[ kaveh speaks. alhaitham listens as if at the end of a long tunnel. beneath his fingers, kaveh is here. in his mind, kaveh is somewhere else. he is back in the desert, where quicksand and sinkholes lurk beneath the slumber of golden sands. he is back in the rainforest, where a diadem sits on the rainforest floor. he is back in his mother's house, a child at the door, waiting for a father who will never come home. kaveh is here. he is also not here. in no universe can kaveh go where alhaitham cannot follow. that does not promise alhaitham the ability to reach.
the gauze continues. alhaitham's fingers continue. the final slip of gauze is tucked in. the medical tape seals the loop. alhaitham's hands clinical run over the white of the bandaging. he feels for gaps and looseness of gauze, and then, deeming his handiwork adequate, reaches around kaveh for bandaids. it takes him a moment to speak. when he does, it's with the deliberation of a man feeling the shape of words upon his tongue, phoneme by phoneme, as thought is etched into sound, sound takes on form and form becomes meaning. ]
I did not tell you what I did so that you can pass on your blame. [ alhaitham states this with the quiet conviction of a man who knows the sun and the stars and the measure of a man who has been compared, at some point in time or another, to both. ] No evidence in the world will shift the path chosen by your heart. We have argued for years. Every permutation of that argument has passed between us, through you. Little enough will convince you to do so. This, I have learned. It has little to do with who is right, or wrong. It has everything to do with who you are.
[ his words are punctuated by the crinkle of paper. the bandaid is carefully smoothed over a middling scratch along kaveh's side. the next finds its way to a minute cut on his arm. ]
If even I did not expect so, what gave you the expectation that you could? You blame yourself for being unable to blame him. [ a weary, ironic beat. ] I blame you for having me voice the absurd.
no subject
the gauze continues. alhaitham's fingers continue. the final slip of gauze is tucked in. the medical tape seals the loop. alhaitham's hands clinical run over the white of the bandaging. he feels for gaps and looseness of gauze, and then, deeming his handiwork adequate, reaches around kaveh for bandaids. it takes him a moment to speak. when he does, it's with the deliberation of a man feeling the shape of words upon his tongue, phoneme by phoneme, as thought is etched into sound, sound takes on form and form becomes meaning. ]
I did not tell you what I did so that you can pass on your blame. [ alhaitham states this with the quiet conviction of a man who knows the sun and the stars and the measure of a man who has been compared, at some point in time or another, to both. ] No evidence in the world will shift the path chosen by your heart. We have argued for years. Every permutation of that argument has passed between us, through you. Little enough will convince you to do so. This, I have learned. It has little to do with who is right, or wrong. It has everything to do with who you are.
[ his words are punctuated by the crinkle of paper. the bandaid is carefully smoothed over a middling scratch along kaveh's side. the next finds its way to a minute cut on his arm. ]
If even I did not expect so, what gave you the expectation that you could? You blame yourself for being unable to blame him. [ a weary, ironic beat. ] I blame you for having me voice the absurd.