who we are and all that we're trying to be
The monolith persisted in his motions, gathering the memory mud sanction by sanction, one by one, releasing them from their unearthly bounds and placing them in the container. He could hear Phoebe command orders towards the boys, glancing back only briefly to watch them for a moment, the muck difficult to grasp for childish endeavors; but they seemed to manage after a while. His stare resolved itself back to the reaches of the street, stooping to pick up muck, patterns and routines, barely hearing the midwife’s apology. “It is fine,” the General noted, tone flat and nonchalant, a shrug and a nod, not begrudging or grumbling about the boys’ manners. It was not surprising that any of them would act out or be altered; loss was loss, and it took on many different roles and formations. Deimos had been far worse in his grieving, melancholy, and any other void he’d strived to slip into (menace, destruction, and treachery; familiar, primordial habits, vile, Stygian procedures and practices; a torturous, slow-sinking erosion). Perhaps in time, because of their youth, they’d find ways to cope.
He wasn’t one to give advice on those measures either – isolation and detachment were his fallback maneuvers and operations.
It takes dying to know
How to live as ghosts
