefore, we are... we are something more than the unthinking. That's right.

[He says simply, a little resignedly, at no match this time for the Frenchman's words.]

But it isn't so freeing, when the truth is very grim.

If you may fix yourself to any certain truth, at all.

[Grantaire has noted a shift in the man, though he cannot be certain whether to trust the mediating image before him, nor can he locate its reason. If there is a single driving force.]

Freedom in the midst of all that is empty ultimately means great loss. I think and so become aware of cloying emotions, seeing myself as a being endowed with feelings and a right to express these feelings. I feel and so seek satisfaction of desires, searching also for some rationale for my wanting. And because I think, I seek satisfaction of my ever-transfigured questions. Follow this along its invariable and unraveling path, and we find that satisfaction hangs elusive. The further we go, the more keenly we desire solution, and the less able we are to grasp any such solidity. And so we wind outward, outward into dissolution.

How happy and how miserable, the man who thinks.

But better than unthinking silence. Or do we say this to assuage ourselves? Do we say this to plat at finding satisfaction?

[Where in the name of all un-gods is he to find a drink, any drink, and why can he not have it now? Grantaire smirks, but it isn't a particularly strong effort, and there is more than a little wistfulness to it.]

You see here and now how quick our melancholy is to settle. This, the price for thinking men. No, no, amend that: a price for thinking men. For there is much else that must be paid, and we find ourselves ever in debt.

I should hope you are still this lucid on four glasses, Monsieur.

[Daedalus laughs, appreciative, and a little strained in this debt of melancholy, which is his own. Still, understanding company's a rare gem.]

Still, there are some difficult realities which cannot be pushed away by any amount of one man's thinking.

In any case- should you need any additional help finding yourself accommodated, as I've said, comes see the community center at your leisure. We have some means in place to help newcomers find their feet.

Four glasses is little enough, and when warmed by the flow of wine, my words run livelier still. Perhaps you'll discover as much when we meet without this distance.

Though we may meet sooner still. Much as it pains me to consider the possibility--I speak of pain at the need for action when inaction is preferred, at mankind's habit of clinging to survival--a visit to this center may become... [He shrugs.] If it must be, it must be, and who am I to defy man's basic instinct toward preservation of self?

I scoff and I defer, but your words have been appreciated, and to meet a man with an active mind is a fine circumstance.

Well, it is far too soon to move toward self-destruction, so...I'd prefer you lay down all desire to be contrary and take care of yourself.

So. I really hope to be seeing you soon, then.

Is it ever really too soon for self-destruction? Regardless, I believe I'll carry on long enough to see you. I'll bring the wine.

Until then, adieu, adieu, and take care in this confounding little world.

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