Post by Santy on Jun 14, 2017 0:23:43 GMT
Appendix 29
Transcript of Meeting #1171-29-11
Patient #1171 interview was conducted by Dr Luó.
L: Good evening, [REDACTED]. How would you like us to start?
[R]: By not acting like there is a choice in any of this?
L: You are not here against your will.
[R]: No, you are right. I’m just backed into a corner. Do we really have to do these so often though? I fail to see their value.
L: They are as much for you, as they are us. I doubt you’d get such riveting company in your complex.
[R]: About that…
L: I’m sorry. Relocation is out of the question.
[R]: For me or the lunatic across the hall? He thinks I am his brother. Keeps calling out to me during the night, believes I am passing judgement, for his sins. He is cracking up.
L: We are monitoring him, [REDACTED]. On the subject of family, you have yet to mention any of your own. We could reach out--
[R]: NO!
L: It would be precautionary--
[R]: I said no. If they’re not dead already, there is little else you can do to help them.
L: Do you not miss them? Worry for them?
[R]: Why would a man of my position have such thoughts?
L: It is human nature.
[R]: How long have you been in this line of work, Doc? How much of that do you see in us? The ones who make it back, live long enough to have to sit in this chair three times a week and talk about the thoughts and feelings that they were trained not to have. I am as indifferent to the man across the hall than I am the family that await at home.
L: And yet you were adamant we not reach out.
[R]: You would only make it worse.
L: So you do care what becomes of them?
[R]: I only wish for less blood on my hands.
L: Ours or theirs?
[R]: Both, either, it does not matter. Blood is blood, and I have spilled enough to have wiped out entire generations. I am beyond capable of being a family man, Doc. Beyond caring what side the man I kill is on. American, Syrian, Russian, Palestinian, your differences stop when you are nothing but rotting flesh. You are not my brother, my comrade, or my enemy, you are carrion.
L: Do you not find these thoughts to be disturbing?
[R]: The man across the hall… he might. I am told we all come to see that reality eventually, where are minds cannot comprehend our actions. Where nature conflicts with nurture. We are an affront to nature, us men of war, and such a realisation would drive most men crazy. But what happens when that realisation comes, but instead of madness taking you, you only further embrace it?
L: Embrace what?
[R]: I don’t fear death, Doc. For my family, or myself. I don’t wish to kill, or to shed anymore blood. But I can’t shake this feeling that if that were true, if what was how I truly felt, that I should be no better than the man across the hall. I should be tearing at the walls and screaming and crying and struggling to cope with the pain I have inflicted on the Earth. But instead I sit here with you, waiting, talking, acting as though I am just another patient.
L: Some people cope better than others.
[R]: And some never need to cope. Some never need to cope! Can you hear him, Doc?! We are in another building and still there he is, in the distance, crying out for the dead and the disowned. Can you hear him?!
L: [REDACTED], I am going to have to ask you to remain seated.
[R]: He just wants his brother, Doc. He wants forgiveness, but that is not why he is screaming, that is not why he is angry, Doc… He wants to go back. To his other family, the one he left to the dogs and the vultures and the Hillmand heat! He wants to go home, Doc. He wants to go home!
L: Please… sit…
[R]: Take him home, Doc. For some men, family is all they’ve got left in this world.
Hapi House Gym
Las Vegas, Nevada
19th March 2017
Brandon Garcia sunk into this office chair and tried his best to hold back the Puerto Rican fury that he felt so often bubble beneath the surface. Across from him, with the safety of an untidily kept mahogany desk between them, sat his daughter, Rosemary. She returned his steely gaze with a defiant look, the sort of look that only added further to this newly discovered anger Garcia felt. A form of anger that had no clear outlet, to temper it with the violence he was accustomed to hadn’t worked in the past. He only felt that shift toward himself, and disappointment, and shame. He had never expected fatherhood to change him, but he had always been naive. It only made him hate his mother more, and respect his father less.
He settled into the chair, letting the silence linger, testing the stamina of her stubbornness. There was still some lessons he’d yet to learn of his teenage daughter, and after the past few months, they were starting to pile up. He gave in before her, as he always would. “I don’t expect you to tell me all the details, but with the shit hole I have just thrown myself into to help you, I expect something! Anything!”
“I didn’t need your help!” She snapped, with a sharpness that brought back memories of conversations with his father and grandmother.
“Right… and I am sure you had a plan all ready to go? Huh? I have been in more jail cells than I can remember, but one thing I always knew… I was alone, and I was fucked. But I had a lawyer. What did you have? Other than a roommate who looked like she was counting down the seconds before you nodded off!”
She laughed it off viciously, “I could’ve taken her. And I had a plan. I have a lawyer too.”
“Correction,” He was quick to add, “you have MY lawyer. And your mother was sure as shit keeping him fucking busy.”
She said nothing, but he could tell she was biting her lip. She had his anger, his fury, and she had his mouth. But she had her mother's sense not to use it all the time.
He sighed, “Look, I am not asking you tell me what happened. We all fuck up, we all make mistakes. But I had to agree to some shit that is going to severely impact my ability to watch over you like a rapidly balding fucking eagle. So… for the foreseeable future, you are staying here. At the gym, with Marko and the gang.”
Her mouth twitched, but Garcia wouldn’t give her the opportunity.
“I am back in the business, Rosary. But you come first. I ain’t doing this so you can go and make all the same mistakes that I did. You’ll train, you’ll clean, you’ll do whatever the fuck Marko tells you to do, and when I get back, you will greet me with a smile and a kiss, because I am doing this for you! And because of you.”
Ramada Hotel
South Padre Island, Texas
12th June 2017
[REDACTED] realigns the laptop and his chair, inch by inch until he is happy with the angle and the shot. Once he was happy, he hit record and sunk back into his chair, admiring the slight reflection on his mask in the darkness.
“I thought it was time we finally spoke. Just me and you. My manager, he is dealing with some Japanese attorneys, leaving me with the perfect window to address the audience who may have started to take notice. I am not a Brandon Garcia, I will not take up much of your time. He has a way with words, but me, I only know action. Though there might have been a time when I would listen to a command and obey, such a thing is thankfully in my past. As is last weeks opponent. In the past, in the hospital, in a state of recovery.
He was warned.
I would offer a similar warning to my next opponent, however, I have been told he and his brother are almost unbreakable. I had my doubts, but the footage doesn’t lie. It is an impressive feat, to be fight on, in the face of insurmountable odds and destination you are all too familiar with. But you are not the first I have faced with such resilience. I have come across many who take up arms who shouldn’t, men and women who have fought for no other reason than to protect their own, knowing that only destruction awaits, and yet they meet it head on.
I admired them, afterwards. Where they laid to rest amongst one another, defiance still etched into their features. And I expect no less from the man known as Twin-Nisher. For all the oddity, and strangeness, at the heart of it all is a determination to survive. And that is a strength I have discovered only a few possess, when faced with the inevitable.
So I will offer no warning for him. No threat for him. He is more than aware of what fate awaits, and I respect his willingness to endure.
For the rest of you though, I am prepared to make whatever statement out of him that is needed. I will break a body that has been broken many times before if it is what is required of me to have you stand up and take notice.
This message is not for the crowd, but for those out there, battling, fighting. Take notice. And ask the question Twin-Nisher has asked himself many a time; is this truly worth a broken home? What are you fighting for?
Whatever it was, it is now survival!"
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Word Count: 1680
Edit: Formatting fix
Word Count: 1680
Edit: Formatting fix