TM #264 The past is never dead. It isn't even past.
["The past is never dead. It's not even past." William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun.]
He’s had nightmares for so long that he’s forgotten what it’s like to sleep without them. Sometimes they’re about fire and explosions, people he loves burning. Sometimes it’s about people he can’t save, Claire falling with no one to catch her and sometimes they are about people he’s never had to save but they need it anyway.
Tonight is a new breed of nightmares that have come about in the last couple of weeks. It leaves him gasping, clammy and sweaty. He flinches at first when Sasha puts her hand on his back. She kisses the back of his neck and he relaxes into her.
“Want to talk about it?” she asks and he shakes his head even before the words are out of her mouth. He doesn’t want to talk about images that are still burned into his mind; a gun pointed at his father, a father that turns into his brother, so much blood pooling around his feet, his hands sticky with it. He doesn’t want to talk about the things he knows he’s going to have to do one of these days. He doesn’t want to talk about something he’s going to have to do sooner rather than later. Instead he turns his head and catches the corner of her mouth with a kiss.
“Let’s wake Henry up and go find some coffee and pastries somewhere then we’ll go stand at the top of the Eiffel Tower and watch the lights.” No elevator needed. Nightmares or not, he still enjoys having flight as a power. “Bundle him up really good and leave his pajamas on then if he wants to fall back asleep he can.” After all, it’s still the middle of the night in Paris.
If he can get them all up and out of the hotel room, he won’t have to think about the nightmares or a past and a future that are all tangled up. The past isn’t dead and it isn’t past. At least not for Peter, no matter how much he wishes it were.
He’s had nightmares for so long that he’s forgotten what it’s like to sleep without them. Sometimes they’re about fire and explosions, people he loves burning. Sometimes it’s about people he can’t save, Claire falling with no one to catch her and sometimes they are about people he’s never had to save but they need it anyway.
Tonight is a new breed of nightmares that have come about in the last couple of weeks. It leaves him gasping, clammy and sweaty. He flinches at first when Sasha puts her hand on his back. She kisses the back of his neck and he relaxes into her.
“Want to talk about it?” she asks and he shakes his head even before the words are out of her mouth. He doesn’t want to talk about images that are still burned into his mind; a gun pointed at his father, a father that turns into his brother, so much blood pooling around his feet, his hands sticky with it. He doesn’t want to talk about the things he knows he’s going to have to do one of these days. He doesn’t want to talk about something he’s going to have to do sooner rather than later. Instead he turns his head and catches the corner of her mouth with a kiss.
“Let’s wake Henry up and go find some coffee and pastries somewhere then we’ll go stand at the top of the Eiffel Tower and watch the lights.” No elevator needed. Nightmares or not, he still enjoys having flight as a power. “Bundle him up really good and leave his pajamas on then if he wants to fall back asleep he can.” After all, it’s still the middle of the night in Paris.
If he can get them all up and out of the hotel room, he won’t have to think about the nightmares or a past and a future that are all tangled up. The past isn’t dead and it isn’t past. At least not for Peter, no matter how much he wishes it were.