Those We Left Behind

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bigpapa671
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Those We Left Behind

Post: # 14165Post bigpapa671 »

A dim light cut through the slits in the wooden blinds that covered the ranch house doors as if knocking to announce the end of another sleepless night. Henry Marshal grimaced, the light bounced from the title belt that hang at the feet of the bed, as if to mock him, and he caught a glimpse of his own reflection in it’s opulent face. He’d been the very best once, but now it was just a reminder of another promise he’d failed to keep, another faceless soldier pounding away as it marched through the mite filled halls of his mind.

He sighed, rising from his bed as if he were the living dead. He began to inspect himself in the title belt turned makeshift mirror. Henry grabbed at the flimsy layer of doughy flab that concealed his once athletic form, letting out a disappointed sigh before reaching for the brown bottle on the end table. With a rough and tumble grunt he forced the child-safe lid open, pouring a neat cocktail of multi-colored pills into his calloused hand before washing them down with the rest of last night’s black label. There were two oblong white vicodins to manage the pain, a delightfully multi colored green and orange 40 mg prozac to keep bad thoughts away, a little round blue valium for anxiety, and a splash of color, and the whiskey which was for... well the whiskey was just for fun.

After his little suburban breakfast Henry Marshal stumbled into his mother and father’s bathroom, he’d been sleeping in their bedroom since he’d come home. He had a room of his own in the ranch of course, but he’d found himself unable to face it at this point in time. Something about the trophies and medals that sat on the shelves, and the posters that hung on the wall taunted him, a reminder of a childlike fire that had long dwindled into a smouldering mess of ash and soot. As he splashed cold water on his face he caught a glimpse of a photograph of his mother and father kissing outside some apartment building on a rainy night in Aurelia. They were dressed like a king and a queen, fitting as they were practically Toran royalty.

It’s funny how memories can simply appear, after years away on some alien distant forigen shore they return, dancing their way into your mind, penniless and unkempt. Henry laughed despite the pain, the metaphor reminded him of himself. Ironic. He studied his mother’s face, the pomp and circumstance, married with a charismatic sort of arrogance that described Heather better than any words could, he wished he’d gotten to know her more, to feel that presence one more time. Just another what if.

He looked at his father’s smile, the triumph and adoration there clear as the shirts on their backs and shoes on their feet. He’d seen it many times before in his youth, he recalled the first time he’d bested his father, he must’ve been no older than six. He remembered the way his father scooped him into his strong rancher’s hands, how he smiled from ear to ear with that Cheshire smile of his. How he told him he was really going to be something, that’s what everyone told him back then. He was really going to be something. He smirked, tears began to well up in his eyes, rolling slowly past the crow’s feet that had nestled calmly in beneath eyes sometime around his fortieth birthday, over the scar on his cheek he’d gained chasing some mugger in the Aurelia underground, and down into the curly bushels of his greying beard.

A noiseless mump he shuffled through the halls of the farmhouse, rambling to himself as he saw the photographs on the wall, telling stories of half-promises long abandoned, and friendships long since past. There he saw following him the unspeaking specters of the past, blue haired Callie waiting for her uncle, Claire, sweet beautiful claire sleeping on her loansome in some impersonal hotel room, his father’s soft smile a thin veneer glazing over a deep disappointment, his mother the great unknown, and then there he was, the big man himself, standing in living color. Henry Sr.

Henry Sr, or Doc as most called him was Henry Marshal’s grandfather, and of course the great looming shadow he’d been living in since his youth. Without thought Henry charged the apparition of his grandfather, he could feel the anger swell through him, hot blood burning through his veins as he screamed, clutching the old man’s throat and squeezing with impunity. There they were writhing in a violent dance upon the floor as all those Henry’d disappointed looked on. Henry squeezed tighter, and tighter, he shook his grandfather, who’s brawny body withered between his calloused fingers until finally there was naught but a pale reflection of the man himself, eyes rolling back and hollow. Henry Marshal wondered what he’d done.

Shattered glass garnished the ground where he lay when he came to, scattered photographs of his family lined the floor, a perverse shrine to what he’d lost. A photograph of his grandfather stared Henry Marshal in the eyes and he began to weep, not for his lost innocence, but the reality that he would never have the privilege to lose it again. His life was over.



He lay there for hours more, and then something swelled within Henry Marshal, a primal force that told him his time was not yet done. Was this what God felt like? It forced him to his feet, and for the first time in years he saw before him clearly the lines of illusions web, stepping out of the machinery he knew this was his last ride, this was his chance at redemption. He began to walk the hall again, the shards of the frame slicing him from feet to soul. Bloody footsteps on the road to Calvary.
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