burns_so_brightly | Second Stanza: [ACTION/WRITTEN/VOICE]

[Sitting in the tea shop, Julian Bell is looking restless, his tea untouched and growing cold. He chews the end of his pen as his journal lies open on the table before him. All at once, he starts writing furiously.]

Expose the world, anatomize,
Strip clothes from skin, strip skin, then flesh, from bone.
Himself no surgeon, true, can sterilize,
But yet the self-infection can be shown.
Corrode and doubt; anesthetize the heart;
Morphia or curiosity drown the reviving smart.

Clear as white water in the stream we see
Shadowed the species of eternity;
The working process, self a working part:
For not one necessary fiction's grace
Can quite make mask th' observer's outward face,
Or thought one extra atom's movement start.

The moving pointer tells, and having told
Not the immediacy of hot and cold,
Nor yet the pale abstraction of a mind
(For algebra and instruments record
No immanent emergence of the Word.)
Tells solid, painful foothold all we find.

Why turn, why seek, why question for an end?
Why hope? Time flows: shows useless to defend
A cosy corner in the rising flood.
The tide is coming in: the dykes are down:
War, Terror, Poverty, swing through the town,
And the cold wind claims to be understood.

[It feels like it's been too long since he wrote. He's trying to get the juices going again, but this lazy, mind-numbing monotony of Luceti life is making it hard, so he started with something he's already written. Heck, maybe someone will give him feedback and he can better it. Some ten or fifteen minutes later, he picks up the journal and speaks.]

I think we should have a philosophy club here, or some such thing. Nothing exclusive, just a few inquisitive minds wanting intellectual stimulation. Mondays at eight in the tea shop. Any biters?

[OOC: Feel free to run into him around town as well as at the tea shop. He'll be getting groceries and checking out the library, and tonight, he'll be at Cloud Nine.

Also: the above poem was written by the actual Julian Bell and not me. No profit made from it.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, you should tell her to come.

I shall! Her name's Buffy. Miss Buffy Summers.

Oh! [A laugh.] I know Buffy. She's already said she'd like to.

Oh. I didn't realize! She'd said nothing to me. As I said, lad, I think she'll favor such a thing.

I think so. She's got a good head.

[Spoken very warmly.]

Right you are! Her head's perfect for that sort of thing, the university-thing. Truly!

Then she'll fit right in.

I confess I am not your sort. I get my learning out in the world, like. Mostly.

[Sometimes there were wonderful books, though. Teague is one of the most literate pirates around. And Jack's a walking Poetry Parchment, anyway.]

What's your name?

Sparrow, mate. Captain Jack Sparrow. My ship's...not here at present, but I do have my pretty Joanna.

[He leaves the "Joyce" off for now. He is still getting comfortable with that concept.]

Girlfriend from home?

Hmmmm? No, no, son. She's not from home. I hail from the Caribbean, though of late I've been traveling about more.

Wouldn't've guessed the Caribbean. I might've guessed Peckham.

I was born in the Indian Ocean, actually. Me mum's from India. Me dad's an Irishman of sorts, if you squint hard enough.

[A laugh.] Pleased to meet you, Captain Jack Sparrow of the Caribbean, whose father is Irish if you squint hard enough. Julian Bell, of London, Charleston, and more recently, Wuhan. Then London again.

Wuhan? Traveled all the world, haven't you?

Sort of an exaggeration, but perhaps more of it than most.

We've got that in common, then! I've sailed every sea there is. Though it could be we're from different worlds, even if the places sound similar.

Is there a Singapore in your world?

There is, and I've been to it.

Ha! See this? It's not so strange to think that there might be a lot of us from the same version of earth.

Didn't know there was more than one Earth. Do you suppose we'd know of the same people if we were from the same Earth?

Hmmm. Bonny Prince Charlie?

You mean the Young Pretender.

Same difference. Right. I'm convinced! Buffy will be pleased!

That we're from the same world? When are you from?

[Such a delightfully odd question someone once asked him.]

[voice]

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