The Lunatic is In My Head | Video | Open

[ushahin]

[It's right around three in the morning, but does Ushahin care? No. The video opens up with a tapping sound that seems to happen every couple of seconds. He's tapping the phone, unable to tell if the video is playing. He's been able to figure out text and even audio, but thus far, the video function has eluded him. Give him time.

When he's satisfied that it is indeed working, it begins to focus in. The light in the room is dim, providing barely enough illumination to see by. Considering how sensitive his left eye is to light, this isn't just for a mood enhancer. He's lying in a bathtub empty of water, fully clothed, a pillow and blankets evident.]

It's quiet again. [His voice is soft and exactly the sort one would expect to hear in the middle of the night in a dimly lit room.] Back to the usual dreams. And such strange ones you all have. So many questions and all the space of the slumbering mind in which to think them.

[He pauses and his eyes drift off to the side as if his mind has gone elsewhere. Finally, he blinks and seems to come back to where he is.] It's all just a spider's web. Snap one thread and it all can disappear.

Comments

[ushahin]

'Uniquely provoking?' That's a curious turn of phrase and far kinder than most others here would put it. That includes the echo I encountered.

[He's referring, of course, to Newt.]

[verinumeri]

I admit, I can think of a few other turns of phrase.

On that note and the note of the 'echo', as you've brought him up:

[ And of course he knows to whom Mr. Dreamspinner refers. Newton told him. He'd looked. ]

I would thank you not to threaten to 'shatter my mind' or however you put it simply because my colleague hasn't a bit of etiquette.

[ushahin]

Ah, yes. That. I do admit I may have lost my temper with him. But I am not one to sit there and let someone disrespect me.

Besides, it's not as if I actually followed through with that threat now, did I?

[verinumeri]

Obviously not. That doesn't make it all right.

He should know better than to bother with you after that, but he's got a big mouth and a talent for offending.

[ With almost any other person Hermann might be sympathetic to someone losing their temper with Newton. He cannot quite manage it for the man whose response was to threaten to break him. He'd done the madness track once, thank you. Not again. ]

I request that you exercise your frustration without targeting, even theoretically, any individual. The probability does not seem low that, should you two speak even irregularly, and should he continue to aggravate you, and you threaten that to shut him up, one day you'll be angry enough to do it.

Needless to say, that would be highly inconvenient for me.

[ That last, were it said, would be desert dry. An understatement. ]

[ushahin]

Perhaps it has escaped your notice, doctor, but I am not the nicest of individuals. I do try, alas, I have a list of failings longer than I care to admit.

I've broken men before when I felt it pertinent to do so. Generally, I'll refrain from doing so unless I feel it will further my goals. A threat tends to remain just that: a warning not to push me any further. When I actually want to hurt someone, I simply do it.

What does he mean to you, this companion of yours? [A question that looks abrupt on the surface, but he's got his reasons for asking.]

[verinumeri]

That you claim to try is all that I am interested in.

When you put it like that, it is probably best that my colleague and I refrain from communicating with you all together.

[ Too bad they apparently live next to one another. ]

I'm surprised you didn't just go looking for the answer. Why?

[ushahin]

You may try, but I feel we all may be here for quite some time. Some communication is inevitable, unless you'd prefer to be eaten by the next group of monsters that approach you.

What makes you think I didn't? The contents of a mind are not labeled and neatly organized. They are made up of emotions and disjointed memories that don't always create a coherent picture. Whatever you two are to each other is like looking at a tangled ball of string. I'm not about to try and decipher it. So I will ask you once again. What does he mean to you? Friend, family, lover?

[verinumeri]

Happily, there are plenty of other people here willing and able to prevent that. I needn't rely on you.

Of course you did. That is my business and not yours. If there's something you cannot decipher by intruding into my head, then I will keep it as my own.

[ushahin]

Gods help anything that tries to eat you, doctor. I feel you'd get the better of it.

Very well, then. [Surprisingly, he's willing to let the matter go. He figures that he'll eventually figure it out one way or another.]

[verinumeri]

[ off network, Hermann snorts. ]

If only by giving it indigestion.

A shocking concession. I'll take advantage by saying goodbye and closing this.