Date: Who cares!?
Because I could not stop for Death
He kindly stopped for me.
Emily Dickinson, Because I could not stop for Death
I would have wished for those late nineteenth century wasting disease to fall over me, or a quick march up the guillotine would suffice. I craved for a quick slash of the wrist and fade away as I see my own life blood seep into Charles' Persian carpet. I yearned to fall off anywhere that was high enough so that I could never tell whether I am already dead when I touched the ground - touched the ground? More like shattered, unrecognised bits of meat.
But all evaporated whenever I saw his handwriting. The message there was clear although I wished to hell he was not so. I wished to hell he was not so precise in writing down everything.
I wished to hell he was not dead.
Let me tell you, then, little lost reader, who and what could have made me think those damnable thoughts. Let me tell you a story where once a lonely girl, confused and uncertain of her place in the world, found it in the warm friendship of a man and a girl named Piotr and Illyana Rasputin.
There was my heart and soul, there was my sanity, there was, too, my priced possession: my emotions. I never expected anything to be so wonderful yet so short. But it was, had been and will remain that way now that both were gone.
I tried to take in the news that he died. Lord, I tried. And it was no better when I learnt of Illyana's demise. I broke down and cried, cried as I had never cried before, and there was nothing more I would have wanted to do than sit and weep beside his body.
And there was nothing else left for me. Not in the X-Men, not in myself. Not even the world. I gave it all away to him, and now he was gone. How can I live on now that he was dead? He died, and some parts in me died with him. I was a robot, living in a husk that looked to the others like Kitty Pryde, a emotionless husk.
My skin looked okay, but inside I felt hollow and empty, and I fancied myself hearing echoes whenever I tapped lightly at my limbs. There was nothing, emptiness rule and I was no more human than the rest. I feel, I cry, I laugh, I need love. I was human, a breathing being that was capable to love and feel and sense when he was alive.
And suddenly the blue sky was gone. The flowers, the breeze, the smell of paint over canvas,… they all lay silent in the room where he used to paint. There will be no more canvas, painted or empty, that will decorate the room. The paint will lay untouched, the brush dry and hard, the pencils unsharpened.
I can no longer hear his delightful Russian lisp.
There will be no more torn jeans I have to sew.
He cannot play his violin for us any longer.
There is nothing more inside me.
There is nothing I can relate to, anymore. My world suddenly lost its logic, balance, and purpose of direction. What was I fighting for? Is it worth fighting for, anyway?
I have to go out.
I have to find out my own way. I have to be where I can recover what I have lost. It doesn't matter where it is, and I won't care even if it needs me to get out of professor's academy.
I have to leave.
Jubilee closed the tattered diary and carried it over to Kitty's now deserted desk. When she was about to leave the room she noticed a small slip of paper peeking from one of Kitty's romance novels she had in the shelf next to the desk. Curiosity got the better of her as she carefully pulled it out.
My dear Katya,
This is my last letter ever to you. So please read carefully. What I am about to say will shock you, but in any case read this carefully.
You knew that our beloved vrach*, Hank, has discovered a cure for the Legacy virus. He has decided to keep it under wraps, though, because he doesn't know exactly how it works and its effects to mutants.
I have decided to be the first to try it. I am not sure whether I'll be able to see you again, but in any case, please remember that I love you very much. I really do.
There are no regrets, Katya. What have I got to lose? I know I'll gain, at least for the rest of the mutants like us, the knowledge of how it works to combat the Legacy virus. That should help the rest of the world who suffers the same fate as I have did with Illyana.
I remembered how much you suffered when Illyana died. I know you know how I felt exactly, being her closest druhg*. I don't want that to happen to anyone else. It is important that what happened to us both does not repeat itself in any other form on any other human being, mutant or not.
I know not what will become of me after I tried it, Katya. There is no telling. If I recover, I will take you to a shopping spree in Madison Avenue, or wherever. It will be your call.
My last testament to you especially, Katya, is that if anything goes wrong, or should I never recover from the side effects of the cure, remember that I always love you. I really do love you, as I have never loved anyone else before you.
Don't try to follow me if the bad thing happened. Live for me. For Illyana, for us. My memories with you should live longer than my body can, and I will be happy that you will remain alive for us both. Live for us here, with the good Professor. With your friends here.
Remember one thing only, Katya. Whatever happens, I love you and I'll always be with you. In more ways than you may know.
(signed)
Piotr Nikolievitch Rasputin
Jubilee walked out of the room silently and closed the door, but not before taking one last look inside. There was nothing disturbed since three months Kitty had gone. She had been volunteering to dust the room since.
A few doors down was Piotr's drawing room. She glanced at it for a while, then walked to the door and unlocked it. She had been trusted to hold the keys to the two rooms.
As she entered the faint smell of oil paint wafted into her nose. She drew open the curtains and the limp autumn sun tried its best to light up the room. Shadows clung to the corners, but it was adequate for Jubilee to look around.
There were piles of unfinished paintings which Piotr had lovingly stashed away in a box. He had written upon the box, 'proceedings to the final piece', whatever that meant. As she went through them she realised Piotr would have never finished any of it.
The paintings were in various stages of incompletion; some had the figures unpainted, others had the background or the foreground empty. Some were somewhat nearing completion, but Piotr had abandoned them, probably unsatisfied with the result.
Ray was just downstairs when he suddenly heard Jubilee's high-pitched scream. He came rushing upstairs. "What's the matter?"
"Call everyone! Especially Ms Jean Grey! I need her help!"
"Tell me what's the matter then I'll call everyone!" He was worried; Jubilee looked as if she had swallowed some sort of emotion-fixing pills.
"I found something!"
Within minutes everyone gathered in the main hall while Jubilee and Jean Grey tinkered with the paintings. About ten minutes later she looked around, beaming with happiness.
"Get on wit' it, kid," Logan growled. He had been sleeping when Jubilee pulled him off his hammock.
"What's with Piotr's old paintings?" Scott asked. "He used to tell me he'd break my neck if I ever touched it."
"Have you no respect for the dead, my dear child?" Ororo asked. "Let his belongings be."
Here Jubilee smiled. "I think he won't mind."
As the rest exchanged bewildered looks Charles merely looked on. Slowly he nodded and smiled to himself. "If only Kitty knew…" he sighed almost to himself.
"What is it, professor?" Hank asked.
"Wait and see. This will be a spectacle."
Slowly Jean used her power to lift the bundle of paintings high above them but enough for the others to see. Then it began.
With her powers Jean began flipping through the five-hundred odd pieces of the frameless paintings, and slowly everyone saw that the paintings began to form out of nothing. A big space was left in the middle as the background and the foreground were filled to existence, its riot of colours mirrored only by the explosion of a Spring goddess went wild.
Slowly everyone saw it, though.
"Oh my God…"
"It's… it's beautiful…" Hank said, his eyes filled with tears.
"My Goddess,… could it be…?"
"Yes, princess. It is."
"It's so beautiful…"
"If only Kitty were here."
The blank in the middle of the painting was slowly filled out with primitives of two figures, then slowly, layer by layer, it was filled in and they all saw who it was; Piotr and Kitty, sitting side by side amidst the colourful flowers and the blue sky background. Piotr wore farmer's shirt and a tight pair of doeskin breeches while Kitty wore some medieval-looking dress that looked so unearthly beautiful. They were looking at them, smiling happily with emotions so real they all could not help but smile back.
It had been painstakingly coloured layer by layer that the effect was as shocking as it had been touching. But the best was yet to come.
"Ah!"
"It's… It's moving!"
"What is it doing?"
"They're… kissing."
The kissing had been rendered as if it was played upon a VCR with the 'SLOW' option on. When the moment the two touched each other's lips they all fell silent, in absolute awe with the scene.
With that the painting came to an end. Everyone in the hall was silent for a while, looking at the final painting where the two lovers kissed. Finally.
Ororo was trying hard not to cry while Scott looked downward now and then. Charles merely smiled and nodded to himself. Hank was in full gear now, his tears were everywhere. Gambit and Rogue drew themselves together and stared knowingly at the painting. Logan stared at it nonchalantly, but from the way his cigar moved vigorously between his lips Jubilee knew he was trying to control his emotions. Kurt crossed himself and whispered a prayer for the two. Ray smiled at her, to which she nodded happily.
"Yep," Logan finally broke the emotional silence with eyes still trained at the painting, "if only the Cat was here." His voice cracked at the end of his sentence.
The End
*vrach: doctor
*drugh: friend