So I've been reading Lord of the Flies in English, and I love it. I just find the ideas and concepts Golding uses so freakin' fascinating, so I wrote this. I'm actually meant to be revising for all my exams and stuff, but since this is sort of on the topic of my literature paper, I think I can count it right?
I know this has been done a thousand and one times, but the whole "after the island" idea just has me hooked.
I never learnt his name. He was just foolish, fat, sensible Piggy with all his notions about being civil. They were my notions too... Once. Maybe still are. I don't know anymore. Maybe it's better that way. Easier to distance myself from it. Maybe I can pretend it was all a bad dream. That's what Father does; sits in his chair with his newspaper, ignores it. Ignores me. We thought our fathers knew everything, believed blindly that Daddy would come in his ship, take us away from that Island. Fat lot of good that did us all. Fat lot of good it did Piggy. He never had a father anyway.
Then there's his aunt. I saw her when we got back, waiting. Had his spare inhaler in her hand she did. That's how I knew her. She cried when he didn't come home. Done her best to keep him safe all his life, that woman. All her protection, all her nurturing couldn't stop Roger though... Funny thing is, maybe if she'd let him run like other boys, maybe if he's been allowed to live a little, he'd still be alive. He'd be fit, funny. Popular. Wouldn't have been picked on cause of his weight, his ass-mar.
Course, without him I'd be dead. I shudder. Without him, Jack would have won. A stick sharpened at both ends. I don't want to see any of the other boys again. I don't think I could ever look them in the eye, knowing what they could have done. Would have done. Besides, Father sent me away for a while, a strict military academy in the North. It was cold, tough. Like me. I learnt to hide it all away, all the memories, the pain. I can't ever forget, but I can go on pretending. Father wants me to join the Navy. Like him.
Never crossed my mind for a minute before the island that I'd do anything other. Now I'm not sure. I look at his in his uniform, the stripes down his sleeve. Not so different from war paint really, when you think about it. At night, I dream of tanned, sunburnt skin streaked with clay and crude wooden spears. Savages. I'm trying to leave it all behind, but I can't. Wouldn't be honourable. I've got to bear my cross, Piggy and Simon. The boy with the mulberry birthmark. Don't think anyone remembers him but me. Except his family, wherever they are. I wonder sometimes, about them. All the families of the boys who didn't come home. Do they still hope, pray that their sons are alive?
I wonder, I regret. But I can never forget.