A word about me, before a word about you. I form bonds quickly, bonds that I don’t often talk about. It’s been more than once that I’ve come to see someone as a very quick and fast friend, someone respected, admired, perhaps even looked up to, when the other person had no idea I felt like that. I keep secrets about how I feel almost as a reflex, while at the same time, I never lie.
I know there is free will, because I have it. But sometimes I wonder if it’s not a recessive gene. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it to you- it’s a curse to be able to see into other people, and see what they’re going to do and why. Sometimes I think people are paintings, and the world a story. Or maybe a cheap made for TV movie. You wanted to know how I knew. Part of it is surely a simple formula I’ve used for a long time- think of any situation, any body of facts about people, as though it were the Lifetime Television Feature Presentation, and try to predict what would happen next if life were a crappy movie. You’d be surprised how often it works. Besides, people with secrets just have a sort of…weight about them. You can even see it on the net, especially if you’re used to lugging a few around yourself. What we say, what we refuse to say…it’s all such a delicate balance…it’s hard to master, and if I’m clever, I’m not so clever that you should be thinking I’m the only one who figured you out.
How do I feel? To be blunt as ever- hurt to very nearly the point of tears, and with no good reason, I know. What was none of my business before will become none of my business again, of that much I am certain. It’s funny, though. What happened, I could almost live with. Facts is facts. History is history. What twisted the knife was this ‘Have my cake and eat it too’ approach you’re apparently going to take with the whole thing. You would tell me that the strong make the rules, though not in so many words. I’m not convinced that you’re right, but cynical enough to believe you just may get away with it.
But here is the lesson, and here is the part that makes this something the public may benefit from, and not just you. Nothing is so ugly as a crime unpunished. Some husbands of murdered wives, some jilted lovers, some soldiers and some victims of identity theft are no doubt nodding their heads in agreement as I say this. But, everybody has a little power. I can sleep easier knowing that all actions, even the actions of the powerful dominating the weak, can be punished in small ways, even if not in equitable ways. And so here’s two fangs.
You have my loyalty, you have my ear. I told you that won’t change, and so they won’t. But what you can’t have any more is my respect. I told you before that I knew my respect was a small, unimporant thing compared to what you stood to gain- and you told me it was bigger than I knew. I guess we’ll see. We are aquaintences, you and I- the deeper bond I was hiding isn’t hidden anymore, because it’s not there. I will still smile and joke.
The second fang is this- you don’t surprise me anymore. I’ve met a thousand of you, and I’ll meet a thousand more before I’m done. From what I know, there’s nothing particularly grand, or particularly terrible in anything you’ve done. Though we won’t be the greatest of friends, neither will you live on in infamy. You will be stacked as ‘another one of those people who couldn’t hack it’, and ultimately forgotten. In fact, I can honestly say that for a second there, I thought you were something special. Thusly do I condemn with faint praise.
This has nothing to do with the bulk of you, I’m curious to know if it was a good read, just the same.
). Someone comes along and he is a charmer… a snake charmer. His dance becomes hypnotic and every move he makes you follow and try to anticipate. He suddenly makes a move you are unable to mimic because of your (snake) nature and although perhaps in his mind he has only been true to his own (human) nature, you strike at him… If you have struck him and injected your poison your friend is dying as the poison courses through his veins. He is wounded and reeling in pain… What will the snake do?