[Clarke's certainty is gratifying. It isn't always harmless, isn't always gentle, but certainty is still preferable to the alternative. She cannot begin to guess at the repercussions of bringing more strangers to this world, but it would be a lie to say she wouldn't want to do the same in Clarke's shoes -- that she doesn't want to do the same, in a smaller, more personal way. She misses her own family desperately. If she could pluck them out of Hap's hands and bring them here, it would be difficult to resist, consequences be damned.
Either way, that certainty makes it easier to keep going, to move through this darkened dreamspace, into familiar, increasing sightlessness, interrupted by the scuffing of their shoes against the facsimile of pavement. The sound resonates in this strange space like that simple prayer resonates through OA's inner world.]
Homer's was a hospital, he said. Somewhere by the ocean, with foghorns. Scott's was a film set.
[She chuckles softly, ducking her head. It sounds absurd, the afterlife as a hospital, as a film set. It makes more sense given a bit of further context:]
The NDEs were just a way of... traveling, of moving temporarily between spaces. Dimensions. There are other spaces outside of those, we thought. Entire lives we might have lived.
[A beat.]
And other ways to travel. Permanent ones. Death isn't final, and it's only one method.
[There's a low mournfulness, an unspoken understanding: even knowing this, she cannot make manifest what Clarke wants. There is a way to open the path, yes, but want and will are inherent in the process. Even if the movements work here, which is far from guaranteed, to the best of her knowledge, she could only help people leave this world, not draw anyone to it.
There's another sadness there too, older and darker and far more personal.]
We were gonna have a garden. Homer and I, when we got out, when we found our perfect dimension. We thought there must be one, somewhere we could... live. Just live, with our hands in the dirt. I hope...
[A pause; she draws in a breath What she wants to say next must be felt, must be known in fullness, must be made true.]
no subject
Either way, that certainty makes it easier to keep going, to move through this darkened dreamspace, into familiar, increasing sightlessness, interrupted by the scuffing of their shoes against the facsimile of pavement. The sound resonates in this strange space like that simple prayer resonates through OA's inner world.]
Homer's was a hospital, he said. Somewhere by the ocean, with foghorns. Scott's was a film set.
[She chuckles softly, ducking her head. It sounds absurd, the afterlife as a hospital, as a film set. It makes more sense given a bit of further context:]
The NDEs were just a way of... traveling, of moving temporarily between spaces. Dimensions. There are other spaces outside of those, we thought. Entire lives we might have lived.
[A beat.]
And other ways to travel. Permanent ones. Death isn't final, and it's only one method.
[There's a low mournfulness, an unspoken understanding: even knowing this, she cannot make manifest what Clarke wants. There is a way to open the path, yes, but want and will are inherent in the process. Even if the movements work here, which is far from guaranteed, to the best of her knowledge, she could only help people leave this world, not draw anyone to it.
There's another sadness there too, older and darker and far more personal.]
We were gonna have a garden. Homer and I, when we got out, when we found our perfect dimension. We thought there must be one, somewhere we could... live. Just live, with our hands in the dirt. I hope...
[A pause; she draws in a breath What she wants to say next must be felt, must be known in fullness, must be made true.]
I hope you get yours.