driftfleet | six ○ text

Who: Caesar Zeppeli & open
Broadcast: Fleetwide
Action: None
When: 2/27

Where I come from - or in my family, anyway, and families like mine. You give your child a special name at their baptism, the name of a saint that's meant to protect and guide them in life. It's just sort of a thing that's done, I never questioned it when I was young other than to wonder why my father chose what he did for me.

Mine is Anthonio, after Anthony of Padua. You're supposed to pray for him to find lost things, any kind of lost things, even ones that aren't tangible - lost faith, for example. It's funny but I don't think I ever actually have. Prayed to him. I always wanted to find all the things I lost by myself, which doesn't actually work that well all of the time.

The patron saint of today is Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows. He died on February 27. That's the thing, saint name days are named after the day a saint died on. So Gabriel died on the same day as me. I've been wondering if that's important - if I should recognize it in some kind of permanent way. Or if I should just try not to think about it, except that doesn't work very well either.

The other thing is that I remember having very strong opinions about some of the saints when I was younger. Catherine of Siena defied her parents and cut off all of her hair so she wouldn't be encouraged to marry. I used to think she should have done what they asked of her. Now I think if I ever had a daughter, I'd want Catherine to watch over her.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Yeah.

None of us want to be a burden, but they won't be, because it'll be good for us.

And if they want to help out, they can do that too. They won't have to, but they can.

You have to meet my little ones too, sometime. Clarissa and Bianca. They're shy, but in different ways, and I know they'll feel at ease around you either way.

Oh? How old?

[HIS BABIES NOW]

13 and 11! We go in pairs, sort of. Francesca and I, and then the two little ones.

Clarissa is shy because she's self-conscious, before Bianca was born she was the baby and we were her grown-up older sisters, but rather than trying to stand out she just...tried to fade away instead. But she likes to sing! Only ever with someone else, mostly me. She just doesn't have the confidence, she doesn't like standing out at all.

And then Bianca is the littlest, and she's quiet because she's sick often. It's just her bad luck, she always seems to catch cold or run a fever more easily than the rest of us.

[oh no . . . BABIES AAAAAAH]

They sound perfect. I think Jojo's grandmother will like Clarissa best. She sounds like the sort of person who'd pay extra attention to the shyest people.

Maybe if you sing for me sometime she'd join in. Not right away, but sometime.

She would! There are some songs she just can't resist, and that would get her.

She'd like you, too, because you'd be strong and safe. But Bianca would mostly like to laugh at your antics when you and Jojo are together.

Antics?

...Caesar look down where you and Jojo are talking

and then pretend it's not you and Jojo talking

imagine it's two other people who aren't you and Jojo