006. ( video. )

[magnitudes]

( Ah, it’s a heartwarming holiday scene, viewers. Sarissa, lounging on a couch, somehow inexplicably still with severe tank top tanlines despite a) it being winter and b) her wearing a tank top, which surely should theoretically make the tanlines less apparent. Not today, apparently. It reads “Sorry for the thing I said when I was hungry,” but perhaps “Sorry for what I’m about to say now I’m drunk” would be more fitting. She’s got a neon curly straw sticking out of a bottle of bourbon, and a cocktail umbrella tucked behind her ear, and appears to be wearing tropical board shorts. It’s just that kind of day. Or night. Whatever.

Sitting next to her is Pablo, who is wearing a striped cardigan, black shorts, and fiddling with his bangs and a straightening iron until he notices that Sarissa is recording. He frees his hair and sets the iron aside, picking up instead his own drink of choice (non-alcoholic; it's a capri-sun pouch) so he can more easily listen. )

Okay, but like. Okay, no, sorry, but if you think about any of the stuff that all of us across all our bloody worlds have gotta have in common, it’s art, yeah? Like— creativity. Art and poems and music, the expression of everything that makes us who we are given some kinda solid shape. Whether its colours or melodies or whatever form we gotta grab and twist about, it’s expressions of the world and how we understand it, right? It’s a way to know that we’re not going out of our bloody minds, because there’s thing element that we can understand and connect with, and it links us to other people. It’s why people got all fired up about the Spice Girls, a while back.

( That isn’t actually what happened, Sarissa, but sure. Go with that. ) And Pablo here, he’s an artist. Makes the world make sense with colours. Everything is colours and— and texture. It’s stories all layered up and up, kind of like people. We’re all hundreds of thousands of stories all layered together and then laid out.

What? Oh, uh...

( Pablo seems to not know what to say about that, given his silence, though if he feels put on the spot it doesn't show on his face. He starts to shake his head, but then instead opts to say: )

Right. Well you know, I don't know if it even has to exactly make sense, if like... we can still look at it and feel something, because either somehow we do understand it, on the level of like... uh... ( He gestures circularly over his head, glancing in Sarissa's direction for a moment but then upward. How to say it? ) You know, intuitively, even if we don't know why, or what anything really means. Or we don't understand but try to, or-- sometimes people don't want to. It all depends. But, uh-- yeah, it's still a little bit of everything and everyone we've ever known, too. Like stories.

( He stops talking and looks back over at Sarissa. )

Or a jigsaw puzzle. Or, uh— there’s this art, in Japan? Kint— ah, shit. Kintsuko...roi? It’s um, it’s like the to do with change and journeys and things gathering more meaning. I guess. I mean technically it’s about repairing broken stuff with gold lacquer, but it’s like an extra layer? Like a new addition to the story. Somethings not less perfect for being broken, and it doesn’t lose something. It gains it? I don’t know, make that a metaphor, if you wanna. People and art fit together. ( She grins, a bit ridiculously. ) And if they don’t, we can glue ‘em together with gold lacquer. It could get very Klimpt. Or Kahlo.

( Sarissa frowns, then, as she delicately sips her bourbon. ) Does anyone else do that? Like finding ways to express the way they understand things more tangibly? Like an enigma machine for your thoughts?

Comments

[slightlyoffchilt]

Nature often walks in hand with nurture.

[aojona]

Did they ever talk to you about their visions? Or... well, maybe that's private.

[slightlyoffchilt]

The visions of my patients... Most have been fairly gruesome.

[aojona]

What kind of things did they see?

[slightlyoffchilt]

Truth in blood and organs. [A beat.] Not the sort of conversation to air so publicly, I'm afraid.

[aojona]

[ That gives Pablo brief pause; it's a bit too chillingly close to home for him, at least recently. Not intentionally, more regarding literal outcomes -- whether or not he's truly at fault for them.

After a brief silence, he says in a somewhat quieter voice: ]

Sorry. You're right, I mean... I should have figured. That must be a hard way for them to live.

[slightlyoffchilt]

You have a lot of compassion for the damned.

[aojona]

I... [ W O W. ] I just think-- shouldn't we try to understand why these things happen? What if they never wanted to see those things either, you know?

[slightlyoffchilt]

Those who do not want such visions manifested rarely get to the brink of my treatment.

Or that was how it used to be, back in Baltimore.

[aojona]

[ He thinks about that. ]

Do you mean people like in your book?

[slightlyoffchilt]

Specifically Walter White? He was... Something else altogether.

[aojona]

Do you think he had visions too?

[slightlyoffchilt]

Of grandeur, yes.

[aojona]

[ Silence. ]

Oh. [ A beat. Oh. That's different than what Pablo meant. ] Delusions?

[slightlyoffchilt]

You make a distinction between the two?

[He was teasing. Mostly.]

[aojona]

Well-- delusions come from your own mind, and visions come from somewhere else.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Somewhere else? A higher power? A muse?

[aojona]

... That depends on the person, right?

[slightlyoffchilt]

Seems like an easy exit.

[aojona]

What do you mean?

[slightlyoffchilt]

[Oh, a way he might understand, thinks Chilton:] It is easy to speak with such width.

[aojona]

I think it's just-- uh... [ He pauses. ] I don't really know how else to say it. Different people just experience inspiration in different ways, I always thought. You know?

[slightlyoffchilt]

You continue to be so generous with individuality within the masses.

[aojona]

Well, individuality is one thing anyone can be capable of.

[slightlyoffchilt]

Mm. For most personality types, sure.