yiling matriarch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
marginalia) wrote2005-08-06 11:21 am
marginalia) wrote2005-08-06 11:21 am
Entry tags:
fic: secrets for calm - bernard/manny
[secrets for calm] - bernard/manny
yes, "black books" with a drop of the long-past everyday heroes challenge. by request for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
art_geek's birthday, so if it makes her laugh at all my work here is done. title, cut text, and randomly-selected header bits all from (what else?) the little book of calm by paul wilson. 3 vaguely related drabbles.
Discover
It's hard to feel tense when you're learning something you want to know.
And you can learn from the most unlikely places.
Bernard Black considers everything. Granted, not for long generally, and some weightier considerations must be followed by a drink.
Perhaps all considerations must begin and end with a drink, but the considering, it always happens.
Bernard considered homosexuality through several relatively drinkable bottles of wine and one that was not even a passable imitation. He looked at each side of the issue and determined that the dancing and personal hygiene requirements were far beyond him. He lived by this until he met Manny, and discovered that the requirements were perhaps not as required as he had been led to believe.
Pat something
Share your life with a pet -- being generous with your affection to it -- and you'll have an appreciative assistant in your efforts to become calm.
Affection, Bernard has long known, is overrated. If you are kind, people begin to expect it, and they are only going to be let down. If you are generally a bastard, causing pain wherever you go, then even an accidental kindness can come as a malicious surprise. To both parties.
Besides, affection isn't a requirement for all pets. Take Manny for instance. He makes a good deal of noise about social niceties like "please" and "thank you" and not squashing other people's hands in sandwich toasters, but in the end he always comes back and makes a cup of tea.
Pretend you're human
Leave it to others to be perfect, to be wonderful. Be content with what you are -- you'll be much more relaxed as a result.
Manny cooks and draws and plays piano. Fran sometimes tells Bernard that this should be enough, that Manny is exactly what he's needed all along, but she's never around when he's levitating trollops, er, Trollope across the shop. No one needs that. It makes one feel inferior, or at least mildly deluded.
Living with perfection is exhausting, but even Manny knows that now. Bernard watched him over at Goliath, the life sucked out of him by pastel robots and fluorescent lighting, and then he watched him come back.
They'll never be calm, but they are some strange form of content.
yes, "black books" with a drop of the long-past everyday heroes challenge. by request for
art_geek's birthday, so if it makes her laugh at all my work here is done. title, cut text, and randomly-selected header bits all from (what else?) the little book of calm by paul wilson. 3 vaguely related drabbles.It's hard to feel tense when you're learning something you want to know.
And you can learn from the most unlikely places.
Bernard Black considers everything. Granted, not for long generally, and some weightier considerations must be followed by a drink.
Perhaps all considerations must begin and end with a drink, but the considering, it always happens.
Bernard considered homosexuality through several relatively drinkable bottles of wine and one that was not even a passable imitation. He looked at each side of the issue and determined that the dancing and personal hygiene requirements were far beyond him. He lived by this until he met Manny, and discovered that the requirements were perhaps not as required as he had been led to believe.
Share your life with a pet -- being generous with your affection to it -- and you'll have an appreciative assistant in your efforts to become calm.
Affection, Bernard has long known, is overrated. If you are kind, people begin to expect it, and they are only going to be let down. If you are generally a bastard, causing pain wherever you go, then even an accidental kindness can come as a malicious surprise. To both parties.
Besides, affection isn't a requirement for all pets. Take Manny for instance. He makes a good deal of noise about social niceties like "please" and "thank you" and not squashing other people's hands in sandwich toasters, but in the end he always comes back and makes a cup of tea.
Leave it to others to be perfect, to be wonderful. Be content with what you are -- you'll be much more relaxed as a result.
Manny cooks and draws and plays piano. Fran sometimes tells Bernard that this should be enough, that Manny is exactly what he's needed all along, but she's never around when he's levitating trollops, er, Trollope across the shop. No one needs that. It makes one feel inferior, or at least mildly deluded.
Living with perfection is exhausting, but even Manny knows that now. Bernard watched him over at Goliath, the life sucked out of him by pastel robots and fluorescent lighting, and then he watched him come back.
They'll never be calm, but they are some strange form of content.