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Apr. 29th, 2004 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stakebaitWeird little speculative ficlet in the form of a diary entry of Wesley's. Spoilers through ATS 5.19, Time Bomb.
Wednesday, April 28th, 2004
I seem to have become insane in an entirely new way of late. Onset of first symptoms roughly congruent to the breaking of the memory containment – allowing, of course, for the intrinsically unreliable nature of the witness, that is, myself.
Symptoms include a pervasive illusory sense of connection, as if all the dispiriting questions were about to gel into a grand unified field theory of everything – death, magic, betrayal, disappointment, the irrational persistence of persistence.
It must be an illusion, for hours pass and nothing is unified or grand any more. Nonetheless I find the arrangement of my texts soothing. They form a sort of tarot with an infinite number of cards, if only I could read it properly. But they are always interrupting.
Perhaps I am only casting the bones. I think perhaps they are my bones, that I removed them and simply cannot remember. But no, that is wrong, I remember everything, whether it happened or not. Perhaps I am myself the theory. All that is holding everything together is my skull and these walls, and if they fall the world will fly apart.
I have made good progress with the floor, building the labyrinth. But the walls are bare, too bare, defenseless. They are waiting for equations and revelations. But I cannot tell any more what is equal. How dare I multiply, divide, add weight to those scales and presume that I can know it is the same? I can’t even tell what side we’re on. It doesn’t matter – add enough to either or both, and the balance breaks.
I am very clever. I whisper the “the Watcher’s Diary of Wesley Wyndam Pryce” into the spine and the words spill over the paper like blood over the blade of a knife, like come over fingers, without the bother of having to write them. Alas, only up to the present moment. Never a second beyond, no matter how quickly and carefully I turn the page. I have given up the experiment, as it makes Illyria angry to see how inexorably we are trapped here, pressed like roses. She likes roses. She calls them soldiers. She has changed, in this place. If she could go now, she would take me with her.
They don’t understand why I still keep this journal. Angel thinks I believe Illyria is a Slayer, a second chance, some poor, ignorant, powerful girl for me to shape and use and discard. The truth is far simpler. Some things die hard, I told him, and then I was laughing too painfully to continue. He left me there, sitting on the floor, still laughing.
Theory: That memories, once released, must go somewhere.
Corollary: That if they cannot return to their original owner, they must go someplace else.
Law of Congruity: Like goes to like.
Question: What is Illyria like?
Answer: Like nothing in this world.
Deduction: Finding the pathways of her mind turned to an alien landscape, there are pieces of her that returned to me instead – because I am intelligent, and insane, and she has lived in my mind as often as her own. It is Fred that builds defenses of symbols, Fred that speaks my thoughts before I know what they are.
Hypothesis: There is not room in a single mind for two individuals. Hence the erratic behavior of Angel under stress, as well as the common forms of demonic possession and what is referred to as disassociative identity disorder.
Conclusion: Having failed to regain her body for her own use, though succeeded in preserving it, I must provide a workable alternative for her to return and complete the project herself. In sum, I must find a way to end myself and yet leave my body sound.
I have already cut the ties that bind myself to Angel and to Gunn, and yet they persist, like twinges from a phantom limb. Illyria clings like a vine that strangles the tree it climbs, but slowly, too slowly. Some things die very hard.
I must tell Illyria, I know a funnier joke now. A man tries to fall, and the earth refuses to open.
Wednesday, April 28th, 2004
I seem to have become insane in an entirely new way of late. Onset of first symptoms roughly congruent to the breaking of the memory containment – allowing, of course, for the intrinsically unreliable nature of the witness, that is, myself.
Symptoms include a pervasive illusory sense of connection, as if all the dispiriting questions were about to gel into a grand unified field theory of everything – death, magic, betrayal, disappointment, the irrational persistence of persistence.
It must be an illusion, for hours pass and nothing is unified or grand any more. Nonetheless I find the arrangement of my texts soothing. They form a sort of tarot with an infinite number of cards, if only I could read it properly. But they are always interrupting.
Perhaps I am only casting the bones. I think perhaps they are my bones, that I removed them and simply cannot remember. But no, that is wrong, I remember everything, whether it happened or not. Perhaps I am myself the theory. All that is holding everything together is my skull and these walls, and if they fall the world will fly apart.
I have made good progress with the floor, building the labyrinth. But the walls are bare, too bare, defenseless. They are waiting for equations and revelations. But I cannot tell any more what is equal. How dare I multiply, divide, add weight to those scales and presume that I can know it is the same? I can’t even tell what side we’re on. It doesn’t matter – add enough to either or both, and the balance breaks.
I am very clever. I whisper the “the Watcher’s Diary of Wesley Wyndam Pryce” into the spine and the words spill over the paper like blood over the blade of a knife, like come over fingers, without the bother of having to write them. Alas, only up to the present moment. Never a second beyond, no matter how quickly and carefully I turn the page. I have given up the experiment, as it makes Illyria angry to see how inexorably we are trapped here, pressed like roses. She likes roses. She calls them soldiers. She has changed, in this place. If she could go now, she would take me with her.
They don’t understand why I still keep this journal. Angel thinks I believe Illyria is a Slayer, a second chance, some poor, ignorant, powerful girl for me to shape and use and discard. The truth is far simpler. Some things die hard, I told him, and then I was laughing too painfully to continue. He left me there, sitting on the floor, still laughing.
Theory: That memories, once released, must go somewhere.
Corollary: That if they cannot return to their original owner, they must go someplace else.
Law of Congruity: Like goes to like.
Question: What is Illyria like?
Answer: Like nothing in this world.
Deduction: Finding the pathways of her mind turned to an alien landscape, there are pieces of her that returned to me instead – because I am intelligent, and insane, and she has lived in my mind as often as her own. It is Fred that builds defenses of symbols, Fred that speaks my thoughts before I know what they are.
Hypothesis: There is not room in a single mind for two individuals. Hence the erratic behavior of Angel under stress, as well as the common forms of demonic possession and what is referred to as disassociative identity disorder.
Conclusion: Having failed to regain her body for her own use, though succeeded in preserving it, I must provide a workable alternative for her to return and complete the project herself. In sum, I must find a way to end myself and yet leave my body sound.
I have already cut the ties that bind myself to Angel and to Gunn, and yet they persist, like twinges from a phantom limb. Illyria clings like a vine that strangles the tree it climbs, but slowly, too slowly. Some things die very hard.
I must tell Illyria, I know a funnier joke now. A man tries to fall, and the earth refuses to open.
