On Empty Graves and Open Caskets (Miles, gen)
Title: On Empty Graves and Open Caskets
Characters: Miles
Disclaimer: Lost is not mine. Seriously? Seriously.
Rating: PG13
Words: 1000
Spoilers: All of S5, just to be safe.
Summary: A little musing from Miles on what has been lost and what has been gained. Nominated for Best Gen Fic at lost_fic_awards.
x x x
When Miles was seven years old his Po Po died. For her funeral, his mother dressed him in grey pants, a white shirt, and a black vest. She combed his hair and used his dad’s stinky pomade to smooth the spiky patch on his crown that liked to fan upward. Miles shuffled up the isle of the church wearing his older brother’s outgrown school shoes, roasting in layers of itchy wool and smelling like coconut. He felt like throwing up. He did throw up later, while the choir sang about Jesus. His mother pressed a cool cloth against his head, while his brother and sister held their noses. Up front beside Father Nelles, his Po Po watched him and clucked in disapproval, then she turned her gaze back to the casket where her body lay.
On the island, every palm tree smells like his dad’s old pomade, and each step stirs a spirit, none of whose bones ever lay in a casket. It’s both exhilarating and exhausting to be privy to their constant chatter, a mixture of confessions and complaints. Naomi’s embarrassed to admit how she died. Two African men pray in a foreign language. Some shaggy haired stranger in a jumpsuit jumps out of a bush to say, “No hard feelings, Straume.” A bunch of ghosts, including one persistent Brit, bully him about Claire’s whereabouts. A one armed douche bag picks fights even with those who can’t hear or see him. His ears prick up when some trashy woman mentions needing help to find her diamonds. They all want something, and in that way, the dead aren’t much different than the living, except he can shut them up when he wants to, and make a good living doing so. He wishes he could say he found the living as useful.
Minutes before the sky flashes yellow, he spots his Po Po standing at the ocean’s edge; the surf laps at the hem of her navy blue dress with the lace collar. This is not unexpected; she visits him frequently, though this is the fist time she’s shown up on the island. Unlike all the other dead he’d met since, Po Po never speaks to him, even when he attempts some clumsy Mandarin. Yet words are unnecessary to communicate her intentions. She never hesitated to announce her displeasure by popping out of nowhere to yank his ear when he teased his sister or fell asleep in geometry class. Anytime he was bedridden, be it for chicken pox, mono or later, hangovers, he would wake to find her perched at the foot of his bed watching over him. Po Po was there when he saw his second ghost, and the third and the fourth, and continued to chaperone these encounters until he became comfortable with his gifts. Surprisingly, she had stood behind him, literally, with one hand on his shoulder, when he told his furious parents he had dropped out of UCLA to start his own business.
Now she beckons him to her with the crock of a finger. He puts down the jar of nuts, and saunters over to the shore, where he can see Dan’s boat is just a speck on the horizon.
“Hey Po Po, what do you think of the island? Pretty weird, huh.”
Po Po’s eyes narrow at his casual greeting and her tongue makes a tsk, tsk sound, the closest he ever gets to a conversation.
“What’re you doing here?” he asks.
The lines around her mouth deepen into a frown and he guesses she must disapprove of his reckless journey. Her hand moves to his face, and he braces for a familiar slap only to find her thumb stroking his cheek lovingly. A sad smile hovers on her lips. Even though the tip of her head only comes up to his collarbone, he notices she appears smaller than usual today. Maybe that’s because her sensible shoes have sunk into the wet sand or maybe it’s because everything around him suddenly begins to shrink and then shake.
Then the sky flashes yellow and like all others things familiar, Po Po vanishes. Thirteen flashes later, Dan claims they are here to stay, wherever here is. Once his equilibrium returns, Miles is aware of the silence. Before the island was rich with the presence of restless death; now it’s barren, at least to him. At first he thinks they must be in a time before human settlement, but this notion is proven wrong when the shooting begins. If the ghosts of the dead hostiles and husband are around, they’re snubbing him.
A few days later Miles finds himself in the office belonging to a man named Horace who he recognizes as the ghost who called him by name in 2004. On the wall behind Horace’s desk is a Dharma Initiative calendar open to May 1974. This means that continents away, his four year old self is playing with dinky cars and hiding from everyone the fact that he still sucks his thumb. This little boy is oblivious that three years from now he’ll be fidgeting in a pew, feeling ill, and wondering why his mother said Po Po was dead when he could still see her. Miles figures he’s been cut off from the dead, because little Miles has yet to make that connection.
So he waits, with the rest of them, to see if the present catches up with the past. In the meantime, Miles doesn’t mourn his losses; in fact he enjoys the peace. With all the talk about destiny, he wonders if he was brought to the island not to converse with the dead, but to begin spending more time with the living. He shares an apartment with Dan, and discovers his roommate is a pretty interesting guy, so he doesn’t resent acting like a parent sometimes, reminding him to eat and sleep. Despite his better instincts Miles becomes friends with Jin and Sawyer and even a few of the fellow jumpsuits on the security team. He finds himself enjoying the order that comes with his work, and stops listening for things that don’t show up on security cameras.
Miles often thinks about the last time he saw Po Po, on the beach, and wonders if she was saying good-bye. If so, did that mean she had moved on because she knew he would not be around in her time anymore. He misses her vigilance. For the first time, she feels dead to him.
Characters: Miles
Disclaimer: Lost is not mine. Seriously? Seriously.
Rating: PG13
Words: 1000
Spoilers: All of S5, just to be safe.
Summary: A little musing from Miles on what has been lost and what has been gained. Nominated for Best Gen Fic at lost_fic_awards.
x x x
When Miles was seven years old his Po Po died. For her funeral, his mother dressed him in grey pants, a white shirt, and a black vest. She combed his hair and used his dad’s stinky pomade to smooth the spiky patch on his crown that liked to fan upward. Miles shuffled up the isle of the church wearing his older brother’s outgrown school shoes, roasting in layers of itchy wool and smelling like coconut. He felt like throwing up. He did throw up later, while the choir sang about Jesus. His mother pressed a cool cloth against his head, while his brother and sister held their noses. Up front beside Father Nelles, his Po Po watched him and clucked in disapproval, then she turned her gaze back to the casket where her body lay.
On the island, every palm tree smells like his dad’s old pomade, and each step stirs a spirit, none of whose bones ever lay in a casket. It’s both exhilarating and exhausting to be privy to their constant chatter, a mixture of confessions and complaints. Naomi’s embarrassed to admit how she died. Two African men pray in a foreign language. Some shaggy haired stranger in a jumpsuit jumps out of a bush to say, “No hard feelings, Straume.” A bunch of ghosts, including one persistent Brit, bully him about Claire’s whereabouts. A one armed douche bag picks fights even with those who can’t hear or see him. His ears prick up when some trashy woman mentions needing help to find her diamonds. They all want something, and in that way, the dead aren’t much different than the living, except he can shut them up when he wants to, and make a good living doing so. He wishes he could say he found the living as useful.
Minutes before the sky flashes yellow, he spots his Po Po standing at the ocean’s edge; the surf laps at the hem of her navy blue dress with the lace collar. This is not unexpected; she visits him frequently, though this is the fist time she’s shown up on the island. Unlike all the other dead he’d met since, Po Po never speaks to him, even when he attempts some clumsy Mandarin. Yet words are unnecessary to communicate her intentions. She never hesitated to announce her displeasure by popping out of nowhere to yank his ear when he teased his sister or fell asleep in geometry class. Anytime he was bedridden, be it for chicken pox, mono or later, hangovers, he would wake to find her perched at the foot of his bed watching over him. Po Po was there when he saw his second ghost, and the third and the fourth, and continued to chaperone these encounters until he became comfortable with his gifts. Surprisingly, she had stood behind him, literally, with one hand on his shoulder, when he told his furious parents he had dropped out of UCLA to start his own business.
Now she beckons him to her with the crock of a finger. He puts down the jar of nuts, and saunters over to the shore, where he can see Dan’s boat is just a speck on the horizon.
“Hey Po Po, what do you think of the island? Pretty weird, huh.”
Po Po’s eyes narrow at his casual greeting and her tongue makes a tsk, tsk sound, the closest he ever gets to a conversation.
“What’re you doing here?” he asks.
The lines around her mouth deepen into a frown and he guesses she must disapprove of his reckless journey. Her hand moves to his face, and he braces for a familiar slap only to find her thumb stroking his cheek lovingly. A sad smile hovers on her lips. Even though the tip of her head only comes up to his collarbone, he notices she appears smaller than usual today. Maybe that’s because her sensible shoes have sunk into the wet sand or maybe it’s because everything around him suddenly begins to shrink and then shake.
Then the sky flashes yellow and like all others things familiar, Po Po vanishes. Thirteen flashes later, Dan claims they are here to stay, wherever here is. Once his equilibrium returns, Miles is aware of the silence. Before the island was rich with the presence of restless death; now it’s barren, at least to him. At first he thinks they must be in a time before human settlement, but this notion is proven wrong when the shooting begins. If the ghosts of the dead hostiles and husband are around, they’re snubbing him.
A few days later Miles finds himself in the office belonging to a man named Horace who he recognizes as the ghost who called him by name in 2004. On the wall behind Horace’s desk is a Dharma Initiative calendar open to May 1974. This means that continents away, his four year old self is playing with dinky cars and hiding from everyone the fact that he still sucks his thumb. This little boy is oblivious that three years from now he’ll be fidgeting in a pew, feeling ill, and wondering why his mother said Po Po was dead when he could still see her. Miles figures he’s been cut off from the dead, because little Miles has yet to make that connection.
So he waits, with the rest of them, to see if the present catches up with the past. In the meantime, Miles doesn’t mourn his losses; in fact he enjoys the peace. With all the talk about destiny, he wonders if he was brought to the island not to converse with the dead, but to begin spending more time with the living. He shares an apartment with Dan, and discovers his roommate is a pretty interesting guy, so he doesn’t resent acting like a parent sometimes, reminding him to eat and sleep. Despite his better instincts Miles becomes friends with Jin and Sawyer and even a few of the fellow jumpsuits on the security team. He finds himself enjoying the order that comes with his work, and stops listening for things that don’t show up on security cameras.
Miles often thinks about the last time he saw Po Po, on the beach, and wonders if she was saying good-bye. If so, did that mean she had moved on because she knew he would not be around in her time anymore. He misses her vigilance. For the first time, she feels dead to him.