ArchivedLogs:Vignette - Do Not Go Gentle

Vignette - Do Not Go Gentle
Dramatis Personae Murphy, Claire	2014-01-15 Part of Infected TP.
Location Somewhere in New Mexico...
The trailer looked as if it had occupied the sun-bleached landscape for an epoch; it had become part of the very landscape -- just another weathered rock among weathered rocks. In comparison, the small blue sedan appeared almost alien; a visitor from a far-off world. The woman who emerged from it was small, narrow, and very precise; she walked with a cane, her copper-red hair framed in streaks of gray -- and largely hidden beneath the surface of her big, floppy pink hat. She approached the trailer warily. When she reached the door, an old, balding man with gray hair answered; his face was pock-marked with scars and his smile was anything but welcoming. "Claire Basil, I presume?" "Yes," the older woman replied. "Is he--" "Just woke up. Told me that if you showed, to tell you to fuck off." Claire's peacock-green eyes narrowed. "So I'm going to let you in," the gray-haired man replied, his infectious smile never wavering. "Because fuck him." He stepped aside, giving her room. The trailer was cramped; full of old, forgotten junk -- old tin soldiers, empty cans of beer that looked like they were from the fifties or sixties. A shotgun was propped up against the far wall. It looked loaded. "What do you do, Mister...?" Claire started, warily picking her way through a floor coated in several layers of trash. "Government work," he immediately replied. "Fix problems. Watch yer step. He's in the back." And then, when Claire turned, he was gone -- as if he had never been there before. Claire scowled, but continued forward. In the back of the trailer, she found who she was looking for. He had seen better days. The bed looked rancid; as if it hadn't been changed in weeks -- months. There was an IV drip beside his bed (with several empty bags scattered over the floor); across from him was an old vacuum tube television set with a VCR and several tapes. Crumpled cigarette packs were scattered over the floor. The man himself looked like a terminal cancer patient -- sunken cheeks, dark eyes, a shaved, stubble-coated head and face -- clad in a crusty medical gown. He was glaring at her when she stepped into the room. "You're alive," she said, her voice delicate and quiet. "Alive," Murphy Law croaked, "ain't what it used to be." He jerked his thumb to a small whiteboard over his head; words were scrawled over it. "Read that," he told her. "Not outloud." She did. She recognized several of the words; words that had been discovered to spread the virus. Other words, she didn't know. "What--" she started. "Don't say 'em," he replied. "Word virus gets into my head, sticks there. I don't forget. Keep getting re-infected. Had to find a nutcracker to go into my walnut, cut out memories. Cut out my ability to even perceive certain words." "So you're...?" "Immune. We think. Maybe. Lost some vocab, though. Not gonna miss it." He reached for a can of half-empty beer. "Th'fuck you doing here?" "I was worried," Claire admitted, her tone still subdued. "Thought you were..." "Dead? I wish." "Don't say that, Murphy." He laughed. The sound was long, hoarse, and dark; it soon dwindled into something choked and wheezing. "I'm tired, Claire." She found herself moving forward, instinctively -- as if to embrace him. The stare that Murphy affixed her with kept her in place. "I wish the word 'hope' was up on that board," he said, jerking his thumb again back at the whiteboard. "Hope, now there's a fucking virus. Convinces a man lost at sea to keep clingin' to a hunk of driftwood, keep breathing, because maybe, just maybe a magical mermaid will swoop down and save him. Convinces people to prolong the inevitable, to keep struggling against the dark, because they're sold on the lie that the darkness won't always fuckin' win--" "I hate it when you're like this." Murphy snorted. "You don't know a goddamn thing about hate, woman." Claire's eyes narrowed again; they became slits of gleaming jade. She stepped forward -- and without another word, swung her cane about and whacked Murphy across the back of his head. Murphy yelped, clutching at it; Claire's voice sprang back with the force of a whirlwind: "Murphy fucking Law. The world needs men who don't give up -- men who don't quit -- men who don't forget. So put on your big boy pants and fucking deal with it." Murphy blinked, staring at his lap, rubbing the back of his head. For a long while, silence stretched out between the two of them; Murphy looking like a child who had just been caught reaching into the cookie jar -- and Claire with the fierce expression of a parent ready to throw him over her lap and spank him. Finally, Murphy sighed: "M'gonna need some pants."