Two Hours Later

Two Hours Later

Postby Glenn » Mon Feb 25, 2019 6:21 am

It's hardly as if this wasn't a nice enough neighborhood. That he was a bachelor (a widower?), that he did not need much space; all of this helped. Still, even in Razasan, the streets were never entirely safe. His profession, even more than his personality, opened him up for a particular brand of danger. There were so many people he could offend. Factoring in that personality, there were simply so many people he would and did offend. Therefore, his lock was very, very nice. It was elaborate, a tumbling series of clockwork and iron. Normally, it was intended to keep unwanted interlopers out.

Right now, it was locked to keep Glenn Burnie in.

He sat there at this desk, a letter before him. This was not a letter for him to write. It was not even a letter for him to read. No, this was a letter to be experienced, and even then, it wasn't the experience that mattered; it was its aftermath.

Dear Glenn,

Two words. It wasn't enough. It was just the taste of a taste. He had vowed to himself not to pursue the truth of it, not to try to tear it apart and reach it's core. He knew what that would do anyone, not necessarily him. He had not the means nor the knowledge to do that, maybe not even the senses themselves. For many others, it would take everything they had to even try to follow that feeling to its source. For Glenn, it took everything he had not to try. Still, two words were not enough. He started again.

Dear Glenn,

Why do you think I complained that you had become real to me?


There it was. He knew to expect it this time. That did not mean he could avoid it. That did not mean he could understand it. He did know to expect it, though. Not two words but fifteen. Thirteen of them had only one syllable. Two had two. Seventeen syllables. How many letters? It didn't matter. He wasn't to dissect it. He was simply to experience it, the words, the whisper, the voice, the glamourie.

It bubbled and so did he, a wellspring of energy, dynamism within him, wholly unnatural, as if all the broken pieces of Glenn Burnie were falling out all at once, like a cloud suddenly unloading its charge or an overstuffed bag bursting from the unfortunate pressure of gravity.

He gasped as he pulled away from the letter. He gasped and the laughter came, a tight, unstable rush. He steadied himself upon the desk with one hand, covering his eyes with the other, the laughter not pleased or amused, but exhilarated and exasperated. "Come on. Come on." He muttered to himself as the world spun around him and he slowly pressed his head down to the desk, shutting his eyes to try to block out torrent and brine.

Two hours later, he sat again, well recovered, himself once more. He swallowed, feeling more hesitant than expectant, and he looked down at the letter to continue.

It is a failing, and a dangerous one. You are to me much the same danger I am for Him: a thorn that catches, a root to fix one to the spot, a thing that cannot be forgotten when forgetting is paramount.

He tore himself away, but it was harder this time. Too many words. Damn his sense of order. Damn his literary politeness. A full sentence. He should have stopped at the same number of syllables, should have repeated the experiment exactly, again and again and again. It was repetition and classification. Why did she use so many damn commas? Undone by a semicolon. There was irony in that; he just couldn't place it.

Still, he had torn himself away and now he was steadying again. This time the rush was a whirlpool, not of sea or river or lake but instead of history, events he couldn't place, things she'd shown him, things he'd seen after one magical encounter or another, those lost months of Rhaena's unlife now restored to him. Both hands ended up on the table now, and it was more of a choked cry than a laugh. Then a curse, loud, too loud. Two sentences, only one abnormally long. It'd done this much. He was that broken. It wasn't all exhilaration. Here it was despair.

He was Glenn Burnie, however, and this was not the first time he had despaired in the face of a challenge. He had come to Ariane Emory bullied, battered, helpless. He had come to Jirai enraged with an impossible challenge before him. He had limped away from that shattered window beneath the ground blind and deaf. He had crawled out of Golben having lost everything. He held himself as steady as possible and stared not at the letter but at the table itself, letting it all sweep over him. He would ride out this storm again.

Two hours later, he sat again, well recovered, himself once more, if a bit frayed at the edges. He swallowed, feeling neither hesitant nor expectant, and he looked down at the letter to continue.

I must be free to move on. He must be free to move on. And you must be free as well.

And so it began anew.
Glenn
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