The World Impossibly Coming Together

[life_downsized]

[The man was sitting on a bench...]The man was sitting on a bench, wrapped up in a large furry coat, kicking at the dead leaves with the pointed toe of his Chelsea boot. Every so often, he would glance up at the playground, but never for more than a second, and while the usually anxious Stoke Newington mothers gave him a wide berth people had stopped paying attention to him

Comments

[ideserveyou]

Nooooo... So Howard is dead, and all of these Howards are echoes of Howard's life-that-might-have-been, and the 'real' Howard (if he even exists any more) is stuck in some awful limbo, which he's seeing as that white corridor with all those echo-lives leading off it. And poor Vince has gone there to try to find the real Howard and bring him back to life, but he doesn't have much time... This is brilliant. But please, please let Vince succeed, because it's obvious that the continual disappointments are wearing him out and breaking his heart (and mine)!

So sweet that Howard's imaginary son is called Charlie and Howard's pet name for him is Mingle... that was a lovely touch. One among very many. I will be back to read this chapter again later. And again, and again...

[bluestocking79]

I'd had a feeling for a while now, especially since the WWII encounter, but I'd hoped for both their sakes that I was wrong about Howard having died and being trapped in limbo... still, I think the intensity of Vince's grief and determination always pointed this way, and on some level, this Howard (and probably the last one) was feeling it, picking up on that existential dread, the not-rightness of things. The way he perceives Vince, even before they speak to each other, shows that he recognizes the grief there, and the exhaustion. When he notes that Vince only has a faint residue of what was once bright and extraordinary about him, long since lost in his tired eyes... ow ow ow, my heart. That says, more powerfully than anything direct, just how much of a toll this epic errand is taking on Vince. He is Orpheus, and Howard is the Eurydice he's been frantically searching to bring back... and what hurts most of all is the lack of recognition there. Vince would even take the hurt and anger, if it meant that Howard remembered him at all.

[jolieperruche]

Oh man. I've been getting the "Life on Mars" vibe from this for a while but that just confirmed it. Also I like how Vince is a little bit like Miss Evangelista from Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead in Doctor Who.

I really don't want Howard to be dead though! I want Vince to pull him out of his being dead/in a coma/time traveled. :P

[poshlil]

I was alright until You’ve got to remember those things, right? Remember all the times I was a total ballbag, all those times I treated you like rubbish? and then I just sank deeper and deeper into a puddle of feels until the last line. I was thinking he'd been cursed or something, not DEAD. HOWARD. I believe the only creature currently screaming out in greater anguish is Vince himself. And I've now got to leave the house so it's going to be hours before I can find out if everything's put right. D:

(Oh, yeah, and if the message isn't getting through - you're incredible. THIS is incredible. Best Christmas present the collective Boosh fandom could have asked for.)