A short story on Ralph and Jack's meeting, ten years into the future, if it would ever occur.
They call us young: A Short Story
I was walking down the block, slowly, not too sure on whether to continue or head back from which I came, and pretending that who I was going to meet at the park that day would be a pretty eyed girl. Although, that just meant I was trying to trick myself into believing that, because no pretty eyed girl had been waiting there for me at all. Instead, I had to face a red-headed ghost of the past. That of a freckled face, icy-blue eyes, and a very familiar memory. To whom I was meeting gave me a sort of chill, one that felt like a devil hanging over my shoulder and peering into my soul. Quite a chill indeed, but also very nostalgic.
This person, I remember, made some horrible, ghastly mistakes. However, "mistakes" isn't the single word I would use to describe those horrible, ghastly things he did. Perhaps I'm over exaggerating, but at the same time I may not be at all. He seemed now, ten years into the future, a bit worn down. This boy I remember, ten years in the past, was no where near what I see today.
Jack Merridew, the source of my misery and whom I was meeting at the park that day, is now very much a gentleman. Ten years back, a gentleman wasn't the word I would have used to describe him in the least. Let me explain, having to consider the various details that have been left out until today and the various secrets I have kept to myself these past ten years. Just let me describe this never ending cycle of remembrance that runs through my overworked mind. Jack Merridew, as I remember him, is a savage.
I had been thinking about this as I walked through the park, still treading slowly, until I found myself facing the park bench Jack and I agreed to meet at. I sat quietly, the November air slipping in and out of my mouth in huge, foggy puffs, staring at what could only be described as nothing in particular. People passed by me, children and adults alike, baring no knowledge of my unmistakable nervousness. I continued to let my mind wander until I felt a warm pressure against my cheek. I instinctively looked up, freeing myself of useless musings, and starred into the blue eyes of Jack.
He smiled at me, pulling away a paper cup full of hot coffee from my cheek, and settled down next to me. I couldn't help but stare. Jack and I had not met prior to this and he, instead, got a hold of me via telephone. His voice sounded desperate and tired when I last spoke to him and I had imagined someone with a messy appearance. Someone with droopy eyelids, dull pupils, and maybe a little bit of a five o'clock shadow. Jack looked nothing of the sort, very clean in fact. Although, as I looked a tad closer, I noticed that his smile didn't reach his ears and his eyes weren't as bright as they used be, probably even a darker shade of blue, if possible.
"I tried calling your name a couple of times," Jack said, startling me out of my inspection. I realized I had been rudely staring and averted my eyes. "You didn't answer me and I pondered over the thought of pouring coffee over your head before taking a more subtle approach. The coffee's warm isn't it, Ralph?" He asked, my name rolling off of his tongue like his would do mine, an old habit I supposed. He placed the cup that had previously been pressed up against my cheek into my hand. Jack, apparently, took it upon himself to buy me a cup of coffee, seeing as he held his own cup.
"Thank you," I said, looking up at Jack. He was taller than me, regrettably so, but that had always been the case. Jack nodded at me, taking a sip of the black coffee that steamed in his cup. Neither of us spoke after that, just caught up in whatever separate thoughts we were lingering in. We only sat, staring into our drinks, not able to break the hovering silence. It had stayed like that for a couple of moments before I noticed Jack shift uncomfortably. He didn't look at me, whether he was afraid or just as nervous as I was, but his eyes never chanced a look at mine.
"I'm sorry," Jack whispered, barely audible enough for me to hear. I turned to face him, noticing that, even from that angle, I could tell his freckles had disappeared with age. "I'm sorry about Simon, I'm sorry about Piggy, I'm sorry for not ever listening to you, I'm sorry for my animal like behavior, but most of all I'm sorry for what I almost ended up doing to you." His speech ended with that. Never looking me in the eye, never turning to face me.
Jack was mourning, I knew, and I couldn't blame him. It wasn't hard to see through him and I didn't even bother responding, knowing fully well that he was afraid of what I might say. He wasn't stupid, but he was weakening, something that just starts happening after drowning in the past. I know exactly what he had been through all those years back, all those years through, and I know that it just becomes a part of you and never leaves. That feeling of rage, that feeling of guilt, that feeling fear and a chanced bit of...savagery.
It's a horrible memory, that one of the island. I can still remember the crash. How the plane was scattered and lost amongst the blue of the ocean and the green of the island. We had come together at some point, all of the boys, and coped with each other and the unmistakable description of being lost. It had felt as if we were gone, nonexistent, even off the face of the Earth, almost. There were no adults, no inhabitants on the island and most of all no order. Our order was a ghost, there but not there, seen but not seen. We weren't a civilization, we were barbarians with the illusion of laws in our midst. Order was never there, just a grotesque copy of the adult world.
There was Sam and Eric, Roger, Piggy, Simon, Jack, myself, the other biguns, and the littluns. I was chosen as chief and gladly accepted that role, not aware of what was to come. The conch, a shell Piggy had found, was our interpretation of order. When you hear the conch, come quietly, sit down, and listen to whatever Ralph, your chief, has to say until the conch is given to you, signaling your turn to speak. I gave out as much orders as the sea launches rolling waves. "Build shelters!" I would exclaim. "I'm chief and I say the shelters need to be built and the fire must be kept going!"
The fire was our only source of rescue. The smoke that it produced would hint that we were on the island and my hope was fueled on that commitment alone. I thought the fire was where my peace of mind would be kept safe, where I would stay sane if I ever decided to lose my marbles. If the fire keeps going then our rescue is for sure. No doubts and no rethinking, the fire would do just that.
Jack, on the other hand, had more important ideals in mind. He and the choir group would go hunting for pigs, leaving Simon and I to work on the shelters alone with the littluns, who would usually run off to play ten minutes in to our work. Funny, the shelters were half for the littluns anyway. They believed to have seen a beast and I decided that shelters should be made for them to feel safer in, us biguns included. All the same, Jack would run off into the forest and chase pigs with most of the older boys, having me fed up with just about everything he did.
I would tell him to keep watch on the fire, he would go hunt pigs. I would tell him to help build shelters, he would go hunt pigs. Sometimes I think that even while I was asleep he was hunting those damned pigs. Half the time I felt like we were a married couple with a large amount of kids and a bad relationship. On the edge of divorce and fighting over who should get custody of the children, which ended up fitting in with the reality of our arguing.
He didn't want me to be chief anymore and decided to head off on his own, gradually taking more and more of our former group with him each day that passed. I was left with Simon, Piggy, Sam and Eric, and a few littluns. Even then Jack still wanted to take more away from me and stole some fire. We were invited to a feast one night. Jack and his hunters caught a pig and cooked it for dinner. I must admit that I was drooling at the sight, fruits didn't seem to be enough after a while. It was obvious they had gone barbaric. They were once gentlemen but now savages and I was sure that I didn't want to become them.
That night Simon died. Pierced through his flesh with Jack's pointed hunting stick, the rest of the lot poking at Simon with their own. Sometimes I wonder if it was purposeful or purely accident. It was dark that night, even with the small fire, and Simon's figure came out of no where, right into the middle of the hunters cheers and mimics of a pig hunt. The next morning Piggy told me not to think about it, that it was all just one big accident, no worries just forget it. That wasn't an option for me, death wasn't something I could forget on the island, no less an accidental murder. Everything else turned sour when even that wasn't the end of Jack's wrath.
He stole Piggy's specs, the only way to light our fire. The lens would reflect the sun, starting a bright flame and the beginning to another attempt at rescue. I thought Jack had gone too far that time and suggested to Piggy, and Sam and Eric that we request Piggy's specs back. At the time I still felt like we were gentlemen, not savages, and that I would have given Jack some fire if he politely asked. Given that he didn't do that the other three boys and I made it over to Jack's side of the island, with the conch, and promptly requested the specs be handed to us. I was foolish to think we could have settled that situation like adults when we couldn't even act like proper children.
Piggy was fed up with Jack, with his hunters, and his bullying. The chubby boy took the conch from my hands and held it up, symbolizing his nonexistent power and his nonexistent right to speak. He spoke to Jack, he spoke to his hunters, and even now to this very day I think he was partially talking to me too. He spoke of our imaginary order, how we needed to stop our nonsense and just be adults, but we weren't adults and our nonsense never did end. Piggy was killed after he had spoken, truly on intent, no accidents made, it was done purposely. Roger had pushed a rock from where he was standing and the large thing had knocked Piggy straight off his feet and into the sea, never to be seen again.
Sam and Eric, those poor twins, were forced to join Jack and his lot on one side of the island, leaving me alone. I was going to die, I knew it, it was me who was going to be next. Sam and Eric told me Jack and his hunters would be hunting me down and they did. I tried to hide, my cover was blown. I tried to run, and Jack put the island on fire to smoke me out. Savages with sticks in their hands chased me everywhere, all corners blocked, all exists unseen behind the smoke. Suddenly, It all stopped and ended with large, platformed military boots. The fire had caught the attention of the Royal Navy and I had to blink twice to believe in what I was seeing. We were rescued.
It appalls me still, the irony of how it had been Jack's fire that saved us all from the point of no return. Our small island nation would have never survived even if I faked chief-hood. My fire wasn't strong enough to withstand the lingering air of competition between Jack and I and it burned out long before Piggy's specs were even taken away from us. There was never order little world, we were too caught up in the now to even think about what would happen later. Being adults as out of the question, but staying civilized could have been an option we chose not to see. It wasn't all Jack's fault that had happened the way it did, I am partially to blame, no matter how hard I tried to keep us all from ending up the way we did.
Unfortunately, children have less of a sense of responsibility, causing us to have fallen apart the way we had. Maybe if we had been adults we could have lasted longer, formed better bonds, and even created our own working replica of a society, but no. The world of the innocent got in our way and we took it upon ourselves to overlook what was more important than fires, or hunting, or even playing on the beach. We could have worked on each other and found ways to indulge in who we were as a whole. Sometimes the essence of what could have been still haunts me now, and even after many years of therapy I still can't help that fear of cooking up pork chops for dinner or looking at friends without thinking of a hundred different ways they could skin me alive. The past never seems to fall behind me as much as it should, still looming over my fair hair and sitting atop my head, like a nice hat.
As I looked at Jack's non-freckled face, I began to feel sorry for him. What must it be like to carry death over you shoulders, like a planet only weighed by the force of gravity? What type of nightmares do you have at night with the responsibility of those slaughters in your head? If I were never Ralph and came in to the world as Jack I wouldn't be able to live long enough to figure these things out. I respect him in the sense that he is able to carry on, but at the same time I can't help but wonder if he even cries about these things at night. Did he used to? Does he still do so now? These things I may never know, but maybe that's for the best at the end of it all.
"I'm such an imbecile," Jack snorted. "Who am I to ask for you for forgiveness? I don't deserve such pleasures." As he said these things to me his eyes never left the ground, still unable to look me in the eyes. He was right, of course, he didn't deserve my forgiveness, but I couldn't help this sudden urge to forgive him with all my might and accept his apology with no questions asked. I used to think the world could do without Jack Merridew. To hell if he lived or if he died. Him dead means nothing else to fear in the world. There would be no more pigs, or deaths, or islands, just life.
I realize today that everything would still be there even with Jack Merridew gone. My past won't let me forget the island or push aside my memory of all the other boys. Piggy and Simon still would have died and Jack still would have tried to kill me. Even if he died before I got to meet with him again this all still happened. There is no changing the past, just making a better future and I intend to make my future just as bright as an orange fire.
"I deserve to die." It came out as a whisper at first and I had thought I heard wrong before I noticed that Jack was still speaking to me. My eyes met with those icy-blue pupils as Jack looked up from the ground and finally faced me after what seemed like forever. "I deserve to die with Simon and Piggy, where they can poke me with sharp sticks and drop heavy rocks over my head, just like I did to them." His eyes were pleading and yearning, almost as if he wanted me to agree with him and my worst. Instead, I shook my head and took his shoulder in my head.
"You don't deserve to die," I said. "No one deserves to die as young as we are. Let's not add more deaths to our history together. We at least owe ourselves that." Jack nodded at me, bits of tears forming in his eyes. He pulled his shoulder away from my hand and wiped away at his eyes before I could see the first tear fall from his pair of vast oceans, reminding me of that island so long ago.
We left the park together, Jack and I, and I can honestly say that our chat that day lifted some long, overdue weight off of my shoulders. I think I was waiting for an apology from Jack for a long time now, like it was holding me back from the rest of my life. I'm glad to say that we became friends after that, close friends in fact. We help each other, trying to make up for our mistakes in the past. Sometimes Jack talks about the littluns and I can't help but miss them and wonder how much they've changed and grown. Surely they have gone through as much trauma as we had and still try to cope with everything just as we do. Jack says we should all have a reunion some day, and all too soon I find myself agreeing with him.
Being young is hard in the adult world, I can still wholeheartedly say that today. Sometimes it's like Jack and I are still on the island, having fights and arguing over little things, but it's understandable. We can call ourselves civil, polite, and proper gentlemen, but that small bit of savagery will never go away. Jack still loses his temper easily and I have to help him calm down before he gets out of hand. I find myself getting angry over small things too, easily getting angered at Jack, even after he apologizes for whatever reason I started yelling at him in the first place. There's still that feeling of 'I wanna choke you sometimes' but we keep ourselves civil, because we want this friendship to last.
Jack and I were never meant to be friends, but we try as best we could and it pays off. I can forgive him for everything he's done and yet never let it go at the same time. I find it impossible to not hold some resent against Jack even when I cry over the telephone, asking him to help me forget my nightmares. I forgave him more for myself than for him, realizing that I had been holding on to so much anger over the past. We taught each other to let some things go without forgetting about our reasons for being so angry.
That's the most important part, never forgetting. You can forgive your worst enemy, cry for the man who never cried for you, and feel sorry for people who did you wrong, but you can never forget what had happened in the past. Let there be anger, let there be fear, guilt, and rage. Use these feelings to help you guide your own path and fight for the things you believe in, or need, or just selfishly want. They're ambitions, not reasons to curl up on your couch and pity yourself. I still think about the island, the boys, and our imaginary order, and people still tell me that I'm young and it'll all go away as I grow old, but I don't believe them. My past isn't some old pair of clothes, it can't be thrown away so easily. I want to remember it and I want to cry about it every now and again. It makes me feel human, it makes Jack feel human, and most of all it helps us gain some of what we lost, even after we grow old and gray. It's all still there on an island of green and blue, far away on an ocean so vast and gloomy.
And there it is! Hope you all enjoyed it. Remember, this is my story so don't copyright!