text ❁ seven years is also how long it takes to complete a ph.d.

[roseblooms]

Kit Fawkes shared a photo. 6/4 near Recollé University

Well, well. I suppose this means I can now officially join the "received a mysterious and vaguely threatening package in the mail with no prior warning" club. I have to admit, though, that in comparison to some of the things I've heard of people receiving? A broken mirror (?) does strike me as a little underwhelming. It's pre-broken, even, which I believe exempts me from any curse of seven years of bad luck. Quite frankly, all these shards of glass have got to be a safety hazard, and yet for some reason every time I go to throw the lot of it away, I end up second-guessing the impulse. Is that odd? I don't know what else I could possibly do with this, mind, and yet even so I...just can't seem to bring myself to dispose of the thing.

Comments

[daemonized]

It's as if Retrospec is trying to heap bad luck upon you, if you believe in that sort of thing.

Why do you feel as if you cannot dispose of it? It it a matter of baffling sentimentality?

[roseblooms]

The good news is, I saw my reflection in a number of the pieces, so we at least have verification that I'm not a vampire.

As for disposing of it...I don't know, really. Logically, rationally, I know that I ought to. But every time I go to follow through, it's like I find some excuse to hesitate.

[daemonized]

Good to know! I hear that life as an undead is more inconvenient than actually romantic. Being allergic to sunlight is, generally speaking, a bad thing.

Do you feel a sense of ownership over the item? I spoke to my nephew not that long ago when something similar happened to him. He felt a familiarity with a golf club, though he could not say why.

[roseblooms]

A familiarity with a GOLF CLUB? Now that's an odd item to find kinship with...

But I — I don't know if I could call it ownership, exactly. It feels as though I need it for some reason, but that's a slightly different emotion than possessiveness due to ownership.

[daemonized]

Who am I to judge? Perhaps it's his calling. I suggested he take to a golf course and see what happens.

I see. Then it remains a mystery. Perhaps it's best that you keep it, anyway; sharp pieces or not, it's another piece to the mystery to we've yet to solve.

[roseblooms]

I'm starting to grow a little concerned, however, now that reports are suggesting that this might be some variety of ticking time bomb when it comes to whatever "hallucinomemories" might be attached to it.

The most innocuous things prove the most deceptive, I believe it was. Or something like that.

[daemonized]

As much as I would like to tell you otherwise, I've heard similar stories. But maybe you'll be an outlier.

Then again, wouldn't it bother you to no end, /not/ knowing the significance of it? At least with a memory attached, a small ray of light will be shed on the mystery.

[roseblooms]

...A small ray of light.

It's funny you mention that, actually. A small ray of light may actually have been what broke it to begin with.

[daemonized]

[A pause, because what, now?]

What do you mean? Did you remember something?

[roseblooms]

I did.

I very nearly went face-first into the pavement from it, too. It was...vivid. Unusually vivid, as my hallucinomemories have been thus far. I wonder if that means it's a particularly significant one somehow?

[daemonized]

It's possible. Maybe it implies it had left a meaningful impression on you, one way or another.

This "small" ray of light must have been very powerful.

[roseblooms]

Enough to shatter the mirror, just by striking it.

[daemonized]

So energy then, not light /exactly/.

Magic?

[He only asks because... well, that's not outside the realm of possibility for him anymore.]

[roseblooms]

Precisely so. A form of energy — the sort of thing you hear about in science fiction. Phasers and blaster bolts and whatnot.

...It's the sort of thing I've been writing my dissertation on, if I'm being honest.

[daemonized]

I see. In that case, perhaps this memory of yours should not prove as fantastical as it may appear initially.

In that, at least, you have an advantage over others -- my own made little sense when I experienced them initially. There's comfort to be had in grounding yourself in a truth that may be applicable to this world.