☮ 20; text/video
to do
- grocery list 4 remaining month (booze!! & ask snake about cigarrettes) check pantry
- meet with talking dog (free cake? save for kids?)
- meet with chinese chick jubilee on sunday for some hand 2 hand
- wednesday orphanage
- haze suou prob. monday/thursday 4000
- light
- escort job 15-22
- phone school about ritsukas fall tuition
- check cache
- new vehicle
- visit doctor
solid&liquid 5th nov
triela 2nd dec
ritsuka 21st dec
ask doc, shijima, light, paramedic
we look at the sky
dream of stars but dont notice
the earth we stand on
8,320
+6,400
+5,500 payment
-5000 get-out-of-prison fee
-4,400 repairs etc
-3,000 food etc
-725 pets
-2,800 utilities
-1,500 firearms
-1,000 donations
-500 dress for shijima
-----
1295
[When Jack is done typing all of that up, he places the NV aside, and careless and sleepy as he is right now (not having slept for 30+ hours will do that to you), he doesn't notice that he pushes the video button instead of the shut off button, such a shame that those two are right next to each other. Doesn't notice the little blinking light that's indicative of the NV recording, either, because he immediately buries his head in his arms once he's set the thing on the table, on its side, so everything you see you kinda see from a weird angle. A half-full bottle of beer, an ashtray, and Jack hunched over/slumped on the table - not that unusual, really, at least when he's by himself. Or thinks that he is.
Kind of pathetic, actually. Disheveled, insomnia, too much worry. And, of course, despite everything, the homesickness is a lot worse than he's let on. Well, it might not be homesickness as much as it's -- It's probably just one of those phases. Give him another day or two and he will be fine.
There's something else on the table - a square black block which turns out to be an old Sony cassette player. He takes takes it into his hand, looking at it just briefly, considers - pressing the rewind button, then turns his hand away, and presses play.
He keeps it in his hand as the following conversation plays; two male voices, one clearly belongs to Big Boss, the other though, slightly younger sounding... only people like Snake and Liquid might recognize it.]
"Life's funny sometimes, isn't it?"
"What brought that on?"
"We first met as enemies on the battlefield, and now here we are fighting side by side."
"You mean Colombia?"
"Yeah. After I quit the JSDF, I made my way there and got myself a position as a drill sergeant for a band of revolutionaries, despite the fact that I'd never seen a day of combat."
"I see you had the gift of talking business in Spanish even back then."
"C'mon, stop it, you're making me blush. Unlucky for me, though, you were in the service of the Colombian Army. I remember it like it was yesterday. It all happened in an instant. You guys ambushed us, and half my unit was taken out. My mind went totally blank. I couldn't keep it together... My whole unit was wiped out... and I was let half-dead from a bomb blast."
"Then, as I was leaving, you yelled out at me... 'I came all the way from Japan to be here. My place is on the battlefield.' Then you asked for my help, saying, 'I want to be the one to end it.' I remember being surprised that there were still samurai in Japan."
"You guys came over to me. I had a grenade hidden under me. But even then you were too fast. The second I pulled the pin, you grabbed the hand I was using to hold the grenade with both palms."
"I didn't want it to go off. I'd heard samurai were a proud bunch. I wanted to know why one of them would stoop so low as to try and take his opponent with him."
"And I said, 'I'll never lose again... We'll never lose again.'"
"Yeah. 'We'll do whatever it takes, but we'll never be beaten again.'"
"Then I passed out from the bloodloss. When I woke up, I was in your camp's infirmary, stuck full of tubes. Why'd you save me, your enemy, after I tried to kill you?"
"Because you swallowed your pride and fought with everything you had."
"I just didn't want to lose..."
"You found a way to fight back even in the face of death - even when you knew you were going to die. That's the mark of a true warrior. It's not about gain and loss, or victory and defeat. I looked at the way you lived your life and saw the path I needed to take. As a warrior."
"Wow. I never knew that. And that's why you..."
"I realized then that the battlefield doesn't only divide people into allies and enemies. Sometimes it tells you more than just who's an ally or who's an enemy. Sometimes it helps reveal your true comrades."
"Like you and me, huh?"
"That's right. And two years later, here we are..."
[...Nothing but silence after it ends, but Jack wonders why he's masochistic enough to even keep these things just for the sake of hearing a familiar voice. He's apparently one of those people that can't throw stuff away, and he sighs, tossing the dumb thing aside.]