From: Pellinor Date: Mon, 4 May 1998 12:08:27 +0100 Subject: NEW: Sailing Calmly On (1/1) by Pellinor "Sailing Calmly On" part 1 of 1 by Pellinor (Pellinor@astolat.demon.co.uk) __ Classification: SA Rating: PG Summary: The end of the X-Files, seen through the eyes of three who neither understand nor care. Content warning: This is a sad 'un. Proceed at your own risk. I'll say no more. Disclaimer: Not mine. I make no money from them, though. Archive freely. ****** The artist at harvest __ I spoke of women, once, late at night at College, in the long shadows cast by a single lamp. I learnt that I was different, then. I saw the curve of the skin at the base of a throat. I saw the warm auburn of a tress of unbound hair. I saw green eyes shot through with brown. I saw the elegant movement of a neck. I saw as an artist. "You see only details; you miss the whole." My friend burnt with the earnest fire that only the young possess. "You don't talk to them. You don't want to know them." I blinked. "They're nothing to me. Why should they be?" I have painted the textures of a blade of grass; I care nothing for the grandeur of mountains. I painted a woman's hands, once, scarcely glancing at her face. In a battle, I would paint the raindrop on a trampled petal. I have lived a solitary life; I have been happy. Now, I see the gold of a living ear of corn. Beyond it, blue. My focus is intense. The voices are a distraction. "No." A woman's voice, loud and firm. Then, quieter, carried to me on the wind: "Be better than them." The spell is broken. I am lying in a sea of corn, immersed in colour. I reach out a hand to part the stalks, and see a tableau. A car is surrounded by half a dozen other cars, its occupants trapped. There are two of them - a man and a woman. They are both out of the car. He has a pistol trained on the soldiers who approach them; she has her hand on his arm, restraining. There is nothing of interest in their colours, but that could change. Changing light gives an infinite newness to old scenes. "No," she says again. "If it's got to end here, end it well. Stay better than them." He is torn. Defiance and defeat war in him, marring the beauty of his perfect shooter's stance. His shoulders are the flaw in the picture. Slowly, his eyes shut. They stay shut for a very long time. He is a still life. "Okay," he says, at last. He lowers the gun. Somehow he looks stronger now that he's accepted defeat. "But they won't take it. End it well." And in a sudden movement he raises his arm and throws the gun as far as he can. It arcs over my head - black metal against blue sky and a flash of reflected sunlight. I will treasure the image. I close my eyes to savour it. I hear her, but do not see her. "Yes," she murmurs. I hear heavy footsteps too. "End it as ourselves." I blink, and forget the gun. Her dull hair is a wig; her true hair is.... I run my tongue over my lips, considering. Burnt umber and ochre and all the colours of Tuscany, mixed with light. I need to paint her hair. "You have it?" The soldiers close in. I catch a last flash of her hair, and then it is gone. Their voices are harsh. "You have it? Where is it?" I hear the sound of a single blow, but two gasps - his first, then hers. "They'll tell us." There is confidence in that voice. "_After_." As they are led away, I hold my breath. Colours flash like a strobe light. The soldiers are grey and dull; her hair is.... is _beautiful_. I see snatches of it only. I try to hold onto the memory as they are driven away, but it is as if it is carried on the wind or written on water. All I see is the gold of a living ear of corn, and beyond it, blue ****** The gravedigger in autumn __ I watch, pause, and then move on. Here, in this place of tears, I have never cried. What else can I do? It is a small group of mourners in the rain. I know the spot - memorial stones without a grave. I rest my hand on the rough bark of a tree, breathing fast from a hard morning's work. They are my five minutes' break. I will watch until my breathing is slow, then start again. "I'm not happy with this." A dark-haired woman presses her fist against her mouth, as if fighting tears. "Not happy." The tall, balding man steps towards her. His hand hovers over her arm, then withdraws without touching her. "I think.... we have to accept it as truth." Each word is considered, measured. The woman crouches down, her coat trailing in the mud. She reaches for the memorial stone, tracing the letters with her fingers. "This is the second one I've ordered for her. _He_ opposed the first one. He said it was too soon. He was right." Her voice rises, wild and almost angry. "He was right then. Why not now?" The silver-haired lady scarcely flickers. She is in a world of her own. It looks serene, but I have seen a thousand forms of grieving here. This is her way. Inside, she has nothing left. "I was told by a man I...." The tall man shrugs stiffly. "Not trust, but believe - in this, anyway. They were on the run for weeks, and then they were captured. He's sure that they're dead, this time." "The man...." The silver-haired woman steps forward, and there is sudden steel in her eyes. "Was it....?" "He says it wasn't him," the man says softly. "I think I believe him. He knows, but he didn't order it. I think he mourns your son too." The younger man pulls at the dark-haired woman's arm. There is an anger in his eyes that seems inappropriate, somehow. As if seeing it too, the woman shakes him off. Deliberately, defiantly, her fingers move from the one stone to the other, giving them both equal reverence. My breathing slows. I tense my fingers on the bark, then push myself away. I can not care. I don't want to care. I am all smiles in the evening for my children. This is a job. ****** The fool in winter __ Bacon, curling on the grill. My baby, wrapped on a white towel and laughing. Coffee. Freshly baked bread. Why _this_ smell? Why, after searching two years for a job, do I get one in a place that smells of decay and urine and the chilling smell of disinfectant that cloaks smells yet more terrible? The imagination fills in those smells. When I get home at dawn, I will bury my face in my wife's hair and inhale. The smell is the worst. There is no escape. I can close my eyes to the white faces, the open mouths, the trails of drool snaking to the pillow. I can tune out the wordless mumbling, and clawing of fingers against the metal bars around the beds. I do not touch them. If one dies, I am to alert the doctor on duty, but I am not to touch. I will hold a glass to their face and watch for it to steam over. I can't help but thinking that a clear glass is a relief, an escape. When do we die? When we lose our minds, or when we leave our bodies? Which is death? I know the answer, now. "They hurt me." The woman with the close-cropped hair speaks as I pause in the doorway. In the week that I've been here I have grown used to her empty bed. She spends her existence at the bedside of another, and the doctors let her. "They hurt me here." She gestures low on her abdomen, then her fingers brush against the forehead of the man in the bed. "They hurt him there." Stick-like fingers in his dull hair. The metal door frame is cold against my fingers. I say nothing. I was warned before I started that I was to believe nothing any of the patients said to me. For my own peace of mind, they said. My sleep would be screaming nightmares. Distance. Disbelief. Detachment. I wrote it out and stuck it to the refrigerator with a magnet. She gives a broken half smile, though her eyes swim with sudden tears. One hand stays on his forehead; the other gestures at her own. "I think they hurt me here, too, but not as bad as they did him," she says, simply. She blinks, and tears fall down her sunken cheeks. "Why doesn't he wake up?" I shake my head. My mouth opens as if to speak, but I remember in time. It will only encourage her. "Did I love him?" There is no awareness in her face of her sudden change of course. Her mind is a feather, blown by the wind. "He is special to me. Were we lovers, before?" His eyes are open, but he doesn't move - never has for months, I was told. He breathes for himself, but tubes feed him. Many would think it better if they didn't bother. Perhaps the doctors think of them as humans. I, though, am little more than a night watchman. It is not my job to do so. "There are.... bits." She presses her fingers into her brow. Her other hand encloses his, squeezing until their ten entwined fingers are white. "More when I'm holding him. _He_ was there, before. I see him; I see faces. No names." She shakes her head bleakly. "No names. They took those from me too." I stop myself just in time. "We had something." She frowns. "They wanted it, and they wanted us, too. We ran. And.... and everywhere there was corn." I look at my watch. My wife will be closing her book and reaching for the light. Sometimes I find her in the morning, curled round my pillow, holding it to her breast. I came close to crying, the first time I saw it. "I think...." She is shaking, her eyes widening. "I think he was an FBI agent." His wrist looks as if it would snap under the weight of a gun. "I think.... I think I was one too." I can't stop myself. I laugh - a sharp bark of laughter. The man in the room next to hers thinks he's the Pope. "You're not one of them?" Her voice gets louder, harsher. I glance at the blinking red light of the monitor, remembering what I was told about their aggression, and when to call for help. The doctors know how to apply restraints, and a needle. "This is a prison. Why are you here?" I step back. She is scarcely human to me, but I have no love of the needle, and the glazed look that lasts for days after it. Her fingers curl. "Are you bad, or a fool?" I lick my lips, and break my rule. "It's not a prison," I murmur. I know it's a lie, but, if it's a prison, its for their own protection. They are fed, and clothed, and kept alive. Outside, they would have nothing. Tears creep down her cheeks, but her face is strangely regal, despite the sunken cheeks, the cropped red hair. "A fool," she says, firmly, shaking her head. "A fool...." I press my hand against her face, inhaling. There is still enough of the smell of home. ****** The fool in spring ___ I step down the hallway, my stomach tightening at the smell. The passage of a month has intensified it, rather than weakening it. I step, pause, step. Each pause is enough to look into a room, and see the sleeping figure and the rise of fall of the chest, and to know that all is well. Grey hair on a pillow, and a face like paper. I step, pause.... pause.... The bed is empty, and the chair beside it. The ghostly echo of her voice still seems to linger in my head. She was the only one who ever spoke to me, speaking real words. She could string a sentence together, though the content was all lies. I wonder if he has died, and if she is mourning him in her half- animal way, curled on her own bed, but when I pass on to her own room, it, too, is empty. I stand at the door, hand pressed against the metal. Footsteps pad in the hallway, fast and anxious. I recognise the voice of the doctor who interviewed me for the job, all mildness and smiles. There is no mildness in his voice this time. He is harsh, used to giving orders. "Someone talked. Find them." Something tightens in my throat, and I think it is fear. I think of the soft skin of my baby's cheek, and the smell of my wife's hair. I say nothing, and pass on. ****** The gravedigger in summer ___ I peel apart the two slices of bread, peering between them. Soft cheese and salad. I pull a face, but settle down to eat them, my legs stretched out on the grass. It's sunny, and a light breeze touches my cheeks. The graves look beautiful in early summer. Petals fall like a carpet on the turned earth. As I chew, I watch people. I often think its strange that, for someone who works with the dead, I see so many of the living. Friends, relatives, lovers..... They comes in a constant procession, some in the first flush of tearful grief, some in the rueful ache of a long-distant loss. Two women come hand in hand, slowly. The dark-haired one leads; the red-haired one follows. Her steps are slow. When the path forks, the older one pulls at her hand gently, as if guiding her. I idly wonder if she is blind, but then she blinks at the pink petals and I can tell that she sees them. "Here," the older woman murmurs softly. I see her lips move, but her voice doesn't reach me. Still holding hands, they crouch down beside the twin memorial stones. I saw something here, once, I remember, though I forget what it was. I see so much. For my own peace of mind, I forget it. The younger woman runs her finger across the lettering. "D-A-N-A?" she murmurs, spelling out each letter slowly, then she glances at the other woman, anxiously, almost hopefully. The older woman swallows hard, then nods. "That's right, sweetheart." Her red hair is beautiful. She turns towards the other stone. There is freshly turned earth beside this one, and flowers. Her throat works convulsively, but she doesn't speak. The older woman places an arm protectively round her shoulders, then seems to consider, and removes it. Her own fingers stroke the first stone, retracing the name her daughter spelled out. She swallows again. The sun makes her tears shine. "We can have it removed." "No!" It comes out firmly, and I see a spark of fire in the younger woman's eyes. Then she shakes her head slowly, and her face fills with understanding and regret. "Leave it. _I_ died too, didn't I?" I lick my lips, then my fingers. I'll ask her for some meat tomorrow. ****** END ****** APPENDIX The inspiration for this story: Musee des Beaux Arts by W H Auden About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters: how well they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree In Brueghel's "Icarus", for instance: how everything turns away Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry, But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone As it had too on the white legs disappearing into the green Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky, Had somewhere to get to, and sailed calmly on. ****** Thanks: To Rebecca, for pointing out my very unfortunate and very funny spelling mistake. Feedback is greeted with gratitude, and always replied to. I'm going to America on Thursday (Season finale! FBI! DC Expo! Martha's Vineyard!), though, so my reply will be delayed for any letters received after then. ****** Pellinor@astolat.demon.co.uk Deep Background (X-Files Fanfic research and episode summaries) http://www.astolat.demon.co.uk/ For my X-Files Fanfic: http://www.carbonek.demon.co.uk/