Max Mayfield (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zoomingupthathill) wrote2022-10-20 02:35 am
zoomingupthathill) wrote2022-10-20 02:35 am
Entry tags:
RYSLIG; ic inbox
WELCOME TO YOUR PRIVATE CHANNEL, MADMAX. FOR SECURE COMMUNICATION, USE 005.08.019.85 *** MADMAX has joined 005.08.019.85 <MADMAX> do your thing or whatever <MADMAX> don't be dumb | ||||
Main: MADMAX
Anon: houndsof
<MADMAX>
mask off huh
ok
id agree with a lot you said here believe it or not
except when i say i was cursed i mean actually for real
and when i say miracles i mean it
or like
thats what everyone else said
i dont know i wasnt awake for it
"oh wow she didnt have a heartbeat for over a minute thats not possible" jokes on them i havent had one for over a month now
[ She blinks, after she sends that. That's...okay, weird. She doesn't want to tell anything to this guy. But for just a moment, it felt really good to vent. ]
youre right this is weird
you should just screw off
annoy the cop instead
<whichdoctor>
I've got you beat there. I haven't had a regular heartbeat for, oh, five years?
But I don't mean
It's not about whether the curse or the miracle was for real. A lot of the miracles we did at the M.A.S.H. were real miracles, by anyone's measure. Scientific, not magic, sure, but we had a 95% survival rate, and if you ask anyone in the field, that's a goddamn miracle. But then you see the kids you stitch up trying to learn how to walk with one leg and half their guts gone, or you see them pack the ambulance back to the front, and even the most bona fide miracles just don't feel that miraculous.
Does that make any sense? It's been a long day. Long few years, I guess.
What I'm trying to say, the thing with miracles, is that they don't get you very far. And they don't care what happens after the miracle, or what you did to get there. And if you do 95% of a miracle, you didn't do crap.
But the way you're talking about it, it's like you think you got cursed BECAUSE you decided it was worth being alive, and, I don't know, maybe you did. I'm not a wizard. I'm just a meatcutter. But I've seen a lot of people who got less "cursed" and more "shot in the belly and doused with napalm", and it's pretty striking how much you sound like some of the kids I did miracles on back in the day.
Christ.
I don't know. I'm not a goddamn shrink, either, even when I try to be. And I didn't mean to tell you my life story, either. I'm going to go annoy the cop and leave you alone.
[Another long pause, before the need to say something gets too much, and he grabs his computer and quickly types one more thing.]
Tea and empathy. I know chaplains can be full of crap but Mulcahy was right about that one. And I know you probably don't want to talk but if you ever do I'm pretty good at keeping schtum
[...Against all the evidence of him continuing to type.]
<MADMAX>
That it was taking too long to believe she could live again, that was the problem.
That it was a miracle, had to be a miracle, if it's what she thinks happened—of course El could make a miracle, El could—really happened.
That if he doesn't have a heartbeat, does that make him like her? Is there a way to stop feeling cold all the time? To stop feeling empty?
But she's snapped back to attention and wizened up to whatever bullshit about this laptop's goading her to open up. It's like those letters. Easier to put down your feelings when you aren't looking someone in the face. She'll have to be careful about that. ]
you kinda suck at this
you know that right?
<whichdoctor>
[Really, honestly, what else is there to say? He's painfully aware that he sucks at this. He's even more painfully aware that nobody else is going to do it.]
[Helplessness is the worst part of this place, he's decided. It's worse than Korea. At least there, he was useful. He could be a surgeon, and that could be, if not enough, at least something. Sometimes, he saved people. Sometimes, he managed a miracle, even if they all came with strings attached. Here...]
[They don't need a surgeon, in Ryslig. They need psychiatrists, and counsellors, and care workers, and teachers, and most of all, they need someone who can change... anything, for anyone, make this whole mad reality stop grinding everyone into mulch. And he can't do any of that right, let alone all of it. He's just playing pretend: pretend therapist, pretend teacher, pretend administrator, pretend boss, pretend Santa.]
[So, yeah. He knows.]
<MADMAX>
She's expecting it to. He's been talking up- no, typing up a storm, after all. So that kind of response... It's a surprise.
Is it a welcome one? She'd been the one telling him to fuck off. She knows only what he's told her, which almost seems like everything—but it's not, it's never everything. She knows his name is probably Hawkeye Pierce, which is a cooler name than she'd like to consider, and she knows he's been here for a long, long time. Is that enough to reach her hand back to someone who may very well be in the same boat as she is?
Max stares at those three words for longer than she cares to admit.
But in the end, she closes her laptop, and she goes to see if her legs will put up with her making a trip to the skatepark today. ]