(Requiem) But then again...
Feb. 23rd, 2010 10:56 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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writing_shadowsOccasionally, we do make friends.
I don't mean within the households of our employers, of course; that is very difficult to do. The sway of the blood makes lesser ghouls jealous, vengeful, petty. And of course we love our domitors, each in their own way, but that is not friendship, not in the same way.
Often we are not given, or perhaps more fairly do not take, time for friendship. We will ally ourselves with those useful to our employers, of course, and can appear gregarious, in the correct mode. But again, that is not friendship. Not usually.
Marcel Harfst was, at first, someone I thought would be useful to my employer. He did not have a useful job, was not in a position of official power, but he did have the ear of many important people in the area. He was an old man (he was younger than her, of course, but she did not age much - even on her recent hiatus), a night fisherman. There was something sad about him, almost apologetic. He was always kind. I never saw him lose his temper, even at times when he probably should have. I liked him. He was my friend.
We would often sit together during the day if I had nothing to do. The regular ghoul did not enjoy my presence, and as long as I had no duties in the house I enjoyed sitting by the sea with Marcel. He would whittle and I would read, and there were days when we wouldn't speak to each other at all, simply sitting in comfortable silence. To me he was a port of calm in the storm of my employer's increasingly erratic life.
Then she found him.
I don't know if she was right, that he was the man her vengeance should have been wreaked upon. My memory shies away from what happened after she found him; it has been erased, leaving only a shadow of the attached emotions, as with any brutally unpleasant event that interferes with my programming. I only know that she sent me away after that, though she still agreed to be a reference.
It was a good time for me to go. I couldn't have helped her any more.
I don't mean within the households of our employers, of course; that is very difficult to do. The sway of the blood makes lesser ghouls jealous, vengeful, petty. And of course we love our domitors, each in their own way, but that is not friendship, not in the same way.
Often we are not given, or perhaps more fairly do not take, time for friendship. We will ally ourselves with those useful to our employers, of course, and can appear gregarious, in the correct mode. But again, that is not friendship. Not usually.
Marcel Harfst was, at first, someone I thought would be useful to my employer. He did not have a useful job, was not in a position of official power, but he did have the ear of many important people in the area. He was an old man (he was younger than her, of course, but she did not age much - even on her recent hiatus), a night fisherman. There was something sad about him, almost apologetic. He was always kind. I never saw him lose his temper, even at times when he probably should have. I liked him. He was my friend.
We would often sit together during the day if I had nothing to do. The regular ghoul did not enjoy my presence, and as long as I had no duties in the house I enjoyed sitting by the sea with Marcel. He would whittle and I would read, and there were days when we wouldn't speak to each other at all, simply sitting in comfortable silence. To me he was a port of calm in the storm of my employer's increasingly erratic life.
Then she found him.
I don't know if she was right, that he was the man her vengeance should have been wreaked upon. My memory shies away from what happened after she found him; it has been erased, leaving only a shadow of the attached emotions, as with any brutally unpleasant event that interferes with my programming. I only know that she sent me away after that, though she still agreed to be a reference.
It was a good time for me to go. I couldn't have helped her any more.
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Date: 2010-02-23 11:12 pm (UTC)