Crashing Walls
I don't understand it. I never will. I will never pretend to.
A week ago he was fine.
The funeral is on Thursday.
On Monday he coughed at lunch-time. On Tuesday he was more tired than usual. On Wednesday he said he had a cold. On Thursday he had a headache. On Friday he had a fever.
Now I was sitting at his bedside.
'Wat… Watson,' Holmes began weakly, fighting for his voice, 'do you r-realise… how… brilliant this world is, ev-' He broke off abruptly in a fit of coughing. I came over to him.
'Holmes-'
'Everything. I… wouldn't change it… for anything. Even… even the bad th-things. They just… make it better. Watson, don't let me go!'
We both knew what he meant. And then I saw his eyes change from the pained and fearful look they'd adopted for a week now, to peace and acceptance. And then the horror started to wrap itself around me in icy tendrils. I took his hand.
'Holmes, you're not going anywhere,' I told him firmly, but I was beginning to tremble inside. It didn't show outwardly – I was hidden behind myself.
My friend was hardly conscious, but he still managed to throw the words out. Holmes, fighting to the… fighting. There was sweat on his forehead, matting his hair to it.
'I… never told you,' he gasped, for he was a sinking ship, 'but Watson… John… you are the… best, most l-loyal… friend a man… could have… Thank you.'
The other thoughts whispering in my head did not matter, just one. He was trying to say goodbye.
'Oh no,' I cried, leaping up and letting my chair crash to the floor, not noticing, not caring, 'Don't do this! Don't you dare do this to me! Not now, not ever! Holmes, listen to me! You're going to get through this – don't look at me like that! You won't leave me, Sherlock!' The walls I had built up were breaking, the emotions leaking through the cracks and glossing over my eyes. And then it was flowing and flooding and I just couldn't stop it.
I paced desperately around the room like a man possessed. 'You have so much left to do here! The world needs you! Don't give up! You can't finish here now!'
When the next words came I had my back to Holmes, and I froze. I could hear the clarity in his voice, the perfect final understanding.
'Finish?' a small laugh of disbelief, 'but I've only just begun… It… all makes sense now….'
I have never been so completely and utterly terrified to turn around in all my life. But, damn you world, I did, and I had to build a thousand concrete walls in my mind to protect myself from reality.
He was horribly still.
Tell me he was sleeping.
That he would wake up.
Before I noticed what I was doing, I was by his bed and checking his pulse, but the hope refused to come. His pulse clung onto that last spark, then flickered like an unsteady light bulb and faded away, following Sherlock Holmes to a place without me.
What happened next was blurry, and only flashes were clear.
Stumbling out of the room.
It didn't happen!
Punching the walls.
I can't think.
Cursing the world.
I can't breathe.
Cursing him for leaving me.
Why does the sun mock me?
Bleeding the colours out of the world.
Leave me alone.
Black, grey, black, grey, black, black, everything is black.
It was cold.
The sun was too bright. Light was shed across the whole room – it showed me everything. I don't want to see! Close the curtains, take away my eyes. I was a shadow, running from brightness.
It was silent.
Yet the silence was full of noise. Silence was the child screaming outside. I wanted to scream too. But that would be accepting. Couldn't the child be quiet? No-one should tell me because I knew it wasn't true. I didn't want to hear. Take away my ears. I was deafened, flying from sound.
My hands were wet.
From water on a cloth. Another reminder. I was out of place here. Surroundings tried to push me out. I didn't want to feel. Take away my hands. I was numb, fleeing from humanity.
The rain.
It laughed because it refused to fall. I was choking under the oppression of this tiny world where I was nothing. I didn't want to cry! Take away my emotion. I am frozen because I was sad. I was sad because I was frozen.
He was d – gone.
I was lonely.
I was alone. Now I was scared. I was terrified. Light hurt, sound hurt, feeling hurt, my world was in agony. Let me live numb, in darkness, silent. I was ice.
It was cold.
A hesitant knock on the door. Mrs Hudson. She comes in, and the horror of the room envelopes her, bringing out the realisation.
'Is he – '
I looked at her, and the cold sun was shining and now children in the street were laughing and a bird was laughing too.
'Mrs Hudson – ' I managed, before all my walls came crashing down around me. Together we wept the rain out of the sky.
XXXX
I woke up with a jolt. There was a moment of complete confusion, followed by plain, ecstatic relief. It was all a dream! Holmes was alive!
As I savoured this fact there was tap on the door.
'Doctor,' our landlady called through the wood, 'The funeral is in an hour.'
The funeral was a quiet affair. Watson did not attend. Three years passed by before he allowed himself to mourn.
"He is all gone into the world of light, and I alone sit lingering here.'
Henry Vaughan.