N/A: hi everyone. Okay, just like I wrote in the summary, this is a DEATH FIC, even if NOT detailed. I used the song "Evening falls" by Enya for inspiration –as you will see while you read.
Hope you like it.
One last thing: even if he will never read this, I would like to dedicate this story to my dad who, on the contrary, came back into the darkness of our world.
WHEN THE EVENING FALLS
Another day comes to an end.
Another day, dedicated to the calmness of the country, the peacefulness of the nature, the tranquillizing drone of the bees.
It's during days like these, when the rheumatic attacks give me some break and allow me to devote myself to my hobby, that I manage to forget the frenzied life during my stay in London: the cases, the chases, the adrenaline… everything fades away, as if covered by a cloud.
I don't know whether I should worry about it or not, about this pleasure I get in forgetting, I mean.
Pleasure… maybe it's just an attempt not to fall in nostalgia instead.
Having to be sincere, I always hope some interesting case shows up at my cottage under the shape of a neighbour, upset by something that his or her eyes and mind can't comprehend.
Ah, old age is such an horrible thing! I'm becoming sentimental. If Watson knew… right, Watson. It's been awhile since I've last seen the good doctor. The state of health of both keep us don't allow us to see each other regularly. By now we reduced ourselves to some letters every week, in which we talk about the weather, this society which is changing… wanting to be cynical, to tell the truth our messages are a way to make ourselves sure that the other is still alive and we know it very well, just as we know that, sooner or later, the other may not answer anymore.
Death, that so many times has brushed us during our adventures, now is more impending than ever.
I shake my hand in order to free myself from these thoughts while I take off my beekeeper suit.
After having put it back, I go into the house, where my housekeeper has prepared a nice supper. Living in this tranquility, I've rediscovered the culinary pleasures I used to disdain so much during the years of my full activity.
After having finished the meal, I go to sit on my armchair near to one of the windows. There is not much to see outside, it's pitch dark, but darkness helps me to think because it hides any possible element of distraction.
I fill my pipe with some tobacco, light it up and start looking outside.
For someone who's trying not to remember what they have been and cannot be anymore, this is a not very smart way to spend the evening but, by now, I don't have anything else.
I haven't been playing my violin for quite some time, and now it lies in a corner, locked in his holder, covered by dust by now. I don't have the energy to do it like I did once anymore. I should consider the idea of giving it to someone who could make a better use of it, but, for some reason which is beyond logic, I can't separate from it.
More than once, Watson has defined me a thinking heartless machine. As usual, he had grasped just a half of the truth. I have a heart indeed, and it has come back to set it now that my mind can't take away its space anymore.
And what would Professor Moriarty think about seeing me reduced to this state? Probably he had already planned not to become so advanced in years, taking into account the 'job' he did, but, in case he had managed to do so, he could still have kept on handling his criminal activities by living some simple directions from behind a desk.
On the other hand, I'm like one of those old hounds who has had his day and the others remember for his glory days when he drove out foxes and quails and now they look at him with sadness and pity when they see him pass.
Everybody here treats me well. With some, like Mr. Stackhurst (*) I have a relationship which can be defined as friendship, but nothing like what I've lived in London with Watson, Mrs. Hudson, the Irregulars and, somehow, the inspectors of Scotland Yards and my brother Mycroft.
When the evening falls and the daylight is fading,
from within me calls - could it be I am sleeping?
For a moment I stray, then it holds me completely
close to home - I cannot say
close to home feeling so far away
I don't realize I've fallen asleep until I notice that darkness has utterly enveloped me. I try to open my eyes and, when I manage to do it, or, at least, I think I do, the situation doesn't change. I can't see my pipe, nor the faint light of the lamp which was illuminating the room.
What on earth is going on?
I then realize that I have a perception of my body, but that it is a more and more detached one. I try to get up and the detachment becomes stronger. I sit back down confused, maybe a little bit afraid.
Then I hear it: a voice. I can't understand where it's coming from, it almost seem from inside me. It invites me to stand up, it tells me that everything will be revealed if I do that. I'm sure I've already heard it somewhere, but I can't remember where, I can't remember to whom it belongs.
I try not to listen to it, to resist to that mermaid's call, but the tone is so soft that, little by little, I give up to it.
Am I really sleeping? A remote alternative starts to make itself some space in my mind, but I don't attach importance to it, even if it is more than plausible.
Aye, I must be sleeping. Then let's indulge into the dream. Taking a deep breath, I stand up.
For a moment I am breathless: on the one hand I feel like I've reached a new destination, a new stopping place on my road; on the other, I've never felt so far away from the place I come from.
Suddenly, a road appears in the darkness in front of me. With the sensation that I won't be able to go back, I take it, curious and fearful to know where it will lead me.
As I walk there before me a shadow
from another world, where no other can follow
carry me to my own, to where I can cross over
close to home - I cannot say
close to home feeling so far away
As I walk, a shadow comes to me from the other side. I can't understand whether it is a female o male shadow. It's certain, though, that it doesn't come from our world, where shadows have a master and not a will of their own like the one that is in front of me. It holds out its hand to me, inviting me to take it.
One more time, I somehow understand that if I take it, my destiny will be irreversible.
So I try to delay what's inevitable and I choose to keep walking on my own, the shadow at my side guiding me but leaving me "free".
Suddenly I find myself in front of a bridge. On the other side of it, I see a palette of lights and colours. It must be a beautiful place. I turn and, behind me, there's only darkness.
How much I would like to bring some of that beauty in the world that, now I know, is the one I come from. Maybe I did it with my job, but, apparently, it hasn't been enough.
How much I would want Watson to see where I'm going and to come with me. Somehow I know that this isn't possible, that no one can follow me where I'm going, not even my dearest friend, companion of so many adventures.
I'm sorry not to have him with me now, but it's plain that his time in darkness isn't over yet.
Once more that feeling of nearness and remoteness from home as my steps take the last feet of the bridge.
Forever searching; never right,
I am lost in oceans of night
Forever hoping I can find memories
those memories I left behind
When I finally make it to the other side, everything opens up for me. I've arrived there where absolute truth lives and rules.
There has been only one big mystery I hadn't been able to solve:
death.
By now I know what's happening to me and, somehow, maybe even with joy, I accept it.
I had tried to investigate it, consulting books and people and I had even reached some conclusions! How wrong I was! Oceans of darkness had embraced me as well, forbidding me to rip the veil which separates us from the other world.
I feel like my mind can finally rest after having fully (or almost) received the knowledge of everything. After having received this illumination, I feel all those memories I had buried in the meanders of my brain flowing back into my mind, memories I had judged useless to my purposes.
Buried, but never erased.
Memories of sensations, of people, of feelings, of events… memories of life.
A life left behind for choice. I couldn't fully live two lives at the same time. I chose to devote myself to my job, but that crossroads had never wholly disappeared from my memory.
Even though I leave will I go on believing
that this time is real - am I lost in this feeling?
Like a child passing through, never knowing the reason
I am home - I know the way
I am home - feeling oh, so far away
I suddenly realize that the shadow next to me has taken shape and yes, I had got it. I had met the person to whom the voice which had called me had belonged even if, in my lifetime, I had heard for a little, too little time.
It holds out its hand again with a smile and, this time, I accept it with mine (which had returned young and vigorous, I notice).The skin under my finger is real, just like the flesh I'm holding.
I wonder whether the world I come from hasn't been just the fruit of a dream, a dream which had lasted a lifetime, and if reality isn't here instead.
Then, what has been past, if it has really been?
Had it had sense to spend all those years on the other side?
Had it had sense to grow up, to mature, to live?
Without a doubt, it has been a nice dream, if a dream it had been and yes, in my opinion, everything has had sense, at least for arriving here, in the place I feel like my home.
But…
But I can't forget that there has been a place I had called home for a long time in the other world, and that I've never been so far away from there.
THE END
(*) see "The adventure of the Lion's Mane".
The vision of the other world is utterly personal and purely invented. Thank God, I daresay.
Hope you liked it.
Bebbe5