Travis Touchdown (
rank1) wrote in
returnjourneylogs2022-04-19 07:33 pm
#13 or something
Passengers: Travis Touchdown, Claire Fraser, William Temple and Misty Day
Location: The observation area outside the Loading Bay.
Date: sometime in April
Summary: Putting the "fun" in "funeral" by releasing the desiccated remains of a foam wife into space.
Warnings: Travis is going to say some really cringe shit but what else is new. And it is the loading bay, so the door is sometimes open, so if you want to crash it, hit me up.
Travis is putting in the slightest bit of effort to be laid back about this. Generally he wouldn't, but he's fortunate to be allowed to do this at all, so he's gotta make some gesture towards moderation. Can't risk William pulling the plug on this and putting the remains of his foam wife in the garburator or something, right? So here he is, dressed no different from any other day –– today's shirt says "WORLD FAMOUS". He has exactly one beer in him, which isn't really shit. The people he invited were chosen carefully, and they have exactly one thing in common, which he won't dare speak aloud. He knows what he's about, and that's what matters.
So this is how it starts: dearly beloved, we are gathered here to today to release the remains of one (1) foam wife into outer space. In the grand scheme of things, it would be cooler to do a sky burial where a sick-ass eagle comes and carries away the (foam) parts, or a viking type thing where the foam wife is sent out in a flaming Arvo or something, but neither is permissible, so here we are. Space-littering.
Location: The observation area outside the Loading Bay.
Date: sometime in April
Summary: Putting the "fun" in "funeral" by releasing the desiccated remains of a foam wife into space.
Warnings: Travis is going to say some really cringe shit but what else is new. And it is the loading bay, so the door is sometimes open, so if you want to crash it, hit me up.
Travis is putting in the slightest bit of effort to be laid back about this. Generally he wouldn't, but he's fortunate to be allowed to do this at all, so he's gotta make some gesture towards moderation. Can't risk William pulling the plug on this and putting the remains of his foam wife in the garburator or something, right? So here he is, dressed no different from any other day –– today's shirt says "WORLD FAMOUS". He has exactly one beer in him, which isn't really shit. The people he invited were chosen carefully, and they have exactly one thing in common, which he won't dare speak aloud. He knows what he's about, and that's what matters.
So this is how it starts: dearly beloved, we are gathered here to today to release the remains of one (1) foam wife into outer space. In the grand scheme of things, it would be cooler to do a sky burial where a sick-ass eagle comes and carries away the (foam) parts, or a viking type thing where the foam wife is sent out in a flaming Arvo or something, but neither is permissible, so here we are. Space-littering.

The State of The Wife
She hangs limp in Travis's arms. He moves gingerly when he carries her. She feels like she could just disappear.
He is deciding to be Cool about this. Especially because he's got to look everyone in the eye, right? William was kind enough to let him pick her up, but this is Misty and Claire's first time seeing her in a while.]
Hey, thanks for coming.
[He knows how much of a joke this is.]
The Eulogy, Which Is Cringe
[He clears his throat.]
Sylvia is the kind of woman who can make you crazy. When she's into you, she's real into you. Shows up wherever you are, calls you to check in even though she's got nothing new going on. You know how crazy you have to be about someone to hear about their yoga class, or what their hair stylist said? Bugfuck crazy. That's me. When you're there, it's real easy to think being married to someone like her, you're always gonna be the center of her world.
[It feels easy to get intense when he's talking about Sylvia, and it grows and grows until there's a little curl to his lip.]
Shame she's a short-tempered and pissy bitch more often than not.
[And he relents just as fast:]
I know that sounds harsh, but it's true.
Hanging out with my Foam Wife for those few weeks was pretty great. I could tuck her under my arm in our bunk, and I wouldn't get elbowed because I was breathing in her ear or laying on her hair. Whenever I had something to say, I had her undivided attention. I could talk about whatever I wanted without being called an idiot, or told to get the fuck out and make some cash no matter how shitty the work was. Felt fucking great, at least until other people saw.
Maybe some of you here thought it, too –– sad, pathetic, objectifying. It's okay if you did, really. I get it, William, I do. But this place can make a foam replica so fucking on-point that she can fool you just like the real deal can. I gotta respect that, you know? That's my girl.
Anyway, I won't keep everyone here too long. You came here to see her get chucked overboard, right? Put this behind us.
Anybody have any nice things to say about her?
Goodbye, Foam Wife
Love you, babe. Enjoy the cosmos, okay? Become one with it. Really feel it.
[He releases her, and she drifts away into space for a grand total of ten feet before she hits the barrier keeping the oxygen in. Bonk. From there she moves sideways, breaking up like a raindrop on a car window, until she is in six pieces and then completely out of sight.
Travis turns to the collected "mourners" with a completely unearned level of chill, and then he raises both fists in the air –– party time, right?]
Anyway! I've got two beers we can split between us, but that's it for refreshments.
no subject
Claire's gaze drifts over to William, wherever he is, and then back to Travis.
This is one of the strangest things yet. She could have said no, could have laughed and declined, but here she is, offering her condolences for a chunk of deteriorating foam.
Maybe it's one bad day until she desires a foam Jamie. The thought almost makes her laugh, and it would be a very unhinged and ugly noise, but she gracefully channels it into a sympathetic smile as she gives Travis a pat on the arm. See, she can be nice. (Being nice to him is what brought you here, a little shitty voice says. Strange...) ]
I hope this brings you some peace.
[Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ.]
no subject
[He shrugs, and just that little gesture prompts the foam wife's leg to give out, breaking off at the knee and hitting the door with a dull thud. Travis glances down at it. Oops.]
no subject
Ah. Here.
[She'll just try to hand that over to Travis.]
I think she's ready to go, too.
no subject
Thanks. It's just her time, you know? But we had a great month, even if it was cut short.
[For good reason, but hey.]
no subject
Black clothing is fortunately manageable, if unideal; her sole black top without embellishment is a crop top, but she's at least swapped out the Penny Lane boots for flats. Her rings are left in her cabin, any either jewelry or bauble left alongside it save a lone, modest chain around her neck, its pendant tucked under her neckline as if it would be offensive to catch any light. In case the proceedings demand any offering, she's brought along bread (a dinner roll, wrapped in a napkin) and "wine" (boxed grape juice), courtesy of the Automat.
Understandably dissatisfied with that alone, an hour before arriving she'd slipped into the Greenhouse for some careful and restrained thieving. The resulting bouquet — two strings of bluebells bearing twelve small flowers between them curling outward from a delicate, white bed of meadowsweet, their stalks wrapped and masked by ivy leaves and secured with string — is the only thing she bothers to actually approach Travis with.
Looking him in the face, she can't think of any of this as a joke. It's something about the presentation; she realizes with a pit in her stomach she'd been imagining some box, some table to gather around, and there's something shockingly tender about the way he's just...holding her. Threshold carries and the dramatic climax of tragic romances unwittingly spring to mind, and try as she might she can't totally banish them. She feels sheepish, suddenly, extending her meager bundle of flowers. Too few to carry the meaning she would have liked, too light as she places them delicately against Foam Sylvia's collarbone, a spot she sizes up to be her safest bet for it not accidentally rolling onto the floor.
The smile directed at Travis once the task is finished is, she feels, appropriately meek. Pleased to see him, touched to be called upon, but it's hardly a happy occasion.]
I appreciate the invite, really. How are you holding up?
no subject
But all the irony or sarcasm or twisted humour in the world bows before sincerity. It puts him on his back foot in an instant. A decrepit foam doll in his arms is funny. A decrepit foam doll with flowers laid on her chest is a tragedy. He feels his heart twist. He misses Claire's uniquely English contempt, but this is great too.]
I'm glad you came, and I'm okay. [His face says: oh shit.] I mean, we've lived apart for a while, so this is just going back to normal, in a way.
hold her (half of a) beer
And as easy as all of this will be to write off, it feels unfair to risk his being the only tipped hand. Despite not having considered anything beforehand — not having known Sylvia, really, what could she have considered — she's taken the first step forward to visibly offer herself up before she's even fully realized it. The second foot is slower to follow, as the realization hits.]
Um. So. I've never spoken at a funeral before. I'm not a gifted public speaker or anything either, it's hitting me in waves. And I guess all of this might be silly, but I can't commit to that for long.
[It's a long moment, after, to try and gather her thoughts. Claire's borrowed jacket is draped across her shoulders, and she tugs absently at a sleeve as she lets her eyes settle on Foam Sylvia's degrading face. Her mind splinters in a reflexive way she doesn't particularly like; she imagines Randel voluntarily broken apart in a sterile room. Zoe impaled. Herself, charred beyond recognition face-down in uncharted muck. Dolores' mutilation, the use determined for her much more sophisticated composition. Sweeney, big and tall and storied, eroded so small as to be carted around in a ziploc bag and set loose on a breeze. She thinks of Travis, where his body rests currently, and wonders if they're all decomposing in real time. She wonders if any of them have had a service half as good as this. Her brow furrows, and it's another moment to walk herself back lest her voice break when she actually manages to continue.]
I had a radio break once, and it was like two dozen people dying. I knew obviously nobody had died, at least nobody who wasn't gone already, but you have it happen in the moment and all you can focus on is the absence. It's all transmissions and recordings, yeah, but it's voices, it's people who worked to produce that sound, to get it to you so you could find what you needed to with it, and for a long time that's what I'd had and suddenly it was gone. That radio broke and I screamed. I cried over it, sweeping together this plastic pile on my knees like things might have never fit together quite the same ever again. I don't think anybody gets to snicker at this, but I know for sure that I don't.
[A blink, a breath, and she refocuses.]
I don't know Sylvia, but I think the one with us lived a good life. She was...well made, with care. She was popular, talk of the town, and to get and hold the attention of the kind of folks who end up around here isn't nothing — and she did it without ever so much as talking. That's a presence. [She will be leaving out, of course, the Loki misadventure, because they're speaking about the genuine (foam) article.] She was a faithful companion. Reliable, patient, a good listener. She was pretty clearly loved. I think it's special to have had that, and rare, to be able to give someone so much and get so much of it back. It's hard to be enough for people, and harder than that to have two people who can share that.
And I think it's kind of even more impressive that she had all of that with a lifespan so short, and that despite everything on its face she gets to have a send-off, and people who care about her. A lot of great people never get that in places that mattered to them, let alone going to the trouble to try and make it happen up in space prison.
This is a very rare, great thing, and I'm touched I could be here for it, and I'm gonna stop hoping I think of a really good end note and just say— yeah. This was good. She led a good life, and this is good.
[And just as (un)smoothly, she steps back and bows her head.]
no subject
When they reach the observation chamber he sets the bot down, out of the way. It's gentle. ] So nobody's stepping on her afterwards. [ He doesn't know what to feel, watching Travis with the lump of disintegrating foam in his arms. If he's excused from feeling at all. It's too easy to imagine her as something out of Area X, a woman shaped by touch, overtaken by grey. About to explode into something else entirely.
He's staring, he realizes. ] If you wanna talk—if you wanna say something to her I can take a hike for a minute.
no subject
He adjusts his grip on the foam doll. Her deformed face lols against his chest, one hazel eye staring blankly ahead, her pouted lips cracked down one side. Travis glances sidelong at William, just a sliver of his eye over the arm of his sunglasses.]
Nah, I'm good. Thanks for humoring this, though. I owe you –– [he jokes:] I'll throw you a huge party for your foam wedding, or a foam graduation or something.
no subject
Love takes various forms, she supposes.
She maybe drifts off into thoughts of home during Travis' eulogy, the ache in her chest for Jamie only turning into a sharp pain. She snaps back to reality when he asks the room for words.]
... I can't really say much about Sylvia, my exposure only through Travis and Loki [and she frowns at that--her poor clothes], but it is very evident that she holds a special place in your heart.
[A nod to Travis. He's so strange.]
I think that alone is important enough to be... remembered. Celebrated, mourned. Whatever is needed to handle the loss and separation. Love isn't always perfect, and people on the outside may have their opinions, but I do truly hope that one day Travis [graduates, but she keeps that as the implication] is able to see Sylvia again.
[Not, like. On the other side. But--okay, Roger is the most pious one in the family, and Claire searches for something he might think to say.
She just sort of awkwardly stands there as nothing comes to mind. She's been to plenty of funerals, burials at sea, but none of it really stuck, did it?
Claire dips her head before deciding herself done. Where's her beer.]
no subject
There's a lot of potential responses to chew through, but she doesn't let herself overthink it. Shifting her weight to the opposite foot, she settles on the most prominent.] Is she okay, back home?
[His lifestyle is clearly dangerous, so it may just be a matter of practicality. But undergoing this process knowing she was endangered back home... Misty would do a much poorer job of holding it together.]
no subject
[Ha ha ha. Significantly less funny with the prospect of never coming back again, though. Completely sobering to consider a phone call that goes to voicemail until the line goes dead, text messages left unread.]
She can take care of herself, anyway. You should see her with a machine gun. She doesn't even hesitate.
no subject
[However well he may save face, that they're gathered here, that he had the doll made at all, must be indicative of something that can't be so easily waved off. Of course, her goal isn't to try and coax an outburst; all she can do is assess, and try to extend something he may have use for.
Claire doesn't seem overly swept up in the moment, and at a glance she wouldn't say this is the most impassioned she's ever seen William, either. Which is fine. She isn't unaware of the distance between this and your standard funeral. But should Travis need it, he's entitled to something open.]
I don't know if I'd call it worse in the earliest days or once it's dragging on, but it can hurt to be up here away from everything when you might not have had a choice. And I'm sorry, you know, even an in-between like this ends up being temporary. I'm really glad to hear the genuine article's good, though — for the both of you.
no subject
It has his brain stumbling. Why is it easier to talk about Sylvia gunning people down than their relationship?]
Yeah. We're good. [Good as ever.] I guess before I could at least call her, or check in, or sometimes she'd show up to visit, but... [The world's most helpless shrug, the foam doll's head lolling. The foam wife was fun while she lasted.
He says, more blunt:]
I don't have other family.
my brain interpreted that jacket as like a cardigan....lilac cardigan...
This place is probably going to needle that. But uh, sometimes — or I guess it might have just been the other boat, but I hope not — the comms glitch out, and you can chat with people from home. It's rare, but you might get to spot her.
Johnny Knoxville did a shoot in a cardigan recently and now I'm Picturing It
I'll take any needling for those little moments. [Grim, but unabashedly true.] You know, I left her once before. I regret it.
no subject
I can't fucking stand parties. [ He confides, a hard glint of amusement beneath it. He sobers soon enough, drops his gaze. ] It's important, especially...all those people were lost twice over. To the Shimmer, then to us. That world.
[ He blows out a breath—harsher than expected. Looks to Travis reluctantly, anticipating the joke, the dismissal. ]
no subject
Think you'll tell her about this whole thing, when you see her again? [She asks, optimistic in response to that grim.]
no subject
no subject
He looks faintly surprised, brows raising.]
What, you think this should be a funeral to them?
[It's not a crazy idea –– if anything, it appeals to him in a twisted way, like a bag of chips flavored like something else. Just enough show, just enough sincerity, weird but hits some otherwise unreachable spot.]
That shit was brutal.
no subject
Who's Jeane?
no subject
My cat.
no subject
[What the hell is she even saying?]
no subject
no subject
I'd love to meet them sometime, [she finally says, both amused and earnest.] The real thing with you back home, or the missus?
[Maybe rivals would stoop to going after a cat. Who's to say?]
no subject
[And now that he's presumably dead, he's more worried for Jeane on that front than anyone else: you can get by pretty fine with a dead guy leaving your life, unless that dead guy is the only thing between you and being eaten by coyotes or something. Somehow he doesn't picture Sylvia taking on his cat.
But it'll be fine. He's not gonna let that happen to her. He'll figure some shit out.]
I can show you her after the funeral. You have pets of your own?
no subject
Nah. Brought home strays nonstop when I was a kid, but my mom wasn't having it. Lifestyle's a little too off-road to get one now, even if I'd like it. Had a dog for a little while on the other ship, but it's the same deal — these places have to be scary for an animal. Better they be someplace stable.
no subject
no subject
No, she bites her tongue.
Paying the big bills--
Her teeth clench down harder.
Claire smiles, lips kept together.]
Right. But I do hope she'd find it in her heart to be touched by the effort you've put forth in gathering us here today.
no subject
She'd probably get a kick out of it. She likes attention, and this is the peak of it, right?
no subject
[ To the assessment of the simulation he nods. He was brutal, and it had nothing to do with his facility with a knife. ] You were pretty hard on Theo. He just wanted somebody to ask about his brother.
no subject
I know.
[He keeps getting called a bully. With good reason, he figures, but the hell else is there to do about all the whining?]
There’s a couple inmates like that, though, they know what’s wrong but they complain instead of doing something about it.
no subject
That place was brutal, you're right—but that doesn't mean you had to be. You could've helped him feel less alone. It doesn't take much.
no subject
[He says, clutching said wifealike, living as a man who will later crawl into his bunk and sleep through the night with a foam cat somewhere around his calves. There are small and innocent things in this world that he will work and fight and kill for. Theo just isn't one of them.
It doesn't feel like bluster to elaborate:]
I gave him something he needed, anyway. He needed to vent. Why not let him blow off steam?
no subject
The moment ends. Quiet, stiff: ] Did it feel good?
no subject
Nah. Kid's never fought in his life, and there's nothing satisfying about beating down someone like that.
no subject
no subject
He jumped me. I let him try for a bit, but he wasn’t gonna give me a good fight or give up, so I popped his shoulder. You don’t gotta worry about it — that new girl warden stepped in.
no subject
It's a minute or two before he looks back. ] It's not even—it wouldn't have cost you anything to back off. You hurt him because you could.
no subject
He steps away to set down the foam wife out of traffic’s way.]
You put it like that, “beating up kids”, you make me sound like some sort of sicko. If he got the fight he wanted, I wouldn’t have given him multiple chances to walk.
no subject
no subject