update from sparkleup

diary/2023-06-29.md

@@ -63,4 +63,49 @@ He cried down into his glass, salted his drink with tears, sniffled grossly, apo
 
 They talked, then, for perhaps twenty minutes. That name was spoken dozens of times, cherished for these last few decade before it falls out of our mouths forever. He said his goodnights, his I-love-yous, finished the last swallow of his drink --- now more water than alcohol --- and stood again to lay down in his own bed and die.
 
-### What would happen if the first and last exercises were read together as a diptych?
+### What would happen if the first and last exercises were read together as a diptych? Re-imagine them as such.
+
+Long days on long roads, learning to drive with my dad yelling every time the wheels of the truck touched snow --- "It'll pull the car off the road if you're not careful" --- before settling back into muttering --- "fucking dumbass".
+
+A Christmas-birthday trip to Steamboat Springs for skiing, the last before my dad and Julie divorced, him drinking tequila upon tequila upon beer upon tequila to forget about the pain in his shoulder or whatever fraught relationship had kicked up at work.
+
+A carefully uncluttered condominium.
+
+Flipping the switch to turn on the gas fireplace, a heat somehow more plastic than what we might feel from wood.
+
+Finishing "The Two Towers" on DVD alone in the hot dark while my dad and Julie argued quietly two rooms over, Emiliana Torrini crooning, "Where once was light, now darkness falls. Where once was love, love is no more."
+
+The day that Matthew died, he poured himself a glass of gin, tossed in two ice cubes, splashed in some Lillet, and sat at his desk to, for the million billion trillionth night in a row, talk with the family he had built up around himself, one more sturdy than the one he'd been assigned at birth.
+
+```
+Koray arrives from the foyer.
+Koray murmurs, "Margaras would come here, yes?"
+Kuttas says, "Possible. Who's asking?"
+Koray murmurs, "A bearer of bad news"
+Kuttas doesn't like the sound of that.
+Kuttas says, "What happened?"
+Koray murmurs, "http://www.obitmichigan.com/Obituary/13660/Ryan-Abbott"
+Koray murmurs, "Which is him, I believe"
+Kuttas says, "Fuck."
+MegaWolf blinks.
+Paladin barks, "It does look like him, without the glasses."
+Koray murmurs, "Sorry... I didn't mean to bring ya down"
+Koray murmurs, "I just thought you should all know"
+Kuttas says, "Thank you."
+Vetiver blinks.
+Vetiver quorks, "Gotta be kidding me."
+Koray nods. "Also, http://www.furaffinity.net/user/margaras/ if you wanna say anything."
+Srass says, "HOw did it happen?"
+Koray waves.
+MegaWolf -.- http://www.fox17online.com/news/fox17-ryan-abbott-soldier-from-grand-rapids-dies-in-washington-20120911,0,6686609.story
+Koray teleports away.
+Koray has left.
+```
+
+There was no gasp, no immediate stream of tears. Breathing remained carefully paced for five, ten, perhaps thirty minutes. It was not a meditation. It was not a contemplation. It was a refusal to change.
+
+He stood from his seat, picked up his glass of watered-down Beefeaters, and walked into his husband's room --- his husband, who had to leave for work at 4:45 that morning, perhaps five hours off --- and sat down on the edge of the bed, and only then did he cry.
+
+He cried down into his glass, salted his drink with tears, sniffled grossly, apologized and apologized and apologized for waking his husband up, let his husband rub his back and murmur sleepy consolations.
+
+They talked, then, for perhaps twenty minutes. That name was spoken dozens of times, cherished for these last few decade before it falls out of our mouths forever. He said his goodnights, his I-love-yous, finished the last swallow of his drink --- now more water than alcohol --- and stood again to lay down in his own bed and die.