Muller-Lyer
He loves seeing their eyes the very first time the step inside his magical blue box, the thing that was so much bigger, infinitely bigger, on the inside. They simply cannot believe their eyes for those first novel seconds. Because they believe certain things and trust their eyes too much. Because they are only human. Because they never really look and never really see. The first time he opened the doors and lures them inside, tempting them with wonders untold and magic beyond their imagination and everything the world had to offer, everything in this universe and beyond.
He fancied that he could see the cosmos reflected in their irises, the flashes of gold like shooting stars, the blue-green swirls of galaxies, the brown haze that surrounded constellations, black holes in their dilated pupils swallowed it all in, greedy and ceaseless. Anything that got too close was sucked in and became compressed into a thin strand of memory that jolted into their small human minds. The whole of eternity shone upon their faces.
Always so wide; he did not think that humans could open their eyes so wide but they always surprised him. He loved it, the way the stared around them, spinning around and around and around before they turned to him with tears in their eyes. The sheer wonder of it all was upon them and they looked to him like he was a god; he was a god, in this place, his magical blue box, and they worshiped him for that little while, until they became used to it.
Only, he never really gave them the chance to become too accustomed. There had been a few of his companions who had really gotten the hang of his box, but he had panicked (there was no other word for it) and then they were gone soon after. It was too much, to share all his secrets and lies and dreams with the these people who came and went all the time. It was his doing, the coming and going, the loneliness and shame of guilt; their hearts were broken and their minds instantly dulled and there was no undoing it. The second it was over, their eyes became dead and they realized that, the whole time, they had been seeing things wrong; their world was narrow and boring. His, the one he had briefly shared with them, the one filled with wonder and magic and danger, was so much more.
His companions had become bigger on the inside to take it all in...and then there was not enough to fill the gaping hole he left behind. It was always like this, always and even now, as he stood watching his doctor grieve.
Was this how they all felt? This man had never seen the cosmos, never seen the stars up close, had never witnessed the birth and death of a star, the creation of a new planet...all this man had seen was London, his London, and now- maybe he would be fine. Maybe he would continue on like it was his London, maybe he would have no trouble filling the hole in his heart.
The reflection in the shiny black stone of his headstone told otherwise; he saw the same grief in those eyes, the same pain of leaving that they all suffered but this was more acute and it broke him inside and out. Sometimes, he though, sometimes it hurts both parties. It had hurt both him and his granddaughter, it had hurt him and the thorny flower of a girl, it had hurt him and the girl who had waited all her life for him to come back. He was convinced they were safer now, that they were all fine.
But his doctor was different; he had literally saved his life, plucked him from the ordinary and placed him on the pedestal of extraordinary and he walked among gods and devils and solved the mysteries of London as the others had solved the mysteries of the stars. His doctor was human and strong, even for the species, but he had been broken one too many times. He had seen his friend lying, apparently dead and bleeding, on a stained sidewalk and something inside him cracked into a million irreparable shards. It made him wonder if it was not his magical blue box, gone forever, that changed these small people. Maybe it was him. If it was, then letting them go was better than stringing them along through the danger and pain and grief.
Sometimes, saving people he cared for, loved, cherished, involved leaving them. He could not fathom their pain.
And, sometimes, sometimes he wondered what it would be like to be them, utterly alone and empty.
