Disclaimer: I do not own the Chronicles of Narnia.
A/N: I've been writing an awful lot for a person who's too busy to think. ;) I was re-re-re-re-reading Magician's Nephew the other day, and came across a line by Jadis that had always struck me as poetic. It's from Chapter 13, the chapter in which Digory plucks the apple and is tempted by Jadis to take one back to his mother, or, better yet, to take a bite of one himself. Anyhow, I felt it was high time I wrote this fic, which has been buzzing around in my head for simply years. So here it is.
Happy February!!!!!!!!! (I hate to say Happy Valentines day because it's definitely not a warm and fuzzy kind of fic. Perhaps I'll post my warm and fuzzy before the Dreaded Day of Pink and Hearts. I'm still trying to decide whether I love it or hate it. [The fic, that is. Not the Dreaded Day of Pink and Hearts])
"Go then, Fools," called the Witch. "Think of me, Boy, when you lie old and weak and dying, and remember how you threw away the chance of endless youth! It won't be offered you again." - MN, Chapter 13
Think of me
London Station Train Wreck, 1949
Think of me
When the train doesn't slow at the corner by London Station, he knows something is amiss. Before his mind begins to wonder what's wrong, there is a moment of stillness, of calm.
Then something gives a horrid jerk and he is thrown to the ground—away from Jill and Eustace, who seem to have disappeared—away from pretty, young Lucy, whose blue eyes are wide in shock and alarm.
And now he is lying here, feeling panic seep into his bones as something crashes on top of him. He hears the cracking of bones and smashing of metal, but he feels no pain. Not yet. But it will come soon.
Think of me, Boy
His breath comes in spurts. His joints ache—but they ached before the jerk, didn't they? His back has been stiff for twenty years, and his old war wound in his right leg gives him trouble every time the weather changes. So trivial. Why should his mind fill with trivial things at this crucial moment? Now that he is dying, they are all he can think of. As the pain sets in and fogs his mind, a voice echoes in his ears.
Think of me, when you lie old and weak and dying
A gasping moan escapes his lips. Is the entire train resting on his legs? He looks to the right and sees Polly—dear, sweet Polly—on the ground a yard away. He stretches his hands out—but she is just out of reach. How much he would give to hold her hand right now.
His mind wanders and he remembers the time long ago, when both he and she were so different. So young and carefree and happy. He wonders at how much she has changed; for the long, golden hair of childhood has turned to an ashen gray—little tendrils of it stick to her sweaty neck and face. Her face. It was so tan, so small, so smooth, once upon a time. But now it is wrinkled, and oh so pale!
And remember
Something shifts atop him, bringing even more pain. He cannot even scream, so great is the pressure from above. Somewhere he hears a girl crying. Polly's face flashes in his mind, young and unchanged as she was fifty years ago. It smiles at him—and suddenly he wonders why, why on EARTH he never told her how he felt—how he loved her. A dear friend, yes, but she was so much more…and now she is beyond his grasp, and there is no time in which he can say anything at all.
"Will you marry me, Polly," he screams to her still, still face, though the words hardly wheeze out of his throat. He should've asked her before—many years before, when they were still young and naïve and happy. But for so, so-long he didn't even know he was in love—didn't understand the reason his heart jumped every time he heard her sweet, ringing laughter echoing in the garden and on the street. They were just friends, and happy that way. Lord and Lady. Chum and Pal. Polly and Digory.
And then, when he finally recognized love for what it was, he was afraid (because Digory has always been more afraid than Polly of looking a fool) and each time he got up the nerve to ask if she felt the about him the way that he felt about her, he found his throat had gone dry and his tongue thick. Just another year, he'd thought so many foolish times.
Now, on the verge of death, his life is laid out before him like a map—a long, winding road that is naught but one big mistake. What he would give to live it all over again! To have spent less time commenting on the weather and studying Plato and to have lived his days hand in hand with the golden-haired girl of his heart, living happily ever after.
Remember how you threw away the chance of endless youth
The face of a woman appears in his mind—not the face of Polly, this time. It is pale, like snow, though there is a dark stain around her mouth. An alluring, tantalizing stain. She smiles, but the smile does not reach her eyes. They are so cold, those eyes.
So much could've been different. If he'd but eaten the apple—shared it with Polly—they could've lived forever and ever in happiness. And for one bleak, despairing moment, in the midst of his pain and panic, Digory wishes he'd chosen differently.
Endless youth
One moment, but that is all. For then he sees deep golden eyes, filled with tears bigger than the seas. "For this fruit you have hungered and thirsted and wept."
"And will weep," this voice seemed to add silently. As if to prove this true, Digory's eyes fill with tears again, for he knows what lies on the other side of the pain. He can feel it creeping into his skin—invading his veins and infiltrating his blood:
Death.
He faces it with a grim face and a stalwart heart. But all the teaching of the philosophers desert him as his mind wonders what it would've been like to taste that apple—to feel the endless youth flooding through his veins.
Yet really, now that favorite scenes from his life play over again in his mind, there is not much regret. Perhaps, after all, Polly and he were better as friends. Surely things would have been the same between them had they married. And certainly their friendship was a thing that Digory cherished beyond life itself.
No, he thinks, I do not regret the choice I made. It was folly that tempted me in the garden, and wisdom in the form of a Lion's eyes that made me refuse.
He sees again the laughing eyes of his mother—how many years has she been dead?—and those of Aunt Letty and Uncle Andrew—and Polly, of course. Because even though she wasn't his wife, she was always there for him. The truest of any true friend.
It is in a bittersweet moment that he realizes that yes, he would've lived forever had he eaten the apple, but it would not have been a happy forever.
Think of me, when you lie old and weak and dying
And now as he faces death itself, staring into the darkness beyond life, Digory knows that Jadis was right even in her wrongness. He is old, yes, and weak, and dying. But there is something new that he hears in the memory of Jadis' voice—something akin to pleading, to regret.
His gaze is fixed on Polly when the darkness fringes at its edges. If he'd tasted the fruit, he would've had to watch as she died, would've had to live through centuries—eternities—without her. Perhaps that was the failing of the Queen; the reason for the regret in her voice.
She would never lie old and weak and dying. Her fate was to walk upon the earth, torment never ceasing, until hell called her name and sent fiery tendrils to embrace her in death. There is no rest for the eaters of the forbidden fruit—but there is for Digory.
"Think of me, Boy," Jadis' voice screams across worlds, across death and life and death again, until Digory's vision fades into the blackness of The Beginning. He hears, and sees her error, as she saw it the moment the roar of the King of all Kings filled her ears and the teeth of judgment closed upon her throat.
And he pities her, even while he revels in his victory. For she is doomed to an everlasting nightmare, though her ravaged, tortured face is still one of unsurpassed beauty; while he, old and weak and dying, is finally at peace.
Think of me
finis