Categories > Celebrities > Savage Garden > The Fortress of Silence
The Fortress of Silence
Chapter Five & Epilogue
‘You want my suggestions?’ Walter watched as Daniel packed his small suitcase for the plane trip later. ‘Settle back in Sydney.’
A smile of amusement escaped the musician. ‘Quite a poor one that is, mate.’
‘I mean it,’ Walter sighed. ‘You’re able to – always able to – keep my sanity.’
‘I always enjoy your company, and you handle yourself well enough. I mean it too.’ Daniel closed his suitcase. ‘Take care, Walt.’
‘Shall we meet again in the future?’
Daniel raised his eyebrows. ‘Why not?’
Walter walked nearer and patted him on the back. ‘You’re much better with words and tackling people now, Dan. If it was five years ago, I’ll bet you’d tell me, “No, I definitely don’t want to meet you again in my life, Walter Afanasieff”.’
‘That sounds really funny,’ Daniel replied coldly, stopping Walter from following him out of the room. ‘Okay, I won’t mince words with you, Walt, I definitely don’t want you to see me off.’
Walter couldn’t help a laugh which sounded stale. ‘You know what, you’ve been giving me the impression that you’re busy running from something. Escaping someone, maybe. Under the cynical shell of yours, Dan, I know you’re very much of a sentimentalist. Trust me, I live longer than you do.’
The door closed and after a while opened again, showing a determined but somewhat pale Daniel whose suitcase-free hand was frozen on the door handle.
‘That was a very unfriendly piece of comment,’ he stated stably.
‘I’m sorry, Dan,’
‘Save your apologies, Walt, could you tell me where Darren lives now?’
Walter got a strong desire to break into a smile.
*
Darren lost track of thought and sensibility all of a sudden after hanging up the phone. It was never a shock that Daniel declined the work; he just didn’t need the skin-deep reassurance since he had been good enough for his own intelligence and ability. He should’ve known and expected this. He should’ve stopped fooling around, pointlessly seeking out solace. But what now? Still way too hard letting go. Why did he have to run around this circle?
All doubts were abruptly interrupted by some sharp knocks on the outside door.
Darren recollected himself and went to get the door. Indulgence cannot rule the life, considered he, wave away the past and –
He took a few steps back clumsily and nearly overturned a chair as the door fell open.
Because it exposed a serene looking Daniel standing in his doorway, wearing a calm expression that had been his acquaintance since long ago.
A thousand words swarmed in his brain within several tangled seconds, but only a few awkward ones accidentally slipped through his throat.
‘Daniel –? How… why are you here?’
Aware of the rudeness conveyed in the sentence, Darren cursed himself immediately. Damn it, where have all these great lyrics gone?
Fortunately Daniel didn’t seem to mind. He straightened his slightly wind-tossed hair and put down the suitcase, carelessly showing hints of grace and matureness in the easy manners.
‘If not much mistaken, I thought you wanted to see me.’
‘I did,’ Darren found his voice somewhere, ‘but I thought you refused.’
‘It had been an awful decision,’ Daniel stepped in. ‘I’m not a man without scruples. Neither are you.’
‘So you persuade yourself out of the stubborn head of yours, and decided to break the ice?’
Daniel did not make a quick answer, but closed the door behind him and walked nearer. He pierced his icy green eyes through Darren who was standing in front of him; his most familiar up-to-shoulder height, his new fancy haircut and his frosted lipstick; Daniel then let his eyes travel back and at last focused them into Darren’s clear watery blue ones, causing him to feel being X-rayed.
‘I’m not stubborn, but I was vulnerable,’ Daniel sighed.
‘Dan, I really want to tell you something,’ staring at Daniel, Darren suddenly realized what he wanted to say just then, yesterday, last week, the past five years… and he let the words flood out, regardless of the consequences. ‘All along these years, Dan, I made every effort to contact you, to get in touch with you; I even bought CDs from small record shops only because I saw your names on them. But you avoid me. You moved to another city and never answer my call. Daniel, I can’t fight this sense of guilt any longer, you can’t ever imagine what I’ve been through these years.’ Darren’s voice trembled with emotion.
‘I understand how you feel,’ Daniel huskily replied, ‘though it did take me a while. Darren, it is all in the past. If it is forgiveness you ask from me, here you get it.’
‘Not exactly!’ Darren argued. ‘We – I mean in the end, we never talked it through. And I don’t want to do a runner this time. Daniel, why don’t you blame me? Why are you feigning innocent blankness? Why is your voice devoid of any accusative tone? I know you were hurt. I know you were quite coming apart at the seams at that time. Am I right, Dan?’
A sudden twinge of unexpected pain flashed across those icy green depths, dimming them a little and justified the singer’s statements.
‘Come on, Daniel, shout out at me, and let me know what you’re feeling. Maybe this will be better for both of us.’ Darren was on the brink of tears.
His words successfully stirred a cyclone in Daniel’s eyes.
‘It was very perceptive of you,’ slowly he answered; Darren could feel him fighting for composure. ‘But I have no intention of dealing with the past right now. It’s dead and decayed, Darren. If you want a new beginning then it’s not so late…’
Darren took a deep breath. ‘Dan,’ he began in a serious tune, ‘there’s too much you’re trying to shoulder, too much you don’t want me to know. You are a deep person, and even if I am good at mind games sometimes I cannot get below the surface with you. I miss the days when you would let me enter your heart – during the first album period. We wrote our second album too far away and that was when I started feeling you losing attentiveness and patience in me.’
‘Had you any idea how much you changed and how unfamiliar you seemed to me?’
‘We should’ve talked. It was my entire fault to have acted on impulse. I was too stupid and arrogant, and I know I hurt you… Can we give it another chance? I’m exhausted, Dan, living in this fool’s paradise… this fortress of silence… Fame, fortune, they’re tainted by your absence. I really don’t have a clue why you do have so much effect on me, but Dan… help me out, give me a hand.’
Still Daniel made no direct answer, but didn’t stop closing in on him in a slow yet steady pace.
‘Do you know why I came, Darren?’
‘Er,’ beginning to feel the gradual change of atmosphere, Darren hesitated before replying, ‘no.’
‘I came,’ Daniel pressed on, ‘not to demand your explanation. We both need a key, Darren, to set ourselves free. OK, let’s just say you were too thoughtless to think before leap and I was too proud to conform to all the life’s stereotypes… but let it go. Darren, don’t look back in anger. We don’t have so many would have beens at hand and I don’t want us to regret this for the rest of our lives.’
They were very close now and Darren watched as Daniel closed his eyes, then shot them open quite suddenly.
‘Also, I came,’ his eyes were quickly darkening, ‘because my father’s right. There sure had to be a reason which you won’t let the public know… Do you think I’m not observant enough to read you like a magazine article?’
Darren shuddered as Daniel carried on to lean closer, until they were only breaths away. Things were going fast and far beyond his imagination and he had to question his sanity to see what was going on.
‘There are some things,’ Daniel murmured in a mourning tone, ‘which have to be kept between us only, in private,’ he paused and added, ‘extremely private.’
Daniel’s stormy eyes were the last thing he saw before their lips crushed together and knocked the air out of him.
Despite the violence and unexpectation, this was an excellent kiss after all. Daniel was pinning him to the wall and holding his shoulders, forcing eye contact and invading his mouth with a thousand kinds of emotions that he knew Daniel couldn’t convey with words. He didn’t put up a fight. He let himself indulge deep into the sense of overwhelming complexity. Finally this really happened, though it came at a terrible price after the cruel reality tortured them both fatigued. Darren’s tears traced down his cheeks and he tasted the bittersweet in his mouth, retreating even further to allow Daniel’s advance.
The kiss held no physical craving but unmistakable force, like burning like eruption, forcing him to think of nothing else. He couldn’t tell whether it was bliss or a punishment, for it contained all too much to feel and taste. But may the best kisser win. Unable to resist any longer, Darren started to respond and kiss back. However, Daniel didn’t to enjoy the interaction. There was a sudden moment of stiffness when something seemed to have occurred to him, and after he recollected himself he began to slow down and pull away from Darren’s tight embrace.
Reluctant to let go, Darren grasped Daniel’s arm to cling to him. But their lips parted anyway as Daniel insisted. Almost stumbling he stepped away, still panting and taking deep breaths. Darren practically attempted to hold him but he didn’t comply, so their arms got entangled in a strange angle, entwined and rest against each other. They were both silent except for the slight gasps they took, perhaps put to a loss of words by their own previous shocking behaviour.
A minute or two passed in still. Darren probingly looked up at Daniel only to find him gazing back at him, his eyes no longer stormy, but rather a crystalised even timid emerald freshly washed by the shower – just as it had always been, his eyes made everything beyond words… after all, Daniel had barely changed all the way since their Red Edge days… Darren stared hard at him, hoping the intensity with which he stared would help him break into Daniel’s sharp active mind to see what was going on there…
‘Can we grant ourselves another chance?’ was all he asked.
For a moment he thought he knew the answer. Daniel was supposed to smile, to hold him and promise a yes, according to all the stories he read before and his own fantasy.
But life was not a story. Daniel lowered the gaze, a sigh, and a firm ‘No’ was all he got in answer.
Hot tears were again prickling in Darren’s eyes. He wiped them noisily away with his sleeves before half-shouting to the musician standing calmly in front of him, still cradled in his loose arms.
‘Daniel, I know you want to give me a taste of what I’d done, but the truth is I regret it perhaps even more than you do! Lesson learned, Dan, couldn’t we just –‘
‘There’s more than that,’ Daniel cut him off briefly and surveyed him darkly.
‘Then why?!’ Darren yelled.
Before Daniel had time to contemplate over what to tell Darren, next moment they both jumped as the high-pitched shriek of the hotel phone ripped through the silent air. After several seconds of hesitation, Daniel let go of Darren completely, stepped out of the way, indicating him to take the phone.
‘To hell with it!’ Darren hurled a few curses at the very bad timing of the call, trying to cover up the feeling of void and frustration that Daniel’s absence had aroused him of. ‘Carry on, Dan. Tell me what you’re thinking…’
But Daniel stayed quiet until the phone automatically switched on the answering machine. The caller was a female. ‘Darren, this is me, Louisa. I know you’re off with the business of Robert Conley, but the touring project in London is got to move on. The band is in a fever of impatience. Do call me back before afternoon. Bye.’ The message finished with a tiny ‘click’.
Darren seemed to have been hit by a train and was struggling for words which, to his utter unfortuneness, wouldn’t come.
‘You see?’ Daniel’s voice managed to stay flat, though he felt hollow and inadequate inside. ‘That’s why.’
Darren reached desperately for Daniel’s hands.
‘We both have our lives, now, Darren, our separate roads, and I see no reason for either of us abandoning his own. No matter how unwilling you are, you have to admit that our time had ended… There is no viable alternative to turn back in time, is there?’
‘What if I’d leave everything behind just to be with you?’
‘Then you’re not being realistic,’ said Daniel. ‘We are no way back to the two young dream seekers almost a decade ago. Not everything will live up to our expectations.’
Darren turned his head and looked away. Everything came to him eventually. Daniel was by all means correct. There are things he simply cannot get rid of anymore – the band, touring project, solo career, the big stage, records and contracts, audiences and family… things he simply cannot throw away. He had chosen his road. Right. This was his life, his and his alone.
Tears came pouring down and he could feel Daniel cleaning them away with the tissues he produced from the box on the table. Did he ever taste something more bitter than this?
‘Darren,’ Daniel spoke again, in a tone that couldn’t be more prudent but also couldn’t be more risky. ‘If I had been given any chance to actually love somebody – it could’ve been you.’
With this he turned away to look for his suitcase. When he picked it up and was ready to open the door, he looked back at Darren, who threw him a wry smile.
‘Well Daz, finally you smiled… Walt’s been saying I’m better with words and stuff. I think probably he’s got a point.’ Daniel beamed as he walked towards the door.
‘How can you tell, Jonesy?’ Darren answered, tears drying rather rapidly. ‘Yours have always been effective with me.’
*
EPILOGUE
Having finished a call from home, Daniel Jones stretched in the uncomfortable plane seat and listened to the flight attendant announcing a ten minutes’ arrival in Brisbane. Guess what? Finally his sister Demelza would be marrying her six-year-boyfriend, Sebastian. Daniel had assumed that they were never going to get married before this idea was made right out of thin air. He smiled as he thought of this.
Still, there was something more that made him smile.
Hope Darren get it, he thought, that in his own way he had given him all the forgiveness they need, the permission to get on with their lives without any more pains and strains and conscience; that he had given them both a final solution.
A key to set themselves free, the long lost one to the so-Darren-called fortress of silence.
THE END
Chapter Five & Epilogue
‘You want my suggestions?’ Walter watched as Daniel packed his small suitcase for the plane trip later. ‘Settle back in Sydney.’
A smile of amusement escaped the musician. ‘Quite a poor one that is, mate.’
‘I mean it,’ Walter sighed. ‘You’re able to – always able to – keep my sanity.’
‘I always enjoy your company, and you handle yourself well enough. I mean it too.’ Daniel closed his suitcase. ‘Take care, Walt.’
‘Shall we meet again in the future?’
Daniel raised his eyebrows. ‘Why not?’
Walter walked nearer and patted him on the back. ‘You’re much better with words and tackling people now, Dan. If it was five years ago, I’ll bet you’d tell me, “No, I definitely don’t want to meet you again in my life, Walter Afanasieff”.’
‘That sounds really funny,’ Daniel replied coldly, stopping Walter from following him out of the room. ‘Okay, I won’t mince words with you, Walt, I definitely don’t want you to see me off.’
Walter couldn’t help a laugh which sounded stale. ‘You know what, you’ve been giving me the impression that you’re busy running from something. Escaping someone, maybe. Under the cynical shell of yours, Dan, I know you’re very much of a sentimentalist. Trust me, I live longer than you do.’
The door closed and after a while opened again, showing a determined but somewhat pale Daniel whose suitcase-free hand was frozen on the door handle.
‘That was a very unfriendly piece of comment,’ he stated stably.
‘I’m sorry, Dan,’
‘Save your apologies, Walt, could you tell me where Darren lives now?’
Walter got a strong desire to break into a smile.
*
Darren lost track of thought and sensibility all of a sudden after hanging up the phone. It was never a shock that Daniel declined the work; he just didn’t need the skin-deep reassurance since he had been good enough for his own intelligence and ability. He should’ve known and expected this. He should’ve stopped fooling around, pointlessly seeking out solace. But what now? Still way too hard letting go. Why did he have to run around this circle?
All doubts were abruptly interrupted by some sharp knocks on the outside door.
Darren recollected himself and went to get the door. Indulgence cannot rule the life, considered he, wave away the past and –
He took a few steps back clumsily and nearly overturned a chair as the door fell open.
Because it exposed a serene looking Daniel standing in his doorway, wearing a calm expression that had been his acquaintance since long ago.
A thousand words swarmed in his brain within several tangled seconds, but only a few awkward ones accidentally slipped through his throat.
‘Daniel –? How… why are you here?’
Aware of the rudeness conveyed in the sentence, Darren cursed himself immediately. Damn it, where have all these great lyrics gone?
Fortunately Daniel didn’t seem to mind. He straightened his slightly wind-tossed hair and put down the suitcase, carelessly showing hints of grace and matureness in the easy manners.
‘If not much mistaken, I thought you wanted to see me.’
‘I did,’ Darren found his voice somewhere, ‘but I thought you refused.’
‘It had been an awful decision,’ Daniel stepped in. ‘I’m not a man without scruples. Neither are you.’
‘So you persuade yourself out of the stubborn head of yours, and decided to break the ice?’
Daniel did not make a quick answer, but closed the door behind him and walked nearer. He pierced his icy green eyes through Darren who was standing in front of him; his most familiar up-to-shoulder height, his new fancy haircut and his frosted lipstick; Daniel then let his eyes travel back and at last focused them into Darren’s clear watery blue ones, causing him to feel being X-rayed.
‘I’m not stubborn, but I was vulnerable,’ Daniel sighed.
‘Dan, I really want to tell you something,’ staring at Daniel, Darren suddenly realized what he wanted to say just then, yesterday, last week, the past five years… and he let the words flood out, regardless of the consequences. ‘All along these years, Dan, I made every effort to contact you, to get in touch with you; I even bought CDs from small record shops only because I saw your names on them. But you avoid me. You moved to another city and never answer my call. Daniel, I can’t fight this sense of guilt any longer, you can’t ever imagine what I’ve been through these years.’ Darren’s voice trembled with emotion.
‘I understand how you feel,’ Daniel huskily replied, ‘though it did take me a while. Darren, it is all in the past. If it is forgiveness you ask from me, here you get it.’
‘Not exactly!’ Darren argued. ‘We – I mean in the end, we never talked it through. And I don’t want to do a runner this time. Daniel, why don’t you blame me? Why are you feigning innocent blankness? Why is your voice devoid of any accusative tone? I know you were hurt. I know you were quite coming apart at the seams at that time. Am I right, Dan?’
A sudden twinge of unexpected pain flashed across those icy green depths, dimming them a little and justified the singer’s statements.
‘Come on, Daniel, shout out at me, and let me know what you’re feeling. Maybe this will be better for both of us.’ Darren was on the brink of tears.
His words successfully stirred a cyclone in Daniel’s eyes.
‘It was very perceptive of you,’ slowly he answered; Darren could feel him fighting for composure. ‘But I have no intention of dealing with the past right now. It’s dead and decayed, Darren. If you want a new beginning then it’s not so late…’
Darren took a deep breath. ‘Dan,’ he began in a serious tune, ‘there’s too much you’re trying to shoulder, too much you don’t want me to know. You are a deep person, and even if I am good at mind games sometimes I cannot get below the surface with you. I miss the days when you would let me enter your heart – during the first album period. We wrote our second album too far away and that was when I started feeling you losing attentiveness and patience in me.’
‘Had you any idea how much you changed and how unfamiliar you seemed to me?’
‘We should’ve talked. It was my entire fault to have acted on impulse. I was too stupid and arrogant, and I know I hurt you… Can we give it another chance? I’m exhausted, Dan, living in this fool’s paradise… this fortress of silence… Fame, fortune, they’re tainted by your absence. I really don’t have a clue why you do have so much effect on me, but Dan… help me out, give me a hand.’
Still Daniel made no direct answer, but didn’t stop closing in on him in a slow yet steady pace.
‘Do you know why I came, Darren?’
‘Er,’ beginning to feel the gradual change of atmosphere, Darren hesitated before replying, ‘no.’
‘I came,’ Daniel pressed on, ‘not to demand your explanation. We both need a key, Darren, to set ourselves free. OK, let’s just say you were too thoughtless to think before leap and I was too proud to conform to all the life’s stereotypes… but let it go. Darren, don’t look back in anger. We don’t have so many would have beens at hand and I don’t want us to regret this for the rest of our lives.’
They were very close now and Darren watched as Daniel closed his eyes, then shot them open quite suddenly.
‘Also, I came,’ his eyes were quickly darkening, ‘because my father’s right. There sure had to be a reason which you won’t let the public know… Do you think I’m not observant enough to read you like a magazine article?’
Darren shuddered as Daniel carried on to lean closer, until they were only breaths away. Things were going fast and far beyond his imagination and he had to question his sanity to see what was going on.
‘There are some things,’ Daniel murmured in a mourning tone, ‘which have to be kept between us only, in private,’ he paused and added, ‘extremely private.’
Daniel’s stormy eyes were the last thing he saw before their lips crushed together and knocked the air out of him.
Despite the violence and unexpectation, this was an excellent kiss after all. Daniel was pinning him to the wall and holding his shoulders, forcing eye contact and invading his mouth with a thousand kinds of emotions that he knew Daniel couldn’t convey with words. He didn’t put up a fight. He let himself indulge deep into the sense of overwhelming complexity. Finally this really happened, though it came at a terrible price after the cruel reality tortured them both fatigued. Darren’s tears traced down his cheeks and he tasted the bittersweet in his mouth, retreating even further to allow Daniel’s advance.
The kiss held no physical craving but unmistakable force, like burning like eruption, forcing him to think of nothing else. He couldn’t tell whether it was bliss or a punishment, for it contained all too much to feel and taste. But may the best kisser win. Unable to resist any longer, Darren started to respond and kiss back. However, Daniel didn’t to enjoy the interaction. There was a sudden moment of stiffness when something seemed to have occurred to him, and after he recollected himself he began to slow down and pull away from Darren’s tight embrace.
Reluctant to let go, Darren grasped Daniel’s arm to cling to him. But their lips parted anyway as Daniel insisted. Almost stumbling he stepped away, still panting and taking deep breaths. Darren practically attempted to hold him but he didn’t comply, so their arms got entangled in a strange angle, entwined and rest against each other. They were both silent except for the slight gasps they took, perhaps put to a loss of words by their own previous shocking behaviour.
A minute or two passed in still. Darren probingly looked up at Daniel only to find him gazing back at him, his eyes no longer stormy, but rather a crystalised even timid emerald freshly washed by the shower – just as it had always been, his eyes made everything beyond words… after all, Daniel had barely changed all the way since their Red Edge days… Darren stared hard at him, hoping the intensity with which he stared would help him break into Daniel’s sharp active mind to see what was going on there…
‘Can we grant ourselves another chance?’ was all he asked.
For a moment he thought he knew the answer. Daniel was supposed to smile, to hold him and promise a yes, according to all the stories he read before and his own fantasy.
But life was not a story. Daniel lowered the gaze, a sigh, and a firm ‘No’ was all he got in answer.
Hot tears were again prickling in Darren’s eyes. He wiped them noisily away with his sleeves before half-shouting to the musician standing calmly in front of him, still cradled in his loose arms.
‘Daniel, I know you want to give me a taste of what I’d done, but the truth is I regret it perhaps even more than you do! Lesson learned, Dan, couldn’t we just –‘
‘There’s more than that,’ Daniel cut him off briefly and surveyed him darkly.
‘Then why?!’ Darren yelled.
Before Daniel had time to contemplate over what to tell Darren, next moment they both jumped as the high-pitched shriek of the hotel phone ripped through the silent air. After several seconds of hesitation, Daniel let go of Darren completely, stepped out of the way, indicating him to take the phone.
‘To hell with it!’ Darren hurled a few curses at the very bad timing of the call, trying to cover up the feeling of void and frustration that Daniel’s absence had aroused him of. ‘Carry on, Dan. Tell me what you’re thinking…’
But Daniel stayed quiet until the phone automatically switched on the answering machine. The caller was a female. ‘Darren, this is me, Louisa. I know you’re off with the business of Robert Conley, but the touring project in London is got to move on. The band is in a fever of impatience. Do call me back before afternoon. Bye.’ The message finished with a tiny ‘click’.
Darren seemed to have been hit by a train and was struggling for words which, to his utter unfortuneness, wouldn’t come.
‘You see?’ Daniel’s voice managed to stay flat, though he felt hollow and inadequate inside. ‘That’s why.’
Darren reached desperately for Daniel’s hands.
‘We both have our lives, now, Darren, our separate roads, and I see no reason for either of us abandoning his own. No matter how unwilling you are, you have to admit that our time had ended… There is no viable alternative to turn back in time, is there?’
‘What if I’d leave everything behind just to be with you?’
‘Then you’re not being realistic,’ said Daniel. ‘We are no way back to the two young dream seekers almost a decade ago. Not everything will live up to our expectations.’
Darren turned his head and looked away. Everything came to him eventually. Daniel was by all means correct. There are things he simply cannot get rid of anymore – the band, touring project, solo career, the big stage, records and contracts, audiences and family… things he simply cannot throw away. He had chosen his road. Right. This was his life, his and his alone.
Tears came pouring down and he could feel Daniel cleaning them away with the tissues he produced from the box on the table. Did he ever taste something more bitter than this?
‘Darren,’ Daniel spoke again, in a tone that couldn’t be more prudent but also couldn’t be more risky. ‘If I had been given any chance to actually love somebody – it could’ve been you.’
With this he turned away to look for his suitcase. When he picked it up and was ready to open the door, he looked back at Darren, who threw him a wry smile.
‘Well Daz, finally you smiled… Walt’s been saying I’m better with words and stuff. I think probably he’s got a point.’ Daniel beamed as he walked towards the door.
‘How can you tell, Jonesy?’ Darren answered, tears drying rather rapidly. ‘Yours have always been effective with me.’
*
EPILOGUE
Having finished a call from home, Daniel Jones stretched in the uncomfortable plane seat and listened to the flight attendant announcing a ten minutes’ arrival in Brisbane. Guess what? Finally his sister Demelza would be marrying her six-year-boyfriend, Sebastian. Daniel had assumed that they were never going to get married before this idea was made right out of thin air. He smiled as he thought of this.
Still, there was something more that made him smile.
Hope Darren get it, he thought, that in his own way he had given him all the forgiveness they need, the permission to get on with their lives without any more pains and strains and conscience; that he had given them both a final solution.
A key to set themselves free, the long lost one to the so-Darren-called fortress of silence.
THE END
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