Author's Note: Hi there! So this is the first bit of writing I'm putting up in (checks date) years upon years upon years. Just a little fic inspired by the song The Temporary Blues by The Features. (Awesome band, check them out!) Don't know how long it will be etc…just sort of felt like sharing. I guess this is a sort of Prologue of sorts, pretty short, sifting through ideas for the rest of the fic at the moment. Hope you enjoy!
Disclaimer: I clearly don't own DBZ or The Features.
The Temporary Blues-Prologue
Traded in my tennis shoes
For steel-toed rubber boots
I've got my own uniform to wear
They've given me a plastic hat,
Earplugs and a funny net for my head
I'm well prepared
Gohan stood up and dusted himself off after his brief tumble down the mountainside. It had been a long time since he had run as long, and as fast down through the forest clearing as he just did, consequently his feet and brain weren't relaying the same messages, one stopping, one relishing in the exercise. It wasn't as though Gohan hadn't been working out, but the careless abandon of running full out hadn't occurred in quite some time. Gohan gazed out at the valley he had just come upon after his run and stumble. It was almost as if it was the first time Gohan had ever seen the valley even though he spent his whole childhood around the area. Gohan realized that it really was the first time he could look out upon the glimmering lake at sunset without a sense of foreboding that comes with training to fight the next great threat to the earth. He remembered the first time he had come to the valley, his eagle eyes jumping at the memory spotting the small cave he lived in for a year of his youth. It didn't seem like his own life at times, Gohan often replayed his memories like a movie— the fear, the pain, and death—surely not the life experiences of a normal fifteen year old boy—the loneliness—But of course Gohan was never a normal child.
Gohan supposed his life had gotten better since he was eleven. A predictable routine after a lifetime of worry and tumult was a welcome change. Though it was almost as if Gohan had already lived once, sometimes he thought that he too had died that day out in the desert. His eleven-year-old self transcending into another world, the one that included his father. He realized how naïve he really was about the world once he actually had to live in it. Life had always seemed like one big game of cat and mouse. Make his mother happy by studying while figuring out ways to get outside to play. The game got darker as time went on, but it was never a real life, there was always a new enemy, someone or something they had to stop. Gohan realized that he never actually dreamed of a future past the next fight. His dreams only consisted of somehow winning the battle and returning home, in essence, not once did Gohan actually think of his own future—of growing up.
This conundrum was the result. After Cell, and the passing of his father and former life, Gohan felt lost. Although there were so many possibilities for him to pursue, after all he was always a smart child, it was as if without the next fight there was no purpose for a future. His vision of the future of the world, the one they were always protecting, never had a business man Gohan, or a Professor Gohan, or even a martial artist Gohan. Gohan understood that children did tend to only live in the present, he saw this when he looked after and played with Trunks and his little brother. The big difference between their childhood and his though, their present included whose house they were going to play at the next day, what video they should watch, what game they should play next. Children truly are involved in simply the present—Gohan was never a child.
Thinking in these ways only further confused Gohan, one thing he realized after Cell was that he hated to be psychoanalyzed. Of course, none of his family or friends would admit to doing so, but clearly their worry for the most powerful being on the planet being an eleven year old who just lost their father overrode his desire for them not to try and fix him. One could actually argue that Gohan was better suited than all of them to deal with tragedy after all that had already happened in his short life. Though of course, like all brave children with a stunted childhood, there was bound to be a hiccup or two in their journey to adulthood…
Well that's a start, not much happened obviously, though it will. If you liked it at all or are interested in reading more, let me know and I'll continue!