Categories > TV > Red Dwarf > The Holo-men
A/N: This epilogue takes place between Epideme and Nanarchy.
Rimmer always said I had no ambition. Yeah, I had none of his ambition, to step on other people and claw my way up to some precious smegging officerhood; if that's what ambition is, he can keep the corner on that smeg. No, I've always just wanted to be happy, and to make other people happy while I'm workin' on me own happiness. That's what it's all been about; Fiji and horses and cows and a doughnut stand, and Kochanski in a white dress, and us havin' big laughin' twin boys. That's a happy dream, that; one that makes everyone happy, not just me, and nobody can say otherwise. Not even Rimmer, sneer though he might (and he did).
That's why it bothered me so much to see what we turned into. I mean, consortin' with the Hitlers and Louis the Sixteenth? Even Arnold Judas smegging Patton wasn't that bad when he killed off all of them wax droids. At least he was tryin' to do something good, even if he did smeg it up as only Rimmer can. But nah, here I had to look at me future self, and see a heartless jerk! Well, everything-less, really. Two of me three favorite body parts, gone, just like that.
And do I worry about how that happened? Yeah, keeps me up at night, sometimes. See, that future Rimmer was so quick to want to kill us; like we really was rats, in his eyes, and didn't deserve to live. Did I try to stop 'im, at some point in the past, and got that bodyectomy? Well, it did me heart good to see Rimmer - I mean, the current Rimmer, the one he was at the time - be ready to die rather than turn into /that/. And he did. We all did.
But it still bothered me. Change can kinda sneak up on ya, until you look back and wondered how you ever got from where you were to where you are. Rimmer, for one; he's not the same smeghead he used to be. Well, hell, if you had told me back in them early days that he would run off to be a space hero, I would have given myself a hernia laughin'. But he did - or at least, he was ready to try. That bugs me even more. Because I've changed, too. Sendin' him off like that - it wasn't a death sentence, but it sure was something kinda dicey. In a job like that, you're either a hero pretty quick-like, or you're a smashed bee orbitin' a pink planet. I like to think that I did it for him. But he was startin' to like it here; after all of the time that mess of a man spent tryin' to change things, tryin' to change us/, he had finally changed enough /himself that he was gettin' to fit in a bit. I still worried, though. Worried that the fat git in the yellow suit was still lurking in his future somewhere, staring at his past self with disgust in his little piggy eyes. This Ace thing... it came along just at the right time. Or the wrong one. That was a way to break our destiny line, fer sure; make sure him, at least, didn't turn out like that. So it was a good thing to do in the end, wasn't it?
I wonder about that, sometimes. I kinda thought it would mark a turnin' point for all of us. Do somethin' good for Rimmer, and it would come back for us. But it all came back wrong, didn't it? I got my Kochanski - but she's not my Kochanski, and I'm not her Dave. It was just too easy, and nothing too easy works out.
Yeah, I wonder, sometimes. When I'm lying in my bunk half-asleep, and I don't want to wank partly because I always liked my right hand better, and partly because you shouldn't have to wank when there are two consentin' adults who are the last of the human race on one lander. My right arm gets to itchin', usually, and while I lie there wondering how you scratch an arm that's long been incinerated and thrown out of the waste disposal, I think that maybe the whole Ace thing was too easy, just the same as the Kochanski thing. I wonder if, when he said he wasn't sure if he could do this, that maybe it wasn't his normal cowardice speakin'. Maybe it was friendship, closeness - hell, love? Not a word I'd have used in the past, but like I said - we changed. Maybe trustin' that slow change was the harder way of goin' about things. The way that would have worked out better. The way that wouldn't have left me like this, so very lonely after gettin' my dream-girl.
Well, dreams are for sleepin'. Maybe I shoulda stuck with reality.
Rimmer always said I had no ambition. Yeah, I had none of his ambition, to step on other people and claw my way up to some precious smegging officerhood; if that's what ambition is, he can keep the corner on that smeg. No, I've always just wanted to be happy, and to make other people happy while I'm workin' on me own happiness. That's what it's all been about; Fiji and horses and cows and a doughnut stand, and Kochanski in a white dress, and us havin' big laughin' twin boys. That's a happy dream, that; one that makes everyone happy, not just me, and nobody can say otherwise. Not even Rimmer, sneer though he might (and he did).
That's why it bothered me so much to see what we turned into. I mean, consortin' with the Hitlers and Louis the Sixteenth? Even Arnold Judas smegging Patton wasn't that bad when he killed off all of them wax droids. At least he was tryin' to do something good, even if he did smeg it up as only Rimmer can. But nah, here I had to look at me future self, and see a heartless jerk! Well, everything-less, really. Two of me three favorite body parts, gone, just like that.
And do I worry about how that happened? Yeah, keeps me up at night, sometimes. See, that future Rimmer was so quick to want to kill us; like we really was rats, in his eyes, and didn't deserve to live. Did I try to stop 'im, at some point in the past, and got that bodyectomy? Well, it did me heart good to see Rimmer - I mean, the current Rimmer, the one he was at the time - be ready to die rather than turn into /that/. And he did. We all did.
But it still bothered me. Change can kinda sneak up on ya, until you look back and wondered how you ever got from where you were to where you are. Rimmer, for one; he's not the same smeghead he used to be. Well, hell, if you had told me back in them early days that he would run off to be a space hero, I would have given myself a hernia laughin'. But he did - or at least, he was ready to try. That bugs me even more. Because I've changed, too. Sendin' him off like that - it wasn't a death sentence, but it sure was something kinda dicey. In a job like that, you're either a hero pretty quick-like, or you're a smashed bee orbitin' a pink planet. I like to think that I did it for him. But he was startin' to like it here; after all of the time that mess of a man spent tryin' to change things, tryin' to change us/, he had finally changed enough /himself that he was gettin' to fit in a bit. I still worried, though. Worried that the fat git in the yellow suit was still lurking in his future somewhere, staring at his past self with disgust in his little piggy eyes. This Ace thing... it came along just at the right time. Or the wrong one. That was a way to break our destiny line, fer sure; make sure him, at least, didn't turn out like that. So it was a good thing to do in the end, wasn't it?
I wonder about that, sometimes. I kinda thought it would mark a turnin' point for all of us. Do somethin' good for Rimmer, and it would come back for us. But it all came back wrong, didn't it? I got my Kochanski - but she's not my Kochanski, and I'm not her Dave. It was just too easy, and nothing too easy works out.
Yeah, I wonder, sometimes. When I'm lying in my bunk half-asleep, and I don't want to wank partly because I always liked my right hand better, and partly because you shouldn't have to wank when there are two consentin' adults who are the last of the human race on one lander. My right arm gets to itchin', usually, and while I lie there wondering how you scratch an arm that's long been incinerated and thrown out of the waste disposal, I think that maybe the whole Ace thing was too easy, just the same as the Kochanski thing. I wonder if, when he said he wasn't sure if he could do this, that maybe it wasn't his normal cowardice speakin'. Maybe it was friendship, closeness - hell, love? Not a word I'd have used in the past, but like I said - we changed. Maybe trustin' that slow change was the harder way of goin' about things. The way that would have worked out better. The way that wouldn't have left me like this, so very lonely after gettin' my dream-girl.
Well, dreams are for sleepin'. Maybe I shoulda stuck with reality.
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