update from sparkleup

writing/post-self/marsh/003.html

@@ -50,9 +50,31 @@
 <p><em>&ldquo;Oh, trust me, Marsh winds up in&ndash;&ldquo;</em> The message stops abruptly, and I find myself holding my breath, checking the time several times in a row, wary of further jumps. A few seconds later, Vos continues, voice shaky. <em>&ldquo;They, uh&hellip;they</em> wound <em>up in their own feedback loops.&rdquo;</em></p>
 <p>I bury my face against the pillow, take long, slow breaths, willing myself to make as little noise as possible so as not to wake Hanne. How can I lay there, knowing as I do that Marsh was gone? How can I speak to Vos, knowing that I should be doing something, not crying in bed, accepting a fate that made no sense? Is it just some hopeless part of me that had accepted Marsh&rsquo;s absence? Oughtn&rsquo;t I be striving even now to find some way to get them back?</p>
 <p>No answers, only questions.</p>
+<p><em>I&rsquo;m really struggling,</em> I send back, realizing after that it&rsquo;s been nearly ten minutes of silence since Vos messaged last. <em>I&rsquo;m laying here in the dark like a fucking idiot instead of doing literally anything to figure this out.</em></p>
+<p>Her reply is gentle. <em>So are we, Reed. Just laying in bed, staring at nothing. I don&rsquo;t know how to make that&hellip;okay in my head, but it&rsquo;s all I&rsquo;ve got.</em></p>
+<p><em>How&rsquo;s Pierre doing, then?</em></p>
+<p><em>Not well.</em></p>
+<p><em>He seemed like it hit him really hard, yeah.</em></p>
+<p>A pause, and then she sends, quieter than before, <em>I don&rsquo;t want to say this is hitting any one of us harder than the other, but&hellip;well, we care for him. That was our dynamic, I mean. He&rsquo;s young and full of emotions, so we occasionally fall into that parent role. It hit him hard, and so he needs care, but&hellip;</em></p>
+<p><em>But it&rsquo;s also hitting you hard?</em></p>
+<p><em>Yeah.</em></p>
+<p><em>Pass on my love, will you?</em> I send. </p>
+<p>The sense of a sniffle from the other end of the message. The sense of a nod.</p>
+<p>The message stops.</p>
+<p>I lay in bed, then, thinking about Marsh. Thinking about all that I knew of what they&rsquo;d become since I was last them, however long ago that was. We&rsquo;d seen each other a handful of times at this event or that gathering, and we&rsquo;d talked a few times over messages a few more, but he was always distant, always held at arms length.</p>
+<p>It was both our arms, I know that. They kept their life separate from mine, just as I kept mine separate from theirs. It was ever our arrangement that all of their forks would live out their own individual lives, merging down as the year ticked over.</p>
+<p>They&rsquo;d laugh whenever it came up, saying, &ldquo;So I&rsquo;m greedy. Sue me.&rdquo;</p>
+<p>We&rsquo;d all laugh, too. It wasn&rsquo;t really greed, that desire for our memories in a way that we could never get in return. It was just the dynamic that we held to ever since I&rsquo;d been forked. Of course it was: I <em>was</em> them when I&rsquo;d been forked. An exact copy that only slowly diverged over the years. It had been my idea as much as theirs.</p>
+<p>Hanne rolls away from me and I take that as my chance to at least no longer be laying down. I fork a new instance standing beside the bed and then quit, just in case the motion of me getting out of bed wakes her.</p>
+<p>I need out of the house. Nowhere public &mdash; I don&rsquo;t want to see what others in the System are dealing with right now. There will be time for that later, but for now I need out and away from everyone.</p>
+<p>The sim I wind up in is simple and bucolic. There&rsquo;s a pagoda. There&rsquo;s a field, grass cut &mdash; or eaten, I suppose, given the sheep in the distance &mdash; sort, stretching from stone wall to stone wall. It&rsquo;s day &mdash; It doesn&rsquo;t even seem like the owner&rsquo;s included a day/night cycle &mdash; and foggy. Cool but not cold. Damp but not wet.</p>
+<p>There&rsquo;s a bench in the pagoda, at least, so I make my way there, trudging tiredly up the whitewashed wood of the steps to sit on the well-worn seats. Whoever made this place seemed to have put more effort into the pagoda than the field. Fog like that was usually the sign of a border of a sim of limited size, so it was clearly this single paddock, the grass and sheep and stone walls likely purchases from the exchange.</p>
+<p>It&rsquo;s a public sim, but the listing had shown zero occupants. I&rsquo;m lucky it&rsquo;s empty, I guess. </p>
+<p>A pang tugs at my chest. Empty of people because they&rsquo;re simply not here? Empty of people because everyone&rsquo;s dealing with the same problem that we are? Or empty of people because those people are gone, too?</p>
+<p>The seat of the bench has been worn smooth by who knows how many butts over the years, but I pick at the velvety wood all the same. <em>You&rsquo;re not alone, Reed,</em> I remind myself. <em>Hanne&rsquo;s at home. The rest of the clade is there. Vos and Pierre are there. Dry Grass is there.</em></p>
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-                <p>Page generated on 2023-05-30</p>
+                <p>Page generated on 2023-06-03</p>
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