Death is just another adventure...
Ineffable Fandom March 2008 Prompt #4: "Death is just another adventure..."
I died a year ago yesterday. I didn't realize it 'til this morning. Yesterday had been Michelle.
She's been gone for a year and that doesn't seem possible. So, that's what I thought about all day yesterday, when I tried to think of something else and when I didn't bother. Easy to see why I forgot I had died myself.
I have some relatives still in Chicago. Jack kept an eye on them when he was Frank Flynn. I like to think he did it to hang onto us. You never really start over. You can't ever just *become* another person, no matter what you change. You just keep accumulating. But yeah, those relatives in Chicago. For them, it's been a year since I died.
There was a double funeral for Michelle and me. Chloe spoke. Even though she was hiding me. That girl has more balls than I ever gave her credit for before. She's so different now, too. All confident and a bit jaded. We all are, I guess. At least jaded.
But she's not *that* different. Like I said, you can't just become someone else.
The worst thing about not really being dead is the obituary. You always read them and think "what will mine say?" Now, I know.
Naturally, mine hit the papers. I read them all and won fifty bucks off of Morris because I was right-- each and every one used "traitor" where they put what you've accomplished. Y'know, "taught Sunday School for fifty-two years", "survived the Holocaust", "founded Society for People Who Read Obituaries Habitually"... yeah, all of mine included the word "traitor".
Because you can't change. You can only accumulate shit until you're this heavy, aching mess of a person.
My favourite was "Anthony Almeida, former CTU director, convicted traitor". It pretty much summed it up and that's what an obit is supposed to do, right? And you gotta give it up for the New York Times. They called me a "pardoned traitor". Palmer-loving media is the best.
Chloe's worried about me. She got that frowning, squinty-eyed look yesterday. I think it's less about Michelle and more about what's becoming clearer. There's a good chance that I'm going to have to come back from the dead to get these people, whether or not we get Jack back from China. I think she likes me better dead than she ever did alive. If that makes any sense. I just don't think she trusts me to be unemotional anymore. I guess I shouldn't blame her-- my track record there has a pretty consistent pattern. There's nothing I can do about it, though-- I can't tell her that it won't happen again. She'd be even more worried if I told her the truth.
The truth is I can't feel anything. Even the need for revenge isn't what it was. I still want it-- and I will get it-- but I don't *feel* it. I'm not suicidal it's just that things don't feel real. It's like I really *am* dead and that this is all just happening around me like some kind of fucked-up dream. I just kind of move through the day. I have goals-- I want justice for Michelle, I want to expose these people and make them pay, I want to get Jack back from the Chinese-- but I think outside of myself. It's almost like I can watch myself think-- it's the opposite of how I've always been. I always thought Jack was the one who could do that and that it was maybe his worst trait. That it was cold. I think I understand it too much now. I feel cold. Which is why I told Chloe that I don't want Jack to know that I'm alive, if he comes back. 'Cause I died a year ago yesterday.
I died a year ago yesterday. I didn't realize it 'til this morning. Yesterday had been Michelle.
She's been gone for a year and that doesn't seem possible. So, that's what I thought about all day yesterday, when I tried to think of something else and when I didn't bother. Easy to see why I forgot I had died myself.
I have some relatives still in Chicago. Jack kept an eye on them when he was Frank Flynn. I like to think he did it to hang onto us. You never really start over. You can't ever just *become* another person, no matter what you change. You just keep accumulating. But yeah, those relatives in Chicago. For them, it's been a year since I died.
There was a double funeral for Michelle and me. Chloe spoke. Even though she was hiding me. That girl has more balls than I ever gave her credit for before. She's so different now, too. All confident and a bit jaded. We all are, I guess. At least jaded.
But she's not *that* different. Like I said, you can't just become someone else.
The worst thing about not really being dead is the obituary. You always read them and think "what will mine say?" Now, I know.
Naturally, mine hit the papers. I read them all and won fifty bucks off of Morris because I was right-- each and every one used "traitor" where they put what you've accomplished. Y'know, "taught Sunday School for fifty-two years", "survived the Holocaust", "founded Society for People Who Read Obituaries Habitually"... yeah, all of mine included the word "traitor".
Because you can't change. You can only accumulate shit until you're this heavy, aching mess of a person.
My favourite was "Anthony Almeida, former CTU director, convicted traitor". It pretty much summed it up and that's what an obit is supposed to do, right? And you gotta give it up for the New York Times. They called me a "pardoned traitor". Palmer-loving media is the best.
Chloe's worried about me. She got that frowning, squinty-eyed look yesterday. I think it's less about Michelle and more about what's becoming clearer. There's a good chance that I'm going to have to come back from the dead to get these people, whether or not we get Jack back from China. I think she likes me better dead than she ever did alive. If that makes any sense. I just don't think she trusts me to be unemotional anymore. I guess I shouldn't blame her-- my track record there has a pretty consistent pattern. There's nothing I can do about it, though-- I can't tell her that it won't happen again. She'd be even more worried if I told her the truth.
The truth is I can't feel anything. Even the need for revenge isn't what it was. I still want it-- and I will get it-- but I don't *feel* it. I'm not suicidal it's just that things don't feel real. It's like I really *am* dead and that this is all just happening around me like some kind of fucked-up dream. I just kind of move through the day. I have goals-- I want justice for Michelle, I want to expose these people and make them pay, I want to get Jack back from the Chinese-- but I think outside of myself. It's almost like I can watch myself think-- it's the opposite of how I've always been. I always thought Jack was the one who could do that and that it was maybe his worst trait. That it was cold. I think I understand it too much now. I feel cold. Which is why I told Chloe that I don't want Jack to know that I'm alive, if he comes back. 'Cause I died a year ago yesterday.