What makes you feel alive?
“…Alive?” Cáel echoes, tilting his head, blinking… then, lifting a hand, trying to suppress his laughter. “Well, that’s an icebreaker if I’ve ever heard one.”
“’Course, ‘course, no offense, but if I were you, I’d be more worried about the bloke who didn’t feel alive. I mean, wouldn’t you?”
Sometimes— always, when he’s with the ones loves— he feels something that he thinks might be like being alive. There’s a certain peacefulness to knitting, a sense of purpose, that has always attracted him, and it’s easy to feel— something— when you’re living someone else’s story. Maybe that’s what’s always attracted him to fiction. There’s, too, the simple joy of his siblings’ smile. That’s always been enough.
He can never get rid of this hole, this swamp, that he’s dug himself in, too deep for him to crawl out, it seems, but sometimes… sometimes, at least, he can pretend it's not there.
But there’s only one thing that makes him feel truly alive, and it never lasts long enough, never fills the hole enough, and… someday, he’ll know it’ll be the death of him.
