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wilson.simon@cdc.org
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<span style="font-family:courier;"><B>FROM:</B> lastname.firstname@cdc.org <B>TO:</B> wilson.simon@cdc.org [[200 max character message here]]</span>	<span style="font-family:courier;"><B>CALLING:</B> WILSON, SIMON</span> [[3 minute max message here]]	<span style="font-family:courier;"><B>(1) VOICEMAIL:</B> WILSON, SIMON [[3 minute max message here]]

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[sequestrated]

You said he came for her in the afternoon.

1/2

[soulsrob]

So?

2/2

[soulsrob]

Oh. Wait, I understand. Hm. Maybe it was early afternoon!

[sequestrated]

It would have to be very early afternoon. Maybe ten or eleven.

He should just have left her there anyway. Right?

[soulsrob]

[Color her surprised.]

why do you say that? They were in love, why wouldn't he want to rescue her?

1/2

[sequestrated]

Love isn't everything, Winnie. He pulled her up by the roots and all that means is that he got to watch her die

[Welp.]

2/2

[sequestrated]

I'm sorry. Please ignore me. You're very kind.

1/2

[soulsrob]

[Holy shit.]

Maybe sometimes you have to destroy what you love in order to save it.

[She's thinking of her own planet here for a moment]

2/2

[soulsrob]

Do you want to talk about it?

[sequestrated]

There isn't anything to talk about. :-)

I'm overthinking, that's all. It was a nice story. Do you know any poems?

[Amazing, this lying in text thing. He has all his full stops and everything.]

[soulsrob]

[She considers pressing it for a moment, before letting it drop. For now.]

01
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

02
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

03
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.

04
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

[sequestrated]

[Now Simon knows this poem already, and it strikes him at first with a clanging irony. There is a long delay while his head spins—with all of his promises, voluntary and not, and with all of his many, many failures. He's lost his captaincy; that was the whole point. And yet, and yet—

He's not sure why the poem comforts him. Perhaps it's just that she cared enough to type it out for him. Here and now, it's enough.]

Thank you so much, Winnie.

Goodnight.

[soulsrob]

Anytime. Sweet dreams when you go, Simon.