Theatrical Muse: Week 291: Question 291
Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback
Fandom: CSI: New York
Word Count: 1035
Take someone out.
Nostalgia. That wistful yearning to return to a place, a memory, an experience that one has previously occupied in the past. Like the fad of tie dyed shirts or the time everybody played with pogo sticks. Our world is made up of nostalgia, past epochs, eras kept in basements and museums, in back order catalogues and old things being remade with new packaging. Death often brings about this emotional longing for a time in the past. I see people in my job, I have experienced it myself, the sudden incessant yearning to go back and dig through one’s memory boxes, through forgotten cupboard spaces and photograph albums. Nostalgia is yearning, it is the longing for something that elicited in us some happiness. It is a desire to return to former times, when things were perhaps safer, or simply, more pleasant. Time moves on though, and the recreation of the old can only do so much.
He supposed perhaps it might be dirty of him, covetous of him to think, to truly believe, that he always needed her. What might happen if she came to a day when she didn’t want him? What would happen if she left him before, before, that final act? Would he accept it without complaint, happy to have had her for as long as she was willing to treasure him as hers? Oh pious pity, the days of all marriages being long term and absolute were not with him, he now existed in a time where things were translucent and conducting of such vivacious social change. What if, what if, what if?
Sid looked up at her as she emerged out of the bathroom, holding up her hair, long arms extended, elbows just little bumps of flesh and bone along china doll skin.
“Up or down Sid?”
It wasn’t until she repeated the question and playfully kicked him in the shin that he realised she was paying attention to him, finally raising his head to answer, eyes contemplative.
“Up. I like the way you pin it.” he said, he smiled, he forgot his worries.
Transformation. It occurs in the human race much like an incredibly slow metamorphosis. A haircut one single day, does not equal a completely new self view the next other day, but it may, for some, be part of the changing process. It is an act of changing, and for some it is harder than it may be for others. For some people, to change is hard, and it comes slowly, painfully, and for some it is easy, another lifeblood, another air. It is all up to the person to seize their own particular moment in life, and do something with it, about it. The change may be slow, because no transformation is an instantaneously working miracle, but it does not mean it has to drag on for months or weeks, or years. To get over a death may take months, but to become happier in one’s self may simply be a matter of a week and a good book. It all depends on the person.
He was the perfect cavalier gentlemen, escorting her from the limo shared with friends, opening all the doors for her along the way, vehicle and building orientated alike. When they came to dance he paused and bowed at her, and she curtsied with whimsy in return. They danced a perfect dance, turning and touching at the right moment, eyes meeting and departing and eventually stealing hidden glances whenever they could. They mingled and were social, miming adult responsibilities and sensibilities in a teenage school dance setting, mimicking actions and stances, but sharing the age appropriate conversations about other people, other places.
Isolation. One of the hardest concepts to overcome is the sudden deathly act of being left all alone in the world. It is a tricky thought as well, to supposedly be all alone, because no one is ever truly alone. There is a thought I have sometimes as I process bodies in the morgue, especially those of murderers, or the victims of drug abuse, of homelessness. Once, even for a moment, a person has been loved. Whether it was a mother, a father, another family member, a teacher or simply a stranger they have passed in the street and never known, they have been loved. It is impossible to go through life, from birth to death without ever having been loved, even if only for a second. So, between love and death, what went wrong to lead this particular person, any particular person, to my table. Perhaps I was fortunate in that the remains of my wife and sons were never found. No one ever had to think those thoughts about them as they lay on someone else’s table. No, that isn’t true. Marianne, Christopher and Michael are dead, they have been gone for so long, and while I have my family, my friends, her family, even her friends, the hole is still there, I still miss them, I still ache for their company sometimes. I can not take them out of my life. That would leave me totally alone of them, deprived of them, and I can’t do that.
One day, one single glorious, perfect, absolutely idyllic day, he whisked her out of work, he organised it with her boss and stole her away to a hidden rooftop garden. He made a picnic, twenty different foods in little portions sealed inside individual containers. He bound her hands and hid her eyes with silk scarves and fed her tiny morsels until the sun set. He took her out and it was glorious, and when they arrived home to their children they were happy to see them. They made popcorn and ordered pizza and watched a rented out movie, and it was satisfaction, it was happiest. Then seven months later they were dead, and, there was nothing. He couldn’t take her out anymore. Couldn’t take his children out anymore. Couldn’t show any of them the beauty, the whimsy of life. And he felt nostalgic, he felt isolated, and eventually, he transformed into something different and continued on, taking himself out of the experience of mourning, of death, and continuing on with life.
Fandom: CSI: New York
Word Count: 1035
Take someone out.
Nostalgia. That wistful yearning to return to a place, a memory, an experience that one has previously occupied in the past. Like the fad of tie dyed shirts or the time everybody played with pogo sticks. Our world is made up of nostalgia, past epochs, eras kept in basements and museums, in back order catalogues and old things being remade with new packaging. Death often brings about this emotional longing for a time in the past. I see people in my job, I have experienced it myself, the sudden incessant yearning to go back and dig through one’s memory boxes, through forgotten cupboard spaces and photograph albums. Nostalgia is yearning, it is the longing for something that elicited in us some happiness. It is a desire to return to former times, when things were perhaps safer, or simply, more pleasant. Time moves on though, and the recreation of the old can only do so much.
He supposed perhaps it might be dirty of him, covetous of him to think, to truly believe, that he always needed her. What might happen if she came to a day when she didn’t want him? What would happen if she left him before, before, that final act? Would he accept it without complaint, happy to have had her for as long as she was willing to treasure him as hers? Oh pious pity, the days of all marriages being long term and absolute were not with him, he now existed in a time where things were translucent and conducting of such vivacious social change. What if, what if, what if?
Sid looked up at her as she emerged out of the bathroom, holding up her hair, long arms extended, elbows just little bumps of flesh and bone along china doll skin.
“Up or down Sid?”
It wasn’t until she repeated the question and playfully kicked him in the shin that he realised she was paying attention to him, finally raising his head to answer, eyes contemplative.
“Up. I like the way you pin it.” he said, he smiled, he forgot his worries.
Transformation. It occurs in the human race much like an incredibly slow metamorphosis. A haircut one single day, does not equal a completely new self view the next other day, but it may, for some, be part of the changing process. It is an act of changing, and for some it is harder than it may be for others. For some people, to change is hard, and it comes slowly, painfully, and for some it is easy, another lifeblood, another air. It is all up to the person to seize their own particular moment in life, and do something with it, about it. The change may be slow, because no transformation is an instantaneously working miracle, but it does not mean it has to drag on for months or weeks, or years. To get over a death may take months, but to become happier in one’s self may simply be a matter of a week and a good book. It all depends on the person.
He was the perfect cavalier gentlemen, escorting her from the limo shared with friends, opening all the doors for her along the way, vehicle and building orientated alike. When they came to dance he paused and bowed at her, and she curtsied with whimsy in return. They danced a perfect dance, turning and touching at the right moment, eyes meeting and departing and eventually stealing hidden glances whenever they could. They mingled and were social, miming adult responsibilities and sensibilities in a teenage school dance setting, mimicking actions and stances, but sharing the age appropriate conversations about other people, other places.
Isolation. One of the hardest concepts to overcome is the sudden deathly act of being left all alone in the world. It is a tricky thought as well, to supposedly be all alone, because no one is ever truly alone. There is a thought I have sometimes as I process bodies in the morgue, especially those of murderers, or the victims of drug abuse, of homelessness. Once, even for a moment, a person has been loved. Whether it was a mother, a father, another family member, a teacher or simply a stranger they have passed in the street and never known, they have been loved. It is impossible to go through life, from birth to death without ever having been loved, even if only for a second. So, between love and death, what went wrong to lead this particular person, any particular person, to my table. Perhaps I was fortunate in that the remains of my wife and sons were never found. No one ever had to think those thoughts about them as they lay on someone else’s table. No, that isn’t true. Marianne, Christopher and Michael are dead, they have been gone for so long, and while I have my family, my friends, her family, even her friends, the hole is still there, I still miss them, I still ache for their company sometimes. I can not take them out of my life. That would leave me totally alone of them, deprived of them, and I can’t do that.
One day, one single glorious, perfect, absolutely idyllic day, he whisked her out of work, he organised it with her boss and stole her away to a hidden rooftop garden. He made a picnic, twenty different foods in little portions sealed inside individual containers. He bound her hands and hid her eyes with silk scarves and fed her tiny morsels until the sun set. He took her out and it was glorious, and when they arrived home to their children they were happy to see them. They made popcorn and ordered pizza and watched a rented out movie, and it was satisfaction, it was happiest. Then seven months later they were dead, and, there was nothing. He couldn’t take her out anymore. Couldn’t take his children out anymore. Couldn’t show any of them the beauty, the whimsy of life. And he felt nostalgic, he felt isolated, and eventually, he transformed into something different and continued on, taking himself out of the experience of mourning, of death, and continuing on with life.