Subject #01 Transcript #001 Excerpt
Interviewer: E. Canto Interviewee: H. Yuy
Date of interview: Jan. 6, 2XX
Date of transcript: Jan. 8, 2XX

Canto: So, before we start, I want to inform you that, once again, I will be recording this interview. This is fine with you, right?

Int: Yes.

Canto: Okay, now, for starters, I want you to state your name, please?

Int: Heero Yuy. [pause] May I ask a question?

Canto: Sure.

Int: Why me?

Canto: Why not?

[pause for about 35 seconds]

Canto: Okay, let's start with the basics, if you don't mind. You were involved with the One-Year War of AC 195 as well as what has been dubbed as the 'MarieMaia incident', correct? Could you tell us a bit about your role?

Int: I can't. I have been forbidden to do so.

Canto: By the trials the Preventers had initiated in 196, correct? Then, could you tell us about your life before 195.

Int: No. That, too, is not something I can discuss with you.

Canto: Alright then. [sound of rapid, dull thuds or taps for about 10 seconds] How about your love life, then.

Int: [pause] My love life?

Canto: Yes, if you don't mind.

[silence for 1 minute and 24 seconds]

Int: [barely audible] I don't mind.

Canto: Alright. First, rumors have it that you had been in love quite a few people. The two that most mention are... do you know?

Int: Probably Relena and Maxwell.

Canto: Yes, the vice foreign minister and your former ally have been linked to you quite a few times. Do you have anything to say about that, the fact that the general public would like to see you with either one or the other?

Int: Well... Relena is a lovely person. Even now, she wishes to be close to me in some way, but I have never been very comfortable with her brand of... 'hero worship' I think is the phrase I'm looking for.

Canto: I see.

Int: As for Duo... [long pause, audible, heavy sigh] It's difficult for me to say this right, but...

Canto: Yes?

Int: He is... was a good friend, but he was the sort of person people would always want but could never have. I personally thought he was an aloof, unattainable person, extremely cool and talented, but modest about it. But, to answer your question, no. I have never 'been' with either of them.

Canto: I see. Have you ever wanted to be with either of them?

Int: I'm not sure that I want to answer that question.

Canto: I understand. Now, tell us, how is life now? Or is that 'confidential information' as well?

Int: Life is... very difficult. Because of the war, I am not allowed to do very much when it comes to careers. What's more, unless I live in a rather remote place, they'll be too many people around that would recognize me from the trials. Even now, I almost refused this conversation because of what it could do to my current state of anonymity.

Canto: Is this the reason why you have changed your appearance?

Int: It is.

Canto: I see. But, how difficult can it be?

Int: No matter where I went, or where I am now, there's always going to be someone would fought against me, or was affected by my fighting. The others have some sort of protection, either a well-known name or a natural anonymity, but I lost that. It was very difficult for me to find it again as well.

Canto: So, as soon as these interviews are over...

Int: I'll disappear again. It was only through others that you were even able to find me. I don't think you'll be able to find me again.

Canto: I see.

When the dust finally cleared, and all the major players faded away or distanced themselves from the grit and towards a flimsy sort of nostalgia, I found myself thinking about that letter again. The woman who wrote it felt as if there was nothing left in her to continue. All she has wanted was a reason, an apology from those that had killed her husband's spirit, those who destroyed his life.

She is not the only one, no doubt. I, too, would like to know why. Call it every writer's wish: the wish to hear every story, every experience she can, and continue from there.

-E. Canto
handwritten rough draft
forward to 'Untitled'

She had started smoking when she was a teenager. It was a disgusting habit to her then, and it's still a disgusting habit now, but there was very little she can do about it now. Already a grown woman, cigarettes had become as much a part of her life as her bras. She felt wierd without them.

It wasn't that she was lazy, she reminded herself as she always did whenever she opened her pack and pulled one out. If an alcoholic was always an alcoholic, then a smoker will always be a smoker.

She flicked the match off and placed it haphazardly on her dingy crystal ashtray, already crowded with lipsticked butts and gray-black remains. It had been clean when she first started, say, 12, 13 hours ago.

She inhaled a bit and snorted it through her nostils, causing her superior to chuckle.

"Okay, Miss Toro," Mr. Lamourt said, patting his brow with his satin handkerchief. "I'm guessing you're frustrated again."

She gave him what she hoped was a mean look, but he was never one to get worried over such expressions. "Just going through these files," she began, waving towards the clutter on the left-hand side of the table she had roosted at, "is giving me a headache. Nevermind actually finding those... those..." She dropped her head on the papers in front of her, her lit cigarette held daintily in the air some distance away.

"Actually, I started to work on contacting them," Mr. Lamourt said in a bemused tone as he pulled up a chair across from Ms. Conta's dejected state. "Just the initial actions, of course. Contacting the assistants of the assistants to those involved in the trials, all the public figures in the war, things like that."

"That's all?" she said, her voice barely making it past the papers she was going to start drooling all over in a moment.

"It's going to be a long process, Emi."

"I know."

She was always a bit too intense when it came to her work. It was almost as if the more her senior told her that she shouldn't burn herself out, the more she wanted to work and work as if by sheer adrenaline on her part will bring them to the end of the tunnel.

She's usually wrong about such things, but it wasn't from lack of trying.

She had fallen asleep on the worktable again that night. She had done the same the night before. If she forced herself the next night, maybe she'll finally decide to, at the very least, sleep on the couch instead.

The sharp, nauseously annoying rings of a telephone woke her up and, without lifting her heavy head from off the papers she had drooled on, answered it.

She rested the reciever on her head somewhat properly. "Hello," she said in a bleary voice.

"Hello, yes, I'm sorry for calling so early, but I really had to call," said an overly chipper voice for three o'clock in the morning.

"Huh?" she replied, very coherently.

"I'm sorry. A... um, Ms. Canto tried to contact me earlier? My name's Duo Maxwell."

Subject #02 Transcript #001 Excerpt
Interviewer: E. Canto Interviewee: D. Maxwell
Date of interview: Aug. 23, 2XX
Date of transcript: Aug. 28, 2XX

Canto: So, just for the record, state your name please?

Int: Name's Duo Maxwell... or at least it used to be, anyway. Nice to meet you.

Canto: [light laughter] Nice to meet you too. You said, though, that your name 'used' to be 'Duo Maxwell'. Was the change due to the war?

Int: Pretty much. It's one of those things. I guess I just wanted to get away from all that, and... that was the first thing I could think of.

Canto: So you went into hiding.

Int: Only thing I could do, I guess. I was a soldier. A guerrila fighter, and having people know that the person that squished their house, or their kid for that matter, is, well, me, isn't the best thing for neighbor relations.

Canto: I see.

Int: Wouldn't that be interesting? Can't be a soccer coach 'cause the parents will see me as a bad influence. Can't join in block parties 'cause I'll light the punch on fire and start cackling. And I'm not just saying this to hear myself talk.

Canto: These things actually happened?

Int: After the tribunals, my name was in the media, so the name itself would drive them away. Heero had it worse.

Canto: Heero Yuy? [rustling of papers]

Int: Good ol' Heero. All the smart people know about the colony's peace martyr, so once they got a hold of his, Heero's, name, he became the focus of a lot of their attention. Not to mention Dorlain vouched for him during his part of the trials.

Canto: Vice Foreign Minister Relena Dorlain, correct?

Int: Yeah. He got so much press, good and bad, that... Even though I went through a lot of shit, he was much worse off.

Canto: You two still stay close?

Int: No. I haven't seen him since the last day of those trials. He probably did the same thing I did: tried his damn hardest to move on, but...

[pause]

Canto: Yes?

Int: He... we've always though we wouldn't make it too far in life after the war. The public and the trials made it all that more difficult. I would be very surprised if he's still alive somewhere, instead of...

From afar, the man that greeted them at the 'port only faintly resembled the boy from the photographs they had recieved a few months back. Once he approached and smiled, however, it was very clear.

The government photos taken years ago was that of a goofy-looking, if attractive, kid. The man in the cote-du-blanc jacket and hat was just a bit more reserved-looking, but still smiled like an idiot.

Mr. Lamourt, being the cheery Latin man that he was, extended his hand to the approaching stranger, who shook it eagerly. "Thank you for coming, Mr..."

"Byrnes," the young man said without hesitation, exactly as they had planned beforehand. "With a 'y'."

Ms. Canto smiled then, her lucky earring glittering the sunlight. "Then, shall we go?"

"Of course, beautiful," Mr. 'Byrnes' cooed, his large eyes staring so intently into hers as he took her hand that she felt nervous immediately.

Mr. Maxwell was a handsome, openly friendly person, and it was very unnerving to Ms. Canto. A vibrant, enthusiastic man like him only made her, a bookish, introverted workaholic, feel inadequate, somehow.

He was all smiles when they arrived at their two-room office space, made to appear even smaller by the pounds and pounds of files they were able to get their hands on. "Ambitious, aren't you?" he said as he shrugged off his jacket.

"Only as much as they let us," Mr. Lamourt replied as he placed his fedora on his desk.

"Ah, welcome back," Ms. Canto's assistant, bleary-eyed and mussy-haired from just as much lack of sleep that Canto herself had been suffereing from, said from a corner of the main room. Laid out in front of him were several notebooks and files he had started to take notes on a day or two ago.

He got up, careful not to disrupt whatever sort of order he had the papers in, and crossed the room towards his seniors and their new guest.

"Mr. Maxwell," Ms. Canto said as she hung Mr. Maxwell's jacket on the coat rack by the door, "this is Steven Alvare."

Alvare shook Mr. Maxwell's hand as earnestly as Mr. Maxwell gripped the young man's. "It's very nice to meet you," he said in his reserved, but eager voice.

"The feeling's mutual."

Subject #02 Transcript #003 Excerpt
Interviewer: E. Canto Interviewee: D. Maxwell
Date of interview: Aug. 24, 2XX
Date of transcript: Aug. 28, 2XX

Canto: So, Mr. Maxwell...

Int: Please, Ms. Canto, call me Duo.

Canto: But, that'll be awkward...

Int: Where are you from, Ms. Canto?

Canto: Huh? Why?

Int: Just curious, I guess. Tell me about your childhood, if you'd like.

Canto: Wait a minute. Have you've been reading the questions I was going to ask beforehand?

Int: Um...

Canto: Mr. Maxwell, just because---

Int: Oh, come on...

[sound of snorting, rapid tappings]

[sounds stop]

Canto: I'm sorry.

[silence]

Ms. Canto had almost opted for another long night on the worktable until Mr. Maxwell had pointed out her assistant.

It wasn't the sort of pointing out that involved sexual attraction, or stylish appraisal. It was from concern on Mr. Maxwell's part for his health.

It seems that her assistant was just as bad as she was when it came to a few things, and it wasn't just her mild nicotine addiction and work ethic. It was, instead, his need to stay whenever she stayed. It was his need to work just a little bit more so than her, to leave later, and to arrive earlier.

She had grown up with such ideas herself, she reminded herself when Mr. Maxwell had told her that she shouldn't put the 20-something-year-old, and herself for that matter, through those all-nighters over and over again. When she and Mr. Lamourt worked for the newspaper branch of the parent company, she wouldn't dare leave the office until at least a half-hour after her manager left for the day. She was frighteningly old-fashioned that way, her coworkers would tell her.

"Don't you think you should just head home and get a good night's rest?" Mr. Maxwell insisted as he whispered it into her left ear, the scent of his body spray filling her head with odd, beautifully sexual ideas.

He straightened then. Standing just behind her chair, he called out in a loud voice, "Hey, Alvare!"

Immediately, Alvare's head popped up from whatever he was diligently reading. "Yes, Mr. Maxwell?"

"Do me the favor and take your boss home."

"But," she protested, "there's still work to be finished."

"Work," Mr. Maxwell said as he lifted her up from her chair and lead her to the door, "that can wait for tomorrow." He turned his head and looked at Alvare, who was still glued to the spot behind his desk. "Aren't you coming, Alvare?"

There was a moment of hesitation, followed by a sort of jump as Alvare rushed to their side.

"You know," Mr. Maxwell said, stretching from his place at the worktable, his sore, unhappy muscles moving groggily, "I hate saying this, but this research b.s. is boring..." He yawned then, despite it being just after lunchtime, and promptly laid his head down. To Ms. Canto, he almost looked like a little kid that has been punished by being quiet.

She smiled then, her tired eyes closing and opening slowly. "Well, we have to do our homework first, don't you think?" She tapped the eraser end of her mechanical pencil on her desk a few times. "We really can't spend a whole lot of interview time just covering the facts about something we should have looked up first, right?"

From his crowded desk, Alvare nodded his head in agreement with his senior.

"A few years back, when Mr. Lamourt and I worked together, we were asked to do preliminary work on a book on Vice Foreign Minister Dorlain's life and career. It was, sad to say, a twisted, if short, little work." Ms. Canto lowered her head and wrote down a few things into one notebook before closing it and opening another. "If we didn't do our homework, however, it would have been even shorter... and probably unsuccessful."

"Actually, I read that book," Mr. Maxwell said wistfully, almost as if he was recalling a nostalgic version of the past. "It was very indepth."

"That's what we want to do here."

Mr. Maxwell was silent then, his mouth moving slowly as if he was chewing all the taste he could from his thoughts. "Say, Ms. Canto..."

"Yes?" she replied, not looking up from her work.

"Do you have your tape recorder around?"

"Again?"

Subject #02 Transcript #012 Excerpt
Interviewer: E. Canto Interviewee: D. Maxwell
Date of interview: Aug. 26, 2XX
Date of transcript: Aug. 29, 2XX

Canto: You have a lot to say, don't you?

Int: Well, I figured that, if you needed material, I'll give all the big, juicy bits.

Canto: Thank you. So...?

Int: You know who was the best cook? Trowa. Trowa Barton. He had this thing for spices that would my taste buds very angry.

Canto: That was his best quality?

Int: No, his best quality was that he didn't talk a lot. Like me. That wouldn't have been good, if he talked a lot. It was bad enough that I annoyed Wufei and Heero, so it was good that only one of us was like that.

Canto: That's... wierd.

Int: Oh, I'm sorry.

Canto: No, go on. What about Quatre?

Int: Quatre is the nicest guy, extremely friendly, but he had this thing about not wanting people touching his face. It's not something that most people do, mind you, but once I decided to pinch his cheek.

Canto: What happened?

Int: He refused to talk to me for a good while after that. It was... after the OZ coup d-etat, actually.

Canto: And now?

Int: Oh, we're still friends, don't you worry.

Canto: Wufei?

Int: Ooh, Wufei and I were buddies. Somehow, although I annoyed him sometimes with my gibberish, we were cool. He was... still is a good friend, really. You know what? He adores pecan buns. Anything sweet, really. We should have some for when he comes.

Canto: We? [laughs] What about Heero?

Int: Heero, huh... well, that's a wierd one, right there. The best thing, for him, seemed to always had been beating himself up over the littlest things, but he always liked the water more.

Canto: The water?

Int: He wouldn't go swimming whenever he wanted to, but... the way he looked at the sea, it was with... longing, I think. Maybe, when we finally find him, we'll ask him, okay? [pause] Okay, let me shut this off.

[click]

Mr. Maxwell frowned again before shutting off the tape player and taking off the headphones. "You know, Alvare..."

Alvare looked up from his own transcription work and gave Mr.Maxwell a quizitive look.

"You know," Mr Maxwell started again, "the worse thing about this job is listening to yourself say the stupidest things."

At this, Alvare, curious, lowered his headphones. "Like what?"

Mr. Maxwell shook his head, angry at his own confusion. "Listen to this, and tell me what you think I said."

Alvare cautiously took Mr. Maxwell's headphones and listened to the playback. A few moments, and almost immediately the young man's cheeks began to turn red. "It sounded as if you said..." Alvare hesitated then, his eyes growing wide with shock. "You love Heero Yuy. When did you say this?"

"I don't remember," Mr. Maxwell admitted, "but the tape says, uh... 3:46 am Saturday... We drinking that night, though, remember?"

"I wasn't there."

"Damn. I don't remember anything, then."

"So..." Alvare's face scrunched up in thought. "Perhaps it was just a slip of the tongue."

"Maybe..." Mr. Maxwell was heavy with hesitation.

Alvare watched as Ms. Canto lit her fifth cigarette that hour. Between the two of them were the pages and pages of manuscripts and testimonies that they haven't gone through yet.

The nervousness she was feeling around Mr. Maxwell has disappeared after the first few days, and the fact that he was willing to do the transcripts of his interviews was a time saver. Yet, there was still a lot more work to do.

He sighed to himself as he searched for his yellow highlighter and marked a statement that just screamed to him.

What I did during the war was, on one level, morally wrong. But, if I didn't fight, then who else would have died? Who else would have suffered? Who else would lose a wife, like I had? A father? A family? Or even their very sense of self, their humanity?

Perhaps Ms. Canto can use it later...

"Hey, guys!" Mr. Maxwell cried out, bags of food from the sub shop downstairs in his hands as he closed the office door with his foot. "Oh, Ms. Canto, they were out of chocolate chip, so I got you peanut butter cookies and..." He plopped the bags on Alvare's desk and pulled out a wrapped pastry as if it was the sacred golden skull of some Amazonian tribe. "A chocolate-chocolate muffin."

Ms. Canto, flustered at all the attention she was receiving, just nodded her thanks as he placed the muffin on top of her notebooks.

Alvare watched as his senior turned a bright burgundy as he slowly pulled out everything in the bags. "Thank you, Mr. Maxwell," he said quietly.

"Ah, no problem, Alvare." He smiled as he took a seat next to the young man and leaned in close to grab his foot-long Italian hoagie.

They started to unravel their sandwiches when Ms. Canto's wristwatch began to beep. Startled, she stared at her watch for a moment.

"What's wrong?" Mr. Maxwell asked, concerned.

With an eerie calmness, Ms. Canto grounded out her newly-lit cigarette and rose from her chair. "I'm sorry, I forgot. I have to go out for a minute," she offered as an apology and an excuse.

Grabbing her purse, she gave them a weak smile. "I'll be back soon."

She stepped out of the office, leaving them in a strange sort of purgatory.

"Say, Alvare," Mr. Maxwell whispered in his tenor voice as the air around them became less and less smoky.

"Yeah?" Alvare whispered back, the nasal quality to his voice strongly pronounced.

"You think it'll be rude if we followed her?"

"Yes, it would be," Alvare replied without a second thought.

Subject #02 Transcript #038 Excerpt
Interviewer: E. Canto Interviewee: D. Maxwell
Date of interview: Aug. 30, 2XX
Date of transcript: Sept. 3, 2XX

Int: To be truthful, there are still nights that I can't sleep right. I want to say that nightmares keep me awake at night, but it's been such a long time since I've remembered what I dreamt of that... I can't really say anymore.

Canto: What were the nightmares like, if you don't mind me asking.

Int: Actually, I didn't have nightmares. Isn't that wierd? You would think that a guy like me, who's seen and done so much, would have nightmares every night, but that's not true. The last dreams I remember where... happy ones, I think.

Canto: Happy dreams?

Int: Yeah. They were all different, wierd even, but they always made me feel happy. One time, I just dreamt of grass and water and stars, but I was so happy in that dream. Nowadays, I just don't remember them at all.

[silence for 43 seconds, someone sniffles]

Int: Would you like a tissue or something?

Canto: No, I'm fine. Please, continue.

Mr. Lamourt, ever the dapper gentlemen in his three-piece suit and fedora, was sweet-talking some official into returning a long-aquired favor when Ms. Canto returned from wherever she had decided to go at lunchtime.

A lunchtime that was four hours ago. Her hero sandwich and baked goodies where still waiting for her on top of her notebooks.

Alvare and Mr. Maxwell looked up from the low-key conversation they were having and watched as she sat in her chair, as if she had only step out for a few minutes for the bathroom.

Mr. Lamourt, unable to hang up on the political, signalled to the junior with his eyes towards Ms. Canto, who was busily lighting herself another cigarette.

Nodding to him, Alvare moved away from the window and crossed the room. As Ms. Canto watched him with her cigarette dangling almost sadly from her lips and her shadowed, tired eyes hidden by her glasses, he stopped by her seat.

"Ms. Canto," he whispered.

She took the cigarette out of her mouth as she looked up. "What is it, Alvare?"

Bending at the knees, he pulled his senior into a hug.

Subject #01 Transcript #003 Excerpt
Interviewer: E. Canto Interviewee: H. Yuy
Date of interview: Jan. 9, 2XX
Date of transcript: Jan. 10, 2XX

Canto: Do you... ever wish that you could turn back time, Mr. Yuy?

Int: In what way?

Canto: Did you ever... wish that you could return to some other time, fix your mistakes? Say goodbye, or something of that sort?

Int: Do you, Ms. Canto?

Canto: Sometimes... but it's never for something major, like wanting to wake up later on a holiday... something trivial really.

Int: I wish you didn't lie like that.

[brief silence]

Int: I sometimes wish...

Canto: ... Yes?

Int: I sometimes wish that I could have grown up... differently. Sometimes, I feel jealous, whenever I watch people my age, people that weren't touched by the war, live so happily... I was never allowed to live that way. Ever since I was small, I was taught to kill. Sometimes, it was as if I had no other purpose in life, and that once that's gone...

Canto: ... you were free to die...

Int: Granted, I tried to find a new reason to live after the war. But I never aspired to be anything less than what I was. I never dreamt of finding a home, or love, or having a family. I was just floating through life with no real direction.

Canto: And the MarieMaia Incident?

Int: It was a breath of fresh air, that incident, because, for a short time, I had a purpose. I had something meaningful to do. But, afterwards...

Canto: You've probably already heard this, but Mr. Maxwell was always talking about you, always worried that we wouldn't be able to find you.

Int: Duo, he's... he's an idiot, but I don't blame him for thinking that way. He always thought I was suicidal. He would be happy to know, however, that afterwards, I found a reason to live for, however stupid it may be...

tbc...