Death And Choices

by Kathryn A

Blakes 7 / Lexx ( 300 words) [2004-10-15] ?Kerr Avon, Kai

An improbable conversation in a bar.

B7 Friday: First Lines

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I am dead. That gives me objectivity. No feelings to cloud the judgement, no desires to bias one's conclusions; unlike the man in front of me. However much he considers himself rational and objective, he isn't. No living being can be.

"You killed him," I said. "It is your responsibility."

"Tell me something I don't know." His voice was slightly slurred.

"You appear not to know that getting drunk will only give you a headache, not a solution."

"There's a solution for this?" He snorted.

"I myself have been responsible for many deaths. They caused me no pain, because I am dead."

"You wear it well."

"His Shadow reanimated me."

"Tell me again why I'm talking to a man who's obviously insane."

"Because you chose to. And I am not insane."

"Because I chose to," he repeated. "Are there really any choices left for me?"

"Certainly. You can choose to live, or you can chose to die. Right now, you are chosing to die."

"Spare me the psychotech talk."

"I am not a psychotech, I am merely making a logical extrapolation of your present circumstances."

He glared at me, then he glared at his drink, but he didn't answer. He knew I was right.

"Blake and his stupid causes..."

"I died for a cause. That did not make the cause stupid, even though, at that time, we did not succeed."

"But you succeeded later?"

"I destroyed His Shadow, yes, but only to unintentionally unleash an even greater terror."

"How very cheerful."

We sat in silence for a while; he swirled the amber liquid in his glass, but did not drink it.

"Choices... It all comes down to choices in the end."

"What do you chose?"

"It's no choice at all really." He put his glass down. "I choose to live."