Tears, Idle Tears

The world has a .450 batting average against Jeffrey Charles Weaver.
Sigh.

Hargrove prefers not to comment. But after last night, he sits at his formica topped desk and ponders whether his theory about getting a solid four out of the golden haired strapping lad, this Adonis of the monticular. Hargrove's calls to Bavasi have gone unanswered. He is stuck with this fallen soldier, like it or not.

Is it a Greek thing? Are we witnessing tragedy first hand? The three-act narrative we all crave played out in brilliant technicolor before our greedy eyes? Perhaps Alfred Lord Tennyson can guide our thoughts:

Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

Ah. This is a dirge. This is a sad thing and we are seeing our dear friend slowly die -- perhaps he is really already gone and we are seeing what we remember of him. We look'd upon Jeff, dazzling, atop the mound in Cardinal red and we saw a hero ACHILLES and we believed. It was Autumn, as Tennyson reminds us, and the days, the Weaverian days, were happy. So quickly we forgo that even Achilles has his tender heel, free of Styxian rustproof undercoat.

And cast into the role of Patroclus? To comfort and pet the hero even as he sits, in his vanity, sulking; indulging? General Hargrove. Hargrove is Patroclus. Most tender of relationships, hero and manly consort, bandaging one another. Bolstering. Giving strength.

Dear as remembered kisses after death,
And sweet as those by hopeless fancy feigned
On lips that are for others; deep as love,
Deep as first love, and wild with all regret;
O Death in Life, the days that are no more.

Oh life. Oh death. Go, Mariners.