abrightboy | Voicemail (IC Contact Post) NEW

is there something else you can bring me you think I might like?

[Walter is, of course, already jittery enough. He is not a coffee guy. Not even really a tea guy. What he really is at heart is a hot cocoa guy.

But at this setup with the multiple types of coffee makers and teakettle, in addition to the utensils, as for the drink materials proper? The hot cocoa is not stored in teabags nor raw materials nor in packets. There's a little multi-storied rack - where something flat placed underneath the items would easily go unnoticed unless someone stood right next to it and looked straight down. Where there something white, it would stand out against the black plastic.

For the single-serve coffee capsules.]

I usually make you hot chocolate. But in my cabin, because it's better with milk. These are made with pressurized hot water, which...

[He had picked up one of the pods, but as he puts it back, then he notices the folded paper and picks it up.]

[...IS BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT!!!

Walter is just going to not answer the message since he believes it would be obtrusive at this moment what with the dramatic ellipsis and everything.

THERE IS A REAL IMPROVISED ENVELOPE MADE OUT OF PAPER AND TAPE. It is unmarked on the outside.

Open?]

[He opens the envelope and carefully unfolds it.]

I assume from your hesitation that you're now reading the letter. I have to admit I was not in the kindest state of mind when I wrote it. You're free to roast me for my apparently incomprehensible punchline now.

[The letter inside, in familiar block-caps, reads:]

Dear Malcolm,

You have permission to check your warden item every two (2) days during ports, once (1 time) per day during floods that affect the environment, and every five (5) days otherwise, to verify I'm not face down in a ditch somewhere.

I will cooperate with up to thirty minutes of homework delegated to another warden per week, because despite your active detriment to my emotional state, I am taking graduation very seriously.

You are still to check my ledger.

Not entirely respectfully,
YOUR INMATE!

P.S. The puzzles are only going to get harder from here.

Mmhm. I’m… not going to be doing any more puzzles, Walter, regardless of difficulty level. But if it’s any consolation, I’m not going to roast you for this one. Someone who uses the keurig thingies would probably have gotten it right away. It was extremely clever. Thank you for sharing it.

Regarding the letter….

One: the number of times you’re “permitting” me to look for you on my warden item are more times than I typically do. I only check it if I have reason to think you’re in danger or if I need to find you urgently. In point of fact, I didn’t know either of my last two inmates graduated until they told me because I don’t… track people like some sort of creeper. I also don’t read your private messages, even though I can. I have many social deficiencies, but not understanding personal space and privacy isn’t one of them.

Two: I don’t even know how to give homework to people who don’t engage in some sort of dialogue with me. There’s not, like… a curriculum here. So enjoy your free time, I guess. Or pick a warden of your choice and engage with them.

Three: I don’t read the ledger. I forget it exists until people bring it up. My position is that I don’t need to read The Big Book of Gossip; I can form my own opinions about people. I prefer to.

So. It was nice to hear from you. Thank you for the very clear boundaries. Anyway. Will graduated. I have to plan dinner. I have to go. And by ‘go’, I might be leaving for a week or two. If you need anything while I’m gone, you can ask Neal Caffrey. He’ll have my warden item and he’ll help in any way he can.

[Walter had assumed Malcolm simply couldn't be denied permission to view Walter's device, not that he could directly read filtered content from his own. Wardens are so terrifying, and why can't most of them see that? Why is Malcolm knee deep in some types of gossip yet claiming to be above it?]

Other warden would devise the homework in that scenario. Whatever. This was a lot and I do appreciate that you did it even though you hated it. Good night.

I didn't hate it. I thanked you for going to the trouble. I love puzzles. I hate being jerked around. I don't think you can deny that that was also a strong and intentional component of this. I care about helping you, but I can't do it if you don't want me to. You're telling me you don't want me to. I've asked my friend to look after your needs if I take a vacation but since you don't approve of my Wardening, I don't think there's much value in me choosing the Warden that will work with you on graduation and give you assignments. You should choose them. Then you'll get the style of communication and wardening that you want. It's your journey and only you can take it. If you want me to participate again at any point in the future, I'll be here. Also, if there's some kind of shipwide danger, I'll come find you and I'll protect you. I'm not abandoning you. But day to day engagement? Graduation work? Socializing? Counselling? Ball's in your court. Those are the boundaries you're asking for. Correct?

You can't say "I love sandwiches and thank you for the ham sandwich you made me, but also ham is meat and meat is murder", you know.

[It's pithy. It's something. He stares down at his communicator again, that Malcolm's frustrations continue pouring out of with almost physical force. Malcolm doesn't have any ideas from their months of prior rapport? Puzzles are a dialogue. What kind of special consultant could possibly not understand that? Did Walter really just romanticize something from the movies that never existed, that was just a shiny coat of polish on the carceral state?]

If I'm supposed to approve of your wardening for you to keep doing it but also be honest about any problems I have with you, then, yeah, I don't see how we can sustain a dialogue for now. Have a nice night. I mean it.

I’m not saying i love the ham sandwich, but I hate meat. I’m saying I love the ham sandwich, but I hate that the plate is lined with razor blades. I’m saying I’m not completely opposed to more delicious ham sandwiches in the future, but only when I’m sure you’ve stopped using razor blade plates because I have a concern you’d start putting razor blades right in the sandwiches. I can’t engage these sandwiches, no matter how much I enjoy them, while they’re just a way for you to hide razor blades so that I pick them up and cut myself.

You can have issues with my wardening and we can still work together, but you won’t tell me what the problems are or what you want me to do about them. Just tell me what the problem is, Walter, and what you want me to do about it. Honestly. Plainly. Not in allusions or pop culture references or puzzles or riddles. Just tell me. And if you’re not ready to come out of the House of Implying Things you’ve built so that you always have plausible deniability to hide behind, then I can wait.

Well, I told you that you should lock sensitive posts to a small trusted group, and technically I wouldn't know if that had happened, but given your reaction to the suggestion I have to assume you didn't do that I certainly can know that you've continued going out of your way to troll inmates and former inmates and their friends when the crisis isn't even happening anymore, as much as I told you not to do that either "Don't tell me I could have poked a vampire in the eye" was a total freebie you also managed to whiff somehow So. Yeah? These weren't coy little implications, dude.

I don't troll people. How was trying to give you ideas to defend yourself some sort of dig or... whatever you're implying by calling it a 'freebie'? How was responding to continuing verbal abuse in kind trolling? Is it a high point of my life not to rise above it? No. But a person gets tired of it, eventually, and sometimes I just can't deal with it anymore and why should I have to? I don't go out of my way to get in fights with people. I told you why I posted an open call for help and advice when I found Abel and Hilbert. But I also told you that I got the advice I was looking for, which means next time I don't have to make an open call. Next time, if something of that ilk happens again, I do know who to call directly. But at the time, I didn't, so I also think I did the right thing for that situation with the information that I had. It's not what I would do in the next such situation. So.... yeah. If you need to assume that everything I say and do is some attempt at making other people suffer intentionally, you've literally gotten nothing out of our conversations that you didn't make up so that the narrative you're spinning for yourself here has a villain.

No, you didn't tell me that! it's great news! really don't get why you told me MY suggestion to have a plan for who to call SUCKED Bye. Cross your fingers for a flood where you find out your actual role.

...When did I say your suggestion sucked? ......When did you make a suggestion??

It's nice to have *proof* you didn't even care what I had to say about your thrilling little confidential investigations! BYE.

.......Wait. When you were telling me to stop talking and that I was embarrassing you in public and asked why I didn't just call specific people... you're mad that I answered the question instead of taking it as a suggestion to do that next time? Well someone suggested it for next time way before you offered your "feedback", so if you ever speak to me again, here's an idea to avoid misunderstanding: if you think I should do something different next time, say "I think that next time you should do this." Because all you did was give me crap for what I did last time.

[Seriously considering it, thanks!]

[When no reply comes after a few minutes...]

Okay well that gives me something to reflect on too. Be safe.

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