Life Crises 2:
Midlife Crisis
Author: Clarity
Disclaimer: Joss. Is. GOD. I just try to interpret his works.
Summary: Three points of view at the end of Angel season 4. Part two-Wesley
Rating: PG, but only for language
Spoilers: 'Peace Out', obviously; also, much of the past two seasons of Angel
Author's Notes: After writing the last part, I just had to add to it. Period two was supposed to be time to catch up on all the late work we have to turn in before graduation--guess what I did instead? At this rate, I'll get part three, 'Unlife Crisis', out by tomorrow night. Enjoy.
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I’m looking out the door at the streets, and they’re all full of blood and fire and screaming. And all I can think is, we did this. This is our fault. We gave up, didn’t give up, _destroyed_ world peace. For this.
We meant well. How I loathe those words now. I meant well, everybody, calling the Council when Faith killed a man. I meant well, Angel, giving Connor over to Holtz. We meant well, world, destroying universal peace and prosperity. Of course, we may have just paved the road to Hell, but what else could we do?
What could I have done? What am I supposed to do? I can’t. I don’t know. I’m not what my father wanted, I’m not good enough for the Council, for my slayer, for Angel. I can’t do what they want of me, I don’t know how, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do! In all my books, my scrolls, my prophecies full of ancient wisdom, you’d think _someone_ would have thought to add, just as a footnote, the point of it all. If all we ever do is fail, is try and fail and loose Faith and Fred and Lilah, then why am I to even bother trying?
I gave up paradise for this. For a few, shining, beautiful days, I wasn’t failing. I was good enough just as me, she loved us and we loved her and we loved each other and that was enough. For once, the good intentions were _enough_. Why can’t they be? Why does it seem that everything we try to make better just gets made worse?
We could have stayed. We could have stayed with her, like Connor, despite the lifting of the illusion--I refuse to believe that we are, that I am, so shallow that Jasmine’s hideous appearance would truly be enough to turn us all from what she said if it were real. She owned our thoughts; the mere suggestion that she were wrong was unthinkable. That is her power, was her power, not the illusion. Our own thoughts. She didn’t just devour human flesh, human blood, she made our words mean nothing. My thoughts are my words are mine, and I will pay in blood to keep them.
And apparently we have, because they’re rioting like they did when the sun went out. If Angel used her name to defeat her...blood set our thoughts free to bring the word back through a blood sacrifice, halting her words and spilling our blood and it’s all one and the same. Fire at night, shadows at day, blood that speaks and words that bleed, and none of it, none of it is ever enough. Prophecy words speak of blood. Blood spills because of words. But the words never speak of words, do they: Never of thoughts that will _stop_ the blood, because to stop the blood is to stop the thoughts and the words, and even still it takes blood. Blood to stop the bleeding, because words don’t, ‘I’m sorry’ doesn’t, there is no magic word to stop it. But if blood is words and words mean nothing then neither does the blood, and that’s all there is, blood that at once is life and death, because one is the other. To live is to die, and the whole human race is doomed to it, and not even Jasmine could stop that, she hadn’t the power even if she wanted to.
There’s fire in the dark and shadows from the sun, and it never stops, and no words or blood or any power can stop it. Nothing will ever make it right, which I suppose is how we should have _known_ Jasmine was wrong. Nothing is that easy. The apocalypse, this one, it’s decayed into our normal blood and fire, but it’s no different from hers, it flows just as red and it won’t stop until it flows itself out. And this city...this bloody, bloody city, and God alone knows if I mean that as a curse or a description, it has enough blood in its rotting heart to keep it going, and nothing will fix it, nothing will make it better, no amount of good intentions and words will stop the sluggish blood flow.
Lord, I feel like I should be quoting Eliot, with all the symbolism flying around here, the city and the blood and all of it pointing to death and that death never fixing a thing. All right, ‘This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / This is the way the world ends / Not with a bang but a whimper.’ Only he’s wrong, it doesn’t. Maybe one day, it will be the apocalypse that slips under our guard to get us, but I doubt it, we rush in with our clash-bang and it _never_ ends. Never. If it did, it would be a whimper, but now _is_ the bang, again and again, and no word or blood can quell its destruction. So we’ve bled it all out and we’re hollow men in this great faceless City of angels and devils, but we’ve nothing left to fix it with. Better the bang of pain and life than our whimper apocalypse, but we spend all our blood and speak all our words just trying to stem the tide that will never stop coming. And we can’t stop fighting it as long as it does, but we haven’t the power left to stop it forever so long as we’re fighting it. We can’t let it go because then we loose it all, because as much as we give to stop it at least it’s ours to give--but she made it so easy when we didn’t have to fight.
But then, what would we have if we stopped? What do I have besides weapons and demon-lore? It’s all I am, and it takes all of me, but it’s not enough, it’s never _enough_! Nothing, nothing is ever enough--but, damn it, I’m going to keep going. I’m going to keep giving and taking and none of it will be enough but it will be all I have so, pointless and hollow or not, I’ll grab at my straw life and spew my pitiful words anyway, because once again I’ve no choice or free will, but this time it isn’t Jasmine it’s the whole bloody world itself that forces me.
It’s all I have.
It’s never enough.
End note--The poem Wesley quotes is 'The Hollow Men', by T.S. Eliot. It's very good, but also very depressing, so read it, but don't be looking for the feel-good poem of the year. Eliot tends to center a lot on the decay of modern society, and two of his main symbols are the city and blood, hence Wesley bringing him up. Also, the later refrences to 'straw life' and, of course, hollowness are further allusions to the poem.
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