Dear Readers,
So, FINALLY, after school issues, our desktop computer crashing, completely re-installing our operating system, and discovering that Microsoft Office has to be re-installed and that I have to use my dad's mac to upload this story anyway...I present you with my February fic for the Teslen Monthly Fic Challenge. The prompt is "secret admirer." I think I kind of stretched it a bit in this--since it really has nothing to do with the secret admirer thing except for maybe one little part, but it's all okay, right? I got this written and uploaded. That's a miracle in itself. So enjoy :)
Best regards from a bookworm (and obsessive Tesla fan),
Miss Pookamonga ;-P
PS: This has almost nothing to do with what I was originally going to write...stupid plotbunnies LOL
Forever
Nikola Tesla.
She traces the handwritten name lightly with her index finger, letting every syllable linger upon her lips as she murmurs it under her breath. It is like a ritual to her now. Every night since his departure she has done this, taking the tiny piece of old, yellowed paper and reading the name upon it once, twice, fifteen times. Thirty. Sixty. Eighty-four. At the end of each night she can never remember just how many. But it doesn't matter. As long as she sees his name scrawled in that all-too familiar handwriting, runs her finger across the dried rivets of ink, and whispers the sounds to the empty air around her, it feels like some part of him is still right there beside her.
Still cradling the faded scrap of paper in her hands, Helen shifts beneath the bedcovers, curling herself up into a tight ball. She brings the paper to rest against her thudding heart, as if that might ease the pang of loneliness aching within her. But of course, it doesn't. True, his name is like a fragment of his presence, but it is still just that: a fragment. It can never truly be him. And because of that devastating fact, she has spent an entire month like this, quietly pining for Nikola Tesla in the shadows of her darkened room, night after night after night.
You musn't cry, Helen, she firmly insists to herself. You've spent far too much of the past six decades crying over him. You're not an adolescent; you're not a young woman anymore. You have no reason to cry any longer.
But despite her best efforts, the tears well up in her eyes again and begin trickling down her face. She can taste the salt upon her lips as the hot liquid stings her skin. She holds out the paper with his name once more, and upon seeing it written there, the small sniffles erupt into desperate sobs, the tears dripping onto the name and blotting the ink against the already distorted paper.
"Oh, Nikola...come back to me...please..." she cries softly into her pillow. "Please don't be dead. Oh, God, please don't let him be dead!"
Tap-tap-tap.
Helen doesn't hear the odd noise at first, for her sobbing drowns out any other sound for the next few minutes. But after the tears finally subside, the noise repeats itself, and this time she catches notice of it.
Tap-tap-tap.
Puzzled, she momentarily forgets her grief and eases herself into a sitting position. She scans the room with her eyes, searching for the source of the unusual tapping.
Tap-tap-tap.
There it is again! But this time, Helen is paying closer attention to the sound, and she traces its direction to her window. Intrigued but bit apprehensive, she slips out from under the covers and tiptoes to the windowsill, where she carefully draws back the curtains to find—
She gasps.
And nearly faints at the sight.
The little white-and-grey pigeon perched on the other side of the glass cocks its head inquisitively at her, as if attempting to comprehend the meaning of the woman's strange reaction. Helen can only stare for what seems like an hour at the small feathered creature, her mind a-whirl with thoughts of Nikola feeding pigeons, Nikola amidst a flock of pigeons taking flight, Nikola nursing pigeons back to health, Nikola...until she suddenly notices the tiny roll of paper tied to the bird's leg. Before the thought of realization fully forms in her mind, she has already thrust the window open. Without hesitation, the creature hops onto her windowsill and presents its bound leg to her as if to say, For you, madam.
Helen lets out a tiny "Oh!" of delighted surprise at the bird's forwardness, and gently unties the tiny scroll from the little animal's foot. The pigeon coos in satisfaction at the completion of its mission before hopping back outside and fluttering off into the night.
"Wait, don't go!" Helen calls softly, but the bird is already gone.
Sighing, she re-directs her attention to the little roll of parchment. A thousand hopeful wishes come flooding into her mind as her fingers begin to tremble...but she quickly pushes them away. It will do her no good to build her hopes up, only to have them crushed yet again in a split second.
But the moment she unrolls the parchment and lays eyes on the words etched upon its surface, her breath catches in her throat and every bit of hope within her explodes like fireworks bursting brightly against the backdrop of the night sky.
That handwriting. She knows that handwriting.
Her entire hands are trembling now. Her eyes find the words at the top of the paper and she begins to read slowly, for fear that she might truly faint this time if her feelings overwhelm her.
From Your "Secret Admirer"
Skin as soft as an angel's feather
Eyes like the vastness of the sky arched above
Heart to which my soul is tethered
Spirit untamable like the Winds of my Love.
__
These Winds, they carry her above the earth's sorrow
Yet my Dove somehow is not shielded from it all
She still feels the pain of a broken tomorrow
And I who should catch her can only watch her fall.
__
My Dove, how am I to tell of my contriteness
When I have left you to roam far and wide, alone
Across the skies of life that seem so endless
Without a guide to bring you safely home?
__
My bleeding heart repents, and I solemnly pray
That this foul beast of sorrow shall very soon be slain
For I hope that forgiveness for my wrongs you can pay
And I promise I shall never leave you again.
For the second time that night, Helen bursts into tears.
Like with his name before, she now reads his words over and over and over again. Once. Twice. Fifteen times. She keeps reading and re-reading, letting every word burn itself into her memory, until her vision grows too blurred with her tears and she can only collapse at the foot of her bed, hugging the poem to her chest.
"Nikola, Nikola, Nikola..." The name becomes her mantra.
Time passes. She doesn't know how much time. But suddenly, as she is still shuddering with sobs, she feels someone's presence enter her room, cross over to her sitting place, and wrap his arms gently around her, pulling her into a gentle embrace.
Immediately, she buries her head into his chest and clutches at his shoulders to keep him close to her. Forever. He's promised to stay, and nothing can take him away from her now.
FINIS