From: ephemeral@ephemeralfic.org
Date: 4 May 2002 17:55:28 -0000
Subject: Such a Good Boy by Tesla
Source: direct

Reply To: tesla@hiwaay.net


      New: 	     Such a Good Boy
      Author:     Tesla
      Rating:      G
      Category: Vignette 
      Spoilers:    William 
      Archive:       Let me know so I can dote 
      Disclaimer: Property of 1013
       


A forty-something man wearing a windbreaker, jeans, work boots and
Yankees cap brought no suspicious looks in the mid-town coffee shop.  
He brought no looks at all, not even from the waitress who
absent-mindedly filled his cup with decaf.
          
Mulder sat near the window, gazing sightlessly at the early morning
foot traffic of office workers. Overhead, the radio gave the weather
and the sports news. The smoking ordinances were being flouted, and no
one, including Mulder, gave a damn. He was tearing something into
little pellets.
 "When I was born, they looked at me and said, 
  What a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong boy,"
sang the Barenaked Ladies over his head.
 
She had given William away. Like he was a puppy who couldn't be 
house trained.
 "This name is the hair shirt I wear, 
  This hair shirt is woven from your brown hair." 
   
All the pain of her barrenness, all the talktalktalk before the
conception, and Mulder exiled from forty years of life and work----for
nothing? The baby sent to strangers and she e-mails him after it was
done. And who are these strangers and how sure was she that William
couldn't be found, found and taken away to a ship like Mulder had---
His mind stopped.
  "I wake up scared, I wake up stranger,
   And everything around me stays the same."
   
He couldn't think. But there was nothing to think about any more, was
there? It was all over. Mulder stood and pulled a handful of change
from his pocket for his coffee and a tip. He picked up his hard hat
and left to catch his bus. The waitress came by to clean the table.
She scooped the change into her apron pocket, and looked curiously at
the curls of a photograph in the ashtray. It was torn into such tiny
pieces, she couldn't see anything. Except a scrap of red hair.



      *The song is "What a Good Boy" by the Barenaked Ladies.
      Thanks as always to MaybeAmanda for lightning beta.