video | un: Priorly (old man yells at clouds)

[priorly]

[After a cluster of days spent surfing park benches, with sleep only a brief and unwelcome interruption, Prior has finally made it to the space station. He comes onto the screen, a black shadow in a gleaming hallway: if he looks like death on a mission to avenge itself, that is the intended effect. It may be more Norma Desmond descending a staircase, but that's not far off, either. He's still clutching a cane just to hold himself upright. His voice is raspy but loud, and just a few notes higher pitched than it should be.]

Is everyone back from the dead now? Good. Wouldn't want our new arrivals seeing the aftereffects of that little mess, would we. How good that our merciful overseers can let us go through days of torture, days of agony, let our skin slough off and our eyes burn out, let us choke on gas until we suffocate from it, then kindly bring us back so we can all do it again next time someone in this sadistic little shithole gets a fresh bee in their bonnet.

You know - on earth - I always had trouble with the idea of a non-interventionist God. But non-interventionist omnipotent aliens? Well goddamn. Fuck that. Fuck them.

Oh, they can play with the native's minds so a talking racoon looks like business as usual, but they can't stop them wanting to kidnap us?

They can see everything we do and they can't tell our fucking friends where we are?

What is the point of them, then? What's the point of any of this? They haven't rescued us from any storm, they've just left us stranded on a tiny, hostile island, wondering whether our little bit of sand is going to wash away before or after the natives get around to eating us.

Well I am tired and I am sick and I am through with this bullshit. Was anyone else told they'd look after our loved ones for us? Because I have loved ones down there now, and they were not looked after well. Maybe I should let a few of the next-to-wake know exactly how reassuring all those promises look now.

I don't know what to do, but it seems to me that we're being hung out to dry down there, and someone needs to do something. So I'm going to start by finding one of these assholes and seeing what happens.

Comments

[flashystyle]

Does that mean you must risk spilling it? No. There are more orderly ways to go about this.

[priorly]

Well I've seen blood spilled already, so it's too late for that. I have new scars when I had enough already. I have been terrified for me and for - I have been terrified. During and after. Forgive me if I don't feel very orderly right now.

[flashystyle]

Do you think have more attentive nannies is going to help our case? I've been terrified for you, Prior, for everyone involved. I've spilled the blood of those fucking monsters. But having too many hands in the pot, the pot that's currently boiling, is not going to bring it to a simmer. If they think us too helpless, they might put us back on ice for an eternity.

[priorly]

All I'm asking is that they extend the same care to stopping us dying pointlessly in an airless room that they do to stopping anyone blinking over a man who looks like a goddamn tree. Does that sound like an imposition?

[flashystyle]

When it's put that way, no. But it isn't that simple.

[priorly]

Maybe it is. Maybe it's just that nobody's asked yet.

[flashystyle]

[He sighs with exasperation, but there's less resistance in his tone when he speaks up again.]

I just hope you're prepared for them to tell you no, Prior. We aren't their responsibility. We are each other's responsibility. The moment they think us useless is the moment they put us back in those fucking chambers, and I won't see you asleep again. I can't.

[priorly]

[We are each other's responsibility: and that's why Prior's here.]

Then they should help us be useful. What use can we be we broken and dead? Did you have Gods in your world, Dorian? Did you ever pray?

[flashystyle]

We had the Maker and his bride, yes. I didn't quite pray to them, though—they always saw fit to let the world be full of sickness and Blight and war every hour on the hour anyway.

[priorly]

Do you think anyone would pray anymore if they knew their prayers were listened to, and ignored? If there wasn't any hope of assistance, even when times were at their worst? If God's that much of an asshole, personally I'd rather know.

So if it's just us then... okay. Okay. But we need to know, so we can work with that.

[flashystyle]

[He's silent for a time, contemplating. He doesn't viscerally hate the notion. He doesn't think Prior is entirely wrong. But he's just so worried, and the idea of something else going wrong after all this is terrifying.]

... I'm not going to stop you, Prior. I don't agree, and I think it'll be even worse for our morale, or lack thereof. But I—I just want you to take care with how you carry yourself. I know you're angry. I know you're hurt. But don't be reckless.

[priorly]

I know it doesn't seem like it, here.

[He pushes the sunglasses he's wearing (yes, indoors, yes in space, he can hardly see anyway give him a break) up into his hair and he just looks... small. And tired.]

But I have always been a little bit reckless, when it's required. I'm not sure I can change that now. But I'm not going into this lightly. I just want to talk, that's all. I want them to say something.

[flashystyle]

Then just... talk. No shouting, no...

[He can't carry on trying to scold him, when he looks like that. Dorian frowns, looking away with a deep breath.]

Do you know my first impression of you, Prior? Have I ever told you?

[priorly]

You... thought I was a dancer. [So far as Prior remembers, anyway. A warm night, a table at some kind of cabaret bar, and flowers clinging to him like needy lovers.]

[flashystyle]

[He huffs in mild amusement at that, but shakes his head.] Yes, well, I did think that. You can't blame me for it, either, but that isn't what I'm talking about.

A little while before I met you, Byerly told me that I should make your acquaintance. He said... He said you're really quite sweet, far more than us, and that you're a good heart. That we need more people here who have good hearts. There are too few of them in this world. In all worlds.

And when I realized who you were, when we met, I thought to myself... Nothing could be truer than that. [With some reluctance, he looks back towards him.] Absolutely nothing could be more true than that. So when you speak to them, please, just... take care. Keep your head.

[priorly]

Well, that's the trouble with hearts, they're not made practical. And maybe mine's got me here, but there are only so many ways I have of doing anything, Dorian. I can't throw fire, I'm not a genius or a warrior. I'm just a sick man with someone else's prophecy trying to push me one way and someone else's war shoving the other. But I can't do nothing anymore. So. I have to try what I can.

[He laughs, despite himself, shaking his head.]

And you and Byerly are both kinder to anyone else than you ever are to yourselves. The world's not that lacking in good hearts. I know a couple.