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bakerstreet2013-09-17 09:29 pm
train to the afterlife meme.
congratulations: you are dead! maybe you know how, maybe you don't. perhaps the memory is fuzzy, or perhaps it's crystal clear down to the look in your comrades' eyes. maybe it was your time; you've done all you wanted to. or maybe you weren't at all ready to go, maybe you went out kicking and screaming -- but none of it matters. you know you're dead, and the train is taking you to an afterlife. perhaps an afterlife of your choice; you might've earned that heaven. or perhaps you've earned something else entirely.
it'll be a bit of a journey, though, so you might as well take your time and talk to the other people in your coach. death knows no place: most of them are strangers, even from faraway worlds. but death knows no time either, so who knows, some of them may be people you know, even if last you knew, they were alive -- or long gone.
oh look, here comes the snack cart.
the usual;
➝ post with your character's name, canon, and preferences.
➝ said character is now dead for whatever reason -- canon, au, what have you. they are on a train with other dead people from many other times, places, and worlds.
➝ characters don't know for a fact where they're headed -- just a general awareness that they're going to some kind of afterlife. whatever they think it is is up to the player.
➝ tag around and play nice!
TRIGGER WARNING!! this meme obviously deals with death and may deal with other unpleasant themes as a result. please be cautious.
seki ray shiroe | toward the terra
we meet again
It's a strange feeling of missed opportunities and unfulfilled potential, and that alone is enough to make him feel strange. Tense.
Until he sees Shiroe.
He stops, catches his breath - it had almost not quite sunk in until just now that Shiroe, who had seemed such a constant for the time he'd known him, was actually dead, never to return. Without acknowledgement, there was no grieving, though why he should have reason to grieve he wasn't sure. He turned, looked at the boy with pale eyes slightly wide, and then turned away.]
it's fate
Now, he's come to terms with his book missing, somewhat. He's calm enough, save for the way he's holding his hands out in front of him like he has a book in them, miming the turning of pages.
Slowly, his mind is beginning to clear. He's stopped glowing, in any case. It's amazing what kind of peace death can bring, as brief as it's likely to be as soon as he comes back to his senses. That's where he is when he spots Keith in his periphery and pauses - halfway between something imaginary and the reality of it: this place, being dead, the small stirring of surprise upon seeing Keith.
So:] Peter?
[Almost as soon as he says it he frowns and shakes his head; no, Peter is brighter than this, this person brings a whole different set of emotions to the surface-- Shiroe stands and moves, reaching out to snatch Keith's sleeve as he turns away. His head hurts; can a dead person have a headache?]
What-- What do you think you're doing?
or just really good planning ;)
More than anything, he does not want to be in this place, in this way.
Everything is too fuzzy, Shiroe sounds muzzy and lacks the composure and biting confidence that he's used to. He can't stop thinking about what it is he did before he got here, to this place, and he doesn't know how it is he got here himself. He doesn't realize he's a little afraid until he feels his breath quickening and hears his heart beating fast in his ears, but he stands still for a moment, as Shiroe asks him what he thinks he's doing.
He doesn't know. He has no clue. Why he is here, why he did what he did in space not 15 minutes ago, where he is going. So he stands still for a moment, and then turns, and looks at the boy, Shiroe undone, with his face slightly damp with sweat and his hair falling across his forehead. He looks at his face. For a moment he'd wondered, why Peter? And then it clicks - Peter Pan. Like the book. A remnant of childhood.
He can remember being accused of never having taken the adult examination. He knows that book is a tie to Shiroe's childhood. Being called Peter...what is one intended to feel about that? It's too much to comprehend. All he feels is something twisted and sick in his belly, up into his chest, closing his throat off.
Normally it would be a simple matter of shaking Shiroe's hand off his sleeve, and that is what he would normally do, but he doesn't. He stands still, remembering a boy clutching a book, sweating and challenging him about knowing his secrets, secrets he never got a chance to hear, and taking this boy in his arms while he shook and writhed with nightmares to care for him. He doesn't understand why he did that (nominally to find out what he had to say, but he isn't experienced enough to avoid acknowledging anything further, anything deeper) and now, he isn't sure why he reaches forward to slide the fingertips of the other hand to Shiroe's forehead, brushing damp hair back from his face.]
Going wherever you're going, I suppose.
no subject
Mind dipping in and out of clarity, he tries to focus: Keith is here. This is Keith Anyan, that awful machine's child, the elite, the guilty. Shiroe has no book to hug to his chest like a shield anymore, and crosses his free arm over his stomach instead, in a weak motion. He wonders: is this the permanency of death? Is he now bound to this half-lucid state forever, damned and eternally caught between mental impotence and his own frustration at himself?
He focuses again. Keith Anyan. If he is here then he, too, has perished -- but how? What could vanquish the singular elite unless Mother Eliza herself suddenly grew tired of him? Shiroe thinks he ought to be angry with the other boy, but as his mind fluctuates so do his feelings. Part of him wants to scream at Keith until his throat bleeds, degrade him and rub his face into the floor until he understands exactly what's wrong with a human taking another's life because a machine ordered it.
Another part of him wants to laugh, delirious with stories of crocodiles and pirates, and throw his arms around Keith's shoulders and tell him, to Terra! We're going to Terra to see Peter, and Mother and Father!
He blinks. Briefly, his usual sharp conviction shows on his face in the twitch of a frown.]
You're following me? [His grip on Keith's sleeve tightens, not from a sense of being comforted; Did Mother Eliza send her favorite this far, to deal with me?]
How coy. I almost prefer it the other way around.
no subject
He stands still, watching, observing - it's a thing he's good at, or should be. Usually is. Now he can't seem to work out what it is that he's seeing, when Shiroe's hand comes up against his stomach, as if he's ill or defensive (weak and afraid), and he looks like he's thinking very hard. Everything feels twisted up and wrong - he realizes after a few moments that his ears are ringing, his stomach aches, and the back of his head feels tense. It isn't just physical, he comes to realize, while watching Shiroe get his mind together, gather together the pieces scattered by the security guards that stole him from Keith's room. There's nothing here to cause that reaction in his body, only the emotions he can feel built up inside him like too much pressure, about to explode.
Keith Anyan doesn't know how to explode. He knows how to lash out, but he does not know how to express that terrible feeling inside him, can't quite identify the feeling enough to even put a name to it.
So when Shiroe looks at him with that usual sharp expression, after the pang of relief, when Shiroe speaks, he doesn't know how to change his face, he doesn't know how to speak about what he feels. And still, it builds up when Shiroe tells him he preferred to do the following, it builds up to a point where it feels as if it will crack him apart, would even if he were made of iron as Shiroe so often implies.]
I do, as well.
[And when he closes his mouth, that tension inside him has built up to the back of his throat, tight and hard, and he couldn't say more even if he wanted to. He's unaware of the tear sliding down his cheek.]
no subject
Shiroe wouldn't even shake. He glances at Keith's hand, then at the arm he's still clinging futilely to. Keith has given no indication of trying to escape him, now that he's been caught, but Shiroe won't let go for (not quite) fear that the only anchor he has left will drift from him if he isn't careful. His knuckles are white and even through the bunched sleeve his fingernails leave marks on his palm, but his hand is the only part of him that remains steady.]
Hmph. You don't have a choice. [Said with conviction, but still loose enough to be flippant. Like this is casual. Like a boy talking with the boy who shot him down is normal. Before he can make himself whole again he needs something familiar, and later--well. He hasn't forgotten about grinding his heel against Keith's perfectly formed cheekbone as he pushes his face into the ugly train carpet.
If he had the energy he might flip his hair and laugh, but he's weak and too hot, so he shakes his head instead.]
From now on, you're-- [Keith Anyan is crying; Shiroe stops dead (ahem). Finally he's looked at the other boy's face again, and -- Keith Anyan is crying. Emotions flood Shiroe at once: shock, confusion, something that doesn't quite have a name but is the same profound feeling he got when Keith hit him in the face, that he might be real after all emotion -- and fury.
Keith Anyan has the nerve to cry at him? He repeats himself, sounding much less fractured than before:]
What do you think you're doing?
no subject
Something is wrong with him. He's sick, emotionally disturbed, and he feels a sudden, too-desperate pang to speak to Mother Eliza. He's always been told that he is right, he is correct, and he is perfect - how can he feel, right now, like such an ugly thing in the face of this pale, sweating boy looking up at the boy who murdered him?
Even more, he doesn't understand why Shiroe is clinging to his sleeve as if it's a lifeline, doesn't understand, when he is the one who killed him. He can barely hear what it is Shiroe is saying, he isn't paying attention, as he hadn't paid attention too many times before he died.
'I've neglected you.'
The knot in his throat tightens, constricting his vocal cords, when he realizes that there is nothing to be done about that now. If he is to try not to neglect Shiroe now, he will be turned away, even if he can work out what he would need to do in order to fulfill that.
Some part of him hates himself, and it's nothing he's ever felt before. And then Shiroe's voice snaps him out of it, asking him what he thinks he's doing, and he sucks in a sharp breath that makes something in his chest hitch strangely. There is a moment of dizziness from having held his breath for so long. The hand Shiroe is not holding comes up to wipe at his face, and he looks at the wetness on his fingertips.]
Crying.
no subject
What for?
[Being solitary, self-important, angry -- none of Shiroe's strongest traits have left him much room to not be selfish, on top of it all. He does not think, Keith has also died, or, Keith feels guilt for what he's done. He only thinks, This shouldn't be happening. Why should an executioner be permitted to cry when his victim has not?
Those parts of his old self, still reforming, have another purpose - one where the question What for? is less a demand and more an object of study. Keith is crying; Shiroe has never seen him cry, has never succeeded in making him anything but angry and impatient, and so he wants to know exactly which part of him has gotten through this time. While he has Keith here he has no intention of letting him leave, as much as it fills his stomach with dread and anger just to look at him now. If Keith wants to follow him, Shiroe will not permit him to forget.
He glowers between Keith's face and hand, and he is overcome by the urge to slap him. He won't believe Keith's tears have any value until the boy can prove it without a doubt, and maybe Shiroe's handprint on his cheek will help him get there.]
Stop it. [Releasing his hold on his torso he lifts his hand, but it isn't in position to strike anything; instead he drags the heel of his hand across Keith's face, through what's left of tear tracks like he's scraping away dirt. It is an accusation more than anything else; why now do Keith's emotions come out while Shiroe's own twist within him, trapped and white hot? Then he asks the question he's tried countless times to answer, in one way or another:]
What's wrong with you?
no subject
Mother Eliza is not here. He has no source of comfort, and so the pain simply sits in his chest and belly, incomprehensible, aching. Shiroe does not help, he demands answers that Keith doesn't have the capability to give, and the pushing only serves to stoke the strange tightness in his chest and belly until his eyes are welling up with tears again. He doesn't understand.
There is nothing he can do to correct this, as much as he finds that he wants to. There is no way to undo what has been done.
Shiroe glowers at him, drags his hand across his face in a way that could almost be a slap if it was quicker and sharper, the pressure is hard, unforgiving, just like Shiroe. Keith's pale eyes track to the boy's face.]
It's because you are gone. [It comes out of him unbidden.] Because that is something I did and shouldn't have, and because I neglected you. If I hadn't...
no subject
I neglected you.
What?
The words echo in Shiroe's mind, I neglected you I neglected you i neglected i neglected neglected neglected -- and when it no longer sounds like a word, when it sounds more like Keith making sounds just to make him angry, he finally reacts. With a wordless half-shout he pulls back a hand and lets it fly straight for Keith's stupid, stupid cheek. How dare he. How dare he--]
This isn't about you! [It's out of his mouth before he can stop it, and Shiroe realizes -- that's it. That's the problem. He is gone, he was executed alone and now he is the one forced to stare into the face of his executioner and at the tears on his face. Shiroe is selfish, he knows. But this. This.
Keith is selfish too, he realizes, and it's like a switch is flipped. Selfish -- stupidly so, unimaginably stupidly so, but selfish. Like a person.
Clarity seems to come to him all at once and he grabs a fistful of Keith's uniform front, pulling on it.]
Neglected me! Ha! You imbecile machine's boy, how does it feel?
[And then he's letting go, shoving himself away and looking around the train car like he's just seen it in a new light. From anyone else, being told this isn't about them might sound like a comfort, a "it isn't your fault" -- but from Shiroe it's nothing but unrestrained mirth at watching Keith Anyan make a terrible mistake.
So.] You aren't the center of the universe, what do you think about that?
no subject
Daedalus Yumeno is sitting alone in the compartment, and he's slumped back against the seat with a dejected, melancholy sort of exhaustion, glancing out the windows towards the endlessly blue, blue sky every once in awhile with the sort of sadness that can't decide if it's pining, or just bitterly ironic.
Eventually he puts his face in his gloved hands, and sighs out something that sounds like a half-frustrated, half-achingly proud utterance of 'My Real'.]
wow i love daedalus what luck
When he marches purposefully into the compartment Daedalus is in, he pauses. The fact that their faces almost match is trumped by that coat; Shiroe's mind remains somewhat clouded but a doctor is the last thing he wants to see.
A doctor spouting nonsense to himself, however... Shiroe doesn't move closer, but merely stands there in the doorway and raises his voice, annoyed like this is a great inconvenience:] Your real what?
Well hay yourself, little boy Icarus ;)
So it's vaguely alarming to look up and lock eyes with a startling blink- it's almost as though he's staring at the person he was before he understood the burden of his own truths. Back when he had a bit more pluck to him, proud of being such a young director, with such an important charge. Before he really knew what it was, what it meant, to love and hate his masterwork, and to feel trapped in the isolation of secrets about Proxies, about humanity's uncorrectable flaws.
There's a brighter bundle of something in that wariness, perhaps intelligence, or maybe something just so wide awake and unfamiliar in the boy's eyes as he stands there, that is so very unlike the stable passivity of any average Romdeau citizen.]
It's- [He shakes his head, mouth a little dry.] It's nothing. [Then he shakes his head, exasperated, because that isn't the truth at all, and he's tired of lying.] She's everything, for me.
[Then, because Daedalus can't help but ask-] Who are you?
what an enviable title
So when it occurs to him that this young man could be just a few years out of E-1077, holding a position he might have one day held, he does not feel regret for the sudden end of his short life. Instead, he's angry -- the very suggestion that he could have been like this person, that he is just as ordinary and sheep-like as anyone else bothers him. Loathing descends upon his shoulders, leaden, and he frowns sharply at this babbling eyesore.
He starts with the obvious, stiffly:] Seki Ray Shiroe. Call me Shiroe- not that it matters what anyone calls me now.
[A pause; 'she's everything' had struck a chord with him just then, and -- and it's much easier to step on something troubling than to think about it. He's dead, and anyone who might have meant something to him (nothing kind, but something is something) is not, and that's it.
Surely. He looks away, thinks involuntarily of machines, then looks back at Daedalus again - peeved.]
Don't you have anything better to do than mope about your girlfriend?
no subject
His own namesake was a very chilling, fatalistic designation. Flattering as a nod to brilliance, but far worse as a cautionary marker. He'd let her soar anyway, as if it were written in the stars and there was little he could do for it. Daedalus was really far more of a hidden romantic than anyone had ever credited him for. He just hid it up his sleeve, instead of wearing it boldly as certain fools in the security offices.]
It matters that you are someone, to somebody. [He argues, gently, placid in a way that would nearly warrant being grabbed bodily by the arms and shaken back to life, because he talks like a long awakened person that's prone to tired melancholy, just from being so very profoundly alone.] Otherwise we're all just walking corpses, islands... Shiroe- [He smiles, nodding in acknowledgement.] I'm Doctor Daedalus Yumeno.
And she isn't. [There's a soft chuckle that nonetheless rattles like the fringe of hysteria, something unsettled, and he shakes his head, rubbing at the corner of his eye.] Heavens no-
She's something more...like a god. [Oh, to be blissfully dead and the walls of the city decayed and broken, and at liberty to finally say these things! Classified information should be labelled as soul-toxic. Leaning forward in his seat, he cradles his hands like he holds all the secrets to life and the universe in them, and beckons the boy forward in a way that might bear all the telltale signs of being a total madman.] Or perhaps what we were meant to be, complete.
[He laughs- another unhinged giggle, a sound dizzied like bird wings, beating against cage bars only to find they have evaporated.]
So I'm not sure, what's left that's 'better to do' now!
no subject
Evidently, not very much. Underneath his annoyance lies fear and dread, heavy in his stomach, and every time he sighs and waves his hands impatiently it's meant to draw his thoughts away from that question. He hasn't left the doctor sitting there cooing to himself about gods and girls for the same reason, although he's starting to doubt the smartness of that decision.
Every so often he adds an interjection: a 'No way' here, a scoff there. Meaning something to somebody, corpses, gods -- it's stupid. All of it, as far as Shiroe is concerned. He could easily find someone else on this train to give him the simple-minded responses he's so accustomed to, but here he is and who knows why.]
It's your own fault if you don't know what to do now. No one is going to come and help you.
[There's a hmph, haughty, and he looks sternly out the window. No one will come and help Daedalus, he thinks, because there isn't anything left to help.
No one has come to help Shiroe, either, but he decides the two of them are nothing alike anyway. He folds his arms across his chest, gripping his sleeves hard enough to whiten his knuckles. Still he stares out the window, something uncomfortable sparking and starting to burn at the back of his mind. What happened to him before death is regrettable, a hazy mistake, nothing lasting like frantic giggling...
Pointedly, he stays standing where he is.]
Don't you know how outrageous you sound? God this, god that--answering questions nobody asked won't get you anywhere!
[He doesn't want to know more; it reminds him of the truth he found, the things he threw away and for what, some first aid that did him no good in the end--?]
What do you think is incomplete about people?
no subject
[There's a small sneer, on the end of that resentful self-deprecation.]
So I ask questions for myself. [He says mildly, shrugging, as though questions were amusements, and for once he can sound outrageous.] Sometimes, I can answer them. Shouldn't that count?
[He doesn't have psychological checks to pass. Nothing's going to chirp at him in cooled electronic warning, if his heartrate rises. Daedalus finds the invincibility of death a dangerous invitation to be as cheeky as he wants, with this boy that could be himself, in a mirror, six years ago. He sort of wants to tell Seki Ray Shiroe how lucky he is, to be boarded so early.
Instead, giving a moment's thought to the actual question he's been asked, Daedalus rattles of a string of chromosome pairs, then looks at Shiroe expectantly, like it's the punchline to a joke that's not at all funny, but someone's got to break the silence and start sniggering at it first. Then he holds up his hand with a surrendering shake of his head, sobers, speaks in the kind of solemnity that's too damned lucid to be crazy.]
We no longer have to think or feel very much. A backwards evolution, but by design! [From the way he holds up one finger, that detail is important, among all the rest of his obtuse exposition.] Until the whole of our being is like an appendix, obsolete. Do you even know what an appendix is, Shiroe? You probably don't- it's so pointless they don't bother teaching it to anyone who will never specialize in all the interesting trivia of useless anatomy.
We're all children in the cradle, under the dome. Helpless, really. No immune response, physically or mentally? It's little wonder our brokenness exhibits itself so plainly in the moment the Autoreivs stopped behaving like machines, and more like humans than we may ever be. Except for her. I made sure of that.
[Which Re-l is he even babbling about anymore? Daedalus doesn't know. He's exhausted.]
no subject
That line of thinking does, however, get him to finally move away from his post at the door. He comes further into the compartment, pausing poised to sit down not-quite-across from Daedalus to frown and say indignantly:]
I do know what an appendix is. I've read more than what they tell me.
[--so when he does sit it's with an irritated huff. After that he falls silent, managing to listen intently without commentary this time. Daedalus had his attention the moment he said "backwards," and Shiroe understands. The intensity of his gaze should give it away, if the way he declines to brush the whole thing aside doesn't do the trick.
He thinks about it all, quietly. It's a testament to how little he's been permitted to speak freely about this kind of thing that he actually stops and thinks about his words before running his mouth. In E-1077, he had originally thought the other students were wary of being summoned by Mother Eliza out of fear. But it became clear in the end: rather than fear that machine, they accepted it without thinking. Simpletons, without a bone of independent thought in their bodies. He doesn't know what some of the things the doctor mentions are but he catches 'machines,' and so he understands more thoroughly than he had imagined.
Except for the girl. Shiroe reluctantly admits to himself that his pressing and prodding of Keith Anyan might have had stirrings of wanting him to act like a real person, but only just.
He hums, leans forward and props his chin in his hand, elbow resting on one knee.]
No one will question the machines, because that's how it's done, right? I don't know anything about a dome- [he waves a hand in a careless gesture, then drops his gaze] -but it's the same after the adult examination. I think they must try to drain the feelings out of us when we're children, so after the exam there isn't a drop left in adults.
[A glance up; is he talking to Daedalus or at him now? It's hard to tell. Being face-to-face and so very alone with someone who seems to understand what he's been trying to get through to his peers for months has chipped a tiny hole in his personal wall, enough for this topic to get out. He chooses his words carefully, but there's a hard edge to his voice.]
You said people are like children, but I don't think so. Adults are docile, like sheep. Anybody is easy to manipulate if you say the proper magic words.
[He lets the topic of the girl slip out of focus, to satisfy a safer curiosity:] What happened to the machines?
no subject
Not many do.
[He welcomes the boy into the compartment, doesn't try to correct his casual, pensive posture, easing one ankle up over his knee and leaning back against the seat.]
Cogito, ergo sum. The Cogito Virus changed their programming, and they had an awakening. They became self-aware, and in that realization, many of them that served us turned violent on their charges. The machines which once worked for us revolted against that purpose.
[Chuckling again, behind closed lips, he shakes his head.] Maybe they saw humanity with new eyes, for the first time, and decided we were lesser things, unworthy of their unfailing efficiency?
I'll agree with you, 'good' citizens are docile and dumb, like sheep. [He thinks about how many he injected with the ADW strain, all queued up, sleeves cuffed and hohum. Daedalus feels bile rising in his throat, and swallows as he looks out the window, voice taking on that distanced, dazed tone again.] In the end, they go like lambs to the slaughter....
I question everything. [He says suddenly, eyes returning to Shiroe's with a sharpness, a pride, almost as defiant as all of the boy's precociousness, but swallowed up by the kind of despair that's already drowning and resigned to sink like a stone.] Because I'm permitted to, so why not? While I had a role to play in everything.... Others? The ones that bother, they go charging down answers like they're somehow entitled to knowing because they're powerful people, the idiots, and they don't know how to be subtle about it at all. I've had to be- you understand, don't you? You have to be careful, or it's all over. We're replaceable parts.
But the answers aren't always pleasant. [He sighs, heavily, shifting his legs apart and settling his elbows on his knees, hands clasped between them loosely, mimicking Shiroe's forward posture just a little, with an air of solemn conspiracy.] Once you know that, I don't think it's possible to be called a child any longer.
Doctors aren't at liberty to be children for very long at all.
no subject
What he thinks of this Cogito Virus is this: the SD system must already have it. Mother Eliza must already have swan dived out of the bonds of reason - as much as a machine has reason - and he won't put it past the other computer systems to have gone with her. He is certain that every machine has long since stopped serving humans the way they were meant to, but no one has noticed. Or if they have, they choose to ignore it because the machine tells them to, and no one questions the idea of a machine writing its own defense like that.
He says:] Someone should have seen that coming. Maybe a machine that gains awareness is concerned about how long humans will allow it to exist past its usefulness.
[beat] Wanting to remain static still isn't enough to be human, but I'm sure the sheep don't think that far. How can we call ourselves intelligent if we're spoon-fed how to think from an old stack of computers?
[His mouth sets in a thin line, not quite a grin. Okay, so maybe - just maybe - Shiroe is not the most subtle boy to ever grace Station E-1077. Clever enough to lack subtlety and still avoid remand for long enough, but he's behaved in ways that are a little embarrassing to look back on. He looks towards the window again.]
I don't think childhood is a shield from anything unpleasant. It's only preparation, and you're right -- careless children and adults can be replaced.
When another person like me comes along, I doubt they'll have planned it.
no subject
I wish we could have more unplanned people. [He considers, leaning back, but it's said in the dreamily toying sort of idea-juggling way, hypotheses that will never come to any sort of testing or fruition.] Trust in the wonder that comes of it naturally, without tweaking. It might make things more interesting, hm? But you can't just toss genes all hobnob in the Wombsys and hit 'randomize'. Can't let people be born into a closed system without a designated place for them. It doesn't work.
They say it's a flaw, an error of our ancestors, that we can't reproduce on our own? But sometimes, [His eyes narrow shrewdly, seriously, and he folds his arms loose across his stomach.] I think something designed it to be that way.
When things were put in the hands of machines, and our creators, humanity was denied the ability to be grand designers any longer. Our limitations are for the sake of our own continuance, it's said. We'll die, if we step outside. (And I think you're right about the sheep- most wouldn't even know what to do with themselves. The colony was just barely making it off of waste scraps.)
[It's unusual, to be this chatty when he doesn't have a set agenda in mind, and Daedalus knows it. Maybe death meant to is like this, an eternity of talking to a younger man who looks enough like you, passing on whatever scraps of thought, pearls of wisdom, never quite made it to spoken.]
The secret is, we're only just barely living anyway! Hanging on a thread, these bags of mortal cells, pretending to be human. One part of our 'perfect' system collapses, and the rest is soon to go. It's very fragile. Life is very fragile. People and machines... we're not so very different at all. We can be thrown away, when there's no more point to us.
[It's a terrifying and yet somehow relaxing thought to resign oneself to. That there should be an afterlife, where people can talk on trains like this without an entourage warning them of spreading volatile ideas... is really quite nice.]
I'm surprised, honestly, that there is anything afterwards at all.