(no subject)
Okay! Well! I posted this as-yet-unnamed, slightly-longer-than-a drabble fic-thing over at remusxsirius, and now I am posting it here for...absolutely no one to read. Um...yay?
At first, he saw them everywhere.
In that odd, formless space between Halloween and the resumption of life, he saw them countless times: a young woman with glowing hair and a determined lift to her chin, crossing the street to catch a bus; a man with untidy hair and glasses, sharing a beer with friends at the local pub; a slightly chubby boy with a shy smile and a self-effacing air, scribbling industriously on a roll of parchment in the library. And each time it happened, he had to catch himself before he ran to them, was forced to repeat to himself the painful truth that his mind understood but, somehow, his eyes and his heart could not: They’re dead. They’re dead. They’re dead.
Years later, he still saw them occasionally, but he no longer had to stop himself from reaching out to them. He had finally convinced himself that they were gone from him, and that these forms, aside from a faint, mocking likeness, had no connection with the friends that he had lost. Eventually he came to regard these rare glimpses as almost comforting, when the memories they evoked were no longer remorseless and cutting; when he could look at them without blinking. He did not want to forget them, so a reminder now and again did not come amiss.
There was one form that he never saw.
He wasn’t sure why; perhaps it was because that friend was not dead, although he might as well have been; perhaps because he knew that form too well to ever mistake it for another; perhaps because some people were so extraordinary that there simply wasn’t anyone else like them in the world. Or maybe the truth was more basic than that; maybe he just didn’t want to see.
Or maybe he wanted it too much.
At first, he saw them everywhere.
In that odd, formless space between Halloween and the resumption of life, he saw them countless times: a young woman with glowing hair and a determined lift to her chin, crossing the street to catch a bus; a man with untidy hair and glasses, sharing a beer with friends at the local pub; a slightly chubby boy with a shy smile and a self-effacing air, scribbling industriously on a roll of parchment in the library. And each time it happened, he had to catch himself before he ran to them, was forced to repeat to himself the painful truth that his mind understood but, somehow, his eyes and his heart could not: They’re dead. They’re dead. They’re dead.
Years later, he still saw them occasionally, but he no longer had to stop himself from reaching out to them. He had finally convinced himself that they were gone from him, and that these forms, aside from a faint, mocking likeness, had no connection with the friends that he had lost. Eventually he came to regard these rare glimpses as almost comforting, when the memories they evoked were no longer remorseless and cutting; when he could look at them without blinking. He did not want to forget them, so a reminder now and again did not come amiss.
There was one form that he never saw.
He wasn’t sure why; perhaps it was because that friend was not dead, although he might as well have been; perhaps because he knew that form too well to ever mistake it for another; perhaps because some people were so extraordinary that there simply wasn’t anyone else like them in the world. Or maybe the truth was more basic than that; maybe he just didn’t want to see.
Or maybe he wanted it too much.