vi: ghosts

jack smith. adam weiss. president and vice president of the mountebank club.

they don't really let us live normal lives.

that probably sounds obvious. the members of a religion of an evil god who probably inspired accounts of faustian bargains aren't especially ordinary? what a shock that is.

what i mean is a little more complicated, though. a lot... well, let's call a spade a spade, a lot worse. i mean they don't let us see our old friends, or partners, or really anyone. they exercise total control over our lives.

adam is a bit more obvious about it. jack usually stays behind the scenes, content to be a figurehead whose publicity comes from his mystique.

or he's just a lazy bastard.

i sometimes wonder about giles. about his uncle markus. about whether giles felt the same way about me as i did about him.

but it doesn't matter anymore. even if i saw him again by some bizarre coincidence, adam wouldn't let me anywhere near him. not close enough to rebuild what we used to have, and certainly not close enough to build something new.

i don't know why my heart aches like this. i don't believe we're really any different than other animals, other objects. i mean, everything is just matter and energy, no matter what mask or facade or persona is hiding it. so why can't i convince myself of that long enough not to feel like this?

or is that the reason why? is it because i know how long infinity is, how crushingly bleak our reality looks when you see through its many disguises, that i feel so empty? or is because i am alone in this world, a husk of a person in the mask of a fox whose only companions are cultists? is it because i can't form the words in my mouth or write them on the page that say i am never returning to the mountebanks for fear of what they would do to someone who knows as much as i do if i tried to leave?

i couldn't say. maybe it's a little bit of everything.