Invisible Parties — 24 of 31

Book - The Wake

wakeroom is a challenging party in tangle. wakeroom is north of Under My Roof. The printed name of wakeroom is "No Place To Rest Your Head". Understand "wake" or "no place" or "rest your head" or "head" or "your" or "no place to rest your head" as wakeroom.

The description of wakeroom is "A rough-plastered room that you suspect of being in the back of a pub somewhere. Deep in the night. A patchy assortment of people are sitting silent, a respectful distance away from the open coffin laid out on a table."

The tsadesc of wakeroom is "You're dressed formally after the manner of someone who only dresses up for weddings and funerals. And, hunh, this doesn't usually happen in a mixed-sex context, you're definitely male."

the mourners are a crowd in wakeroom. The description of the mourners is "A mixed crowd. Plenty of old people, no kids. Some in white, most in black, a lot of it shabby. What conversation is going on is held in whispers, and many of them are lost in silent melancholy. And hard liquor, which is near enough the same thing."

The rivdesc of wakeroom is "Rivka Strossi is at the back of the room, scarlet lipstick beneath the veil, checking her watch every ten seconds."

The rivcostume of wakeroom is "Rivka's wearing a veil, a bolero jacket over a black blouse, and dress pants. And Cuban-heeled boots. Her lipstick is a savage smear."

The rivweapon of wakeroom is "a switchblade".

The closeclue of wakeroom is "There's a single sprig of frangipani in the corpse's buttonhole."

the frangipani is a clue. the javeclue of wakeroom is frangipani. The description of frangipani is "Five waxy petals, white blushed with gold, and an impossibly voluptuous, nocturnal perfume[one of].[p]The plant seems like a dinosaur, too lumpen and exotic to live, yet it grew everywhere in Masdita. On one of the long evenings lazily searching for a safe route out, hoping not to find one, she tried to arrange as many as possible of them in your hair. Your hair was far too short, and frangipani blooms have no real stem to speak of, so every time you moved your head half the flowers would escape, but the fragrance clung until the next day[or][stopping]."

The javeinit of wakeroom is "Jave occupies the single chair beside the body, veiled, motionless."

The javedesc of wakeroom is "She's in widow's weeds, with a veil more fetching than modest. She sits by the body, a little apart from everyone, face downcast and tear-streaked. She's... older? Her face doesn't look it, but she has the neat, tidied-away posture of an old woman, or a woman from an age when being respectable was the law and the prophets. Grasping a purse for support."

The javecostume of wakeroom is "She's still wearing mourning black, hasn't even removed the veil, but the body language is her own again, deft, sure, taking up space."

the deceased is scenery in wakeroom. The description of the deceased is "[one of]For a moment you have the crawly suspicion that it'll be you in the casket, but as it turns out, no. [or][stopping]He's not old, not young. White, shortish, wearing a dress suit grown a little ratty. His face won't stick in your memory, and you suspect that he's not the point of this exercise." Understand "coffin" or "corpse" or "dead man" or "casket" as the deceased.

Instead of kissing the deceased: say "He's not anything to you.";

The listendesc of wakeroom is "Outside, muffled by windows and a gusty wind, you can make out the keening of a lone violin - a little scratchy, a cheap instrument and a sozzled fiddler who was probably never world-class in the first place, but [i]fuck[/i] that's some raw sorrow."

The boozedesc of wakeroom is "There are crocks and jars and unevenly-blown bottles all over the place, filled with various shades of ruinous liquor, from peaty-dark liquid smoke to madness-clear grain alcohol. Water-jugs, too, but nobody seems to be taking more than a splash of that."

The shortbooze of wakeroom is "You slosh yourself out a generous tumbler of peat-dark whisky. It tastes of wood-smoke and rich brown soil and leather."

The desolation of wakeroom is "A rosy light grows outside the window. Dawn.[wait for any key][p]Very casually, as if there is nothing strange about the situation at all, the corpse climbs out of the coffin, draws itself up a little, and walks to the door. The doorknob squeaks. Everyone is getting up, now, but there's no panic or shock: patiently, a little dreamily, but quite under their own volition, they're following the dead man out of the door.[p]You hurry to the window; in the pale morning light, the graveyard soil is heaving, the tombs opening, their inhabitants clambering out to walk steadily towards the gate. In the street, the quick and the dead walk shoulder to shoulder, softly, as you would on a still morning with most people still in bed. Uphill. You raise up your eyes.[p]The first sliver of the rising sun crests the hilltop. And a few at a time, people are walking into it, and are gone."

The demise of wakeroom is "The hill is steep, but the climb easy. You are amid thousands, now, not speaking or touching, in steady procession. At the hill's top, silhouetted against the sun and brighter than it, a figure is dividing the procession in two.[p]Left and right do not seem to matter all that much, except that you catch sight of Jave on the opposite side. You turn against the current - [i]no, there's been a mistake[/i] - but the mass of humanity flows on, and takes you with it."

Carry out using abider in wakeroom:

say "The instinct is to go and comfort her, but perhaps that's not what's needed right now. Or, maybe, it's more what you have a need to do, rather than what's most useful to her right now. That chair's set apart for a reason. You'll wait. You're confident that she knows what she's doing, that this is a part of the process that you don't have to play a starring role in.[p]The night stretches out. You pour yourself a drink and nurse it. Some people quietly arrive, a few quietly depart. Normally you'd be climbing the walls by this point, or compulsively gnawing at thoughts better left alone, but the stillness is contagious. If she can do this, you'd sure as fuck better be able to.[p]After what seems like hours, she stands, walks carefully over to you, and gives your shoulder a gentle squeeze. 'Thanks.'";

now rising sun is in wakeroom;

ruin everything;

the rising sun is an unimplement.

Carry out using warrior in wakeroom:

say "Fuck this. [i]Fuck[/i] this. Fuck this with its [i]trousers[/i] on.[p]There's a point in night, sometimes, when you have to choose between despair and fury, and you're [i]done[/i] with choosing despair. Therefore.[p]You stand up in what you hope is a dramatic fashion, and toss back your whisky, or a whisky which you retroactively hope was yours. 'Goodfolks,' you growl, 'we are gathered here to remember that it is shit to be dead: job [i]thoroughly[/i] done, good show, now if anyone here's got two fists and wanster remember that it's really pretty fucking non-shit to be alive, I suggest we take it outside.'[p]'Here's fine.' A big lad, no question, in a big-pawed puppy way. Non-lethal, you'll have him in fifteen seconds max.[p]'Awright. No gouges, biting, strikes to the head, low and indecent behaviour,' you say, counting off fingers. You have a moment of concern that you're wrecking everything, but a quick scan of the room suggests otherwise: little old ladies are rearranging chairs with a bloodthirsty glint.[p]The puppy is used to winning with one big punch, and is squealing in an arm-bar inside five seconds. Enough for the adrenaline rush, though. You're breathing hard, soaring: and then widow-Jave stands up, kicks off her shoes, sweeps her stockinged back foot around into a fighting stance, and makes everything [i]perfect[/i].";

wait for any key;

say "[br]Or would have, if the Rebeccas weren't intent on ruining everything.";

wait for any key;

ruin everything.

Carry out using laughing one in wakeroom:

say "There are points at which laughter isn't an emotionally honest response. Well, maybe not for you; humour's kind of at the heart of your emotional resilience. But for Jave, absolutely.";

Carry out using commander in wakeroom:

say "There is no war to fight here. Death is not something you can confront stragetically."

Carry out using troublemaker in wakeroom:

say "Yeah, sure, there are absolutely people for whom births, weddings and funerals are sort of a drama water-hole, drawing in a rich concentration of prey in an emotionally charged and thus vulnerable state. Those people are dicks. Relationships are not advanced by gratuitous dickery.";

Carry out using forager in wakeroom:

say "Now you consider it, your stomach bears evidence of a very substantial meal earlier in the evening. Good thing too, considering all the spirits.";

Carry out using critic in wakeroom:

say "An anthropologist would have a field-day with this, but unless they write down their grief it's no help to you.";

Carry out using antinominalist in wakeroom:

say "The rules don't seem like the immediate problem here. (This is, you sense, a context where widowhood offers a rather greater degree of autonomy.) And the mores at play here are offering structure to grief. The pain is the problem."