95
I prefer sins to threats of floods of Biblical proportions. Sinning--if you believe in sin outside of the context of curses--is part of being human. Even if you don't believe in the concept of sin, we're still inescapably flawed creatures that allow our base instincts to overwhelm our social conditioning.
Assuming this string of curses isn't followed by a Biblical punishment, it's not that bad.
[Private // Hackable to the very experienced and incredibly persistent // Open to Shilo and Neil]
Watch me jinx the entire City. I still think that atheists should be exempt from strictly religious curses.
I've been thinking about religion, though. I don't believe any of it--I have yet to see convincing evidence that a divine power exists--but, at times, I wish I did. Imagine having a set code to follow. Roman Catholics have seven sins that they must avoid and seven virtues to uphold; their world, in life and in death, has order and certainty. That's why I've read so much philosophy. It must be. I've been looking for secular codes of conduct--anything to give existence clarity, meaning, and structure.
Knowing what is moral and what is amoral is difficult regardless of what rules one follows. Many philosophies and religions provide ethical decision-making tools, but who can truly stop, analyze, and determine the best route under pressure? When I was given the choice to face Myrnin or find Beckett, what should I have done?
Almost two years ago--and before that--I wouldn't have made a choice. I would have stood there weighing the pros and cons of each decision until it was too late to act on either. I wouldn't have replied to Ken's message. I wouldn't have shot Sorrow. I was so obsessed with finding a philosophy and following it that I couldn't make decisions, even when it was necessary. I never realized how rigid life was. Go to school, study, read, think. Repeat. There were no decisions to make until Richard, and even then... even then I was too inflexible. The structure changed, but I was still trapped inside of it. It was religion. We were gods and, in this framework we--I--created, we had a course to follow. We had a path to enlightenment and perfection--oneness and power.
That's what it was to me. I don't know why Richard went along with it. Was it the thrill? I don't understand minds like his.
I regret being alive. It's taken almost two years to realize that. I regret building a cage around myself and becoming trapped in my own idiocy. Life's framework left no room for emotion. Decisions had to made intellectually and gut instincts were base things to master and control. In a way, it was useful. All of the emotions I could have felt were discarded. Any pain I could have experienced was stifled with reason. The emotions were still there--looking back, I can remember them--but they didn't fit into my rational worldview.
What would have happened if I had acted on the fear that I dismissed every time Richard and I broke a small law? What if guilt had kept me from strangling that woman? What if I had stopped thinking for a moment and started acting outside of the designated lines?
Something happened near the end. When the plan crumbled and the framework collapsed, there was nothing between me and my emotions. There was no nihilistic philosophy to fall back on. There was fear, disgust, anger, loathing... a sense of self-preservation. The dam broke and all I wanted was to erase my life and write it again. Cassie must have known that I wasn't motivated by selflessness when I saved her, both from the bullet and from falling. She must have known. I was weak. I wanted to save my life, even if it wasn't worth saving.
I still don't know how I feel about Richard. In the end, I couldn't sort out the emotions--assign them to events and people. I felt betrayed when he backed out on the suicide pact, but there was more than that. The knowledge that he would have watched me blow my brains out after all we had done...
But I'm not angry. When I think of Richard now, all I feel is guilt. If he hadn't had me as a tutor for biology... if we hadn't started discussing crime... I don't know what would have happened. I would have stayed trapped by idiotic dogmas and he would have gone on to do something remarkable. Then again, if he hadn't encouraged me--if he hadn't translated my abstract ideas into actions--it wouldn't have happened. We destroyed each other. That is undeniable. Cassie might have been the one to throw him off of the balcony, but I was the one who killed him. He killed me. I think I was dead--dead in all of the important ways--before I set foot inside the state jail.
We built our own framework. I provided the blueprints, he provided the labor. I'll never know if Richard believed in becoming more than human and unity or if he was ever serious about the suicide pact. I think it was a game to him--one he could quit if it became too difficult. I don't think he had any intention of dying. Then why did he play? He said it was me, but at least half of everything that came out of Richard's mouth was a lie. I did believe him, at least to a degree. I wanted to believe that I was special and worthy of the power we were seeking, and he almost had me convinced. I regret that, too--not feeling where Richard was concerned. Maybe he was manipulating me. Maybe he meant some of what he said. If I would have let myself feel before the plan was made, we might have been friends. It seems unlikely, but if he saw anything in me...
When I saw Richard's body, it was like having every emotion I had repressed up to that point hit me simultaneously. He meant something to me. I don't know what--I never will know--but he did.
After that initial outpouring of emotion, emotions ceased entirely. I wasn't afraid of prison. I wasn't afraid of dying. I wasn't thankful to my father for flying back to California, hiring a decent lawyer, and moving my execution date forward so I wouldn't have to spend an extended amount of time surrounded by other murderers. In retrospect, prison could have been hell. A seventeen year-old on murderers' row. I was fortunate. I didn't realize it at the time because I had already decided to die. If the Haywoods' lawyer hadn't been so convincing and I had been given a light sentence, I think I would have died anyway. There was no plan and no philosophy to save me. There wasn't a point.
There weren't visitors. A few months of isolation--I think they drove me insane.
And now I can see how far I've come. When I came to the City, I was a shell. Even with Richard here, my emotions were remote and all I had was a shoddy reconstruction of my prior beliefs to guide me.
When did it change? When did apathy--an almost self-destructive apathy--turn into feeling? When did I begin to listen to emotion and reason instead of reason exclusively? What was the catalyst? Did it happen when Road showed me what kind of a monster I had been intent on becoming?
What good has it done me?
Feeling doesn't result in wise decision-making. I could have apprehended Myrnin, assuming he had been willing to surrender. That would have been logical. That would have been right, I think, according to the police code. I went after Beckett instead. I could justify the decision... had Myrnin resisted, I wouldn't have had a chance against him; my position in the department doesn't require that kind of activity; locating Beckett was as much a priority as capturing Myrnin. I followed my emotions--fear that Myrnin would kill me, concern for Beckett. It wasn't noble. A couple of years ago, I would have considered my choice a weak and cowardly one.
And the debacle with Sorrow. I didn't have to reply to Ken's message; Tuesdays are my days off. I didn't have to respond in person because I'm not trained to handle violent situations, but it seemed like the right thing to do. There was no time for analysis. There was no time to analyze the situation before I shot Sorrow. I thought he would kill Ken. Emotion prompted a hasty and regrettable action.
I had meant to kill him--Sorrow. I had aimed at his head, but my hands were shaking. There was rationale behind the decision. If he was dead, Ken would be safe and Sorrow would return, presumably not as a vampire. Simple. I didn't think it through before I shot, but I can justify it.
I tried to kill someone. I've never shot anyone before. I used to practice at home, and I was good, but I didn't shoot anything living. I'm a terrible killer.
Richard ran over a cat when he was fifteen and he had his learner's permit. He drove to school even though he wasn't allowed to and, one day, he hit a cat in the parking lot. I cried about that--about a cat. I was fourteen. Three years after that, I strangled a woman. I think I cried then, too. The emotions associated with the events were, and still are, vague... detached. I had mastered the art of detachment. But something about them still hurt.
I threw up when I dumped the body. It wasn't the gore. I can tolerate blood. I don't remember throwing up, but it must have been guilt. The same thing happened with Sorrow. I can't tell the difference between guilt and nausea anymore.
It would have been kinder to kill Sorrow. I saw his post on the network tonight. If I had had better aim, I could have solved his vampire problem. I could have prevented whatever pain is involved when a jaw is reconstructed. Better yet, I could have been a more efficient leader during Beckett's absence. I could have done something to capture Myrnin and Sorrow, making the above decisions unnecessary. I could have been kinder to Shilo and Zia. They both wanted me on the ark, but reason said no. Reason told me to hold my position.
I've made more mistakes than I can count in the last few weeks. I've thought about them; when I think about them, all of the other mistakes I've made come back. I don't even know how to feel about them. Part of me is still controlled by reason and part of me feels things with an urgency that I can't fully deny. This must be normal--how normal people are. Part reason, part emotion. I'm not used to it. I'm too weak to listen to both parts.
Road has known that since we met. I've fought her about it, insisting that emotion strengthens rather than weakens. Maybe it does in most people, but it's a lie when I say it about myself.
I'm weak. No matter how I try to refute it, it holds true. The worst things that Richard said about me might not have been true then, but they are now. I thought I was becoming stronger, but these last few weeks--I've done nothing but make mistakes. I've hurt people. I joined the police, in part, to repent--to make up for what I had done. Now I've undone any progress I might have made while I was here. I don't even know if that apparent progress was authentic or if I had simply convinced myself that redemption was possible. Not religious redemption, but a way of making up for my past mistakes. Of erasing them.
Cassie told me that it isn't possible to escape past mistakes. We all have one life to live, even if a dimensional crossover intervenes and gives us the illusion of a second chance.
Even without the rules and philosophies that I depended on--even without the repression of emotion that was more an instinct than a conscious decision--I'm a destructive force. Some defect in me--in my mind, maybe--will keep me doing more harm than good. I'm wrong. Fundamentally, genetically, however. The world would have been better if I hadn't been in it. Richard would have graduated by now... he would have done something with his life. He could be cruel, but he could also be sincere and kind, albeit in a warped way. The woman--Olivia Lake--would still be alive. She would still be able to shop for groceries and do whatever else she did. Lisa and my parents might have been better off. There's no way to know.
After I shot Sorrow, something strange happened. I don't know if it was a kind of magic--I have to accept that such things exist here--or a trick of my own mind, but it was terrifying. There was fear, pain, loneliness... guilt. A worried face. I think the thoughts were from Sorrow, but I can't be sure. Other than the faces, the feelings could have been mine. It must have been him.
It could have been me.
I couldn't avoid his entry on the network, and I was compelled to read Beckett's reply to him. "I'm not really interested in what a murderer's idea of just and unjust might be." That's what she said. She said it to someone who could have been me, and she said it with such disgust. Do I need to remind her? Does she know that I'm the one who mutilated him?
Sometimes--usually when I've been around Shilo, Neil, and Todd fairly frequently--I believe I've changed. I believe I'm a good person. When Beckett trusts me to handle paperwork, I feel like I've accomplished something. To have someone like her trust me--surely that means something. When the other officers treat me like a peer and not a socially awkward killer... I lie to myself. I lie convincingly. I've been building a new framework in the City, and something tore it down.
I want to run. I've made too many mistakes. Thinking that I could redeem myself somehow by trying to enforce the City's nonexistent laws was idiotic. There aren't second chances, and Beckett could say that to me as easily as she said it to him. She would be justified in doing so. Shilo--I don't understand why she doesn't have someone better. I've hurt her before; it's only a matter of time before I make another mistake. I barely know Zia and I can't fathom why she seems to care. Is it because I bought candy for her?
The only company I deserve is Road's.
If I was convinced that death--the true death that comes after the City--was annihilation and not another chance to ruin more lives... if I thought that death was enough to escape...
Would I do it, or am I too weak?
[/end filter]
[ooc: WARNING - Disjointed angst below cut. Long, disjointed angst the likes of which even Justin has hitherto been incapable of putting down in type. It's mostly there so I (and anyone who, for some reason fancies doing so) can track what's going on in his head. I'm sorry.]
Assuming this string of curses isn't followed by a Biblical punishment, it's not that bad.
[Private // Hackable to the very experienced and incredibly persistent // Open to Shilo and Neil]
Watch me jinx the entire City. I still think that atheists should be exempt from strictly religious curses.
I've been thinking about religion, though. I don't believe any of it--I have yet to see convincing evidence that a divine power exists--but, at times, I wish I did. Imagine having a set code to follow. Roman Catholics have seven sins that they must avoid and seven virtues to uphold; their world, in life and in death, has order and certainty. That's why I've read so much philosophy. It must be. I've been looking for secular codes of conduct--anything to give existence clarity, meaning, and structure.
Knowing what is moral and what is amoral is difficult regardless of what rules one follows. Many philosophies and religions provide ethical decision-making tools, but who can truly stop, analyze, and determine the best route under pressure? When I was given the choice to face Myrnin or find Beckett, what should I have done?
Almost two years ago--and before that--I wouldn't have made a choice. I would have stood there weighing the pros and cons of each decision until it was too late to act on either. I wouldn't have replied to Ken's message. I wouldn't have shot Sorrow. I was so obsessed with finding a philosophy and following it that I couldn't make decisions, even when it was necessary. I never realized how rigid life was. Go to school, study, read, think. Repeat. There were no decisions to make until Richard, and even then... even then I was too inflexible. The structure changed, but I was still trapped inside of it. It was religion. We were gods and, in this framework we--I--created, we had a course to follow. We had a path to enlightenment and perfection--oneness and power.
That's what it was to me. I don't know why Richard went along with it. Was it the thrill? I don't understand minds like his.
I regret being alive. It's taken almost two years to realize that. I regret building a cage around myself and becoming trapped in my own idiocy. Life's framework left no room for emotion. Decisions had to made intellectually and gut instincts were base things to master and control. In a way, it was useful. All of the emotions I could have felt were discarded. Any pain I could have experienced was stifled with reason. The emotions were still there--looking back, I can remember them--but they didn't fit into my rational worldview.
What would have happened if I had acted on the fear that I dismissed every time Richard and I broke a small law? What if guilt had kept me from strangling that woman? What if I had stopped thinking for a moment and started acting outside of the designated lines?
Something happened near the end. When the plan crumbled and the framework collapsed, there was nothing between me and my emotions. There was no nihilistic philosophy to fall back on. There was fear, disgust, anger, loathing... a sense of self-preservation. The dam broke and all I wanted was to erase my life and write it again. Cassie must have known that I wasn't motivated by selflessness when I saved her, both from the bullet and from falling. She must have known. I was weak. I wanted to save my life, even if it wasn't worth saving.
I still don't know how I feel about Richard. In the end, I couldn't sort out the emotions--assign them to events and people. I felt betrayed when he backed out on the suicide pact, but there was more than that. The knowledge that he would have watched me blow my brains out after all we had done...
But I'm not angry. When I think of Richard now, all I feel is guilt. If he hadn't had me as a tutor for biology... if we hadn't started discussing crime... I don't know what would have happened. I would have stayed trapped by idiotic dogmas and he would have gone on to do something remarkable. Then again, if he hadn't encouraged me--if he hadn't translated my abstract ideas into actions--it wouldn't have happened. We destroyed each other. That is undeniable. Cassie might have been the one to throw him off of the balcony, but I was the one who killed him. He killed me. I think I was dead--dead in all of the important ways--before I set foot inside the state jail.
We built our own framework. I provided the blueprints, he provided the labor. I'll never know if Richard believed in becoming more than human and unity or if he was ever serious about the suicide pact. I think it was a game to him--one he could quit if it became too difficult. I don't think he had any intention of dying. Then why did he play? He said it was me, but at least half of everything that came out of Richard's mouth was a lie. I did believe him, at least to a degree. I wanted to believe that I was special and worthy of the power we were seeking, and he almost had me convinced. I regret that, too--not feeling where Richard was concerned. Maybe he was manipulating me. Maybe he meant some of what he said. If I would have let myself feel before the plan was made, we might have been friends. It seems unlikely, but if he saw anything in me...
When I saw Richard's body, it was like having every emotion I had repressed up to that point hit me simultaneously. He meant something to me. I don't know what--I never will know--but he did.
After that initial outpouring of emotion, emotions ceased entirely. I wasn't afraid of prison. I wasn't afraid of dying. I wasn't thankful to my father for flying back to California, hiring a decent lawyer, and moving my execution date forward so I wouldn't have to spend an extended amount of time surrounded by other murderers. In retrospect, prison could have been hell. A seventeen year-old on murderers' row. I was fortunate. I didn't realize it at the time because I had already decided to die. If the Haywoods' lawyer hadn't been so convincing and I had been given a light sentence, I think I would have died anyway. There was no plan and no philosophy to save me. There wasn't a point.
There weren't visitors. A few months of isolation--I think they drove me insane.
And now I can see how far I've come. When I came to the City, I was a shell. Even with Richard here, my emotions were remote and all I had was a shoddy reconstruction of my prior beliefs to guide me.
When did it change? When did apathy--an almost self-destructive apathy--turn into feeling? When did I begin to listen to emotion and reason instead of reason exclusively? What was the catalyst? Did it happen when Road showed me what kind of a monster I had been intent on becoming?
What good has it done me?
Feeling doesn't result in wise decision-making. I could have apprehended Myrnin, assuming he had been willing to surrender. That would have been logical. That would have been right, I think, according to the police code. I went after Beckett instead. I could justify the decision... had Myrnin resisted, I wouldn't have had a chance against him; my position in the department doesn't require that kind of activity; locating Beckett was as much a priority as capturing Myrnin. I followed my emotions--fear that Myrnin would kill me, concern for Beckett. It wasn't noble. A couple of years ago, I would have considered my choice a weak and cowardly one.
And the debacle with Sorrow. I didn't have to reply to Ken's message; Tuesdays are my days off. I didn't have to respond in person because I'm not trained to handle violent situations, but it seemed like the right thing to do. There was no time for analysis. There was no time to analyze the situation before I shot Sorrow. I thought he would kill Ken. Emotion prompted a hasty and regrettable action.
I had meant to kill him--Sorrow. I had aimed at his head, but my hands were shaking. There was rationale behind the decision. If he was dead, Ken would be safe and Sorrow would return, presumably not as a vampire. Simple. I didn't think it through before I shot, but I can justify it.
I tried to kill someone. I've never shot anyone before. I used to practice at home, and I was good, but I didn't shoot anything living. I'm a terrible killer.
Richard ran over a cat when he was fifteen and he had his learner's permit. He drove to school even though he wasn't allowed to and, one day, he hit a cat in the parking lot. I cried about that--about a cat. I was fourteen. Three years after that, I strangled a woman. I think I cried then, too. The emotions associated with the events were, and still are, vague... detached. I had mastered the art of detachment. But something about them still hurt.
I threw up when I dumped the body. It wasn't the gore. I can tolerate blood. I don't remember throwing up, but it must have been guilt. The same thing happened with Sorrow. I can't tell the difference between guilt and nausea anymore.
It would have been kinder to kill Sorrow. I saw his post on the network tonight. If I had had better aim, I could have solved his vampire problem. I could have prevented whatever pain is involved when a jaw is reconstructed. Better yet, I could have been a more efficient leader during Beckett's absence. I could have done something to capture Myrnin and Sorrow, making the above decisions unnecessary. I could have been kinder to Shilo and Zia. They both wanted me on the ark, but reason said no. Reason told me to hold my position.
I've made more mistakes than I can count in the last few weeks. I've thought about them; when I think about them, all of the other mistakes I've made come back. I don't even know how to feel about them. Part of me is still controlled by reason and part of me feels things with an urgency that I can't fully deny. This must be normal--how normal people are. Part reason, part emotion. I'm not used to it. I'm too weak to listen to both parts.
Road has known that since we met. I've fought her about it, insisting that emotion strengthens rather than weakens. Maybe it does in most people, but it's a lie when I say it about myself.
I'm weak. No matter how I try to refute it, it holds true. The worst things that Richard said about me might not have been true then, but they are now. I thought I was becoming stronger, but these last few weeks--I've done nothing but make mistakes. I've hurt people. I joined the police, in part, to repent--to make up for what I had done. Now I've undone any progress I might have made while I was here. I don't even know if that apparent progress was authentic or if I had simply convinced myself that redemption was possible. Not religious redemption, but a way of making up for my past mistakes. Of erasing them.
Cassie told me that it isn't possible to escape past mistakes. We all have one life to live, even if a dimensional crossover intervenes and gives us the illusion of a second chance.
Even without the rules and philosophies that I depended on--even without the repression of emotion that was more an instinct than a conscious decision--I'm a destructive force. Some defect in me--in my mind, maybe--will keep me doing more harm than good. I'm wrong. Fundamentally, genetically, however. The world would have been better if I hadn't been in it. Richard would have graduated by now... he would have done something with his life. He could be cruel, but he could also be sincere and kind, albeit in a warped way. The woman--Olivia Lake--would still be alive. She would still be able to shop for groceries and do whatever else she did. Lisa and my parents might have been better off. There's no way to know.
After I shot Sorrow, something strange happened. I don't know if it was a kind of magic--I have to accept that such things exist here--or a trick of my own mind, but it was terrifying. There was fear, pain, loneliness... guilt. A worried face. I think the thoughts were from Sorrow, but I can't be sure. Other than the faces, the feelings could have been mine. It must have been him.
It could have been me.
I couldn't avoid his entry on the network, and I was compelled to read Beckett's reply to him. "I'm not really interested in what a murderer's idea of just and unjust might be." That's what she said. She said it to someone who could have been me, and she said it with such disgust. Do I need to remind her? Does she know that I'm the one who mutilated him?
Sometimes--usually when I've been around Shilo, Neil, and Todd fairly frequently--I believe I've changed. I believe I'm a good person. When Beckett trusts me to handle paperwork, I feel like I've accomplished something. To have someone like her trust me--surely that means something. When the other officers treat me like a peer and not a socially awkward killer... I lie to myself. I lie convincingly. I've been building a new framework in the City, and something tore it down.
I want to run. I've made too many mistakes. Thinking that I could redeem myself somehow by trying to enforce the City's nonexistent laws was idiotic. There aren't second chances, and Beckett could say that to me as easily as she said it to him. She would be justified in doing so. Shilo--I don't understand why she doesn't have someone better. I've hurt her before; it's only a matter of time before I make another mistake. I barely know Zia and I can't fathom why she seems to care. Is it because I bought candy for her?
The only company I deserve is Road's.
If I was convinced that death--the true death that comes after the City--was annihilation and not another chance to ruin more lives... if I thought that death was enough to escape...
Would I do it, or am I too weak?
[/end filter]
[ooc: WARNING - Disjointed angst below cut. Long, disjointed angst the likes of which even Justin has hitherto been incapable of putting down in type. It's mostly there so I (and anyone who, for some reason fancies doing so) can track what's going on in his head. I'm sorry.]