004 - Mincemeat

[deadly_ned]

Hello, Barge. My name is Ned, and I have a completely arbitrary and unrelated question to ask.

If you had a minute - 60 seconds - with any person currently dead and could talk and interact with them as normal, alive people would...

What would you say or ask them?

I suppose this question goes to the people who are currently...dead....and have alive people back home they're separated from as well.

It's an odd question, I know. But I've been...curious, lately.



Also, would the elf who took my wallet please give it back now? I hope you remember me; I was the piemaker dressed as a Franciscan monk. I hate to treat the network as my own personal Lost Connections newsletter but I really didn't know what other way to get in touch with you.

And if you're not actually an elf, I'm sorry for calling you one.

Comments

Private

[deadly_ned]

I never said those 60 seconds would be easy.

Private

[hatestriangles]

It's not about easy. If he didn't know what I did there'd be no point apologizing.

Private

[deadly_ned]

Yes there would. You can do it for closure, or to make yourself feel a bit better, or to air out grievances or concerns.

Private

[hatestriangles]

So it'd just be for myself.

Private

[deadly_ned]

In this case? Yes.

Private

[hatestriangles]

Then I'd rather not see him at all.

Private

[deadly_ned]

Not even for sixty seconds you wouldn't have had otherwise?

Private

[hatestriangles]

[His voice is a little cold now.] The options are using that minute to tell him something really fucked up that he wouldn't believe or understand anyway or talk to him about nothing important while I pretend everything's the way it was before I screwed up, both just to make myself feel better. Either way it's a lose. Why would I disturb him for that?

Private

[deadly_ned]

There's nothing you could do to make him better. He's dead.

...I'm sorry.

But there's a reason why funerals are for the living and not the dead.

Private

[hatestriangles]

I don't need closure; I know he's dead. This is just a what-if scenario anyway, right?

Private

[deadly_ned]

If you don't need closure, maybe it's for the better not to wake him up.

Yes. The only raising the dead I see around here is what the Admiral does.

Private

[hatestriangles]

Yeah. If lose my mind enough to come back here if I graduate, then I could actually help him. If your way was real? Just sounds like a good way to bring up bad memories.

Private

[deadly_ned]

Then it's probably a good thing to concentrate on the first plan.

Because the second is fictitious and something I made up for the purposes of a hypothetical question that I'm realizing now is just dumb.

Private

[hatestriangles]

You could always change the fictitious rules.

Private

[deadly_ned]

[The Piemaker's left eye twitches]

The rules are somewhat stationary.

Private

[hatestriangles]

Why? If you're the one making it up, you're dictating the rules, right?

Private

[deadly_ned]

You can't go changing the rules in the middle of the game. That's one of the prime definitions of cheating. Makes the whole thing less fun.

Private

[hatestriangles]

Oh, so it's a game now?

Private

[deadly_ned]

Did I say game? It's not a game. It's a question. Rules of the...question.

Private

[hatestriangles]

Can you cheat at a question?

Private

[deadly_ned]

Yes. You can disregard the premise of the question and invent your own answer that has little or no relevance to the original query.

Private

[hatestriangles]

But we weren't talking about that. We were talking about changing the question itself.

Private

[deadly_ned]

Why do we have to change the question at all? Don't you think there's too much change too quickly nowadays?

Private

[hatestriangles]

You're getting mighty defensive about this arbitrary question.

Private

[deadly_ned]

I'm not being defensive.