a fool's musings

Boreas by Waterhouse
Fool, said my muse to me,
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2001-12-11 - 5:28 p.m.

Different Paths

Here's the rest of the Lex at the airport story. I'm not sure I like the ending. It's very open ended. I could continue it at the club, or I could just end it here. Hmm...

***

They'd both done some growing up, he thought, and she was probably the better for it.

She opened her mouth to say something, and suddenly her hand clenched around the delicate coffee cup she'd been given, crushing it and spilling the hot brew all over her, himself and the couch.

She didn't seem to notice. Her face was drawn into a rictus of pain and she let out a loud shriek that died away to quiet, pained whimpering.

"Cordelia. Cordelia!" he said, feeling the panic begin to rise, the same helplessness he'd felt when Cassandra had died, clutching his hand. He hadn't had an asthma attack since the meteor shower, but the tightness in his chest was making breathing difficult.

She went limp on the sofa, breathing heavily, and he could see the sweat soaking her hair at the temples.

"Phone," she croaked, and he fumbled in her handbag for her cell phone. She smiled weakly and took it from him, dialing quickly. He clutched the purse like a lifeline, unaware of anything but the soft leather in his white-knuckled grip.

The waitress hurried over to clean up the mess Cordelia didn't even seem to notice. He waved her off.

Cordelia spoke urgently into the phone. "Angel. ... Yeah. Wesley's on it. I -- yeah. ... No, I'm not alone. ... An old friend. ... No. No one you know. ... Not from Sunnydale. Can we stop with the third degree? ... Tonight. Place called Cruciato. ... No, I didn't need to know that. ... Typical. Big, ugly, never seen 'em before. Lots of chanting and slime."

She held out a hand and Lex gave her the purse. She pulled out a bottle of Advil and fumbled with it. He took it from her and opened it, tapping out to orange tablets into her open palm, and then giving her his cup of coffee. She tossed her head back and swallowed, and he found himself momentarily mesmerized by the sleek line of her throat, bared to him. Her voice snapped him out of his daze. "When Wesley gets back. Okay. ... Be careful, Angel."

She turned to look at him, taking in the shards of china and the coffee staining both of them. He could feel the fear wafting off her suddenly, and her eyes, which had been wide and focused on his face, dropped. "Oh," she whispered. "Your pants -- those are Armani, right? I, send me the bill for the dry-cleaning. I --"

He forced a smile. "I hardly think you need to pay for my dry cleaning, Cordelia." He brushed her hair off her forehead, and felt his smile become genuine as she closed her eyes and exhaled loudly. "What just happened?"

Her eyes flew open, searching his face intently. "Migraines. I get migraines and--"

"And you call your boss to make plans to go to S&M clubs immediately following?"

She licked her lips, eyes once again downcast. "It's complicated."

"Did you see something?" he pressed. "Was it about me?"

"Not everything is about you, Lex," she said tartly, and he could see her beginning to return to herself. "What do you know about Cruciato?"

"What did you see?"

"Who's to say I saw anything?"

"Cordelia Chase, you're a lousy liar. You always have been."

She nodded in acknowledgement. "Remember when I said you wouldn't believe me if I told you? This is one of those things."

"You see the future?"

She pursed her lips, and he could almost hear the wheels turning in her head as she decided what to tell him. "Sort of. Sometimes. Sometimes it's the past. Mostly it's people in trouble. People that we help."

"You weren't in a place called Smallville, Kansas about twelve years ago October, were you?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

She just looked puzzled. "No. Why?" Then her eyes lit in recognition. "Oh. The meteor shower thing? Where you lost your hair, right?"

"Right." She'd never been afraid to talk about it, he remembered. It was part of what made her a lousy liar, and also a large part of her charm -- Cordelia's filter between brain and mouth didn't quite function the way most people's did, and she had no qualms about blurting out whatever she was thinking at any given moment. It had not endeared her to Lionel upon their one meeting.

"Apparently, a lot of other weird stuff has happened there over the years," he continued. "So, I might not be as surprised as you think."

"The long and short of it? Demons and vampires are real. They want to kill us all. Or impregnate us. Or make us slaves. It all depends. I get visions, we go out and kill the demons. On rare occasions, we get paid."

He blinked. That was a little stranger than what he'd been expecting, but he was willing to roll with it. "Can you see my future?"

She snorted. "I told you, not everything revolves around you or the mighty Luthor clan. There are bigger forces at work in the world." She stood and he rose with her.

He bit back the sarcastic words that sprung to his lips. He'd asked for it, after all, and she was known for never pulling her punches. It was just odd to go from being the most important, most hated man in town to being apparently unimportant in the grand scheme of things. "I don't accept that. I'm going to do great things, Cordelia. Great things."

"I'm sure you are, Lex. You always were a good guy, despite what the press thinks. But, you know, 'More things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy,' and all that. If I ever see anything about you, you can be sure I'll let you know."

She was on the verge of saying something else when the annoucenment came over the loudspeaker. "Flight 1514 from Metropolis is arriving at Gate C15."

"That's Clark's flight," he said.

"I guess you'll be going then," she replied, hugging him. Her hand briefly caressed the back of his head, where he'd always been sensitive, and he shivered. She pressed her lips to his cheek lightly and murmured, "Be careful, Lex. It was good to see you."

"You, Cordy. Take care."

He was walking away when she said, "S&M club, huh? Do I want to know how you know that?"

He turned and smirked. "Probably not. But you'd make an excellent dominatrix."

As he exited the lounge, he saw the Brit walk in, still clanking. His shoes were covered with slime and the cuffs of his pants were now shredded, but he looked pleased with himself. "The Thal is no more," he announced. Then, "Cordelia, was that Lex Luthor?"

He paused briefly, to hear the rest of the conversation. "Yes, it was."

"I do hope you didn't badger him for money or something."

"Badger him?" Cordelia huffed. "We went to summer camp together. You know, I did have a life before I got sucked into this whole undead freakshow. Anyway, I had a vision. We've got to get back to the office. Things are happening tonight --"

Her voice faded as he walked along the terminal to Gate C15.

Clark was the first one off the plane, bursting with coltish energy as he walked through the jetway door, overnight bag slung over his shoulder. He immediately picked Lex out of the crowd and made his way to the pillar where he stood.

"Lex! They upgraded me to first class. It was so cool. I don't think I could have made it without the legroom."

Lex smiled; at least one of the Kents appreciated his generosity. He patted Clark on the back. "Let's go. I have an appointment with my lawyers in a little bit, but you can come along. Lilah will know all the hot places to have dinner tonight."

"Lilah?"

"Yes. She's been working for my father for a few years. And then maybe we'll stop at a club called Cruciato. How's that sound?"

"Whatever you want, Lex. It's your show." Lex's smile turned smug as he led Clark to his Porsche.

"You have no idea how happy I am to hear you say that, Clark."

And the seduction began.

End

***

And a quote I might put at the beginning:

"Night rushes down, and headlong drives the day:
'Tis here, in different paths, the way divides;
The right to Pluto's golden palace guides;
The left to that unhappy region tends,
Which to the depth of Tartarus descends;
The seat of night profound, and punish'd fiends."
ll. 724-730, The Sixth Book of the Aeneid, Virgil

***

And now, I'm going home.

~vic

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~*~

2001-12-11 - 10:45 a.m.

genocide and inheritances

Okay, back now. Straightened things out with Amtrak. Now it's up to them to notify the credit card company.

Of course, we'll still get hit with late charges, I'm willing to bet, but at least I've got a paper trail and a file number and the name of the woman I spoke with to prove that I'm not just making stuff up - I really did send the tickets back (and remind me to expound one day on my b-p dyslexia and my self-diagnosed discalculia) and I really did follow-up.

Pardon me if I'm a little sensitive on these issues, after the meltdown at the last job.

Which was, most definitely, my fault in large part, but still, even when I did the right thing I got screwed at the end, so I stopped caring at all.

Now, Pete has asked me a very interesting question. We were discussing Harry Potter - which he has neither read nor seen - and he was saying something about some throwaway line that, in effect, makes light of the Burning Times and the Spanish Inquisition.

I'm thinking, what makes that any different than Monty Python or History of the World? But I'm not known for my sensitivity about these subjects, and he is. I mean, I like a good dead baby joke once in a while.

So the question is: What's the statute of limitations on being able to make fun of mass murder?

My feeling is, if the survivors and the victims kin are two generations removed, you can make fun.

I don't think it's appropriate to make fun of the Holocaust, though the Nazis have been ripe for parody since, well, 1933. I mean, Hitler was a freaking frustrated artist turned house painter. That moustache. If they had laughed at him like reasonable people, none of what happened ever would have happened.

Of course, the US wouldn't have then become the superpower it is today, but I'm thinking that the tradeoff of countless millions of lives would be worth it, you know?

But I'm an isolationist at heart, even in this "global village" we've got now.

I don't know much about foreign policy - I let my subscription to "The Nation" run out last year and I don't even read my "New Yorker" regularly from cover to cover anymore.

I've been subsumed by fic. Which is bad. Not inherently, but it's had an adverse effect on my writing, I think. And that's a topic for another time, because I still want to talk about genocide.

We joke about what was done to the Indians, and while it took a much longer time, I don't see that as any less genocidal than the systematic extermination of the Jews and other undesirables in Nazi Germany.

For which we and various other nations still bear some blame, if only because we didn't act and didn't accept refugees and generally made it even harder for persecuted peoples to find freedom.

I won't even go into the mess begun with the creation of Israel, which was a great idea on paper, but, obviously a little more problematic in real life execution.

Anyhow, back to the original question, which is, is it okay to make fun of mass murder?

I say it is. It's okay to make fun of anything. It's not in good taste, but nothing is sacred. Humor is just one more method of processing grief, and this I know to be true from personal experience, because I find myself making inappropriate remarks and behaving like an idiot whenever death touches the family. It goes back to when Poppy John died when I was in 6th grade.

I don't remember how I reacted to Grandpa dying - I was only 6 - but I remember having fun at Aunt Rosalie's, not mourning, particularly. It was a grand adventure, not a really sad time. Which, I think, is one reason the parents did it that way.

I mean, we went to the wake and the funeral - hell, Dom served at the Mass - but they shielded us from the more excessive displays of grief, as well as whatever wrangling went on over whatever inheritances there were.

BRB.

And that's another subject I have strong feelings about, because of what's going on with Grandma and Aunt Jean's stuff now, almost 5 years after the fact.

None of them came to see them when they were sick. It was Daddy and Aunt Joan who took care of them, and us. Donald and Maria Linda made twice yearly visits. Everyone else was conspicuous in their absence.

So for them to complain now that they didn't get whatever knick knacks or fol-de-rol they wanted out of the house, when Daddy told them to come and take what they wanted when he redid the apartment just grates my cheese.

I understand wanting something from them. I have the glass collection, and the coat. Marguerite took some of the furniture Grandpa made as well as the piano. Dom took the tables. Daddy's keeping the big wall unit even though it won't fit in the new house.

But some people are just so... grr.

Now that I've aired family grievances in public, I'll have to make sure neither parents nor siblings read this, because I will catch SO much hell for it. Never, ever, ever discuss family stuff in public, they say.

I, obviously, don't give a damn.

I probably should, but why? So you all think a little less of us? Did you really think that much *more* before you read this? Every family has these little contretemps, some far worse than ours.

::shrug::

I mean, it's not like there's millions in jewels and gold being fought over. Just some handmade furniture that's of good quality, but is more valuable because Grandpa made it than because of any monetary value.

What with the interruptions to speak with the credit card company about Amtrak, this has taken almost half an hour to write.

I'm a busy bee today, eh? *g*

~victoria

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~*~

2001-12-11 - 10:03 a.m.

On hold

To quote the adorably arrogant Josh Lyman, I'm in some hellish hold world of holding.

I'm on the phone with Amtrak, yet again, trying to track down the refund for the tickets that didn't get used due to Sept. 11.

I mean, they're going to question us on this? I sent the tickets back on 9/25. Nobody went anywhere on 9/11. We shouldn't have to pay for 'em.

So I just spoke with a person after being on hold 5 minutes. Let's see how long it takes.... ooh, a person! A real live person...

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~*~

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The painting is "Boreas" by John William Waterhouse. Again, not a muse, but I like her. She suits the color scheme.

The quote is from Sir Philip Sidney.

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