[EM] 15 - Have you ever faced Death?
Sep. 26th, 2006 11:32 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
idontreallysparHave I ever faced death? Yeah, I have...in more ways than I’d like to admit. I’ve faced it up close and personal, and I face it on the job every day. I’ve stared it down often enough that I’ve become something of...I don’t want to say ‘expert,’ but I think the term afficionado just might fit.
There’s three kinds I’ve come up against in my life...the end you mourn, the end you choose, and the end that comes as part of life. I’ve gone against all three, and so far? I’ve survived them all...for the most part.
[locked from all those without WITSEC clearance]
I faced the first when I was twenty one...or at least Tony Venomecci did. Trust me, of all the ways a man can die, the way he did wasn’t one I would have picked. I was twenty one...still just a kid, and I pretty much got crucified for doing the right thing.
The bad guys got theirs, though...and I spent six months in rehab after a little miracle medicine saved my life and my face. Mostly, anyway. My nose changed...so did my scalp, a little. Forehead’s bigger. Least that’s what Rachel says when she sees some of my old photos from the Jersey days. I picked my new name after the CIA offered me a new identity...but for all intents and purposes, I was dead in every way that counted. I had to leave town, couldn’t even see my folks one last time. To this day, everyone I ever knew as Venomecci believes I’m in our family plot at the local cemetery.
I took the life I would have lived and I made it my new start...but I still regret that I never got the chance to do it all up right, you know? I don’t wish for second chances there...but I feel the loss of it all, even to this day.
[/locked]
The end I chose was the day APO was destroyed. I never saw that end, though...because Rachel made me change my mind. Everything she was to me...everything she *could* be...it pulled me from that subway and into the light.
The ones that come as part of life...those ends are the ones I encounter on the job, no matter where I’m at. Hell, they’re the ones we all run into just by crossing the street. We all face death just by living...that’s one lesson I learned the hard way.
And in the end? I think that the pathetic man is the one that can actually say ‘no’ to that question. I mean, c’mon...can you ever really live if you’ve never been ready to die?
Muse: Thomas Grace
Fandom: ALIAS
Words: 446
There’s three kinds I’ve come up against in my life...the end you mourn, the end you choose, and the end that comes as part of life. I’ve gone against all three, and so far? I’ve survived them all...for the most part.
[locked from all those without WITSEC clearance]
I faced the first when I was twenty one...or at least Tony Venomecci did. Trust me, of all the ways a man can die, the way he did wasn’t one I would have picked. I was twenty one...still just a kid, and I pretty much got crucified for doing the right thing.
The bad guys got theirs, though...and I spent six months in rehab after a little miracle medicine saved my life and my face. Mostly, anyway. My nose changed...so did my scalp, a little. Forehead’s bigger. Least that’s what Rachel says when she sees some of my old photos from the Jersey days. I picked my new name after the CIA offered me a new identity...but for all intents and purposes, I was dead in every way that counted. I had to leave town, couldn’t even see my folks one last time. To this day, everyone I ever knew as Venomecci believes I’m in our family plot at the local cemetery.
I took the life I would have lived and I made it my new start...but I still regret that I never got the chance to do it all up right, you know? I don’t wish for second chances there...but I feel the loss of it all, even to this day.
[/locked]
The end I chose was the day APO was destroyed. I never saw that end, though...because Rachel made me change my mind. Everything she was to me...everything she *could* be...it pulled me from that subway and into the light.
The ones that come as part of life...those ends are the ones I encounter on the job, no matter where I’m at. Hell, they’re the ones we all run into just by crossing the street. We all face death just by living...that’s one lesson I learned the hard way.
And in the end? I think that the pathetic man is the one that can actually say ‘no’ to that question. I mean, c’mon...can you ever really live if you’ve never been ready to die?
Muse: Thomas Grace
Fandom: ALIAS
Words: 446
