From: Ella Ford Date: 10 Nov 2000 11:55:17 GMT Subject: NEW: Lingering Perdition (1/1) TITLE: Lingering Perdition AUTHOR: Ella Ford E-MAIL: ella_ford@hotmail.com CLASSIFICATION: V RATING: G ARCHIVE: Gossamer, Chronicle X, Ephemeral, anywhere else please contact me. SPOILERS: Requiem, some dialogue paraphrased from Anasazi, Nisei, Talitha Cumi, The X-Files movie SUMMARY: Cigarette-Smoking Man gazes out of an apartment window and sees his life and loss reflected back at him. FEEDBACK: Feed my mailbox at ella_ford@hotmail.com DISCLAIMER: Mulder, Scully and all additional characters of "The X-Files" were created by Chris Carter and are the property of Twentieth Century Fox and 1013 Productions. If they did belong to me, I wouldn't have to write fanfic, would I? ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: To my beta reader Nikki...I'm no Mozart, but I'll boldly go where no other writer dare venture, and seek out new ways to tell the same old story. Keep playing that magic flute to inspire me! A special mention to William Shakespeare, whose eloquent use of language formed the original inspiration for this. Long live the Bard! *** LINGERING PERDITION by Ella Ford When I gaze out of my window at the world spread below, I feel like a voyeur. Not one who watches for a cheap thrill like a randy schoolboy, but rather as a god looking down on his subjects going about their perfunctory and meaningless lives. The way men spend their existence is frivolous at best - scurrying from place to place like ants - not realizing that no one will stop to remember them when they are gone. Mankind's greatest achievements pale in comparison to the violent history of the earth, where walking on the moon is nothing when placed against the initial conception of life billions of years ago. And yet, all man wants to learn about is what he himself has done. I am a god to these people, yet they do not know who I am, nor what I do. I deal in secrets, bury the truth, and endorse a campaign of lies, purely so that my subjects can remain blissfully unaware, innocent and happy. Knowing what I do has thrown me into a state of lingering perdition for much of my life. It is not a desirable thing to wake each morning and be reminded that the world in which you live is under threat from something almost inconceivable to man - life that is even more intelligent than him. For years, I was part of a consortium whose only aim was to negotiate with the 'outsiders', bargaining with something which was never ours to give. But, under the circumstances, how could we have told the truth, the truth that the human race was to be displaced in favor of an alien organism with a prior claim to the planet? The only answer was to spin a web of lies and to continue our negotiations behind a wall of silence. As representatives of highly intelligent developed life forms, we felt confident of success, in which case the public would never have known of the imminent threat to their safety. However, we had underestimated the similar skills of the other party, and for years the barrier of silence remained, hiding the failures that we were accumulating. Occasionally, a leak would develop, but it would always be dealt with efficiently, such was the nature of our business. However, there are always men who develop a taste for secrets and relentlessly pursue them in the ultimate quest for the holy grail. Fox Mulder is one such man, driven by his belief that truth, justice, and knowledge will save mankind. He has seen but pieces of a much larger puzzle, yet he presumes to think that he knows it all, flashing a badge and gun to allow him further access on his crusade. What he doesnt understand is that some truths are best kept buried - untouched and uncontested - lest they destroy the facade that constitutes a normal life. We give the people happiness by obscuring the truth, and in return, they grant us the authority to maintain our silence. Sacrifices are made along the way to ensure the various agreements of the past, but sacrifice, like regret, is an inevitable consequence of life. Family, acquaintances, strangers: they are all pawns to be played at various stages in the game, pieces intended to block those of the enemy. I have always believed that what I have done during my life has been justifiable and served only to ensure the happiness of future generations. Why is it that I feel eternally damned then? I have grown progressively older, my health has failed me, but my mind remains lucid and aware that the challenge is continuing. I must relinquish my divine role to someone else, and when I die, the game will continue regardless of the fact that I will no longer be king. As the storm clouds gather outside, I see a face in the window. It is a face etched with lines and cut from an all-American mold, yet it lacks the vibrancy of belief in the elusive dream. The mouth is set in a firm line, lips pressed tightly together, preventing the escape of any words which might compromise the speaker. The eyes, a watery blue, are weary and have lost any spark they might once have had. Upon closer inspection, they appear to be conveying an emotion which I almost fail to recognize: sadness. And as I stare at the face as a complete representation of a life, I realize something which causes me to turn away in disgust. The visage which had stared back at me through the glass was a reflection of more than I could imagine; it was an image of me. I slump slightly in my chair, hands clasped together firmly, as I attempt to comprehend the notion that my journey ends here. The door to the room opens and a familiar face enters my vision, his features a mirror of my own when I was still young enough to be vain. And as I stare at this man, I am suddenly filled with a great sense of relief, acknowledging that I am about to be released of my duties. What happens next does not matter, because I have already passed the proverbial torch on to the next bearer. There is nothing left to do now but contemplate the loss that has overwhelmed me, and hope that I will be remembered not as a pawn, but a king, a god of gods. But most of all, as a human being. *** AUTHOR'S NOTES This is the first piece of fanfic I've written, and it stemmed from a discussion in my Literature class. We were studying 'The Tempest', in particular, a speech of Ariel's, in which he pronounces that the character of Alonso will suffer "ling'ring perdition - worse than any death can be at once" due to the supposed death of his son. I was fascinated by the concept behind the phrase, and realized that the theme of eternal damnation due to perceived loss, could relate to Cigarette-Smoking Man and his crusade to mask the truth. As I pondered this idea, the thought occurred to me to write a short piece based on his thoughts at the end of Requiem just before Krycek came in to 'send the devil back to Hell'. The notion that CSM might already have been living a hell of his own through lingering perdition intrigued me, thus I decided to put pen to paper and imagine what he could have been thinking while he was looking out of the apartment window and the moments immediately after. This vignette was the result. ***