savetheearth | Entry #B-1: "B" [November 19, Video]

[The man appearing onscreen this morning is haggard, somber, and distracted. Clearly, he's been awake all night, something he's been doing far too often lately, sitting curled in the middle of what appears to be a cleaned up but ancient school gymnasium's basketball court with his chin on his knees. A few feet away is a blue tarp hiding something sizable and lumpy.]

I know Albero's people are striking Espresso Yourself, early on the morning of Sunday, November 23, at 3:15 AM. They will be there to raze the building to the ground and they do not intend to take prisoners.

[He bites his lip, glancing away from the camera. The calmness he's affected since Anthony's death slips for a second, revealing something like fear. He swallows.]

I've been waiting for a pulse. I was hoping that maybe my other's experience and knowledge could help me, in this regard, but up to this point... it's been all quiet on that front.

[He rises slowly, moving towards the tarp and drawing it away from what it conceals. There are many pounds of dynamite stacked in the middle of his gym, along with several ominous looking canisters.]

I have dynamite and nitroglycerin. I think...

[He takes a deep, shuddering breath.]

I know we can kill a lot of them. Part of me really wants to, and I can't be the only one. But I know... I know that's not what we're fighting for, a criminal record of our own and another reason to be driven out of this city. So...

[He sits again, hard, on the floor, eyes and posture conveying a distinctly dazed quality.]

I think maybe it would be better to use this information to get the FBI on this and catch them in the act, with no blood shed. I'm prepared for both of these scenarios, but honestly... I don't know what's right. I'm so tired. I trust all of you, so... please help me make the right decision.

EDIT: I've been informed that Nick knows about another upcoming opportunity, a chance to hit the Mafia where it hurts. There's to be a meeting of higher-ups in the near future; further details are forthcoming.

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Fire would be a bad way to go. Do you remember the song?

We're pretty indestructible save under certain circumstances.

[ a few more seconds and a slight laugh. ]

By heart.

Do you sing it often, or is it connected with too many feelings of sadness?

It's a pretty song. Sad but beautiful. I sometimes hum the melody.

You know this about me already, but I have a hard time understanding how music can make people feel things.

It's more than just how they make you feel. Sometimes music connects to a memory or a thought. It connects a theme that inside your head and it just stays there, and that is how the song becomes part of a feeling. Like a fast rhythm could mean a happy song but the words talk about how someone had died and that person is remembering their life. Stuff like that.

It's really just sounds to me. That's a good explanation, it's just... something I think that maybe I'm not ever going to "get." It's a shame, because music affects so many people very deeply.

To sing as you're dying, it would have to be moving, right?

Everyone has a strength and a weakness. I've grown up with music all my life so I can't really say music doesn't have a place, but if it was something that you don't have an ear for, it makes it harder to understand. You've probably got stuff you can do that I'd never get, so it's okay.

It was his song. He sang it, even when he thought I couldn't hear him.

Hm... maybe. What's funny is that I have perfect pitch, which is probably the biggest waste I can think of.

When you were burning, he sang it?

Perfect pitch can be used in other parts of life. Like picking a lock or cracking a computer code or hearing lies and truths. You just need to focus on something that you can use it for.

We both were.

Yeah, I... I guess that's true.

Could I hear it? Even if I wouldn't understand it, I guess... I still might find it comforting if the two of you did.

If you can speak Japanese, you probably would know what the lyrics say.

[ it'll take him a moment, but it is a familiar tune, being the same one that he show L a few months ago. ]

[He listens, recognizing the song, intellectually, as very beautiful. But like every other song he's ever heard, it doesn't connect with him on an emotional level. It's no more successful at moving him today than it was almost a year ago.]

The lyrics make it sound like it's about lovers. Were you lovers?

I really don't know. They don't act like they are and yet, they were really close. I mean, I know that I won't see him again, yet a part of me still wants him around Numbered or not.

Yeah... I do know how that is. We've all fallen out of touch with people who've dropped out of this, for whatever reason. I guess there's no reason we can't still be in contact, but it's not the same.

It's more than that. Sorta like.

Well. Like an addiction. At least, that's what it felt like. Even now, I just want to see him here.

...that, I think I can understand.

[L doesn't get music, and he usually doesn't get people... but he gets addiction.]

Maybe it'll happen again for you. It's not so odd to think so; it's happened before, to other people.

I hope not. I mean, he doesn't need this kind of thing on his head... even if a part of me wants him here.

I used to think it was selfish to want other people around. Especially specific people, in dangerous times. But it's natural, so. Don't feel too bad.

Yah... it probably is selfish of me.

Stop. My point is that it isn't, that it's actually wildly unnatural to feel differently. People need lasting relationships and they go a little crazy when they vanish without warning.

I still don't know if it's just me or my other that needs that relationship more that's driving me buggy about it.

That's a struggle we all share.

You have other friends, and even if they're not as vital, maybe in time they'll grow important to you as well. Maybe never as important, but they might mean the difference between actually going "buggy."

Yah, I know. You guys are just as important as him.

Just so you know, that wasn't me fishing for compliments or trying to get you to admit that you like kissing me so much that all of your other relationships, past and present, just fade into blandness. I do understand the hook, sadness and nostalgia attached to the memory of "that special someone."

[Audio]

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