Excerpts From The Mayor's Journal
November 12: This has got to be one of the worst days of my life and the hardest to write about. I don't even feel like writing yet I know I have to get it down to keep my mind straight. I'm here in the office when I should be with Sally and the girls but I needed some time to myself to get my thoughts straightened out. Thoughts such as 'Is this all my fault?' and 'Could I have prevented this somehow?' No matter how many times I've asked myself those questions I come up with blanks. I don't know. I simply do not know!
I knew Jojo went out at night to that observatory. Even after it was known to all what he did there and that knowledge most likely took away a lot of his privacy he still went up to work on whatever had taken his fancy at the moment. I never realized what genius he was showing in his inventions and the way he composed the scattered noises into wonderful music, I never had a clue. I was blind to it all, I now know this. Blind fool that I was.
But how was I to know? He never said a word. Or perhaps he did and in my foolishness was deaf to it. The thing is, my father treated me the same way, drilling in the importance of the coming official position and what I needed to do once I had filled it. How was I to know my own son would think different? It was just the way of things, father to son. My father took it from his grandmother and it would have most likely been from my grandfather had not there been that terrible accident with the cantelope and donkey cart. It was simply accepted as tradition. A tradition as old as Whoville itself.
If I myself had any ambitions other than becoming mayor I do not remember them now.
But now it was clear that Jojo did not fit in with the scheme of things and I believe his oldest sister shall be the one to fill that role now. She is quite intelligent, mind you, and I believe she will be a wonderful one!
I just wished Jojo could at least try it. For one day, perhaps? But then again, he didn't have the confidence his sister Hanna has. She can be quite stubborn and that trait could serve her well against the city council.
But anyway. Back to Jojo. Back to my son. And my heartbreak.
He didn't return from the observatory the other night. When breakfast time came around and I was ready to greet him with the allotted 12 seconds, the chair spun around empty. No sign of Jojo. Sally and I thought at first he was still asleep in his room. I went to check and still….no Jojo. Not only that but his bed hadn't even been slept in.
The only other place he could be was the old observatory. Once again I made my way up there, using the ingenious sling device Jojo had created even though my weight almost toppled it. I pushed open the small opening he had cut out of the main door and as soon as my eyes adjusted to the darkness I beheld….. pure carnage.
What was once Jojo's beautiful marvelous music machine was now no more than a stack of twisted metal, broken strings and connections. Bits of metal were scattered all over the floor and even the large telescope lens was lying smashed to pieces.
What had happened! I have no clue. All I know is that the body of my son must lie there. Somewhere, under all that wreckage. I tried like a madman to move it aside, all the while calling and then screaming my son's name. The only response I got was the echoes of my cries. I pulled, I pushed, I lifted and tossed aside more weight than I had ever been possible of but to no avail. No sign of my son or his body anywhere.
I finally came to my senses and called for help. When the emergency team came they too lifted and pulled and shifted the wreckage but there was just so much. So much of it all. They needed to bring in heavier equipment and build a ramp to get it all up there. No-one could do all that alone.
They then told me to go home, to break the news to my wife and kids. I didn't want to leave, I yelled at them that my son needed me, I had to be there! I was almost out of my mind with sorrow and fear.
They forced me to leave. I know it was for the best but my heart just couldn't accept that. I was leaving my son, my son who might be hurt badly under all that and needed me to help him. Was he calling for me and I couldn't hear him? Was he thinking of me while he lay crushed and helpless?
I don't remember walking home, I don't remember which way I took. All I remember is the incredible ache in my heart and the pain in my stomach as if someone had taken the biggest cleaver in the lot and twisted it all up inside me.
Sally. I must be strong for Sally.
Oh how hard it was to break the news to her! Her very first child, her baby. He was the hardest too, 2 months premature. He fought so hard for life and we fought with him. I remember looking down at him when he was just a few hours old. So tiny. He was only the length of my hand. His arms and legs were so thin, so fragile. I was so very afraid to even hold him. How could I support this fragile tiny body without breaking him? I handled him as if he were made of the finest porcelain. More than once we thought we had lost him, more than one the monitors keened that awful long single note that sent doctors stampeding into the room and closing Sally and I out, to work to get his heart beating again. When that blip returned it was the sweetest sound I had ever heard.
And now, I have lost you again, Jojo. No doctors can help you now.
Sally was strong, bless her. She was always the strongest one of us both. She broke down and cried. I held her and we both cried. Then she collected herself and gathered the girls together. I went into my office and closed the door. I could hear the wails of sorrow through the walls but I couldn't bring myself to join them, to help console and comfort the girls.
I couldn't console and comfort myself.
They're coming up today to start clearing more of the stuff away, so we can find him.
I can't write anymore. My heart is breaking. I must go to Sally and help her and the girls. They may bring him home today. I don't want them to see that. Let them remember him as he was.