there's always a reason she was asking...
Um, yeah, so, well, I did write a 3000-word short story in the intervening three months, anyway...?
***
The week-end is something of a blur of averted eyes and mumbly nods over supper. (Shagging might well have been less awkward.) It's Sunday night before we're sat together in front of the telly as usual, shyness forgot in speculating why the president would want to make an unscheduled address so late in the evening. I don't think they'd tell us about an asteroid, no point panicking everybody if we can't do anything about it, Jason reasons; Aliens, maybe? And then, with a look of dawning disbelief, "Maybe we got him."
No need to specify the him. Jason was just shy of fourteen when one world came to an end, security as ephemeral a childhood memory as gaslights. But then, was I so very much older, when another man's idea of conscience cast another generation into the crucible of wire and gas and mud.
It's never news to celebrate, as such, the eye for the eye. But one can't deny a certain measure of relief at the confirmation. (Odd, that neither of us had leapt straight to the spectre of mobs with pitchforks and torches. The world's invented far better horrors than us.) It seems an acceptable compromise to sit with Jason and consider the problem of justice over a few beers, until we're just drunk enough we're arguing theology. What about, like, Nazis? Daleks?
I would want, I say before he can get onto the idea of Nazi daleks, for them to understand what they had done.
He looks incredulous. And that's all?
That's not enough?
A pause.
...Fucking hardcore, man.
Later, more soberly, the obvious thought arises. "Maybe security will ease up. You have that passport. You could go home."
Something in Jason's voice makes me look up. "Still couldn't get through a full-body scanner," I point out. He gives a tiny shrug. "But I've been thinking, got a car now, you don't see Michael's family enough. Maybe we could... take some time, drive up?"
Jason thinks about this, and then nods; "You've got enough papers to get you through at the bridge," he agrees.
I love you, too, man.
***
The week-end is something of a blur of averted eyes and mumbly nods over supper. (Shagging might well have been less awkward.) It's Sunday night before we're sat together in front of the telly as usual, shyness forgot in speculating why the president would want to make an unscheduled address so late in the evening. I don't think they'd tell us about an asteroid, no point panicking everybody if we can't do anything about it, Jason reasons; Aliens, maybe? And then, with a look of dawning disbelief, "Maybe we got him."
No need to specify the him. Jason was just shy of fourteen when one world came to an end, security as ephemeral a childhood memory as gaslights. But then, was I so very much older, when another man's idea of conscience cast another generation into the crucible of wire and gas and mud.
It's never news to celebrate, as such, the eye for the eye. But one can't deny a certain measure of relief at the confirmation. (Odd, that neither of us had leapt straight to the spectre of mobs with pitchforks and torches. The world's invented far better horrors than us.) It seems an acceptable compromise to sit with Jason and consider the problem of justice over a few beers, until we're just drunk enough we're arguing theology. What about, like, Nazis? Daleks?
I would want, I say before he can get onto the idea of Nazi daleks, for them to understand what they had done.
He looks incredulous. And that's all?
That's not enough?
A pause.
...Fucking hardcore, man.
Later, more soberly, the obvious thought arises. "Maybe security will ease up. You have that passport. You could go home."
Something in Jason's voice makes me look up. "Still couldn't get through a full-body scanner," I point out. He gives a tiny shrug. "But I've been thinking, got a car now, you don't see Michael's family enough. Maybe we could... take some time, drive up?"
Jason thinks about this, and then nods; "You've got enough papers to get you through at the bridge," he agrees.
I love you, too, man.