You Feckless Thug
I dreamed.
I dreamed of a beach. Of a red-headed woman and a little boy.
I dreamed of two parents teaching that boy to walk. I watched the excitement in their eyes. They seemed so young, so vibrant, so radiant with this young life they were raising together.
I dreamed of a boy building a sand sculpture and his father, me, helping to destroy and rebuild the creation.
I dreamed that I would never be good enough for him.
Shortly after that dream, Dana became pregnant with William.
There are things I want to say, but there are people who need to hear them first. So, out of deference to Mrs. Scully and Skinner, I'm waiting and will come clean this weekend. So, instead, I am going to talk about dreams.
Last year, I began dreaming that Scully would become pregnant and we would have to chose between her health and the baby. It is a dream that has stayed with me. One that Scully has shared. I've dreamed of that beach more often than I can describe. I've always chalked that one dream up to my own inadequacies as a father. My own guilt not only over William, but over Emily. Not that we could have ever known Scully was pregnant when she was abducted and that the child she carried would be used to lead the government's experimentation with clones and with the child who would eventually be our son. I've chalked my dreams up to my own karma, that I am destined to be an absent father in the truest sense of the word given my own emotional baggage. That because of me, because of my quest, Scully could not have children. That our children were taken from us because of the quest we were on.
She told me last year, during the Monica Bannon case, that I was still searching for Samantha. I am. But I also search for Emily. For William. I search for this myth of Dana and myself and a life that includes the laughter of children and a distinct lack of shadows. A life that we, by the hole we willing fell in to, have been denied. There is an argument to support that had we not fallen into that hole, we never would have had our life together. But I believe our lives were set long, long ago. They were set when her father entered the Navy and my father became a player in the largest government conspiracy this side of the moon. And maybe what I dream of is not the life we will have, but the life we could have had. The road not taken. Perhaps I was meant to write it down, to put it in a book and she was meant to be a doctor and we would live in Massachusetts in a house left to me by my family and we would raise a family. She would still have her sister and her health. Maybe. I dream of a world where I do not hold my breath waiting and wondering what a bloody nose means. Where my heart cannot be ripped out and cut to shreds in front of me by a God I do not believe in.
This is not to say we do not have hope. We met with a new doctor today and, again, once we have spoken with family I will be free to say more. But this new doctor brings us honest, real hope. Especially in the light of where I have learned that Stacy works and who she works for. Now more than ever, I am certain that Dana will be at my side come 2012 - no matter what happens on that day. Perhaps it will not be an invasion we understand but one that begins quietly. One where long dormant hybrids emerge, along with the "super soldiers" to not conquer by force but to take slow control until we no longer remember a time when we humans were not slaves to our alien masters. And then, a resistance will form. And the cycle will continue. The date has been set since before my birth. The question is, what will it look like when it comes. But I know Dana will be with me. Fire, flame, or peaceful silence, I know she will be at my side.
Hope is vital in these times. It has kept me living and breathing in my darkest moments. It has kept my dreams alive even when it all failed. But a part of my hope did die today ... and I wonder what my dreams will be tonight. Will I dream again of a family on a beach, a family that is out of reach? Will I dream of an impossible decision? Will I dream of red-rimmed blue eyes full of a pain and a sorrow that no one but those who have lost a child will ever understand? Or will my dreams be ones of hope? Ones where we laugh together and I can see a future that no matter how bleak it may seem, has a sense of hope and joy and promise? Or will, blissfully, my dreams remain hidden, to be remembered only by a subconscious that is not yet ready to be understood?
Last night I dreamed of an empty beach, of storm clouds, and of shining points of light in the distance.
I dreamed of a beach. Of a red-headed woman and a little boy.
I dreamed of two parents teaching that boy to walk. I watched the excitement in their eyes. They seemed so young, so vibrant, so radiant with this young life they were raising together.
I dreamed of a boy building a sand sculpture and his father, me, helping to destroy and rebuild the creation.
I dreamed that I would never be good enough for him.
Shortly after that dream, Dana became pregnant with William.
There are things I want to say, but there are people who need to hear them first. So, out of deference to Mrs. Scully and Skinner, I'm waiting and will come clean this weekend. So, instead, I am going to talk about dreams.
Last year, I began dreaming that Scully would become pregnant and we would have to chose between her health and the baby. It is a dream that has stayed with me. One that Scully has shared. I've dreamed of that beach more often than I can describe. I've always chalked that one dream up to my own inadequacies as a father. My own guilt not only over William, but over Emily. Not that we could have ever known Scully was pregnant when she was abducted and that the child she carried would be used to lead the government's experimentation with clones and with the child who would eventually be our son. I've chalked my dreams up to my own karma, that I am destined to be an absent father in the truest sense of the word given my own emotional baggage. That because of me, because of my quest, Scully could not have children. That our children were taken from us because of the quest we were on.
She told me last year, during the Monica Bannon case, that I was still searching for Samantha. I am. But I also search for Emily. For William. I search for this myth of Dana and myself and a life that includes the laughter of children and a distinct lack of shadows. A life that we, by the hole we willing fell in to, have been denied. There is an argument to support that had we not fallen into that hole, we never would have had our life together. But I believe our lives were set long, long ago. They were set when her father entered the Navy and my father became a player in the largest government conspiracy this side of the moon. And maybe what I dream of is not the life we will have, but the life we could have had. The road not taken. Perhaps I was meant to write it down, to put it in a book and she was meant to be a doctor and we would live in Massachusetts in a house left to me by my family and we would raise a family. She would still have her sister and her health. Maybe. I dream of a world where I do not hold my breath waiting and wondering what a bloody nose means. Where my heart cannot be ripped out and cut to shreds in front of me by a God I do not believe in.
This is not to say we do not have hope. We met with a new doctor today and, again, once we have spoken with family I will be free to say more. But this new doctor brings us honest, real hope. Especially in the light of where I have learned that Stacy works and who she works for. Now more than ever, I am certain that Dana will be at my side come 2012 - no matter what happens on that day. Perhaps it will not be an invasion we understand but one that begins quietly. One where long dormant hybrids emerge, along with the "super soldiers" to not conquer by force but to take slow control until we no longer remember a time when we humans were not slaves to our alien masters. And then, a resistance will form. And the cycle will continue. The date has been set since before my birth. The question is, what will it look like when it comes. But I know Dana will be with me. Fire, flame, or peaceful silence, I know she will be at my side.
Hope is vital in these times. It has kept me living and breathing in my darkest moments. It has kept my dreams alive even when it all failed. But a part of my hope did die today ... and I wonder what my dreams will be tonight. Will I dream again of a family on a beach, a family that is out of reach? Will I dream of an impossible decision? Will I dream of red-rimmed blue eyes full of a pain and a sorrow that no one but those who have lost a child will ever understand? Or will my dreams be ones of hope? Ones where we laugh together and I can see a future that no matter how bleak it may seem, has a sense of hope and joy and promise? Or will, blissfully, my dreams remain hidden, to be remembered only by a subconscious that is not yet ready to be understood?
Last night I dreamed of an empty beach, of storm clouds, and of shining points of light in the distance.