im just a worm

and nothing else 🤝 person is to see the

Meanwhile ...

The Death of Tim Laughlin and the Birth of a Hero

(time for some rambling)

Fellow Travelers is an incredibly, brilliantly written show that manages to dive with depth and beauty into its subject, while never shying away from the ugliness of its historical truth and context. Amongst the various narrative choices they made, one of my favourite ones is the fact that we never see Tim Laughlin die.

We see him struggle with his physical health, we see him disconcerted, angry and very aware of his mortality, but we never see him actually die. In fact, the last images of his character show him fighting alongside his friends, his community, with more fervor than his physical state probably allows.

There is something heroic about the closing of his arc. We see Tim almost giving up, falling lower than we have ever seen him before, and then he rises again. He refuses to sign the do not resuscitate order (note: he wouldn't have been less heroic if he had signed it), openly states he wants to fight and come back to life, and he does. He fights for what he believes in and for what he wants, even if the latter means lovingly asking Hawk to go back home and let him go. He blows into a whistle with all of his strength even if it means finding himself breathless for a fleeting moment. He stands even if he can't walk without his cane.

His determination being the last thing we see of him gives even more power to the image of his quilt, an indelible mark of his impact on those who knew him and by extension the audience who spent eight episodes adoring him. His quilt, made of his clothes and a line that defined his life, adds his name to the pantheon of heroes who had to die to make the cause move on, to be seen, for help to be considered.

Shut up and drink your milk.

by Langston Hughes

This is for the kids who die, Black and white, For kids will die certainly. The old and rich will live on awhile, As always, Eating blood and gold, Letting kids die.

Kids will die in the swamps of Mississippi Organizing sharecroppers Kids will die in the streets of Chicago Organizing workers Kids will die in the orange groves of California Telling others to get together Whites and Filipinos, Negroes and Mexicans, All kinds of kids will die Who don’t believe in lies, and bribes, and contentment And a lousy peace.

Of course, the wise and the learned Who pen editorials in the papers, And the gentlemen with Dr. in front of their names White and black, Who make surveys and write books Will live on weaving words to smother the kids who die, And the sleazy courts, And the bribe-reaching police, And the blood-loving generals, And the money-loving preachers Will all raise their hands against the kids who die, Beating them with laws and clubs and bayonets and bullets To frighten the people — For the kids who die are like iron in the blood of the people — And the old and rich don’t want the people To taste the iron of the kids who die, Don’t want the people to get wise to their own power, To believe an Angelo Herndon, or even get together