Meaning

July 24th

Untitled (locked)

filed under: private

I'm setting this to private though I'm sure that if you're out there (and I hope... I ihope/i you are) you are able to figure out my password. Actually, I'm pretty sure you already have. For once, I don't mind. On the contrary, in fact.

It's the first entry since... that day and I'm not even sure what the purpose of this will be. My therapist surely wouldn't appreciate me writing to the dead. Or maybe she would. By now, she would call anything progress that is not me sitting in her office, staring into the middle distance. Her words.

Mrs. Hudson keeps calling me, asking me what to do with your possessions. I haven't been able to give her an answer yet. At least not one that would satisfy her. Or me.

In fact, I haven't been to the flat yet. I had her pick up some of my clothes and I have moved in with Harry. She hates it, I hate it, but it's the only place I could go. I don't know when or if I can go back home.

Part of me thinks, Mrs. Hudson is right about donating your scientific equipment to a school. I don't know what you did with half of them, so it might be for the best. But there is other stuff, I can't part with as easily.

If you were here, reading over my shoulder (I hate that, by the way), you'd call me sentimental. I probably am. But if there is any upside to your idisappearance/i, it's that I don't have to give a damn about what you think.

I have learned a great many things from you since we met. I will never be able to read people or things as easily as you do (and don't say: "Obviously."), but what I did understand is that everything is more than meets the eye. Everything has a story to tell. So I can't just go back to the flat and put everything in storage boxes or give it away. Sentimental as it may be I can't put your life (and mine, by extension) into storage. I simply can't.

There is, for example, that Cluedo board you so expertly pinned to the wall. Of course, it's useless now but it does tell a story, does it not? It tells a story of a player who had, obviously, been very angry with the outcome of the game. There is that indentation on the board where said gamer had smashed down the token in frustration, raving about how the scenario the rulebook provided cannot be correct. Because it is, obviously, impossible that a game designed for eight year old has miraculously outsmarted the great Sherlock Holmes.

There are other things, too. All the times you took your boredom out on the apartment, shooting the wall, blood dripping from your harpoon. And however did those earphones end up on the bull's head? I once talked to my therapist about these things and she was convinced I was making you up. But I couldn't dream any of this up even if I tried.

But I digress. The point is, I think, that all of this... these great adventures (if you really iare/i reading this, don't do the face)... these amazing stories... I won't forget them. Ever. They are stories that need to be told instead of being boxed away. But I'm not ready yet to do either.

I must end this now, Harry has made dinner. It'll be atrocious but the domesticity is a nice distraction.

I may be delusional for believing in hope against hope but if you're out there, reading this... I just want you to know that I understand. Well, not entirely because, as always, you haven't told me the whole story. What I do understand is that you obviously had your reasons.

So until further... shall I call it 'notice'?... only one question remains.

Why?

It's the last entry in John's blog. An entry with only one recipient, one who is believed to be dead.

The doctor, the military officer inside him iknows/i. He's been there, all along the process. He has seen Sherlock's body being wheeled off, has seen him there on the slab, has identified him for the police. He has picked out the suit, has put the box with the diamond cufflinks on top of the pile. And he has been at the funeral. All of this he has endured with trained stoicism.

The friend, the best friend in him doesn't believe. Instead, he has left that post out on the blog as a beacon.

In the first two weeks, he has checked the email connected to the site in five minute intervals. The more time passes, the less frequent his checks become. Now, he only signs in once a day, sometimes he even skips a one.

Tonight, he has fallen asleep with his head on the desk. This happens often lately because he works too and eats to little. When he isn't working at the small joined practice, he searches the web, tries to run down a few contacts and leads. It's tedious and probably pointless but he has to do it. It's keeping him sane.

"You've got mail."

John jerks up and almost falls over in his chair. Catching his bearings, his rubs at his eyes, trying to clear his vision. He clicks on little bubble symbol on his desktop and let's the email download.

Then he stares at the screen in utter disbelief. Or maybe it is belief, he is not quite sure. He clicks the IP address which, of course, is re-routed to some anonymous server in Belarus. Then he goes back to the message and reads it again. And again.

Three little words. To any other person, they wouldn't mean anything but to him, they means the world.

Re: Untitled

Friends help people.