I got inspired by your amazing art. Hope you don't mind :)
Regret is a pricking thing. Sometimes irritating like the sting of an aggressive hornet, all furious buzzing and selective pain. Every now and then a dull throbbing in the pit of the stomach, more subtle and endurable, but nevertheless still there. And rarely even a persistent thorn in one’s mind, sending restlessness down the spine.
In the lifespan of an average human being, they do and experience a lot of things they regret, which pile up at the end of their days. But the point is that Booker, considering he is somehow immortal and ignoring the fact that he’ll nevertheless hopefully die one day, has significantly more things he feels sorry for, accompanying him ever cursed second he walks on this earth.
He has learned to live with that. At least that’s what he tells himself.
In the elevator, on its way down to go after Merrick, sandwiched between his brothers - blood-splattered and exhausted - regret is a precisely executed stab with a knife, grazing a rib, piercing his heart. Suddenly, he has trouble breathing, feeling cornered and caught and so so ashamedguiltycontrite , so maybe it has punctured his lung too.
It's about the little pleasures in life. What a fool he was. Explaining to Nicky what he had allegedly “learned” during his long life, proud and confident as if he hadn't completely misunderstood the true and profound meaning of it. As if the empty shell he tries to mask so vehemently hadn't told a lie which he thought would become the truth when he just believed his own words hard enough.
Little pleasures, like Nicky’s and his playful banter over food or their bets, the joking and shared grins with Joe, the drinking-sessions with Andy, in shared silence but highly valued. While happiness, caused by a lottery win or anything similar, is only of short duration, the sense of community lasts longer, spreading the warmth that is more nutritious for a broken soul like Booker’s, far deeper, filling every crack in his facade.
He couldn’t see it, blinded by his own pain. And maybe he didn’t want to perceive it. The tiny possibility that his excruciating existence may not be entirely hopeless and dark.
Now it’s too late anyway.
On his right, a painfully stoic Nicky doesn’t spare him a glance, his face untouched by any emotions, but he cannot hide the disappointment in his bright eyes. On his left, a hurt Joe, nearly vibrating with suppressed anger, is looking daggers at him.
He has hurt them, Booker realizes in a crushing wave of remorse, almost letting him burst into tears on the spot. He has poisoned their smiles. He has hurt them to escape his own grief.
It was never his intention to hurt this second family that never once gave up on him.
Regret is deadly. At this moment, Booker is absolutely sure that regret can be the one thing to finally kill you without harming you physically.
He didn’t anticipate the anguish his actions would unleash in him. He didn’t hope trydare to find a better solution for his problem. He has won nothing.
Victory. Victoryvictoryvictory…
