Emy: (shakes head) I never thought.
Kyra: What?
Emy: One of my greatest fears, being barren, childless.
Kyra: Yes?
Emy: Well, guess what?
Kyra: What?
Emy: As foolish as it sounds, and hear me out, and I know this is not gonna make sense, well, I’ve lost it.
Kyra: We’ve all lost a lot in the last few days. Perhaps it’s a blessing.
Emy: No, you don’t understand. The desire to be with child is still there.
Kyra: Oh.
Emy: I’ve lost all desire for sex.
Kyra: (blank look)
Emy: It hit me when I woke up. The well is dry. No matter how hard I try to distract myself from our fate, no matter how much I, well, you know, well, nothing. Not one scintilla of desire. There is just nothing there. And you know what?
Kyra: Tell me.
Emy: I’ve never felt that before and if you were to tell me this is the way it would be from this point forward, I’m not sure I would want to live. I feel as if the fear of dying, dying like this in this Janus forsaken metallic tomb, is killing me in pieces, toying with me, enjoying the torture. And there is not a damn thing I can do about it!
Kyra: Tell me more about this dying in pieces?
(before Emy can answer they both look up to the undulant echoes of metal on metal)
Kyra: Von, what was that?
Von: I don’t know.
Kyra: Friend or foe?
Von: I said I don’t know.
Kyra: Crap, we don’t need this now.
Emy: (breaks out in hysterical laughter)
Kyra: You find something funny about this?
Emy: I’m sorry, your reaction just seemed kinda funny in an absurd sorta way. Die today, die tomorrow, what does it matter?
Von: What’s going on down there?
Kyra: (stern look at Em) Nothing, on our way.
Emy: (tries to suppress her laughter)
Kyra: (slaps the shiott out of Em) Feel that?
Emy: (wipes a trickle of blood from her lip with the back of her hand) Yeah—
Kyra: You’re not dead yet, but—
Von: Hey, we’ve got trouble. I need some help.
Kyra: On our way.
Categories: Story, Kyra, Emy, Von
8 comments:
I was thinking about Em today, not least because in the comment only Kyra was mentioned (mine) and that was an oversight on my part. Kyra filled more, due to her part in the chapter first and foremost, but because regardless of how extensive the other characters become, Kyra will always be special. I thought back to those letters Emy wrote to her father (never to be recieved) and it made me think of how she would differ perhaps from Von and Kyra in how they handle this situation, how they face the outcome. I could imagine one way that she may go would be to feel dejected and hopeless, that she may dwell on all that her life never was. It's not really that far a leap to equate the apparent end of her life with the desire for sex, so many sides to that, escape, wanting to dive into the moment, into life, future, creation, birth. I could see her losing hope much faster, see her finding it the most difficult among them.
Once again, a real nice chapter, one that sinks deeper into what this time must be like for the three of them.
I'm getting us a t-shirt. :-D
Ooooh, order me one too. :-D
As I think about these three characters and how they might respond in the last six days, I see very different reactions, which I suppose is only natural since they are three different Hynerians. ;-)
Kyra takes a very introspective look, a look not only at what is happening around her, but what she sees happening within and from that view she starts to question everything she was ever taught. I really debated whether to show this side of her or to make her strong and so I fast-forwarded to earth, in a potential interview, and I imagine what she would say about how she handled those six days. Immediately, I saw her smile and I saw her open herself with complete honesty, no facade, no agenda, no ego, and then she told me just exactly what happened, as unflattering as it might appear to us. In short, she had doubts, she had fears, she was not in control. And she had no problems telling me this and I fell in love with her all over again. ;-)
Von is a whole different kettle of fish. He has a history. Some of it quite brutal. Think of Von as land on a fault line (earthquake). Most of the time it looks like normal land, but under the right conditions, with enough stress, we can see it all fall apart in the most spectacular way. The scene of the "Many Vons" was just such a view into the cracking of his exterior, a look into the many Vons lurking just under his normal calm and cool expression. As we have also seen, he is also capable of shedding a tear, over what and just why, I'd like to know. :-)
Emy is an interesting one. Of the three, she is the youngest, the one with the least life experiences, and, perhaps, least in control of her emotions. Her battle, so to speak, is terrifying to her, the fear is overwhelming. Where Kyra and Von can ultimately accept that death is knocking, Emy just can't. So she resists the idea, without success and she finds herself unable to control her own reactions anymore and that lost of control frightens the hellocks out of her, which, like the lost sexual desire, it is a place she has never been, uncharted territory (which brings up the idea of a chapter of her and her father lost on the open sea, or exploring some dangerous place not on their maps--and so we would see a connection to her past and a connection to emotions she had long since repressed as a child, a connection to a place she buried because she didn't have answers then, and doesn't have them now and so the whole scene now is like a bad nightmare, one she thought she would never face again). See how these ideas come about? :-D They just happen, just like that. :-D
Now we have an intruder onboard, a distraction to take their minds from the inter to the outer. An intruder that will cause them to use more power and thus reduce the time they have, assuming they are able to destroy this unknown thing. :-)
Think of tension, stress, pressure as having the qualities of a black hole, which is to say, the closer you get, the more it warps the very reality of all we think is real, the more it strips away our ideas and concepts and leaves us, not at first, but in the end, naked to the "what is." We resist at first, for who would willing hand over all their beliefs and concepts, then we realize we control nothing, we are, as Morrie would say, a wave, not apart, but a wave inter and ever connected to the mighty ocean of is-ness. Standing naked before the great eternal "what is" finds us standing in light and peace.
The question posed by the Tao is this: stand before the eternal "what is" with your feet on solid ground. They believe you can. Kyra is on that journey. Not there yet, but on her way. Of course, there are those who believe that no ordinary Hynerian can ever achieve such a state, that the two are mutually exclusive. Ji, Papa and the Tao, of course, would disagree.
Okay, time for more coffee. :-D
Between this post and the "Stand by Me" post; I'm moved to tears. The loyalty and unselfishness warms my heart; no matter what, they are there for each other and it's more than just "the mission," they truly care for each other. Fantastic chapters!!
P.S. That song is one of my favorites and is PERFECT for these chapters.
Oh Karen, that has to be one of the most fabulous things to say about a post. I hope those are happy tears. ;-)
Is a nice song isn't it. :-)
lost all desire for sex...(hmmm).
I need to read more-and obviously further back...
~d, take a picture of this chapter. You won't find that sentiment anywhere else in this whole story LMAO! :-D
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