Disclaimer: I do not own the copyright for Waking the dead or its characters – all rights belong to the BBC
Content: Boyd - Series 7 spoiler
Rating: K
When reading Joodiff's fantastically brilliant 'Twelve Months' a line jumped out to me that I have never considered before. It stuck with me and the result of it was this little ficlet. I know it isn't much to offer, but thank you as always for taking the time to read it.
500 Words Of Sorrow
The weight is heavy, almost heavier than he can bear, violently crushing his body like a forceful boa constrictor that has wrapped itself stiflingly around his chest, squeezing his life from him. Immeasurable pressure agonisingly encroaches devoiding him of strength. He wonders by what power he is still standing because of himself he has and is nothing.
A wretched broken man, he walks gravely ahead. His head low and steely gaze fixed firmly forward. With one painful step after the next he feels the immensity intensify until he is no longer able to breathe. Panic begins to stir as his lungs struggle to hold onto the air that his body is desperately craving. Vaguely he sees the daylight glimmer a few yards in front of him. So close but still just out of reach. He desires to run into it, to freely take large gulps of deep cleansing breaths to rid himself of the suffocating force that embraces him, but he can't. His journey is slow and heartbreakingly painful - like a condemned man making his final journey. And in many ways he is.
This is not the natural order. This is not the way of the universe. He catches his breath as he feels it falter, unsure if he can continue. But he has to. He owes it to him. His final act.
Face after face pass him by in a hazy blur each one etched with pitiful sympathy. He despises their pity. Sanctimonious and self-righteous they dare to judge him. Their glum expressions barely hiding their contempt or the fact that they place the blame firmly on his shoulders. The shoulders that now carry the coffin of his dead son.
He feels their eyes burning into him as he passes and freely confesses to every one of their accusational stares. Before the gavel had even fell he readily fully accepted the charges and declared himself guilty. As he wearily makes his way down the narrow aisle of the church he knows that not one of them could condemn him as much as he condemns himself. But then he has paid the highest price. His punishment will be eternal. He has lost a part of him, his son. His only son. In his soul he feels death, not as a bystander but as someone who knows that as his beautiful boy drew his final breath a part of the father died too.
The lump in his throat increases. He wants to scream his pain into the ether in a desperate bid to release it, but he is stoically silent. He knows his tears will fall much later when the world has once again faded away leaving him alone with his memories and demons. He is also acutely aware that once they begin to fall he will be completely helpless to stem them.
The weight is heavy, heavier than he can bear, but it is not in his shoulders that he feels the deep agonising ache, but in his heart.