Reflections
Prologue -- "Past Ties"
By Marne E. Gustaf (A.K.A. Micansana)
This story is dedicated to Marion Larson, 1924-1997, a leader in many respects, who is very much missed.
NOTE: This story will come out slowly, and past chapters are subject to change
Michealangelo
1st Journal Entry - 1/22
My name is Michealangelo. I really don't know why I'm writing this. I think that maybe if I get this all down on paper I'll be able to begin to sort it all out.
I guess the first thing you should know about me is that I'm a mutant. A mutant turtle to be exact. I have... had three brothers just like me. We were all named after Renaissance painters. There's me, Michealangelo, my brothers Donatello and Raphael, and then there is... was Leonardo.
God, even thinking about it makes me want to scream, swear, and cry all at the same time. Leo died over a month ago, but I still can't even think of him without crying.
I'm bawling like a baby now, probably soaking the paper, probably won't be able to read what I wrote, but I'm gonna try to continue anyway. I need to get this outta my system, and everyone around here is too deep in mourning to be bothered right now.
It all started simple enough. Leo caught a cold. Splinter made him stay in bed, drink lots of liquids, etc.... I took the role of nursemaid, as I always seemed to do when one of us fell ill.
When his cold refused to respond to the normal treatment, April insisted he be moved out of the drafty sewers. He was moved into her apartment house, into my basement apartment. I still remember his protests. The warmer atmosphere seemed to help him a bit, but then he rebounded and got even worse.
I guess I should have realized something was seriously wrong when the coughing spasms began...
It wasn't until Leo started coughing up blood that he finally allowed Donatello to do some tests. I don't know why he wouldn't just do the tests in the first place. He kept telling us it was "just a cold". Now, I guess none of us will ever really know why.
The tests told us that Leo had developed a bad case of pneumonia. There wasn't much we could do. We managed to get some antibiotics, thanks to April, and we got him started on them. He started to get better... slowly.
It took him quite a while to recover... little did we know that he would never fully recover.
The peak of the illness' wrath came about two months after Donatello had diagnosed his condition. That was the night from hell. I don't remember all of it, just snippets here and there... Leo coughing up so much blood that he needed a transfusion... His nightmarish screams... screams that still haunt me... Holding him down as he thrashed like a ((trapped)) animal. To think about it makes me shudder... I think my mind has blanked out a lot of the memories from that night, and that's fine with me. I'm pretty sure I don't want to remember.
I remember the morning after. We all were sure if Leo could make it through that, he could make it through anything this disease could dish up... God, if we'd only known.
Leo was up and hobbling around the apartment about a month after that dreadful night. He acted like a caged tiger, re-toning his muscles, going overboard on his ninja exercises, even though we all warned him to take it easy, and generally being in a grumpy mood. We all put up with his cabin fever symptoms with a smile though. I think we all were very relieved that he was better, even if he was cranky. We were just glad that the trying ordeal was finally coming to a close. In fact, that might have been why we let him go with us that fateful night.
Around two weeks after Leo had got out of bed, Splinter finally gave the okay for him to go out on a practice run with us... a short one. We all had been bugging Splinter to let him go, because we were all sick of Leo's whining.
'What can happen? It's just a short run.' I remember thinking. I didn't realize that danger can lurk even on the shortest of routes.
It started out as a normal practice run. Leo was ecstatic to be outdoors. He was pulling tricks, cartwheels, flips. You would have never guessed that less than a month earlier he had been bedridden and dying.
Near the end of the run though, we spotted a group of punks breaking into a store. Leo, being the hero that he was, had to stop them.
Most of the punks were carrying blades, clubs, 'chucks, and bludgeons, though a few of them had stashed guns, which were quickly knocked from them. We fought them, knocking out or tying up almost all of them. Leo fought full force, with an amazing vigor.
After we were done, I looked at Leo. He started coughing violently, then fell down, still coughing. When the coughing ceased, Leo was unconscious, bleeding from a large crack in the side of his shell... and not breathing. Raphael made sure none of those punks lived past that night.
Between Donnie and me, we managed to get Leo breathing and keep him that way until we could get him bandaged up. We transported him back to the apartment. He still hadn't woken up... Leo never woke up after that night. He died four days later, due to the fact that the crack in his shell had leaked blood into his lungs, compounding with the fluid he still had in his lungs from the pneumonia.
I guess you could call that the end. But in real life, there is no end. It may have been Leo's end but the living have to keep on doing just that... living. I don't want to write anymore right now. I thought writing would help me, but it has just made my heart seem to rip apart all over again.
2nd Journal Entry - 2/15
Hi again. I decided to continue writing... mostly because it gives me something to do besides play scrabble with Raph and Donnie.
It's kind of odd you know. I thought if any of us ever left or died, our group would fall apart. Instead, it's seemed to pull us together. Whereas Raphael used to disappear for days, even weeks at a time, and no one would know his whereabouts, now none of us leave without telling someone where we're going. I guess we all are just so afraid that another one of us will be taken. It's sad that it took Leo's death to do this, but it's a welcome change.
I see the changes in my two brothers. I feel the changes in me. It's painful, it's sad, sorrowful mourning. I think you never really get over someone that close to you dying... I think you just get used to the idea of them being dead.
I moved back down to our sewer lair less then a week after Leo died. I couldn't stand to be in the apartment anymore. Every time I looked around, all I could see was Leo's still form and all I could hear was his harsh, scratchy breathing... and it stopping. There were too many painful memories there.
Raphael moved back about a week after me, but he was always around us. I think he's afraid to be alone... and that's scary. I know the nightmares are starting to get to him. He has become so shattered. A pale ghost of his former self. I've seen him cry more times in these last weeks since Leo died than I've ever seen him cry in his entire life. Seeing the seemingly strongest and least emotional of my brothers deteriorate like this... well, frankly it's scaring the shit outta me.
Donatello has changed too. You can't talk to him about Leo dying, he'll block you out. He's ignoring it. He hasn't slept on a bed since it happened. I'm worried that maybe he blames himself. He won't go back into his and Leo's room. He's even been less involved in his work lately. I hardly see him fixing or inventing anything anymore. He still dissapears for hours in his lab, sure, but he never has anything to show for it. I worry about him too.
Well, I'm going to quit now, maybe I'll write some more later. I can hear my brothers in the other room. Raphael is trying to convince Donnie that 'zittub' is a word, which means we'll be playing trivial pursuit soon.
Raphael
I entered the practice room, I looked around. On the wall I saw a pair of katana. They reminded me of him. "Damn" I muttered. I wanted to forget... How could Donnie forget so easily? Didn't he care? I muttered a few more obscenities and stabbed at the empty air with my sai.
In my family, I'm the hothead, I'm the risk taker, the angry one. That's why it surprises me that I outlived Leo. Leonardo was always the cautious one, the really strong one. I act like I'm stronger, but I'm probably just more arrogant. It's really ironic that Leo was taken down by a little virus. The great 'ninja master' taken down by a little bug so small it's practically invisible.
I get so mad at him sometimes. Why the hell did he have to be so stubborn? Why the fuck didn't he just take those tests in the first place?! I get so mad at him sometimes, then I remember he's dead, and I want to cry all over again.
I feel myself falling apart inside. My anger boils up inside of me, but I can't take it out on my brothers. Leo died before I could apologize to him about an argument we had. I don't wanna take that chance with Mikey or Don, so I keep the fury inside, and it burns at my guts.
It's as if I can't see past this fire, this blindness. I never was one to believe in an afterlife, but now I'm starting to wonder if maybe there is one. If there is, I hope... no, I know Leo is in heaven or whatever equivalent of it there is.
While inside is the anger and the doubt. Outside, I feel fear. My fear and others. It surrounds me, it seeks to crush me in it's bony fingers. I don't dare fight it, the fear is too great. I simply can cower and whimper in terror as the monster slowly consumes my flesh and my soul.
I started a kata with my sai, trying to let the familiar, dependable motions tame the chaos that had become my life, and the flowing movement soothe my rough, jumbled mind.
For a while it worked. Concentrating on the metal slashing the air and the glint of the sai flashing cleared my mind. I was able to get a short reprieve.
But soon the thoughts came creeping back, like blood seeping into fabric.... my thoughts returned to my absentee brother. I lost my concentration and one of the sai clattered to the floor.
I just stood there and looked down at it. It was who I was... who we were... and yet, it hurt me. All of the ninja training and self discipline the world could not... had not saved Leo. Why was I even doing this anymore?
"Damn you, Leo" I mumbled, biting back tears. Then I looked up, I saw the pair of katana on the wall... his katana.
"DAMN YOU!!" I shouted to no one. I hurled my sai away from myself angrily. It hit the concrete wall and stuck there. I left it, I exited the practice room.
Mike and Don were playing cards at the table. I saw them shoot me concerned, questioning glances. It was all it took. I covered my face and began to sob. "Why why why..." I mumbled. Why did the fates hate us so? Didn't they know that I needed Leonardo? Didn't they care?
I barely acknowledged Mike. He hugged me. "Raph," he said "We all miss him."
When I finally stopped crying and broke away from Mike, Donnie had disappeared. 'Typical' I thought acidly, anger replacing sorrow quickly, 'Always disappearing when we need him most.' I sat down across from Mike at the table, Mike pulled all the cards together and shuffled them.
"C'mon," he said "Let's play." I sighed to myself as Mike dealt me a hand for 'Go Fish', but took up the cards and distracted myself from the doom and darkness of the day.
Donatello
1st Journal Entry - 2/24
I think too much... that's my problem... I over-analyze things and I don't... no, I can't feel enough. I'm too level-headed for my own good. I still don't feel the pain of my own brother's death... and I should, damnit! I guess I've always known we'd all die sometime... I guess I always thought Raph would be first because of his carelessness.
I also always thought Leo would go down in battle... in a way he kinda did... but it was the illness that got him in the end, not the slash to his shell. I'm actually glad it was the illness. If he'd gone down in battle, there my have been no body, or only remnants of one. Then, there would always be the lingering question of if he was really dead, but this way it's clear and precise. I guess I like things this way, exact and reliable, like a computer equation... even in death.
I know he'd kill me if he ever found out I thought that way but... no, actually, on second thought, he wouldn't kill me... I have to quit using that term so liberally, even in my writing. Leo's death has brought a finality, a morbid realness to death that I never thought possible.
After he died, I was the one who prepared the body for burial, I was the one who told everyone, including April. I did everything... I thought then that it was my way of mourning, going into task mode, but now I realize I wasn't feeling anything then, and I still don't. The only thing I really feel is frustration and anger at myself for not feeling...
I don't know why I don't feel. Maybe Raph's right, maybe I don't care... but no... I DO... I care desperately... HE WAS MY BROTHER, DAMNIT! But this pain is too much to bear... I can't carry this heavy load anymore... It's hurting me, it's pulling me down... I feel like I'm drowning.
Damn, I'm just all fucked up and I don't know what to do or how to feel... I hate to say this, but life has shown no answers for me.. maybe death is the only answer...
2nd Journal Entry - 3/1
The beginning of a new month... a new beginning... Hah! How I wish it was that easy. I am feeling much better than when I wrote last. Maybe because I have realized it was my fault Leo died and accepted it.
Also, I am not proud to admit it, I have started cutting myself. I first did it by accident, but now... it feels so good... the sharp bite of pain when the razor pierces the skin, then the blood flowing red out of it and pooling on the floor. I feel the tension leaving with my blood every time I do it. I feel the pain.
I feel that maybe I am cheating somehow. If I feel pain through the cut, I am compensating for the lack of emotions I feel for my brother. Am I cheating? I don't know. I'm a scientist not a philosophist.
Maybe, in some warped way, I am punishing myself for giving such poor medical aide to Leonardo, and for causing his death and so many others pain. I think if I do it enough I will ruin myself so much that I can never hurt anyone else again...
I know my thoughts are twisted... maybe I'm going insane... maybe I already am insane... touched in the head... With all the shit I've been through, it wouldn't surprise me if I woke up tomorrow and I was completely psychotic. Maybe I already am... Maybe I'm a person somewhere in a mental ward in a straight jacket, just hallucinating that I'm a ninja turtle and that my brother died... if so, I hope I wake up soon, for this illusion is too painful.
Splinter
Journal entry 3/10
No teacher ever wants to outlive his students, and yet that is what has sadly happened to me. I have lost my prize pupil. Not only was Leonardo my pupil, though. He was my son. I realize now that I probably was too hard on him at times. I made mistakes. I am only, as to say, human. And at that, I am not even. I am a lowly rat. Nothing more than a pet to my master. Nothing more. I am glad I was able to give Leonardo something in his life, but still my sorrow is great at his passing.
Leonardo was always striving for perfection. Working endlessly to refine each ninja move that I taught him. I hope, in wherever he is now, he has found that perfection that he so much strived for in his life.
In his passing I have found myself filled with a great sadness. This grief fills me up from stem to sternum. I feel it from the tip of my tail to the core of my being. It disheartens me greatly. I feel as though my heart has fallen apart.
I also feel anger... an emotion I have strived to put out of my mind. If Leonardo had been human, his illness would have never progressed to the stage it did. He could have gone to a hospital. He could have gotten the care he needed.
With this anger, I also feel guilt. If I had not taught him the ninja ways... If I had not pounded the importance of doing the honorable thing into him... he might still be alive today...
Then I think 'at what cost?' Sure, I could have protected him, sure, I could have sheltered them all. But it is likely that they would be dead by now and I as well, if not an experiment in a lab somewhere. Oroku Saki would still be running his crooked "protection services", April would be dead, and Baxter may have taken over the city with those mousers of his.
I see how this has affected my other three students. They look to me for guidance and answers, but I am just as lost as them. I see them pulling closer together. I stay out of their link. I find myself pulling farther and farther away. Distancing myself... Why? Do I fear their deaths may be as untimely? I am lost. I am drifting. I do not know what to do...
April O'Neil
Journal Entry - 3/24
Dear Diary,
I guess I'm alone now. I want to start anew, but first I have to sift through the past. I started cleaning out
As I start this new diary, I start a new chapter in my life. The friendships I'd had in the past are now gone, I have seen that I am not needed.
As an outsider though, I have been able to observe the turtles in their mourning of their fallen comrade, the lamenting of their brother, Leonardo.
They have not been up to see me for months now... not since Mike moved out... I have been down to see them a few times, but they seem so withdrawn. Donatello was the only one who would say more than a word to me, and he seemed, I don't know... messed up...
I don't know... I have to start anew... there are times now when I can go through almost an entire day without thinking of them. Hopefully, I can return to the human race smoothly. But, how can I go back to the normal hum-drum of life when I know that there are huge talking turtles out there? How can I travel in the subway, knowing that they are not there anymore... hiding in the shadows... protecting....?
I don't know how, but I'll have to try... I have no other choice...
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