FEMA’s ordered 100,000 body bags

Despite the title, the journal entries for this day have nothing to do with COVID-19. It was just a brief note.

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Ansel’s entry:

We’re doing a better job keeping up. No social media, no video games… Now I feel bad, Static is still sick but I haven’t been able to give him medicine today. Just asked Simone to do it for me… Sigh.

So, no video games aside from Wild World and the occasional TWEWY [The World Ends With You] foray, mostly to evolve pins. On the other hand we’ve gotten caught up with site design… Sigh. It doesn’t occur to this brain to switch gears. Yesterday wasn’t a typical day off—we typically work Fridays—so no alarms went off. Attended the online May Day Rally, then spent the rest of the day catching up on sleep debt. I think we’ve actually done a lot in the past week… CSS, site design, collecting resources on Pueblo Deco, reading, cleaning house. […] Simone has to be pushed a lot to get things done. She has some level of executive dysfunction, too. It’s just frustrating that we’re the ones who have to fix things… The lack of cognitive resources is really getting to us.

The other day Tolly tried drinking alcohol. A small bottle of rosé, and another of prosecco. Not bad but he’s never drinking alcohol again. Two sips—one of each—was enough to send him into a laughing mess. That ethanol metabolism in his brain, is it supposed to be that quick? Tolly didn’t appreciate the fire in the belly sensation either. We’ll have to use the bottles to cook only, not to drink.

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Ant’s entry:

We read El Lissitzsky’s About Two Squares. I had forgotten how wondrous and determined his work was. The typography, and the depiction of war in “Black Chaos” is still moving. My abstract landscape of optimism I did four years ago… I want to do something like that once more. I want to tap into my synaesthesia, or what’s left of it, once more.

Before going to bed today we saw Bedivere’s old relations. So much had changed since we last visited. I’m a bit embarrassed to recount it… But who cares, it made me happy.

Leon had given up on winning his niece’s heart. But he’s married now, to Fray… They’ve enjoyed each other’s simple, understanding company. Companions… Doug and Arthur are now business partners. He is taking trade so seriously now. The both of them… Leotrim and I stood under the high windmill, admiring the vista, whilst Bedivere attended to his affairs.

As reality pressed down even more forcefully on us, even through this hermetic shield of a hellish suburb, I will be undertaking such incursions less and less. As it should be… Yet these little flights of fantasy give me so much joy…

Is this a delusion? Every time we dance, I can feel… Or perhaps he can feel… We both feel each other. His heartbeat on my cheek, my head on his chest… Back then, when I started exercising, I felt as if I was close to Radi. It felt fine, as if he were there. But it was a reminder. A very warm reminder. This… Is this simply an extension of that?

[…] I do not know how to make my friends happy, Radi. I resigned myself to being alone in this cold reality, until the time came when I would be reunited with […].

[…] Ventured into the deep woods, and remembered… Remembered the cookies I had baked him long ago. No… No, even before that, […], he remembered me. […] He reached out for me, but I disappeared, went up like ash.

[…] Bedivere, whoever he is, is here with me again. This man who had articulated life’s joys to me, for the first time in my life… Father taught me that life could be good, Bedi taught me that life could be fun. This ageing, forgotten, disregarded tired widow… He said I taught him that life could be fun, too.

Radi said something to Bedi about me. That I looked upon “Death’s egg”, saw death as a white eggshell which I sought to crack… A compulsion towards martyrdom, driven not by optimism, but by despair. That is true… Loneliness, degradation, contempt, misanthropy. I wrote it long ago and it is coming true. This suburb is killing me. I need to be with my fellows again… But I cannot face them as of yet. I am too ashamed, and too weak. I cannot… They will ask about Ansel, and I will not be able to answer. Spurned for imaginary friends… I… I know they will reject me out of hand. I cannot blame them. But I cannot do it. I cannot spurn the soul who helped teach me how to survive… After all this betrayal and damage. He was my friend. My sole friend, partner. We fought so much. Danced so much. Sang, cooked, ate. He teased me. He looked at me, yelled at me, held me, laughed with me, talked with me, sat in painful, terrible silence with me. A delusion? Perhaps. One of Ansel’s biggest regrets, and it still is to this day, is that he isn’t “real”. Buddy, friend, partner, you have been “realer” to me than all those who hurt and disregarded me, and left me to suffer. This man is real… and at this point, he is realer than I am. The external world conducts most of its business with him, not me. Were I to front now, everyone would notice a personality change. In how we walk, talk, stare, laugh.

Bedivere is changing. I worry for him. From floating, faceless “guardian” to… To what exactly? Radi asked him to take care of us, and that’s exactly what he intends to do. But what does that mean…? For a very long time now he has assumed a paternal role. Taking it upon himself to shepherd us out of our rages.

…Years ago Bedi used to front. I didn’t know it at the time. It was after my suicide attempt. Through him I gradually learned how to be calm again… And Ansel managed my anger, my childish impulses. My wish for someone to look at me. Get angry for me…

I am colder than before. Will Ansel and Bedivere teach me how to be human again? I am warm for them, but for few others. Is that all right? They say it is. I should focus on becoming the best person possible… I was to be able to face █████ again, with joy and strength, without shame. Plural. Would it be enough to say “Ansel is with me in spirit”? I wonder…