The End of the Line
By
BAW
Disclaimer: The Sentinel and all the characters therein are the property of PetFly and other entities and no copyright claim is made to them; original elements are copyright to the author. The not-for-profit use of The Sentinel, as a writing exercise and as an amusement, comes, according to counsel's opinion, under 'fair use.'
Notes: This is a post-Sandburg Express story, one I didn't intend to write; it popped into my head practically whole, requiring only minor adjustment. The quotation at the end is from Wisdom 3:1-3 and is commonly used at funerals; some of you may be familiar with T. Tertius Noble's choral setting.
No stories between Sandburg Express and End of the Line are planned at this time, although one never knows--I might get Musewhacked again.
Warning: This is a death story. However, the guys die of natural causes at an advanced age.
Archive: Yes, please, wherever; just tell me where.
Thanks to my betas.
Feedback: lawrence81@iwon.com
Cascade, WA; AD 2057
As in the beginning, so in the end. We're back in the Loft again, after all these years. When we realized that the other place was too big for us and we started to look around for something more manageable, we found out that the Loft was vacant and on the market; Blair and I agreed that it was Fate. When we moved in, he put his stuff straight into the little room under the stairs.
"The Wolf in his den, and the Jaguar up in the trees," he said at the time.
I still half-expect to see Collette's when I step out on to the sidewalk, but the store has been Rafe's for a long time now--the most prestigious haberdashery in Cascade; men of fashion come from as far away as Tacoma and Vancouver to shop there. Rafe has done well for himself since he retired from the Force and started the business. He's in the shop nearly every day, though he's showing every one of his 90 years.
I look at the rows of photographs on the shelves and the mantel. Rafe and Darryl are the only ones who remember the old days. Dad and Naomi, Stevie and Maggie, Simon, Joel, Henry, Rucker, Adian, Mom, Grace, Magnus and Fiona--all gone. There's a picture of Alain in his bishop's robes; he's gone too. It's just Blair and me, now; we've outlived our wives, our children, and most of our friends.
Megan went back to Australia shortly after Sandburg got his doctorate. Magnus put her in touch with the Australian branch of the Family, and it turned out that we were right--she was a Guide, and there was an Australian Ellison, a detective with the RNSWC, who was emerging mid-life as a Sentinel, just like I did; fortunately, he knew the Family's traditions and knew what was happening to him. They bonded, and then married. I never met him, but I've seen pictures; he even looked like me. They're both gone now, but two of their children and three of their grandchildren are Sentinels.
We're old, Blair and I. Most of the time I don't feel it, but I'm 96; Blair's 88. I don't have any hair left; he's got plenty, but it's gone totally white. We both move a little slower than we used to, but we can both still drive.
We met our wives shortly after Sandburg got his doctorate; they were both in the health professions. My Kate was an ER nurse, and his Ruth was a trauma surgeon. What can I say? As much time as both of us spent in the ER, it was bound to happen.
They were both very understanding when we explained how Sandburg and I had to be close to one another. We bought a duplex and the four of us moved in, one couple in each side.
The duplex years were good ones. I became Captain of Major Crime, and then Deputy Chief for Detectives; he became Captain of Forensics, and then Deputy Chief for Support Services. We retired, then, and he taught at Pacific Tech, ultimately becoming Dean of Social & Behavioral Sciences; I taught part-time at the Academy and at Cascade Community College, but I never got into teaching as much as he did. Dr. Blair J. Sandburg; it was odd calling him 'Blair' again, after so many years of 'Jacob,' but when he went back into the academic life, he switched back.
"So," I said at the time, "your time as Jacob was. . ."
"Another stage of my life. Blair died, now Jacob has died, and Blair J. has been born. Notice that I've been growing my hair the last few months?"
He never stopped writing, even during the Jacob years; a steady stream of journal articles--anthropology, sociology, psychology--went out. He even found time to write a series of novels, under the name of 'Jake Saunders', about a detective with heightened senses. The first one was Watchman, What of the Night? They sold quite well, and were even made into a series of films. I never could watch the one called By the Waters of Babylon, though, which dealt with the Barnes mess.
Alex lived to be a very old woman in that Texas asylum, but she's gone too. I don't hate her now; she was a victim as much as anyone else. One good thing--heightened senses are accepted these days. Children who have them are identified early, and are given special training; midlife emergence is recognized, so people like me don't think they're going insane.
Sentinels are still rare, but they are not unknown; all U.S. States and Canadian Provinces, as well as most countries in Europe accept Sentinel and Demi-Sentinel evidence, if the Sentinel or Demi-Sentinel has been identified, trained in the use of his senses, and is on the Register of Sentinels; Africa, Asia, and Latin America are a patchwork--some countries do, some don't. Blair's kept up with it.
Shortly after he retired from Pacific Tech, some bright young scholar tracked the research which lead to the acceptance of heightened senses back to the Implosion, and tried to rake up the old scandal. Nothing much came of it, except that we are sometimes mentioned in footnotes of American books on the subject as possibly the first Sentinel/Guide pair of the modern era. British books speak of 'Sentinel gifts manifesting off and on in certain old Scottish families.' What Sentinel literature outside of the English-speaking world says, I don't know; Blair would.
Cascade doesn't have an active full Sentinel at the moment, although one of my grandsons has four heightened senses--everything but touch; he's a detective in Major Crime, now. All of my children and grandchildren have or had at least one enhanced sense, and most had two or more; not a full Sentinel among them, though. Stevie's daughter was one, and followed her Uncle Jim into the CPD--detective in Homicide; I was so proud of her, and was devastated when she got herself killed. Adian's son is a Sentinel, and is with the Seattle P.D.; Rucker's daughter is too, and followed her father into the Coast Guard, where she does Search & Rescue.
Sandburg's in the kitchen, fixing us some supper; his famous chicken stir-fry. Age hasn't been as good to him as it has to me. His hearing is as sharp as ever, and his mind is active. But he can hardly see at all without his glasses, and his hands are as knarled as old tree-roots. After we retired from the Force, we both regularly spent time at the range to keep our qualification, but he stopped going about six years ago. He said that shooting hurt his hands too much. He doesn't play the guitar any more, either, and he mostly uses a voice-activated word-processor.
"Hey, you neo-hippie witch-doctor punk, I'm hungry," I say.
"Five minutes, you throwback to a primitive breed of man," he replies.
We eat, I clean up; we watch the Tri-D--I'm still amazed by television 'in the round'---for a bit, then go to bed. The Jaguar is on my bed. I get in and he curls up next to me; I hear his purring in one ear and Blair's heartbeat in the other. Contented, I drift off into sleep.
From the statement of Capt. Daryl Banks, Major Crime Unit, Cascade Police Department:
At least once a week, we would check on Uncle Jim and Uncle Blair, Lt. Ellison and I. We would get doughnuts from the bakery, and stop in to see Uncle Brian before going up.
No, Mr. Ellison, Dr. Sandburg, and Mr. Rafe are not related to me by blood; I have called them 'uncle', however, since I was a child.
Today was different. No sooner had we turned onto Prospect that Steven James became tense.
"No!" he gasped, "Grandpa Jim! Uncle Blair!"
The vehicle wasn't quite stopped before he leapt out and dashed to the door. Impatient of the elevator, he took the steps two at a time. When I caught up with him he'd already opened the door with the key his grandfather had given him for emergencies. He was standing by the dining table, looking frighteningly like his grandfather as I first knew him.
"They're gone," he said, so softly I could scarcely hear him.
I dashed up to Uncle Jim's sleeping balcony; he lay flat on his back, his arms crossed on his chest, like an effigy of a knight in a Gothic cathedral, and as cold and still. I stumbled down the stairs, and threw open the French doors to the little room, where I found Uncle Blair curled up under his quilt. Both those dear old men had expressions of utter peace and happiness.
I wept when my Father died, and when my Mother died; I wept when my wife died. Although I will miss Uncle Jim and Uncle Blair, I cannot weep, or if I do it is for myself, for the loss of the last links to my childhood. For the first time I understood the words from the Burial Service:
"The souls of the righteous are in the hands of God. There can no torment touch them. In the eyes of the foolish they seem to have died, and their going from us was thought to be a calamity. But they are at peace."
The End.