(no subject)

[lastgunslinger]

What have I become

A pot of coffee lies cold an untouched on the end table next to the armchair where Roland sits. The room smells of burning tobacco; he has been smoking nearly constantly since he came upstairs two nights ago. Most of his cigarettes have burned down to nothing before he remembers that he holds them in his fingers.

My sweetest friend

One taste of the old time sets all to rights. Roland doubts that very much, say sorry. There's not a thing in the world that can make this situation better. And yet he knows that Eddie is right, that Susan deserves the truth.

Everyone I know goes away in the end

This is what Roland has been doing while he has been forgetting to smoke: replaying his long journey in his mind, step by step. Coming again to Gilead after her death, watching his world move on without him, leaving him a living anachronism in a terminally ill world. Roland views his life and picks over his memories like a man shuffling a deck of cards -- tarot cards, may it do ya, for does not each one have meaning and significance, and a greater overarching meaning when the whole is examined?

And you could have it all

Roland is preparing to lay out his cards in front of Susan Delgado for her judgment. To show her his hand. He is no magician, and to reveal his hand and his heart have never been in his nature, so he must prepare if he is to do this.

My empire of dirt

It's not so much that he is fasting. Rather, he has forgotten to eat.

I will let you down

In his mind, he shuffles the deck. The hanged man. And somewhere deep in his heart he wonders if perhaps he, and not Cuthbert or Eddie, is the ka-mai -- he who has been given hope, but no choices.

I will make you hurt.