Lazarus Lawliet (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
numberedshepherd) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
raisetheearth2015-07-26 11:47 pm
numberedshepherd) wrote in raisetheearth2015-07-26 11:47 pm
Entry #A-1: "A" [Video/Action] [Shepherd's Haven]
[Lazarus checks in looking thoroughly displeased. He's standing in the largest building in Shepherd's Haven, most commonly used for forums and meetings. Today, he's surrounded by fabulous, artistic and delectable patries and sweets. Some are on the tables, set out as if for a banquet, but others are on the floor or in odd, unexected places, like on chairs and sticking to the walls.]
It's the one-year anniversary of our move to Shepherd's Haven. I was going to tell you that in spite of the slime, you're all still welcome to come celebrate and eat some of the food prepared for the occasion in the town hall. You know, in a valiant effort to maintain some semblance of community and normalcy, and to reject sensationalist panic and obsession.
[A green blob drops onto his shoulder. He brushes it off with clear distaste, but from the time he touches it to the time it lands on the floor, it transforms into a platter of cream puffs that land with a resounding clatter.]
...disregard that. If you do decide to come, don't eat anything until you confirm with me that it isn't slime. Right now, that's everything over here.
[He turns the feed over so it's in view of a far less enticing display of healthier and plainer options. Much of it was probably canned or frozen previously.]
It's the one-year anniversary of our move to Shepherd's Haven. I was going to tell you that in spite of the slime, you're all still welcome to come celebrate and eat some of the food prepared for the occasion in the town hall. You know, in a valiant effort to maintain some semblance of community and normalcy, and to reject sensationalist panic and obsession.
[A green blob drops onto his shoulder. He brushes it off with clear distaste, but from the time he touches it to the time it lands on the floor, it transforms into a platter of cream puffs that land with a resounding clatter.]
...disregard that. If you do decide to come, don't eat anything until you confirm with me that it isn't slime. Right now, that's everything over here.
[He turns the feed over so it's in view of a far less enticing display of healthier and plainer options. Much of it was probably canned or frozen previously.]
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Ugh, c'mon. How am I supposed to look at food, looking at those things?
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[Just... You know, turned it into pastries his Other probably had around constantly in huge amounts.]
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I'm not taking any chances. It's all getting tossed... it seems a lot safer that way. It feels like a waste, even if I'm well aware of where they came from.
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I mean... what do they smell like?
[Nail in the coffin.]
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...I wouldn't be able to tell you. You'd have to ask someone with a better nose.
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...Did you lose your sense of smell?
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Yes, I lost it. Threw it away. Whatever you call it, I don't have it, unless the smell is powerful enough to send everyone else running for the hills.
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[Except, the nail in the coffin would be--]
That'd be a weakened sense of smell...
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[You just are.]
If you have a thousand dollars and you spend $999.99 on cocaine, do you still have money? Technically, yes, but... like it's not really a practical or significant amount.
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...I don't get what you mean.
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I mean. Not to come off that way, but I could try to put it more simply I guess.
1 is more than zero, but when it's out of 1,000 it might as well be zero. That's my sense of smell.
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But, it's not zero.
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It doesn't have to be. Do you understand that there's a difference between big numbers and small numbers and that if you're missing a sense except for a little tiny trace amount of it, you're missing that sense as far as most people are concerned?
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[Arthur was essentially begging Lazarus for a more reasonable approach to the explanation.
Even though it was already incredibly reasonable.]
I mean--how small does a number have to be...?
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That's my point. When a number is so small that you have to question its significance, you might as well just round it to zero and call it zero.
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Like, if it's 1-4, you'd round to 5 and if it's 6 to 9, you'd round to 10...
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[Keeping things in the territory of mathematics was truly the disastrous mistake that would cripple them both.]
I mean, yeah! Like, if I'm rounding to 0 instead of 5...
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Cocaine's a drug, it goes up your nose, it damages the structures, and then your sense of smell goes bye-bye. It waves as it goes. It's history like the dinosaurs, the white powder corrodes everything that's good and you wake up wondering what the fuck happened to your life and then someone tells you that they baked cookies and you say "what cookies?" and they look at you like you're a lunatic.
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Admittedly, Arthur didn't say anything for a flat thirty seconds before finally choking out--]
...Shit, I'm sorry.
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[It wasn't, because he'd never really dealt with any sort of drug abuse other than alcohol abuse. Somehow, that seemed like a different sort of hurt.]
I mean, you gotta vent to somebody, right?
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I lost control, and I shouldn't have.
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not here