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He bobs his head. "Suppose that's a good point. Not everyone wants to see what's goin' over the side. Or the process. Still, it's the circle of life, you'll hit it sooner or later."

He raises an eyebrow. "When I turn into a chicken? I've seen plenty of dead bodies, don't think it did for how I lived. Made my life worse, maybe, but not really made me more in tune with the rhythms of existence or whatever the fuck you sound like right now."

"Or get eaten by a giant one, considerin' where we just were. Just cause we're human doesn't mean we're not on it, especially in the wild. You really haven't been in touch with any land properly, have ya?"

"I honestly have no idea what you're talking about."

Raylan narrowed his eyes, trying to decide if Fitz was fucking with him or not.

"Sure, why not," he starts with a breath and shift on his seat atop the standing washing machine, one boot idly thumping against the side. "Killin' something is how we survive. Bein' eaten is how we feed predators. I'm gonna kill those chickens because I want a good, fried meal. If I didn't, I starve. So I'm fine with the chicken's bein' some folks introductions to how food gets on their plates. Metaphorically speaking."

Fitz shakes his head.

"The problem with that is that you could say it's just a basic statement of facts but I've heard it at the roots of some awful ideologies, which makes it even harder to take."

"Not I could say. It is, no matter what ideologies have twisted the idea into something that it ain't. We're back to social rules again. There's always exceptions, but we're talkin' about my stomach and chickens, there's nothin' more too it than that. Could use the crops instead of the bird, same idea. It's about respecting the effort it takes to survive. None of that.." His face scrunches up. "Racial Survival or Political survival, or whatever it is you're alludin' to."

"Neo-feudalism, actually, though it probably has elements of other ones. You say social rules, I say, by the same standards, you can't pretend experiences haven't happened. You can just disclose them. Though all that aside, I just think the whole idea that somehow seeing a chicken die so that you can eat it has any real value hard to take. I've seen where plenty of the food I eat has come from, and I remain firmly not in touch with the land."

"I'm not denyin' anyone their experience or pretendin' shit. But I'm also not assumin' that everyone has seen it." It was said with a little gesture of his fingers and slight narrowing of his eyes.

"You know, this line of thought is startin' to make me wonder if you've ever really been hungry. Because it's got a hellva lotta value where I come from."

He sighs, leaning back. “Yes, I’ve really been hungry. Putting aside fun special occasions while traveling, I grew up without much money during rationing. I definitely prefer not to know where spam comes from.”

"Mm. Can't say I understand how hard rationing was and you sure as hell don't need me to validate it. I'm not sayin' you have to be connected to the land to appreciate your food, only that it would do some folks some good. Especially considerin' there's always a chance somethin' could fuck up and the gardens fallow."

"Believe me, I'm deeply grateful that I have absolutely no interest in anyone's validation." He doesn't live his life much concerned with other people's opinions, in general. "Anyway, I still maintain that if something truly out of the Admiral's control happens to the food here, we have much bigger problems."

"Well if he can reneg on ideas or keepin' people alive, I'd say we're already half in the shit but since there's nothin' much we can do about it.." He bobs his head. "Might as well keep on trucking, right?"

Fitz shrugs. "Hey, I'm dead. So, right now, I'm coming out on top."

"Sure better than 6 feet under. Foods better here. Lemme ask you somethin - You see anythin' when you die or did you just.. Drop onto the deck here?"

He laughs. "I fucking disintegrated, don't think there was any need for burial. As for white lights and the soft crooning of devils - nah. I've seen a couple of afterlives, but I didn't sign up. Not that I signed up for all this."

"Well," he says with half a laugh, eyebrows bouncing. "That does save on cost. Ah well, I figure there's no harm in askin', right? Closest I've come to dyin' is a head wound. Bullet graze. Much less dramatic and not a single white light."

"You know me, I hate to be a hassle." He grins. "Now, I'd think a hit to the head might be more likely to produce a few white lights."

Raylan's lips turn down, but it's less a frown and more of a facial shrug. "Honestly, I expected more. But nope - darkness then a very blurry view of the world before my car was stolen from right behind me. It makes me more confident in my view that there's nothin' once we die. That and I haven't heard any stories to the contrary."

He'd asked too.

The dryer beeped loudly and Raylan hopped down from his spot with a little bounce.

"It's not somethin' I'm lookin' to test again."

"Far be it from me to point out the big flaw in that line of thinking. The one that comes before how this place in general might make someone reconsider whether or not there's an afterlife."

"Oh, I'm sure there isn't. I've thought about it a lot; mostly while starin' at my own headstone in my front yard. All the stories that are peddled are bullshit bedtime stories to help people deal with their own fear of it. Doesn't stop it from catchin' up to us in the end and once we're gone.." Raylan shrugs as he opens the dryer.

"I'm fine with bein' worm food."

"Really? Honestly, I never bothered to think about it. Life after death sounded awful, so I just put the whole thing out of my mind."

Raylan laughed a little as he started pulling his jeans, flannel and henley's out of the dryer and into . "That's the easiest way to handle it, I'll grant ya that. Most people that I've talked to about it can't quite manage to do that without sort of.. eating themselves from the inside out or imploding. Metaphorically speaking. Which leads to more literal disfunctions. They spend too much time worryin' about what's comin' to pay full attention to what's happening around them."

He slid a friendly glance over. "Clearly not a problem you have."

Fitz shrugs, grinning. "Obviously, part of that is just my natural cool. And it'd get embarrassing to be all obsessed with it after you've died a couple times. I just find other means to try to avoid paying full attention to what's happening around me, as that's usually also pretty awful."

"I say we all deserve a three month long vacation on an actual hospitable island where we can get drinks with umbrellas in them and think about gettin' sunburnt. It'd improve everyone's mood by at least forty five percent. Hey, this has been a pleasure, but me and my laundry are gonna fuck off and leave you to it, huh?"

He liked leaving things on high notes, as high as they ever got with Fitz, anyway.

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everythinglost - 2022-08-03 00:37 (UTC) - Expand