Verity (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
justasaleswoman) wrote2010-07-20 04:20 pm
justasaleswoman) wrote2010-07-20 04:20 pm
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Well, this is unexpected.
Verity is reasonably certain she's dead. Really dead, dead-for-a-demon dead, not just dead-for-a-human dead, which she's been for centuries. And while she can't say she's ever given much thought to where you wound up when you were dead-for-a-demon dead, if someone had asked, she probably would have guessed, well, nowhere.
Not the bar at the end of the universe.
Then again, this may not be Milliways. It may just look like it. End of the universe, last stop on the way from somewhere to no where, final frantic blip of a dying consciousness, a place and a time that are in fact neither a place nor a time, who can say? That stuff gets determined way above her paygrade.
Well, above what was her paygrade. She does seem to have been recently terminated.
The place, whatever and however it is, is silent and deserted -- there's not so much as a waitrat to be seen. Even without looking, she knows there's no one else here. Just like she doesn't need a mirror to know that she's wearing her own face for the first time in . . . well, the years are hard to compute. Let's just leave it at ages.
On the other side of the observation window, the universe goes on ending, and with nothing else to do, Verity wanders over to watch it do so.
And then nothing changes but everything does. There's not even a whisper of sound, not so much as flicker to change the light, no telltale disturbance of the air. But she's no longer the only one here, and she knows it. Knows who she'll see if she turns around, too.
"I probably should have guessed you'd be here, darling."
Verity is reasonably certain she's dead. Really dead, dead-for-a-demon dead, not just dead-for-a-human dead, which she's been for centuries. And while she can't say she's ever given much thought to where you wound up when you were dead-for-a-demon dead, if someone had asked, she probably would have guessed, well, nowhere.
Not the bar at the end of the universe.
Then again, this may not be Milliways. It may just look like it. End of the universe, last stop on the way from somewhere to no where, final frantic blip of a dying consciousness, a place and a time that are in fact neither a place nor a time, who can say? That stuff gets determined way above her paygrade.
Well, above what was her paygrade. She does seem to have been recently terminated.
The place, whatever and however it is, is silent and deserted -- there's not so much as a waitrat to be seen. Even without looking, she knows there's no one else here. Just like she doesn't need a mirror to know that she's wearing her own face for the first time in . . . well, the years are hard to compute. Let's just leave it at ages.
On the other side of the observation window, the universe goes on ending, and with nothing else to do, Verity wanders over to watch it do so.
And then nothing changes but everything does. There's not even a whisper of sound, not so much as flicker to change the light, no telltale disturbance of the air. But she's no longer the only one here, and she knows it. Knows who she'll see if she turns around, too.
"I probably should have guessed you'd be here, darling."
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"I feel like there should be a clock ticking down in here somewhere," she says.
But then, that would require measurable time.
"How's your brother?"
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"And moving forward in his plan to convince mankind to rewrite God."
Her mouth twitches faintly.
"It keeps him busy."
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"It would.
"Taking a blue pencil to god.
"Well, it's not like they don't do it already.
"Does he have a particular revision in mind?"
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Michael's voice is very dry.
"He has plans within plans, does my brother. Much to everyone's surprise, I'm sure."
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"Will you help him, if he asks?"
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She says that with the surety of one who knows.
"Not that that matters."
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"Was that a yes or a no?"
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"What do you think?"
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"And that it's easier to know exactly what you'll do about sometime when you think it won't happen, than when you think it might."
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Michael lets the silence catch and hold for a few seconds.
And then, in the tone of one explaining something that is painfully obvious --
"He is my brother. When he's not being a prideful idiot, he hardly needs to ask."
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She didn't see that coming, either.
The things you can learn after you die . . .
"I see.
"And when he is being a prideful idiot?"
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"Then we are at odds. Such a course of events rarely ends well."
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Michael stretches out her legs.
"Humans rarely tell the same story twice."
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"I guess a little revision now and then keeps things fresh."
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"And as they made themselves."
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"Unless it was Shaw. Or Paschal. Or Voltaire. Or Rousseau . . . the attribution is all over the place on that one."
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Here she snorts.
Again.
"And those most lightly-held."
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Michael purses her lips.
"You would know better than I."
Verity, after all, was once human.
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But then, what wasn't, at this point?
"If you say so."
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That's delivered mildly, so far as these things go.
"Not here."
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Twain or Voltaire or Shaw.
Or none of the above.
Verity rests her elbow on her chin in her hand.
"So tell me, Michael, will you miss this at all?"
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Michael arches an eyebrow, looking out over the empty bar.
"Or our conversations? Or you?"
They are all three different questions.
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"Our conversations.
"I'm not quite brave enough to ask if you'll miss me."
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