To: tskirvin@uiuc.edu
Bcc: [deleted]
Subject: "It was the end of history...the year everything changed." (Essay #50)

	"It was the year of fire, the year of destruction, the year we took 
back what was ours.  It was the year of rebirth, the year of great sadness, 
the year of pain, and a year of joy.  It was a new age.  It was the end of 
history.  It was the year everything changed.  The year is 2261 - the place:  
Babylon 5."

	That's the new B5 opening, give or take.  I still love that show
more than I should, I still worship JMS and anything he touches, I still
allow myself that one moment of perfect beauty in the dark...  It is at
the root of me, the search for the perfect story, so many generations
beyond all that has come before, so beautiful in comparison and so
important...

	And, until Wednesday, I wore the button of Babylon 5.  I spread
its word.  I fought for it on all counts, through whatever other pains I
may be going through at the time.  B5 was the rallying cry, all until
Wednesday, when the rallying cry had to change if I wanted to make it at
all.  Now I wear the t-shirt of Babylon 5, a temporary thing at best,
and things have changed accordingly. 

	You'll forgive me, Jenne, if this message goes to more than
just you this time.  My friends have a right to know on this one; it
matters too much for me to even consider otherwise.  

	
	I returned to Allen on Sunday at noon, a happy camper by all
counts, having been fed and allowed to sleep and in the possession of
several new items that I had just bought for myself.  The most important
part, though, was that I had returned home again, to my home, to where
my friends are.  And I could talk with them, about whatever I felt like
talking with them about.  

	Sunday was a good day.  

	Monday started well; I skipped most of my classes, got some
homework in, and worked some more hours because Loren hadn't shown up
for his time slots.  After work I returned home, and again began to
talk with my friends; for a while I did, contentedly and happily.  When
I returned to the room, I even began the moving procedures - throwing my
stuff into the next-door room (where I belonged anyway), switching over
computers, and so forth.  

	The goodness stopped when I turned sick over a ten minute
period, and lost every single ounce of my energy.  I still had work to
do, though - and so I promised my body that, unless it let me finish
cleaning up my new room, it wasn't going to get any medicine.  It gave
in.  I even finished in time to go downstairs and go to the Proportional
Representation that Maryam Zarnegar had been bugging me to go to for weeks; 
after I was done, I wandered around down there for a bit (in a stupor), 
until I found Caitte.  She told me to go to bed.  I did, as a direct result 
of her telling me to.  

	I care about my friends' opinions, you see.

	Tuesday: I woke up a bit late for work, having wanted to sleep
off the sickness.  Surprisingly, it had worked; I really didn't feel bad
anymore (as I was to determine, this was permanent).  I went to work,
sat there for hours, got a whole pile of stuff fixed and done - and then
proceeded to go home.  I ate dinner here, nothing major but just a few
cups of liquid, more because I was worried about getting sick again
rather than because I was hungry.  I then talked with some more people,
had a good time of it, and everything was good until rehearsal...

	Even that started fine.  We talked about the show of last week
(not great, but not terrible either; we may not have been up to snuff,
but the audience still liked it, and my "I am a cake" line went off
fairly well so I can feel okay about that... *meek grin*), talked,
worked on some games, generally had a good time.  Generally, it went as
was normal, nothing obviously out of the ordinary with this group of
friends.  Finally, around midnight, a few people left and some of us sat
down to talk again...

	Mike interrupted it, sitting with Julie up at the piano.  "We
have something to say..."  We sat at attention.  My first instinct was
"Mike and Julie are getting married?  What?", which would've been silly
but fairly entertaining...
	
	"Nine of us are going to form another comedy troupe, in addition
to Disco."  

	It took a minute or two for it to set in what had happened.  I
first thought back to the forming of _De Bono_ last year, remembering
that past split that had worked so well.  Were they doing something like
that?  But that 'nine' echoed in my mind, even as the others continued to
talk.  
	
	It took me a while to fully recognize it as 'we already have it
worked out', but I got there eventually.  A few others had talked by
then, and I think that even I may have spoken up once or twice, just a
train-of-thought thing that wasn't getting anywhere - but once I got it,
I looked up, and around...

	That was my first realization of what was going on.  It wasn't
painful, not yet, just strange.  Something felt wrong about it.  My
brain kept on churning away, though, and...
	
	...and I exploded a few minutes later.

	
	I said lots of bad stuff over the next hour and a half, as I
fumed in the corner and worried and thought and realized what the hell
had just happened to me.  All the trust I'd put into the group seemed
gone.  All the friends I'd made out of it seemed to be in jeopardy.  A
year and a half of work might go down the drain, everything could be
lost, I should just bail out now and get on with my life and life will
go on but Gods this isn't going well oh Gods why'd this happen tonight
to me to anybody what the hell is going on...

	I cursed that night, the first time I'd _ever_ really done it in
public.  I said things that I wish I could take back, made promises I
don't want to keep, generally hurt anyone and everyone that was around
me with my words (and I'm surprised that was all I did).  I changed my
life irrevocably in response to the situation, as I just looked for a
way out, something else I could do...but there was nothing...

	Several tried to comfort me, to no avail.  I finally fled
upstairs, to my room, looking for someone to talk to that wasn't
directly involved.  Jesse wasn't around, though; everybody had gone to
bed by now, or wasn't really of the right type to talk to, or...I just
wasn't in the right mood to really explain it in public, because I knew
what would happen then.  I went back to the old room, to see if Harf was
there to talk to - and he, and the others, were sleeping.  I went to my
new room, maybe George...George slept soundly.  

	I went to the shower and cried alone.  It was the first time for
literally four years, since the death of my lizard in Australia just
before I left, I had gone through the death of my grandmother, piles of
high school fights, the loss of my high school, and so much more since 
then - but I hadn't cried until now.  It hurt physically to do it, to
break down after so long in control, but I did it.  

	But even the tears didn't help.

	I got out of the shower, put my clothes back on.  I reached for
my keys - and stopped.  The keys, the personal symbol of all that was
Allen to me, with the buttons, the clock, the instincts that come with
keeping the keys from hitting things when I lean over, the fights I'd
had with them, everything that they had become to me - maybe, just
maybe, it was adequate.  I thought of how another of my friends handled
his problems, with physical scars, and I knew that this path was much
worse...

	
	I missed all of my classes on Wednesday morning, and a few hours
of work that I normally would have taken.  I woke up drained but alive,
a feeling of sadness still all around me.  Except for me the room was
empty, I was alone in bed but awake and ready...

	I reached for my keys.  Then I remembered that I'd left them
next to the computer, away from me, where I'd remember not to follow my
instincts.  

	I remembered.

	It was a tough day, wandering around campus, going through the
motions but not doing a great job of it.  I got a 30/30 on my Physics
Quiz, amazingly enough; that cheered me up briefly, and got me over to
work where I could just sit and zone out the world, avoid worrying about
any of it.  I returned to Allen eventually, got my stuff together and
went to my ECE test; it confused me, but not terribly so, and I guess I
did alright on it despite it all.  Finally I returned to Allen for the
last time that day, and went back to the room to talk with everybody
that would listen...

	It helped me understand why I wanted new roommates in the first
place, and reminded me why I need to get the hell out of there, when
none of them really cared all that much.  I'm loathe to tell the details
of such things to those that don't worry about it, so I left, went
downstairs to the meeting of the Dispossessed.

	I guess I was the one that got to explain it to a few of the
people, Victor and Bryan and Rache at the least - with my own slight
twist, of course, the perspective of the one that had, against all odds,
somehow been hurt the most.  None of them took it well at first, of
course, but they all seemed willing to get over it - and I tried to
share their views, get around it all, just keep on fighting without
regret and without remorse...but it's hard to talk yourself into stuff
like that, you know?  

	The meeting went better than the night before, that's the best I
can say for it.  We griped, we complained, we bitched about everybody in
the group and what the hell had happened and personal anecdotes and what
have you.  We asked questions, we asked 'what would you have done', we
told stories and...and we worried.  I guess we made some resolutions,
too - foremost amongst them "no more secrets", which we needed.  

	I felt like I was more in control of myself that night, which
really helped matters.  

	But the night still didn't end happy.  I was talking with Eva in
the commons, after the meeting; I was upset and worried, but determined
to get my mind off the problems.  Sarah came over and started talking to
her - and I just looked away.  I couldn't take her look.  I knew the
problem, of course, that I wasn't sure about...about the friendship
anymore, about anything with her anymore.  Eva asked what was up with
Disco (I'd mentioned something about it, but refused to go into details
at the time); Sarah gave the short explanation.  Eva said "...well that
sucks...".  Sarah got a worried look on her face, and left.  

	A few hours later, before I fell asleep, I wrote out a message
to everyone in Disco.  "Show up tomorrow, I mean it."  Then I went back
upstairs and collapsed, exhausted.  Sleep still didn't come very
easily.

	
	Thursday I skipped my one class, went to work a couple of hours
late, and then didn't do much while I was there.  I guess I did work on
the Daemons' page a bit - updated it, explained some stuff, put down
some of their background and made it all work just that little bit
better.  My own piece of performance art, the living art of the Daemons
- it wasn't dead yet, and I'll be damned if I'm going to let it.  

	I returned to the dorm and avoided people for a while, actually
staying in the room for a bit if I remember correctly.  Coffeehouse
happened - while there, I explained what was up to Tina, reminded Rache
of a detail, and of course had my bagel and talked with a few others of
my friends.  By this time I was doing a little better - I was going to
make it through it, the true question had fully become "at what cost?"
I left early, to go back to rehearsal at 10pm like I'd told everybody
they should be at...

	I made it in a few minutes late, because my watch wasn't being
worn any more - but I wasn't missed.  The room was loud.  Everyone was
talking, trying to get beyond it, while I sat on the sidelines and tried
to avoid thinking about it...  I had promised myself that I wasn't going
to talk, that I wasn't going to make things any worse, that we could get
through this if I just shut up...

	10:20pm came by, and I changed my mind.

	"_QUIET!_"

	Nothing really changed at that rehearsal.  People fought; I was
quiet after that, interjecting only mildly humorous comments but
otherwise controlling myself.  Dave joined me in my silence, not wanting
it to work like it had a couple of nights before.  But it wasn't pretty
- the fighting began again, those that hadn't heard did hear this time,
Maryam announced that she was leaving for different reasons and things
just generally went to hell again...

	It ended decently, though, when we got back into improv.  We
were silly.  We tried to get around it.  How well did it work?  Well, I
don't really know - but I wasn't in a killing mood this time after it
was over, so I guess it was an improvement.  I left upset but alive -
and I realized that I had to do...something.

	And so I did.


	I've already written 250 lines to you people, far longer than
you really needed to read.  I won't get into the rest of my week in
great detail - you just don't need to hear it.

	But I'm alive, and that's what matters.  The keys are in my
pocket - and there they will probably remain indefinitely, in mourning
and in sorrow.  I'm still a member of Disco - I didn't resign like I was
afraid I was going to do.  And I think, or hope, or at least pray (in as
much as an atheist/agnostic can pray) that maybe, just maybe, I've kept
a couple of my friends out of the deal, that I can get beyond it all,
and that maybe we can even keep Disco alive through this too...

	When I feel like I don't like somebody, my response is pretty
much to not initiate conversations with them if I can possibly help it.
It's small but fair - I'm just not the type to extract petty revenge,
even if I wanted it (mailbombs are so easy and so anonymous...).  I've 
taken that approach for at least a couple of people, as a direct result of 
this.


	The keys are gone; while that was a good start, it was still
only the beginning.  This is not over.  The pain continues on, nothing's 
very friendly, and I continue to fight for whatever I can get out of it.  I
want nothing less than for this to have no more effect on my life than
it already has - but I know that's not going to happen, so I'm not even
going to pretend it will be that ignorable.

	To the eight (Tanino, Julie, Mike, John, Charlie, Dave, Caitte
and Sarah): please forgive me if I lose you as friends.  I've talked to
some of you, and haven't talked to others - but I'm not fully sure what
that distinctions means, in practical terms.  I have little advice to
offer except this: _do what you need to, and do it now_.  If you need to
do this, I wish you the best of luck - but you know the price,
especially since you've already paid a goodly portion of it. 

	To the others: thanks for standing with me on this one.  It's
been tough.  

	And to you all: few poems mean anything to me, but Latin...  The
last time I gave this to anyone was when the sister of the woman whom
I've long considered my greatest enemy died at the age of fourteen;
suffice it to say that this has a lot of emotional value.

	It was also interesting to see that particular enemy of mine on
Saturday, on the way to the Etc, for the first time in almost two
years...


Multas per gentes et multa per aequora vectus
Advenio has miseras, frater, ad inferias,
Ut te postremo donarem munere mortis
Et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem.
Quandoquidem fortuna mihi tete abstulit ipsum,
Heu miser indigne frater adempte mihi,
Nunc tamen interea haec prisco quae more parentum
Tradita sunt tristi munere ad inferias,
Accipe fraterno multum manantia fletu,
Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.
	- Catullus, Roman Poet (87-54 B.C.)

(By many lands and over many a wave
I come, my brother, to your piteous grave,
To bring you the last offering in death
And o'er dumb dust expend an idle breath;
For fate has torn your living self from me,
And snatched you, brother, O, how cruelly!
Yet take these gifts, brought as our fathers bade
For sorrow's tribute to the passing shade;
A brother's tears have wet them o'er and o'er;
And so, my brother, hail, and farewell evermore!
	- Translated by Sir William Marris



				- Tim Skirvin (tskirvin@uiuc.edu)
--
<a href="http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/tskirvin">Skirv's Homepage</a>
<a href="http://www.uiuc.edu/ph/www/tskirvin/daemons/">The Dungeon</a>
Mon Dec  9 02:27:56 CST 1996