Too Late for the Truth
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Stacey and Dale Yorkes, Gertrude Yorkes
Summary: Death leaves a lot of time to think. A few questions are answered.
Gert doesn't have much to do, now that she's dead. The afterlife is overrated. Hers was, anyway.
She sits and watches flashes of the past, sometimes of the present, and thinks, mostly. It's all she has to do. There is no one there to talk to, most days, and whatever poor sod wanders by on the others usually isn't worth it.
At least, most of them weren't. Then the 'rents showed up.
She says, I suppose this is hell.
Her voice and the voices of her parents are ethereal and hollow. They don't Sound, per se, but they are Heard, nonetheless. Like talking to that Chamber guy, only with lip movements and less risk of getting set on fire.
What makes you think that? her father asks.
You two are here, she replies simply.
The sit down on either side of her; Mom on her left, Dad on her right. Dad slips an arm around her shoulders and Mom holds her hand. She feels no compulsion to resist, just a sick gratification knowing that they are dead, right along with her.
There is a long Silence between them. Then, Gert is not sure why, her father asks, Why Chase?
Gert shrugs, and says, Good looking, good kisser, stupidly funny, usually knows what to say, for some strange reason... She gives them a moment to let that sink in. Good in bed.
She says the last because she knows it will rankle them. And it does.
Good in bed? Mom demands. He touched you?
Gert gives her mom a look then says, I suppose that's one way of putting it. Touched me with various parts of his body, in various ways, including good, old-fashioned, penetration.
Dad doesn't say anything. He stares off into the void they are in and squeezes her shouders. She pushes him off and jumps to her feet.
Why did you sacrifice kids to crazy giants? Why did you do the super-villain? Why? she demands, in a sudden fit of rage.
Mom looks up at her. Dad looks past her.
We were lost in time. For a long while. And we got stuck, Mom says. And we decided to have a baby.
Janet got pregnant, Dad adds.
So it was partly envy, and mostly empty, Mom continues. We ere both past thirty, and we'd already been dragged into this. We were alone in the house. Janet got pregnant and had Chase. Then Leslie and Tina and Catharine. The only ones who had a harder time of it than us were the Hayes, and they didn't even try until years later.
We tried so hard, Dad says. Not, mind you, that it was a chore--he smiles at his wife here--but we simply couldn't do it. Then They promised us a child if we extended our contract. So we did.
Dad stands up, towering over her. He offers his wife a hand and pulls her to her feet.
Gert, we did most of what we did, all after I got pregnant, for you, Mom says.
And Gert realizes then that her parents had been getting old. They had been getting old all her life. Both in their forties, both dancing with fifty. And she'd helped end their lives. For some reason these facts tie together in her mind to grace her with a sizeable dose of guilt.
That's not an excuse, she says.
No, it's not, Dad agrees.
Mom just shakes her head.
The Silence descends on them again and Gert finds herself miserable.
Where's the truth? she asks, despairing. What's the answer?
Her mother hangs her head and doesn't reply.
Her father tilts her face up to look her in the eyes. The truth is right here, now, wherever you find yourself. The answer is somewhere in that truth, and, for myself, the answer is the two most beautiful women in the world.
Gert is reminded of her parents as they used to be, when she still had her delusions. And she remembers sitting on Dad's lap while he worked on something in the shop, and baking cookies with Mom, and how Normal they'd been.
She surges forward into his arms and lets loose a barrage of emotion that somehow passes ofr tears of grief over the life they could have lived.
Characters: Stacey and Dale Yorkes, Gertrude Yorkes
Summary: Death leaves a lot of time to think. A few questions are answered.
Gert doesn't have much to do, now that she's dead. The afterlife is overrated. Hers was, anyway.
She sits and watches flashes of the past, sometimes of the present, and thinks, mostly. It's all she has to do. There is no one there to talk to, most days, and whatever poor sod wanders by on the others usually isn't worth it.
At least, most of them weren't. Then the 'rents showed up.
She says, I suppose this is hell.
Her voice and the voices of her parents are ethereal and hollow. They don't Sound, per se, but they are Heard, nonetheless. Like talking to that Chamber guy, only with lip movements and less risk of getting set on fire.
What makes you think that? her father asks.
You two are here, she replies simply.
The sit down on either side of her; Mom on her left, Dad on her right. Dad slips an arm around her shoulders and Mom holds her hand. She feels no compulsion to resist, just a sick gratification knowing that they are dead, right along with her.
There is a long Silence between them. Then, Gert is not sure why, her father asks, Why Chase?
Gert shrugs, and says, Good looking, good kisser, stupidly funny, usually knows what to say, for some strange reason... She gives them a moment to let that sink in. Good in bed.
She says the last because she knows it will rankle them. And it does.
Good in bed? Mom demands. He touched you?
Gert gives her mom a look then says, I suppose that's one way of putting it. Touched me with various parts of his body, in various ways, including good, old-fashioned, penetration.
Dad doesn't say anything. He stares off into the void they are in and squeezes her shouders. She pushes him off and jumps to her feet.
Why did you sacrifice kids to crazy giants? Why did you do the super-villain? Why? she demands, in a sudden fit of rage.
Mom looks up at her. Dad looks past her.
We were lost in time. For a long while. And we got stuck, Mom says. And we decided to have a baby.
Janet got pregnant, Dad adds.
So it was partly envy, and mostly empty, Mom continues. We ere both past thirty, and we'd already been dragged into this. We were alone in the house. Janet got pregnant and had Chase. Then Leslie and Tina and Catharine. The only ones who had a harder time of it than us were the Hayes, and they didn't even try until years later.
We tried so hard, Dad says. Not, mind you, that it was a chore--he smiles at his wife here--but we simply couldn't do it. Then They promised us a child if we extended our contract. So we did.
Dad stands up, towering over her. He offers his wife a hand and pulls her to her feet.
Gert, we did most of what we did, all after I got pregnant, for you, Mom says.
And Gert realizes then that her parents had been getting old. They had been getting old all her life. Both in their forties, both dancing with fifty. And she'd helped end their lives. For some reason these facts tie together in her mind to grace her with a sizeable dose of guilt.
That's not an excuse, she says.
No, it's not, Dad agrees.
Mom just shakes her head.
The Silence descends on them again and Gert finds herself miserable.
Where's the truth? she asks, despairing. What's the answer?
Her mother hangs her head and doesn't reply.
Her father tilts her face up to look her in the eyes. The truth is right here, now, wherever you find yourself. The answer is somewhere in that truth, and, for myself, the answer is the two most beautiful women in the world.
Gert is reminded of her parents as they used to be, when she still had her delusions. And she remembers sitting on Dad's lap while he worked on something in the shop, and baking cookies with Mom, and how Normal they'd been.
She surges forward into his arms and lets loose a barrage of emotion that somehow passes ofr tears of grief over the life they could have lived.