( closed for @jimgoose )
There was something settling, soothing even, about watching Furiosa and the women ascend up that accursed lift, about nodding in farewell and disappearing into the crowd. Familiar, like the well-worn trails of muscle memory, or like riding a bicycle ( only not, for as the knees of the writer behind the muse can attest, it is entirely possible to forget how to ride a bike, but the saying goes and therefore the saying stays. anyway, ).
It was always like this, after. It wasn’t a reaffirmation of his life’s purpose, or a total retreat of the ghosts that chased him. It was just...clarity. The ability to think. Now that the adrenaline had worn off and he’d rescinded his involvement here, he was freer than he’d been since long before he’d taken a bite out of an apocalyptic lizard. He could keep moving, conscience at least 3% lighter than it had been before.
Or so he fucking thought ( stopped moving -- froze ) because that was one he hadn’t envisioned in a long fucking time, that-- Was this his subconscious’ way of trying to guide him, trying to tell him he should’ve gone with them up the lift? Like Glory and the salts? He looked up. Looked back. Looked behind himself. Nothing he could tell. Too late to go up anyway. And it was still in roughly the same place it’d been three seconds ago, hadn’t flickered forth or flitted about, wasn’t...wasn’t speaking directly into his ear. But dead. Dead. D e a d.
Max swallowed. Maybe it was trying to tell him it didn’t matter what shape Furiosa’d been in when she went up, trying to tell him she wasn’t going to make it, that he’d been too late. No. No. Keep moving.
He started walking again, pushing through the crowd in the same direction he’d been going in.
Didn’t even entertain the possibility that that might’ve actually been Jim fucking Goose.
