[narrative, dreams]
Life has been quiet. Life has been suffocating. He's been dealing as well as he can, but still, nothing feels complete anymore.
It starts with Jeff staring at Verbal's body. It's not too long after he died; probably the same day. He's exhausted, numb, stressed and in utter disbelief. And then as he's staring, it slowly dawns on him that someone has to take care of all this. Someone has to bury him, or he'll be carted off to be eaten by a grue or God knows what. And Jeff comes to the sickening realization that there's no one to do it but him.
But it's got to be done, and so he starts by moving the body off the chair where Keaton left it, maybe just on the floor so he can put a sheet over it. He's probably mentally babbling something to himself about rigor mortis or some other such nonsense, but it's mostly just Verbal sitting there and staring... And just doing that is enough to make him run off to the bathroom and throw up a couple of times.
And after that he sort of...goes numb. The whole thing becomes this step-by-step process. He goes to the Clinics, hoping that they know what to do with a body (and they do). He makes the arrangements for the body to be cremated. He deals with Soze's belongings, what little that are left, anyway. Most of the clothes he throws out. The mystical items he gives away to whatever magical version of Goodwill he could find. He can't really figure out how to have a funeral, so he just says a prayer while the cremation goes on. He frets about the urn; no, no engraving, would you put "Keyser Soze" or "Verbal Kint" or "Roger Kint" on there or what? He isn't planning on hanging on to it anyway.
Only then he can't figure out what to do with the ashes. He'll just hold on to them, then. He'll figure something out. Just until he figures something out. And so he clears off a little space on a bookshelf, which becomes a lot of space, and then a whole shelf, because using the ashes of your dead friend as a bookend really, really doesn't seem right, but it's okay, he can rearrange his books.
And then it's all done. There's no more steps, nothing left to do, nothing left to arrange.
And there's this long moment of "..." before everything he's been holding back just rushes in like high tide in a hurricane. We're not talking "single emo tear" here, we're talking "complete and utter emotional breakdown." You know, the one that starts with a couple of sniffles, then the chest starts heaving and he starts making those hitching noises that could be either crying or hysterical laugher, and then the sobbing starts, and his knees give out and he slides down the wall and just loses it. The kind of breakdown that leaves you with your face and hands all numb and a pounding headache and pure, bone-crushing exhaustion afterwards.
It's because his friend's not just dead but never existed in the first place, but he's nowhere near coherent enough to articulate it by that point.
In the morning, Soze gets up and washes his face for-- he doesn't know-- maybe an hour, just standing in front of the bathroom mirror and running the washcloth over his forehead and neck. He closes his eyes but doesn't consider going back to sleep. It's been weeks since any direct memories have crossed over.
When he snaps out of it, finally, it's past nine'o'clock, and he realizes he's going to be late for work. He calls in sick instead, voice raspy enough to fool them (but he hadn't been crying, had he?), and slips on his jacket to take a walk.
He doesn't make it to the door, though. He finds his new sofa and lets himself collapse on it, numb. It takes another twenty minutes before he gathers the energy to grab the old newspaper by his feet, which he does, propping it against his lap. From there, he reads.
So much for keeping a clear head.
It starts with Jeff staring at Verbal's body. It's not too long after he died; probably the same day. He's exhausted, numb, stressed and in utter disbelief. And then as he's staring, it slowly dawns on him that someone has to take care of all this. Someone has to bury him, or he'll be carted off to be eaten by a grue or God knows what. And Jeff comes to the sickening realization that there's no one to do it but him.
But it's got to be done, and so he starts by moving the body off the chair where Keaton left it, maybe just on the floor so he can put a sheet over it. He's probably mentally babbling something to himself about rigor mortis or some other such nonsense, but it's mostly just Verbal sitting there and staring... And just doing that is enough to make him run off to the bathroom and throw up a couple of times.
And after that he sort of...goes numb. The whole thing becomes this step-by-step process. He goes to the Clinics, hoping that they know what to do with a body (and they do). He makes the arrangements for the body to be cremated. He deals with Soze's belongings, what little that are left, anyway. Most of the clothes he throws out. The mystical items he gives away to whatever magical version of Goodwill he could find. He can't really figure out how to have a funeral, so he just says a prayer while the cremation goes on. He frets about the urn; no, no engraving, would you put "Keyser Soze" or "Verbal Kint" or "Roger Kint" on there or what? He isn't planning on hanging on to it anyway.
Only then he can't figure out what to do with the ashes. He'll just hold on to them, then. He'll figure something out. Just until he figures something out. And so he clears off a little space on a bookshelf, which becomes a lot of space, and then a whole shelf, because using the ashes of your dead friend as a bookend really, really doesn't seem right, but it's okay, he can rearrange his books.
And then it's all done. There's no more steps, nothing left to do, nothing left to arrange.
And there's this long moment of "..." before everything he's been holding back just rushes in like high tide in a hurricane. We're not talking "single emo tear" here, we're talking "complete and utter emotional breakdown." You know, the one that starts with a couple of sniffles, then the chest starts heaving and he starts making those hitching noises that could be either crying or hysterical laugher, and then the sobbing starts, and his knees give out and he slides down the wall and just loses it. The kind of breakdown that leaves you with your face and hands all numb and a pounding headache and pure, bone-crushing exhaustion afterwards.
It's because his friend's not just dead but never existed in the first place, but he's nowhere near coherent enough to articulate it by that point.
In the morning, Soze gets up and washes his face for-- he doesn't know-- maybe an hour, just standing in front of the bathroom mirror and running the washcloth over his forehead and neck. He closes his eyes but doesn't consider going back to sleep. It's been weeks since any direct memories have crossed over.
When he snaps out of it, finally, it's past nine'o'clock, and he realizes he's going to be late for work. He calls in sick instead, voice raspy enough to fool them (but he hadn't been crying, had he?), and slips on his jacket to take a walk.
He doesn't make it to the door, though. He finds his new sofa and lets himself collapse on it, numb. It takes another twenty minutes before he gathers the energy to grab the old newspaper by his feet, which he does, propping it against his lap. From there, he reads.
So much for keeping a clear head.