This Ain't a Scene | Bastian&Casual

[philosopher]

it's a god damn arms race

What if his misfortune was, as he had in the excitement of the moment suggested to himself, only a morbid delusion of mind; shared too in part by sheer force of his absurd confession? Even if he was going mad, who knows how peaceful a release that might not be.

All was drowsily quiet on the bridge. Holmes walked softly, noiselessly with the odd car passing his side. He had been in solitude all day, with only his violin for company. He stopped and looked out there for many minutes, thinking almost with composure. Flight, it seemed, had for the moment quietened the demands of that other feebly struggling personality which was beginning to insinuate itself into his consciousness, which had so miraculously broken in and taken possession of his body. His exhausted body, bed rest was not good for him - as the headaches would not let him sleep and his thoughts bothered him half-awake. He would not think now. All he needed was a little quiet and patience before he threw off for good and all his right to be free, to be his own master, to call himself well.

Holmes turned his face towards the westering moon. What was there in the stillness of its beautiful splendour that seemed to sharpen his horror and difficulty, and yet to stir him to such a daring and devilry? There was little sound of life; somewhere an unknown wind was whistling. For weeks now he had, like an old blind horse, stolidly plodded round and round in a dull doctor-set routine. And now, just when the spirit had come for rebellion, the mood for a harmless truancy, there had fallen with them too this hideous enigma. He stood there with the dusky silhouette of hisface that was now drenched with moonlight in his mind's eye. He tilted his head into the violin and began to whittle a slow-moving tune.

Why not walk on?

[SEBASTIAN TIMOTHY MARTIN]

dying isn't on my agenda

It was calming... Listening to the sound of the water, crashing against the supports of the bridge. The night was quiet and soothing, whereas Sebastian's mind was loud and unrelenting. The two atmospheres, mental and physical, clashed violently. He sat on the edge of the bridge, gazing out into the waves. He made sure he couldn't fall off, and even if he did, he thought he was a pretty good swimmer. He was just worried about the impact.

He had saved so many lives on this bridge. "Don't jump!" he would say. "It's not the end of the world." But what advice could he give these poor, desperate souls yearning to be over the edge. That he, too, thought about taking his own life, but moved on? It wasn't like their problems were as terrible as his. But dying wasn't on his agenda at the moment. Not when so many others were willing to jump.

He truly didn't know what he signed up for when he started saving people's lives. He figured doctors and cops and the like do it all the time, so why couldn't he? The problem was, he was only a professor. He didn't have any training. Any expertise on life-saving. Just his visions and some fast legs to carry him to the victim. Was that enough? he thought. Was it enough to get him through this life without going insane?

The visions had pushed him to his limits before. What if they never stopped? What if he were to see his own death, as an old man, and not be able to do anything about it? The thought terrified him.

The wind picked up, and he wrapped his scarf tighter around his neck. Just then, he heard the softest music echoing through the empty air. It was a violin, no doubt about that. He dreamily turned his head to the side, where the music was coming from. He thought he was dreaming. It was nice to gaze at the stars while listening to music. Whoever it was that gave him the melody, he ought to thank.

[philosopher]

In time real wholesome weariness would come; he could pass out at ease in some pleasant wayside place, without once meeting the eyes that stood as it were like a window between himself and a shrewd incredulous scoffing world that would turn him into a monstrosity and his story into press coverage.. And in a little while, perhaps in afew weeks if he was lucky, he would awaken out of this engrossing nightmare, and know he was free, this black dog gone from his back, and his own man again.

Looking steadily on the floor, Holmes flattened the bow against the strings with a sniff of impatience. And in dragging it nearer, the rest of the world around him fell with the tiniest plash in the silence, like a vivid little float upon the surface of a shadowy pool.

He listened to himself, grimly pursing his lips. The secret of his content in that long leisurely ramble had been his beloved violin, that repeatedly by a scarcely realised effort had not been played in some time.And now, as Holmes stood hungrily devouring the bow to the strings, with the moon comforting his eyes, he slowly stopped and came to a standstill. Looking strangely back, he precisely visualised a dainty figure sitting on the total edge. Shrouded by a darkness that seemed as cold and still as the water below. They did not seem aware of him, but as he stood there, doubtful on the outskirts of the unknown, he paused, then lowered his hands - bow in one, instrument in the other, to his sides.

'Oi!' Holmes called out, going slowly up with fixed eyes. He broke his step, stopping paces behind, only a presence. A shadow. 'What are you doing?'

[SEBASTIAN TIMOTHY MARTIN]

Sebastian sort of swayed to the music as it played. It was calming to him. He wondered who in there right mind would be playing music on the Brooklyn Bridge. Then he remembered it might have been a dream. He had a habit of doing that. Dreaming things almost like he would have visions, right in the middle of the day. They usually weren't there, the things he imagined. It was mostly happiness, and peace that he wished could be. But it was all in his mind. The only real sight were the awful visions that plagued him.

Suddenly, the music stopped in one chord. He raised an eyebrow. "So much for gazing under the stars," he muttered under his breath. He stuck a hand into his pocket, protecting it from the coming cold. Whoever it was that had stopped playing, he thought they should start again. They would see how much he needed it.

'Oi!' A voice called out. 'What are you doing?'

He almost jumped ten feet in the air, but that would have landed him in the water. He whipped his head all around like a child caught in the act of stealing from the cookie jar, scrambling away from the edge that he looked back to, fearful for his clumsy attitude at that particular moment. He looked back to the sound of the voice, and saw a thin figure approaching him.

"I... I--It's not what you think!" He called, gulping. The person probably thought he was going to jump. Oh, he knew how people were. They'd assume the worst. He'd done the same to so many before.

[philosopher]

That, in fact, was the trick that had been played in fitful fashion. Obviously, and apart altogether from his confrontational training, the best possible thing he could do would be to walk quietly over to the man and like a child that has lost a penny, just make the attempt to reverse the process. If that indeed what the man was upto, which so far was perceived. Holmes stole back a step, into the clear that was slightly better lit.

There was a pause between words, and Holmes' attitude intensified in its stillness. What a life of queer experiences. A faint lightening of doubt came into the palely countenance, 'Well .. your sitting right on the edge of a 276ft bridge and quiet enough to hear a pin drop. That, and the suicide rates on this bridge have reached an all time high over the last few years.' He answered in a low, infinitely satirical voice. 'What am I supposed to think?'

He looked down at him, watching him curiously. In spite of all his reason, of his absolute certainty, he wondered even again for a moment what could possess a person. Holmes waited through another pause that fluttered in calmer air, like a bird in the wind.

[SEBASTIAN TIMOTHY MARTIN]

'What am I supposed to think?'

"Not that, most definitely not that," Sebastian said while trying to scramble up. His heart was beating way to fast for him to keep up, and the man's hawk-like stare didn't help matters further. He eventually stood up, glancing warily over the edge. He dusted himself off a little, rearranging his scarf.

"I know it looks like I was about to jump," he called. "But I... I really wasn't!" He skidded a little over towards the cables of the bridge, but not by much. He fiddled with his hands, waiting for the man to come closer, for he knew it was inevitable. He glanced at the man's hands, and realized it must have been him who was playing the music. "Oh! You--You were playing the music. It was wonderful!" He said, taking a step closer.

[philosopher]

Holmes remained quite still, like a cat at a cranny, listening, as it were, for the faintest remotest stir that might hint at any return of this - activity. It was, in a weird way, the first really sane moment he had had since the 'change.' Whatever it was that had happened was now distinctly weakening in effect. Why, now, perhaps? He stole a thievish look over his shoulder at the opposide side of the bridge, and cautiously drew that look back to the apparently innocent stranger.

It was too dark in the wide-set space even to see him, so he edged more closer. Not without excercising caution. 'There are less dangerous places to rack your brains, you know.' He said, his brow drawn down. 'Have a go at 230 Fifth Avenue - brilliant rooftop bar, that.'

Although Holmes was not altogether convinced, and people were such funny creatures, it actually did seem as if there were a chance; if only he kept cool and collected - which his work required him to be. And Holmes was damn good at his work. If the whole mind of a man was bent on being one thing, surely no power on earth, certainly not on earth, could for long compel him to look another, any more - followed the resplendent thought, than vice versa. Holmes lowered his eyes softly, down his beaked nose, onto the rich-toned violin when it was mentioned, and quietly smiled, a smile he felt this abominable facial caricature was quite unused to. It was a mute thanks.

After a long pause, he lifted his eye back to the man. 'Yeah, I like it too.'

[SEBASTIAN TIMOTHY MARTIN]

Sebastian coughed when the man suggested another place for him to think. He was right. There were other, safer places to muse and bemoan. But nothing was as soothing as the waves crashing against the bridge, nothing calmer than the still night air. But he wouldn't tell the stranger that. He'd think him even more insane than before.

Not that he wasn't a bit on the touched side. Not in a mentally ill way... Or was he? Was that what he was, mentally ill? It would explain a lot of things. Though not everything. It wouldn't explain how his visions were correct in their assumptions.

Speaking of the devil, Sebastian gasped. His eyes widen, invisible to the stranger in the dark, but all he could see now was a lit bridge, full of oncoming traffic. He stayed perfectly still, watching the vision unfold with bated breath.

Cars swirving. Motorcycles off the edge. And a truck speeding towards him at lighting speed. He instinctively moved to the side, closer to the edge. In real life, AND his vision.

The truck swirved and swirved. The stranger was no longer there, so he had nothing to worry about. He knew his vision wasn't real, and that it couldn't hurt him, but he could help it. He began to run away.

Too bad there was no more concrete to keep him grounded.

"HELP ME!" He yelled as he began to fall, coming abruptly out of his vision.

[philosopher]

The set, stricken face listened unmoved. Holmes lowered the violin and turned his face up to the heavens, staring into the pale dial of the moon. It was a few minutes after eleven. Midnight, then, would just see him in. He jostled his shoulders stiffly and yawned in sheer exhaustion. People liked to put up vague arguements when they caught him doing that - telling the time by looking at the moon. It was something he trained himself to do duringhis university years.

Take the waxing gibbous, when the moon is fairly full. It was present at the beginning of his night and had read from left to right since, and it would last nine hours. At three in the morning the moon would set in the west, and now - seeing as it was that time of night where it was in full flourish, it had not yet touched upon midnight but was not far off.

Quite simple - like reading a clock made out of moon.

Then, turning his head back down, he looked back at the fellow. He nearly spoke to him, but a vague foreboding held him back. A sour and vacuous incredulity swept over Holmes as he looked harder at into his face. The bloke looked like he had frozen into place, some obscure detestable presence as slowly, and doggedly had worsened. A strange -very strange- calm stole over his mind. The very meaning and memory of fading out and vanishing, as the passed-away clouds of a storm that leave a purer, serener sky.

Gloomily debating within himself, he decided to try and wake the man up from whatever kind of walking reverie he had gotten himself into. Even his own tiredness was in part forgotten. 'Hello?' He started off waving his hand infront of his face, and was soon snapping his fingers. 'Hello?'

In no time at all Holmes got impatient with this zombie- like mode. What was the use of all this struggling and vexation? He got right into his half dead face, raising his tone and speaking slow to the point of being obnoxious. 'Hellooooo? Are. You. Receiving. This. Message .. ?'

Dust to dust it looked to be. The lad was barely conscious, without a living thought - that is, until his sluggish rest suddenly burst into animated panic. It took Holmes away for a moment, the sheer surprise of it, and he only barely managed to push himself forward and grab the falling lad's wrists on first impulse. 'Christ!' He held him at straight arms, rigidly level. One bit of slack and the man was gone, lucky enough to be on bare balance as it was. Barely steady, Holmes gripped with claw-like stubbornness, gritting his teeth and pressing on as much his feeble, skinny little body would let him.

He leant back in an attempt to ascend the man, all the while yelling at him. 'Nice one, genius! Mind the gap won't you?!'

[SEBASTIAN TIMOTHY MARTIN]

'Nice one, genius! Mind the gap won't you?!'

Sebastian was frantic. He couldn't move at all, save for his head. It was whipping around like a dog chasing his tail, the black water forcing the man into a panic attack. He was hyperventilating, not able to even close his eyes. He held on for dear life to the other man's hands, shaking with some fierce fear.

"H--H--H--H--" he couldn't even say it. His knees almost buckled, but he kept them straight for fear of falling. 'Move legs! MOVE!' he screamed at himself in his head. But they would not budge. He looked the man in the eye, hoping he would somehow devise a way to pull him up.

Damn vision. How the hell was he going to explain this to the man? He'd put him in the looney bin.

[philosopher]

Yes, Holmes was turning it over in his mind. It was a horrible position for a then-delicate minded and even high-minded man, and the misery of it was aggravated by the constant effort to deface its signs and evidences. The stranger was a piteous object, in his shaking anguish and Holmes, he just had no strength for it.

'Don't move!' They were straight words, regardless of manner.

Both of his hands tightly encircled his wrists, and Holmes lay back his head, as if too weary to support it. Lack of sleep and appetite had paled his florid colour to a sickly hue, and he looked wan and languid as a dying man. But still he did not pity himself. His cold face had become hot by the effort, and his manner agitated. The gist of the matter was if the man tried to save himself, he would most likely panic and slip, and if he did not drown he would freeze. Such a dull and common doom. Becoming the stern parent, Holmes swung himself back as much he could - as if to lie on the ground. The idea was to outweigh the man, which, with his skin-and-bone build, was proving difficult.

A lightning change came over the young man, as if that last scrap of determination had been an electric current suddenly shot into him. In an almighty last stride, Holmes and the man were cast back on to the bridge. Holmes was thrown flat onto his back, spent and panting from his struggle.

'Like I said,' The breath was knocked clean out of him, and he closed his eyes to rest for a minute. Making no effort to get back up. ' .. less dangerous place.'

[SEBASTIAN TIMOTHY MARTIN]

Sebastian's breathing heaved. His eyes were wide as he scratched at the ground with his fingernails like a madman. He was safe, thank God, and all he wanted to do was crawl up on the ground and cry. What a frightening experience that had been, almost dying. He'd almost died before, but it had been a vision that had alerted him. He had been prepared for it. This was an entirely different matter.

He tried to pick himself up, but the ground beckoned to him, like the comfort of a bed. He realized his feet were still dangling over the edge, so he quickly pulled them away, curling up into the ball he'd been holding out for. He was shaking all over, like a wounded animal, his head turned to the strange man. His eyes were still as wide as saucers, and he clutched his mouth with his hands, pulling his arms over his chest to protect his rapidly beating heart from jumping out of his chest. He couldn't stop wimpering, or crying, or anything inbetween.

The man must have thought he looked like a lunatic. He looked like a child who had scrapped his knee, crying in his mother's lap.

"I--I--I almost died..." he sobbed. "I don't want to die... There's so many more people to save..." His whispers echoed all around him.

[philosopher]

An inarticulate, unfathomable depression rolled back on him, like a mist out of the sea. He fell into a chill doze, and although Holmes has not actually raised his head, he could sense a miserable strife was in his chance companion's mind, a strife of fear and recrimination.

'Nobody wants to die.' He commented in a deep sigh.

Remembrance of his own miserable mistake, of the escape, faintly returned to him as he began to sit up. He would make amends for his discourtesy when he was quite himself again. Perhaps hear his infinitely tragic, infinitely stupid experience from his own lips. What would he not do when the old moods and brains of the stupid Sherlock Holmes, whom he had appreciated so little and so superficially, came back to him. He turned his eyes wearily to the man, and looked for a moment of the strange face.

Holmes drew his long lips together, his eyebrows lifting with the faintest perturbation. The man was like a child dismayed at its own fear, and a fit of sobbing that was half uncontrollable panicing had swept over him. Consciousness had flooded back indeed, he observed, lying back with only bent elbows holding him up. A faint lightening of pity came into the silvery and scrupulous countenance.

'Bloody hell, look at the state of you.' He eyed him blandly, yet with a certain grave directness. 'Anyone would think you just had a near death experience.'