The Doorway: a panfandom game

I haven't written because
it isn't fitting that every Spring I wait for gr

Today, whilst finishing my lunch, I finished another of my author's books. It was a very experimental piece about a young man who died and the friends left who mourned him. His name was Percival. Death is the enemy said Bernard, who spoke for Louis and Jinny and Rhoda and Susan and Neville and even Percival. And I suppose Mrs. Woolf's worlds are littered with the wreckage of young men who dared put on nobility like a cloak, without understanding the illness of the fit for all whose shoulders are not made of alabaster.

Funny, in that way. Funny that breathing makes us living war crimes when we take a tumble from our horse and split our pumpkins on the nearest boulder.

Funny that it makes the boys watching us try again harder.

Do you know what I'm talking about?

If you were doubting the close coupling occurring here on the network, I further submit the out-of-doors. The lovers are in full swing in the parks and on the streets. And I suppose I'd seen a Spring or two in my lifetime to compare - but such as it is, and such as it will be ...

The winter was hard, friends. And I do hope your love is long.

( trigger warning: author suicide )

There are parts of me - parts of me that existed before I came here - that I still must re-trace, parts of me I'm discovering anew and coming to understand in a greater context. Had I liv Now I know why those spectacles were packed with the box you sent, Walter. And so much the better, for how will I ever be able to take photographs without the ability to focus?

Soft filters lack proportion - and though I, indeed, of most gentlemen most deject and wretched - lack the circumscribed proportion of my age, I find it here well enough. Sparrows chattering in Greek seem a mere flourish to the daily reveals on the part of the Tesseract.

At Sotheby's, at least, the orange still life has the good sense to remain on the canvas.

As an artless segueway into something more interesting than myself, I find it simplistic and comforting to walk the halls of the auction house. When each footprint tracks up with the other and cocooned
couched
swaddled lined in the familiarity of the art from my own age, I should think that whatever bricoleur (Tesseract) knit me, perhaps it was in those halls they meant me to find some article of peace. And even though I am nothing, even though my only role is conduit, even though this guile and this art flows through me, I am part and parcel with all that I have found.

It is strange, I think. Strange to be a man entirely characterised by death. A man who, if this painting is any indicator, lived a thoroughly interesting life (and I have been reading his letters; his life was interesting, he was fueled by doubt and faith entertwined, driven by the monsters in his own mind) and deserves to be remembered for more than a very untimely, tragic death. That is I assume how you remember m

This place puts us all in the unique position to perform outsider observations on ourselves, with extended access to outside perspectives within our own universe. All the missing pieces of the puzzle that make it so infuriating as you live through it are just handed out for the viewer to take in, to make judgement based off of with knowledge you couldn't possibly have had.

It's fascinating.

Now dears, there's an old saying in England -- The queen believes the world always smells like fresh paint.

Wouldn't you just know, within no less than 48 hours of touch-down, I received two phone calls. One from Soho Art Supplies and the other from Sotheby's auction house, quite sure that they'd like to get in on the ground floor of whatever before Christie's could manage a side-step. It isn't so much that there isn't a Sibleys and Arrowsmiths here, I suppose. It's that I had a reputation at both of these places - a reputation, I suppose, for good - and they're interested in re-upping their contracts with me.

I don't
Even though

I am glad - in a way - that I can lean upon the goodwill wrought from my other self.

This is not what was intended.

... and being of a sound mind, I can tell you that everything looks different. The smells and the sounds are different. There is no sun, but if there was sun I am sure it would be hot. I am told it is February, that winter is nearly done and Spring (like Orpheus' bloody stump upon a lyre) will come back to us.

It was June. And I didn't want to go. It was June and we were laughing, until

We are sure there is no veil, we are sure this veil is not rent to pieces? We are sure that these two feet are my feet and this very large flat is my flat? Because I couldn't be sure of anything.

Even though I claim - to the high heavens - that every day I feel a bit less antique and a bit more like a 21st century man, I have to admit that there are some times in which this world still manages to move the ground beneath my feet.

That's life, I suppose. As it's teaching us what we're meant to learn, namely: even though strange things happen, even though there are stranger things still to come and new gauntlets to run ... we've got to cling to one another and trudge on together.

In far less intangible news, I am sorely tempted to try a vegan diet. Has anyone tried this to much luck or positive effect?

Soft voices of the dead
are whispering by the shore

Godspeed, Seamus Heaney. And good luck.

[Steve Rogers (616)]

I need a fresh set of eyes. This is information received regarding Dorian's relationship with Basil directly preceeding his disappearance.

He believes that if he were braver with his feelings, with how he felt about Dorian, he wouldn't have painted so much of them into that portrait. He wouldn't have left Dorian believing that his youth was what he was... so delighted by.

[Basil Hallward]

Hey, you know you had a shift this morning, right?

[OOC: Post later edited and unfiltered]

Hey, has anyone seen Basil Hallward? He was supposed to have a shift today, and he isn't responding to the messages I left.

I think my portrait has made a slight change for the ...better.

[Septimus Smith]

Help.

[Steve Rogers (MCU)

Could I move lunch a bit later? About three or so? Sorry.

If you're seeing ghos visions ... I understand. If you would like to talk about it, feel free to do so here or meet me outside the Tower and I'll buy you a hot dog.

[Warded to friends]
AKA those who have had friendly conversations with Septimus in the past

Considering the order of the day - with no taking away from what's happening to those who are experiencing the visions of their lost ones - it will probably be a much better idea if I steer clear.

Unless you need me.

However, if that's not the case and in order to be good to myself, I'm not crossing the threshhold until things are worked out.

Sometimes I forget my father's dead. It's easy to do here. Just visiting, home still a snapshot from the last time we were all there at once. His smile and my mother's laugh, wet with wine and glowing in warm orange candlelight. And a wicked glint in my brother's eye and my sister's baby blonde curls just peeking over the table as he chased her.

And then I remember that no matter how much I practise, I will never open a door to them.

But I have learned to open doors to friends, so that's a small victory to be proud of. And it's all right to grieve and be happy at the same time.

It's a fairly odd feeling, leaving your door (your door) every morning and setting your feet on the pavement. Not that I'm saying that millions of other people aren't doing it right around me at all times - they are, they're a pushy lot - but the fact remains: this was not what my author had set out for me. And being that I am so glad that I escaped the calumny of her pen, I think I might briefly celebrate that I'm living in a relatively nice and extremely overpriced flat in Brooklyn after having vacationed ever so briefly in Belize.

And Sotheby's. I suppose I should talk about that but perhaps ... later.

Good God, I'm a very lucky man.

But if you're wondering where Isabel and I have escaped to - it's Brooklyn - and you're welcome out to see us.

TEXT TO STEVE ROGERS (616):

» hullo there. you & gitmo have something in common. it isn't this, though.
» wish you were here. (yes, it's instagram. no, i haven't sold out.)

( Attached. )

In the interest of investing more of myself to creating a home in New York, I've finally caved to Sotheby's and am now working for them as a Modern and Post-War British Art specialist.

Of course I cannot thank Soho Art Materials enough for affording me space to scrape my wits up and re-order them as best I may. And I do not intend to leave them altogether, only to split my time between the auction house, the art store and doing what Pole fancies most.

So, if you've an itch and the only balm for it is very expensive Cubist art, do give me a call.

[Filter: Isabel]

Let's move to Brooklyn (or this one?) by way of Belize and let's go this week. I know the issues with the Starks put us off a bit but no longer, dear.

And I don't want to stay here with the towers constantly under the threat of more undue attention from those whoa re less than kind.

And Brooklyn is not far for our friends to visit.

'But blessed are your eyes because they see, your ears because they hear!
In truth I tell you, many prophets and upright people longed to see what you see, and never saw it; to hear what you hear, and never heard it.
Matthew 13:16-17

Mass tonight at St. Patrick's Cathedral. Got to the third reading and second fag before the ushers were upon me. They waiting for the fucking collection of course, can't miss that. Spent the better part of my evening at Connolly's Pub on 14th, listening to a man of about fifty tell stories about his Brooklyn childhood 'til he fell off his stool. He stole my lighter, so here I am home again, smoking out the window and stubbing out on a stolen copy of the missal. Catholicism could use a few more cigarette burns.