A/N - This I always intended as sort of the next step on Rhetts voyage - and believe me it has been underway for the longest time - at times almost forgotten and left to die, but well not completely so here it is.
I guess now this is officially a two shot, a two shot of two independent chapters... though still somehow linked together. For now I don't intend for more to come of this particular story.
Be forewarned this is not the happiest moments of our chaps life.
On Leaving Atlanta - Part two: The Blinding Second of Realisation.
"Noo..."
"Noooooo..."
His hoarse cries punctured the wind time after time again – eerily blending in with the omnipresent cries of the seagulls that flew hither and thither, like torn bits of paper trapped by the wind.
"Nooooooo..."
The world around him a blurry mess, of grey, brown and dark blue hues. A strong wind galling in from the North. With each crushing blow it raised the waves in high dark towers before letting them crash and shatter against the rocky shores. White foam slowly retracting itself into the angry ocean, submitting themselves to another round of this wild untameable ride.
A lone figure stood facing the wind, though stood might perhaps be a little bit of an overstatement. He was crushed on all fours, screaming in agony against the wind.
His white shirt was soaked through hanging as a second skin against his body. The only other protection he wore against the insistent wind was a black vest, equally drenched. His dark grey breeches were muddied and ruined by the rough contact with the ground beneath. The dark leather boots that clad the lower part of his leg was in all likelihood ruined as well and sure to raise a frowning eyebrow and a disapproving glance from the landlady at the shabby inn where he stayed.
Not that our man in question was aware of any of this. The pain he felt was to intense. It blocked out everything else. It was a numbing pain too real too overwhelming.
Yet again his cry pierced the air.
"Nooooo"
His hands dug deeper into the shallow layer of soil covering the ground. His face was white and ghost like despite the biting wind. His hair hung in black unruly strands a stark contrast to the whiteness of his face, almost covering his eyes that saw nothing of the dramatic scenery that he was part of.
"Noooo..."
It was a cry filled with sadness and pain, resonating from deep within his empty soul. Like the eerie ominous cry of a seagull on a stormy night which could send shivers down the back of even the most hardened sailor. A cry of the damned burning in the fires of hell for eternity. Though not yet dead, he seemed like he was being subjected to a punishment of the soul of equal intensity.
In that moment he was a man lost, a man without past, present or future. Nothing existed but this all encompassing pain, caught as he was between insanity and a blinding burst of sanity that brought with it this painful acknowledgement of the world.
It was a dramatic scenery. Above wild clouds hunted across the sky of multiple greys. From time to time the merest hint of sunlight was allowed through the looming roof, adding to the wildness of the weather, casting faint shadows on the waters below and for a second freezing the world at large in a glow of colour that was otherwise sucked away by the bleak greyness. After each such glimpse of sun and warmth the galling tempest would turn up her flare, as if in a burst of rage that anything dared disturb her blowing rage.
After days? weeks? months? of drifting around in a world of dreary numbness something had stirred him out of the unfeeling slumber in which he had existed for what might have been forever. He had wanted the numbness, wanted to flow eternally in that state of only half being. It meant that he didn't have to relate to anything or anyone. It had enabled him to see his painful past as if through a clouded lens, a little out of focus and blurred around the edges. Like something that belonged to somebody else's life. He had hoped he could stay that way forever.
The last thing he remembered clearly was the tear stained goodbye in Atlanta. He had considered staying, had almost done it in fact, but the part of him that had wanted out had been stronger. He had convinced himself that it was the only way to survive. Leave to live had been his final conscious thought.
He wondered if his current agony was the punishment?
Would this pain stay with him forever?
Was he doomed to live and relive his nightmares again and again?
Could he find his relief anywhere?
He knew the answer to the last question only. Though he was not sure if its numbing effect would still be enough. But until recently he had had the answer. Relief could be found at the bottom of an endless sea of golden liquid. Those alluring bottles, almost female like in form, who drew him in with their promises of healing and forgetting.
That was, his rusty brain acknowledged, the reason for his current state. He had willed himself away from those whispered promises. He had come to fear them as the most well travelled sailor feared the alluring melodic appeal of the mermaids as they enticed the sailors too close to an unforgiving shore.
Forgetting had come at a steep price.
He had been close to destruction, too close to forever losing himself in that glittery golden world, but something had held him back, perhaps it was the echo of the voice that had almost caused him to stay behind.
He had wanted the destruction as well, longed for the day when he no longer had to make even the tiresome effort of breathing. Then why had he forsworn its fickle relief. Why had he led himself onto the path that now found him here?
"All I wanted was peace and quiet" He lifted his eyes heavenward, an accusing undertone in his words. His voice was hoarse and haggard from the shouting. Speaking each word causing pain to his sore throat. Not that he cared. Physical pain was nothing compared to the pain that had scorched his soul.
How could he move forward from that, from this – his current situation. He felt trapped. Trapped in his own agony. His sorrow and sadness over all that had passed before. Betrayed by Fate that had always shown new possibilities for him to explore whenever he had come to a dead end. But now he felt like every door around him was shut tight. Leaving not even the slightest crack for him to move forward through.
Suddenly he started shaking. He had not previously noticed the cold, but with sanity regaining majority in his mind he was hit by it. Forcefully. Teeth chattering with such force that they hindered further cries of sorrow to escape his lips. Slowly he leaned back on his heels. Sitting still. In the muddy rocky wetness... Hands resting on knees. Fingers digging into the soaked fabric. Raising his head to meet the wind. Eyes hazy, for a moment glimmering with the wildness of insanity that mastered him before... then changing to tormented defeat. No mask – no protection. Mouth twisted into a grim twisted grimace – half satyrical smile - half something else. Had a priest been present he would certainly have taken this moment to cross himself. Surely such a face could only be seen in someone possessed by the devil.
R&S
"I knew you were a quitter"
"Always knew you were a quitter" the voice rang clear... and he... he recognised it. As something from a different life.
He tried to open his eyes, but they wouldn't obey.
"A quitter, Rhett Butler... nothing but a lousy quitter"
"You left me before. Numerous times. So many times that I gave up counting... gave up counting years ago" A laughter he did not recognise cackled loudly. Again he tried to open his eyes. But the success was no greater than before.
"A lousy coward and a quitter – no surprises there" This time a note of bitterness had crept into the voice. A melodic female voice tinted by the accent of his home coast. He knew that voice. The person it belonged to had been part of his life. Part of him? It spoke to every bone, every fibre in his body. Challenging him to fight. Again he tried in vain to open his eyes. See the face belonging to the voice.
I am not a quitter – He wanted to speak out his denial to the accusations. But in the same way his eyes didn't obey – nor did his voice.
"I knew it. Once a quitter, always a quitter... You bastardly coward. How do you dare leave me... again" Where before there had been bitterness only sadness was left. Sadness and a hint of something else. Defeat...
R&S
When at last Rhett Butler managed to open his eyes he might as well have spared himself the effort. It was dark. Darker than dark. No outline of anything could be seen, no indication of his whereabouts nor the time. Only that it was night – either that or the sun had given in and surrendered to darkness.
He lay completely still, trying to pierce through the fog that seemed to cloud his brain. Where was he?
Slowly, flittering images entered his brain. A storm, a wild ride, there had been screaming. Himself? Someone or something else? Rain. As that memory entered his brain he could almost feel the icy torrents as they drummed against his skin after having soaked through his clothes.
And then the voice. The accusing voice. Had it been real or a dream? For once I proved you wrong.. I didn't quit. But this knowledge brought him no pleasure. It didn't really matter if he was a quitter or nor.
He closed his eyes again, felt his body go limp and he sank deeper into the downy pillows.
What did anything matter?
It wasn't his fault he hadn't been able to quit.
Part of him had wanted to, just to get rid of the pain, but then the voice. Could it really have been her voice? The voice had stirred something in him. A forgotten will to live...? But why, what did it matter? She couldn't possibly be here... She was far away, across the ocean... and as far as he knew she had no idea about his current whereabouts. So why would she... her disembodied voice reach out for him as she had never done before?
And he was sure she had no idea where he had gone. Hell he didn't even know where he was, how the hell should anybody else have a clue? Unless of course all his travels was something he had only imagined doing, and he in all actuality had never managed to leave Atlanta and this was in fact a bed in the mental asylum that had been established on the outskirts of the town as a place where soldiers, who had been to mentally damaged by the horrors of the war, could live a life in oblivion under the shades of struggling magnolias forgetting and being forgotten.
He hoped not, though it would have been one hell of an imaginary work. The only thing he was proud of of late was the fact that he had managed to get away despite his last minute doubt.
He lay completely still hoping to remember something that could prove to him that his foggyish memories were real. Around him was darkness, and in his mind was darkness. He clung to the sparse memories of his last adventures. Cold wind, a crazy ride... and the pain... at least the pain was real where everything else was blurred and faint. Even now it pierced through his mind and so almost causing him to stop breathing.
And then sleep overcame him again. A light disturbed sleep, where he twisted and turned. Mumbling incoherent words where only two names stood out clearly.
R&S
"So you think by not dying you have proved something?" The voice was back. This time he was sure it was her. But he could place from where it came. It seemed to come from just next to him, yet it seemed to have travelled hundreds of miles.
"Well I will tell you something Mr High and Mighty Butler. It takes a lot more than just going on breathing to not be a quitter" Bitterness and anger again tainted the words.
"You might not be dead and gone, but you quit all the same" the voice broke. And for a moment there was silence. A ringing silence, filled with sadness and loss. He still could not get his voice to cooperate so silence was the only answer he could give.
What would he have said if he had been granted the ability to speak? Truthfully he didn't know.
"How could you, how could you do this to me..." this time it was only a hoarse whisper. The voice of her speaking more to herself than to him. No longer expecting an answer.
"How dared you quit on me, even if you didn't see it through?"
Part of him wanted to tell her that he hadn't quit on her, never could, never would, no matter what his words and actions had told. But even to him it wouldn't ring true. He had quit on her... But what did it all matter now anyhow.
"Should I congratulate you for beating the odds and not complete your quitting job. Well congratulations, you lived. You won your life and now you have to go on living it. But what will you do with it?"
"Was staying and living out what you called a sham of a marriage really that much worse than what you have been doing since?" The anger was gone, the voice was toneless. She really was defeated now, at least temporarily. Had he done that to her?
"You are a coward Rhett Butler. You accused me of being a child, but are you not the same? Would an adult run away like you have. Drowning out everybody and everything. What kind of life is that?"
"A coward and a quitter in all aspects of life that is what you are, and by God I want to despise you for it... but... but..." her voice broke in what seemed like a sob.
He lay for a long time unwilling to stir waiting for more. But no more came. She was gone. Only the echo of her voice remained. Had it all been another dream. Hazy and feverish. Yet the words stood clear in his mind as if they really had been spoken out loud.
"You won your life... Now what will you do with it?" The question pressed through the pain again and again, a fragile lifeline? What would he do with his life?
Slowly the pieces of his recent life came back to him. Hazy memories, blurred by the fog of alcohol that could never be removed.
In the end he had left. Fled like a thief in the night, a blind flight. First to Charleston where he had tried to quit his habit... but he hadn't been able to. The he had fled again. Across the ocean, the crossing of which had passed in a blur. The on solid ground again where he had started the life of a wanderer. A night here, a night there. Beautiful cities of the world he had seen without seeing. Late nights, heavy gambling, steep losses. Lustful embraces that had meant nothing to him and even less to the woman he had paid, except as a means to survival. And alcohol, long sips of burning liquid that spread warmth and obscured the mind. It had been his most steady companion. From early morning when sleep had eluded him to late at night when he had staggered and fallen into an empty bed. Was that the life that he wanted? Was it this nagging doubt, a doubt that this life was even worse than what he had left behind, that had managed him to stay away from the liquor in the end? Unleashing the pain he had kept tied down by the large quantums of alcohol. Had her voice spoken to him before and been the driving force behind that decision. He didn't remember. Probably never would.
His escape had once again been narrow. He remembered it now if only partly. One night he had gone to the train station knowing that staying in town he would never be able to break the habit. He had booked the longest fare available and had boarded the train without a glance backward. Leaving most of his possessions behind. He didn't remember how he had gotten the money he never seemed to run dry of. But with the bank accounts he held over here most bankers would be only too willing to help him, probably tipping themselves heftily in the process. Also new clothes seemed to appear out of thin air whenever the old were too dirty to wear. Not that he cared any more. Money and clothes - Well they were the least of his worries. He could afford it. At some point the train had started moving, moving endlessly through the dirty city before breaking free of the rows of huddled houses and speeding up as the landscape flew by. Northbound he would have registered if he had cared to look. Not that he had seen any of this. By then he had been in deep torpor. Brought about by the bottles he had consumed even as he boarded the train. A last attempt from the bottles to lure him in, and even in his struggle to escape he hadn't been able to resist, had deemed it easier to give in, just one last time.
In the end the train had stopped and he had been forced to disembark. Still not knowing where he was but desperately sticking to his resolution of doing without. He had wandered aimlessly, leaving the small town behind until he had found a windblown inn on its outskirts. It had had a homely feel to it that he hadn't felt in the longest time, so he had booked a room... and then, then he had rented the horse. Had it been the same day he had arrived or had he been here longer already? Well he had at some point rented the horse and ridden as if the hounds of Hell were at his heels. Well they might have been, the promise of the bottle at least held the same fear to him. Ridden blindly he had as soberness and the pain of being had engulfed him.
His escape had indeed been narrow.
Even as his mind again strayed her words popped up again. "You won your life, Now what will you do with it?" never once either in his drunken travels or even before when he had sat in an almost equal drunken torpor in the gilded cage on Peachtree street had he asked himself the question. He had pretended to, but in reality his only aim had been the escape itself. Escape and a need for peace and beauty, though what those two words in actual matter of fact meant he hadn't considered.
Strange that those words now in his feverish mind seemed like the faintest glimmer of hope in all the painfull bleakness. Perhaps after all he could find a way to live.
"You won your life, Now what will you do with it?" The answer was yet out of his grasp but he held onto the question and repeated it over and over in his mind. It allowed him to breathe even as the pain again intensified.
"You won your life, Now what will you do with it?" The words resonated through his mind even as he again drifted into a heavy sleep.