Everyday Objects

When you lose someone, when you feel like you've fallen off the wheel, when you feel so, so, so alone, when all you have left is the memories. The big things you know about. No, it's never the big things that bring back the memories. You know about them, so you hide them away and hope you never have to see them again, because you know if you do they will bring back the memories of everything you've tried so hard to forget. The big things that are supposed to mean something, and they do, they certainly bring back the memories. But you just don't want to remember. No, it's definitely not the big, important things that you have to worry about. I would say that it's the everyday, ordinary objects. The ones that you can't avoid because they're just a part of your daily routine. The ones you don't connect directly to any memories, but the ones that can, with one glance, drown you in memories. With one glance, all the memories are there. With one glance you're gone. Again. Lost in the world of painful memories that you wish you could forget. That's all you really want in the end. To forget.

10...
The pillow. Whenever I sit in the chair in the living room with the pillow that has that stupid flag on it. I remember him. Too well. I blink once or twice at the faded pillow in my hands, and then I lose my grip. I see him in all my memories, even ones from before I ever met him. But he's still there, cleverly inserted in all my memories. All of them. I try so hard to block him out, to forget. It's difficult to forget him, it's like he wants to haunt my mind. I think I've finally forgotten him, he's just a faded shape at the edge of the frame, but then he'll make himself there again. Totally, utterly, and completely there. I see the first time I came to 221B, when I looked around the flat and first saw the pillows. The first time I sat in the chair and he told me he already moved in. So many memories. And just from a pillow. A bloody pillow.

9...
The fridge. The fridge is always a hard one to avoid. All I have to do is open the stainless steel door, and the memories seem to rush out of it, blasting me in the face with everything I want to forget. The fridge he kept his experiments in. The fridge that always seemed to be out of milk. The fridge that he used. The fridge that Mrs. Hudson had to clean. Even though she insisted she wasn't his house keeper. The fridge is filled with enough memories to knock me over, cause me to cry on the floor like a lost child. That's what I really am in the end, a lost child crying for help. But now there's no one to cry to. No one to cry to for help.

8...
The phone. The phone that went through so much. Sometimes it still gets messages and the screen will light up with a little bell. I'll pick it up and slide the lock over, and as I slide the lock to the phone off, I swear I lose the lock to my memories as well. I remember everything too well. Curse him. It's probably his fault I remember him so well. With one little bell tone I remember so much. The spider taunting him. The woman flirting with him. Mycroft badgering him for help. Lestrade sending cases for him. Me. The last phone call we ever had. That last goodbye, the final note. And it's so hard to stop the flow of memories from the phone. The cracked phone.

7...
The laptop. Sometimes I think about writing on my blog, and that's all it takes for me to get lost. It was always supposed to be mine but that didn't stop him. He always used it anyway. His ridiculous blog with the various distinguishing factors of types of tobacco. The way I would come home and he would be crammed into the chair with the laptop balanced precariously on his knees. The way he hit the keys with such finality. Sometimes when I'm lost, I swear I hear him typing for me. Helping me come home. Helping me come back to reality.

6...
The mantelpiece. The old mantlepiece over the fire that holds a collection of oddities. Oddities such as a skull and a Chinese good luck cat. His skull and his good luck cat. Sometimes I stand there in front if the fireplace and talk to the skull. It makes a dull replacement of him but I can't help it. If I could replace the skull, couldn't he? So I use it and hope that one day it'll be him I'm talking to, not the memory of him holding the skull that I'm addressing. Sometimes I tell him I miss him and I want him to come home to me. He never answers when I ask him that. The only sound then is the silence of a man alone and lost in the world. A silence I have gotten used to.

5...
The sheet. The white sheet that he used to wear around the flat when he was bored. Sometimes I wash it, just to keep it clean for when he comes home. Sometimes I'll hold it to my chest and hug it as if I'm hugging him. We'll be there again when I do that, there at the palace. Buckingham Palace where he wore a sheet. Only he could do it without embarrassment. I see us sitting there on the fancy couch, him wrapped in his white sheet and me explaining how we solve mysteries, I blog about it, and he forgets his pants. I hear us laughing again. And I wish the laugh would never fade, but stay with me forever. A reminder of what the world used to be like. All with one touch of a sheet. A cold, unused sheet.

4...
The microscope. Sometimes I'll try and put away some of his stuff. Just get it out of the way and out of sight. A petty attempt to erase the memory of him. I'll stand there with a box full of his old items and stare at the microscope. His microscope. One glance, that's all it takes for me to be brought to the ground. The memories pound from every corner of my mind, pushing me further into this unstable state I have slipped into. I remember it all with such clarity. He would sit in front of it for hours, studying who knows what. I would try and talk to him, but he would dismiss me the first time and every time after that he would remain silent and ignorant. He would sit silently absorbed for hours. I would tell him random and absurd things, trying to catch his attention. Once, I even screamed fire into his ear. He didn't pause a moment. Another time I told him I loved him. He paused for a nanosecond, so short of a time that I'm not even sure if he did stop, before continuing on with his all important work. The microscope. So ordinary to anyone but me. To me it is the symbol of his dedication. A symbol that, no matter how hard I try, will always hold memories of him. The microscope with the broken slides.

3...

The violin. I've put it into it's case several times, but I always end up drawing it back out. Just to stare at it for several minutes. A reminder of his human side. A way to bring him closer. I try to avoid it most times, but whenever I am feeling weak, feeling lonely, I hold it gently in my lap and absently pick at it's fine strings. So many memories of him. So many memories contained in a simple construction of wood and metal. He used to play it at absurd hours of the night. Sometimes for so long that I worried about him. Hours would pass and he would draw beautiful music from its unyielding form. I hold it and sometimes I think I can hear him playing again. Playing softly and reassuringly, lulling me into a permanent state of memories. They flow with the music, every memory of him gently floating in and out of my mind. Playing the song of my loss, my heartbreak, my slow insanity, the song of my nightmare realized. Him. Gone. Alone. So very alone. The song should bring pain, and it does, though it is dashed with a sweetness that reminds me of when the memories weren't memories and I was living in a perfect reality. The song is like bittersweet chocolate, a double-edged sword that cuts through my carefully stitched together sanity. I can float, lost, for hours. Just from staring at a silent violin.

2...

My cane. I stopped having to use it when I met him. My limp disappeared. Everything seemed so perfect. My limp has returned though, and I depend on it again. It used to sit unused when I was with him. So many memories can come from it, although it is absent in every one. So many memories of the good times without it, when I felt young again. Sometimes I'll be on the tube and I'll hear a voice like his, or see a scarf like his, sometimes I see the back of a raven haired head. When this happens I lean heavily upon my cane and try not to fall over the edge and into the deep chasm. I rarely succeed. The gap opens wide and swallows me whole. The memories, the precious moments, all swarming around me, all drowning me in their weight. People never seem to notice me. They never seem to notice the man lost in memories, memories that he longs to forget. To them, I am just another tired man, clinging desperately to the wheel, and my cane is just another crippled man's cane. But it is so much more than that. So, so, much more.

1...

The gun. My gun, really, but he always seemed to be the one carrying it. Defending me. I keep it hidden away in my sock drawer, but sometimes I'll accidentally shift things around and it'll surface again. The gun that he once shot into the air, just to call the police. He misused it so much, but I never felt unsafe when it was in his hands. I pick it up and stroke it's cold metallic surface. The worst memory, the one I've tried the hardest to vanquish, the one that causes me the most pain, bubbles up when I do that. The memory of him holding this to his head. The pain in his voice as he murmurs, "Goodbye, John." The shot that shattered the perfect reality I worked so hard to create. The sound of a thousand dreams breaking and drifting away as dust. The gun that took his life from me. The gun that I now hold to my head. No, it certainly isn't the big things that become your undoing. It's the little things, the everyday objects that other people wouldn't look twice at. I steady my hand. I'm coming home. I'm finally coming home. A shattering boom, and then a feeling of weightlessness and a bright white light.

I'm home Sherlock.