The Obituary

I am afraid that the next face of Vivien Leigh was not as charming or dear as the previous ones I had mentioned. It was still as fair, still as perfect as I remember first seeing it in that crowded theatre.

But that image imprinted on the black-and-white newspaper, presenting her matured features and her deep, mysterious eyes looking away from the camera and to the side, was nowhere near the charming Scarlett O'Hara whose beauty I had first fell victim to. The grimy, saturated portrait had a grim quality to it, and the headline above it made my jaw drop in shock. And suddenly, I realized that she was no longer my fair Lady Olivier.

It happened a year ago, I remember. I was employed in this organization already. I had done my work fairly well, setting an example for you nitwits, but nothing further than that. My pursuit of excellence was present and ongoing, but after months of torment, I had failed to move an inch from my current reputation of being a renowned Spy and absolutely nothing else. This did not satisfy me.

Popularity does not equal quality.

Mostly I wanted to distance myself from a man thought to be the finest Spy ever to have set foot in the Team Fortress Organization. Oh, how I loathed that man. I always have. Not because of some petty jealousy, not because of my delusion that I was better than him. God forbid, I know that I couldn't be. I may be an arrogant fool but I'm no idiot. I hated him because of his luck. He was practically the bright-red feather atop Fortuna's hat. Ah, and his life was so melo-fucking-dramatic. And yet- lo and behold, the God among men! - he managed to overcome all odds. The first time I heard of his past his status seemed explainable. No wonder the people dubbed him the best. They felt sorry for him. The poor, easily misguided fools.

Now, as a professional, and as my competition, I respect the man. On occasion (a very rare occasion), I even admire him. But as a judgmental man…

I'm not saying I hate him.

I'm saying I hate him so much.

And nobody could measure with him. Nobody dared. Also, the man had many rivals, my mentor included. He might have been equal with him, if he did not have one gruesome trait: his origin.

"He is a brilliant agent… from Marseilles."

"He is highly appreciated… in Marseilles."

"He is the brightest man we have… here, in Marseilles."

And that simple ten-letter word crippled him. It stunted his chances of becoming the best. And every time I heard those mock-praises, all I could hear was this:

"He runs very fast… for a man with one leg."

And if Marseilles did that to him, what chance did I have, a poor orphan boy from Avignon? Alas, the 'orphan' part had often brought sympathy upon the fairer sex, but my magnetic attraction did little for my international success. I had done my job well, but nothing too extraordinary. Nothing worthy of that overrated, disgusting, filthy, mangy cur that always kept me one fucking step behind…!

Ah.

I do believe I am grinding my teeth. I am so sorry you needed to witness that. This rant of mine does have something to do with the story at hand (my hatred for the man who shall not be name does not, but I decided to put it in). For you see, that one day, that one tragic day, I received my rush of motivation. And this motivation dared me to defeat every single one of my predecessors. Sadly, the image I had to witness, the news I had to read were hardly worth it.

It was the eight day of July.

It was a Saturday morning. I remember it because that is the day when the battle starts at nine rather than seven o'clock in the morrow. I managed to sleep half-decently that night, those extra two hours acting as a blessing. I couldn't have even functioned if it weren't for them. I'm not entirely sure what the matter was, but I suppose my night terrors returned that day. Either that, or it was simply too hot in the base.

I sauntered through the base, listening to the quiet around me. It was so calm and serene that I could hear myself blinking. I suppose you haven't been up yet, Scout. But this was your typical calm before the storm.

I brewed myself a fresh cup of coffee and untied the hemp knot securing this week's newspapers. I grabbed the one on top and lazily flipped through it. The doctor would want the obituaries, I mused as I flipped the pages back. The kid would prefer the comics. I suppose the Peanuts were at a higher standard than now. Still, they were almost comedy.

A couple of pages later, I noticed that I was only barely skimming the headlines. My head was still light. But the image I saw at that moment cleared up my vision completely. My morning lethargy had vanished. I looked at her. This was her, this was my Vivien. But something was off. Her photograph was saturated in a manner photographers edit their work whenever they wish to reflect a tragedy behind it. It reminded me of those photographs of Kennedy that were out in the papers a couple of years ago. The same distant expression, the same lifeless smile.

As I saw the headlines, my jaw dropped. Not with distress, but with surprise. And I recall not even reading the tinted headline all the way through.

Vivien Leigh found dead…

…found dead…

…dead…

It's… funny.

All the worst things in life start with the letter 'D'. Death, disease, defeat…

I felt sick. This woman had grown on me. I lived my life idolizing her, admiring her work, living in a delusion that I would once get to meet her, to see this exquisite beauty in person. A part of me thought that she would never die. But she did, and it was anticlimactic, at best, to find out that it could go by in a flicker.

I brought myself to read more about her death. She died of tuberculosis, of all things. Her lungs filled with fluid and she suffocated. She suffered. She was fifty-three years of age.

I never knew the woman; we never even spoke or made contact. But there I was, completely devastated (another word starting with a 'D', I see). She had contracted the illness near the end of the war. I had no idea. Truth be told, I never thought much about her. If I wasn't in the mood to read the news that morning, her death might have passed me by. I would continue to live on, unaffected by her. I would not care about the fact that splendor could evaporate in an instant, and leave behind only dust and ashes. Her image seemed to fragment itself into small grains, that later flew away, carried by the wind. Just like that… it was over.

And the worst part was, I considered myself an admirer of that woman. But the truth was, up until that day, I paid little or no attention to her ventures. I had forgotten her.

And suddenly, the melancholy slipped away, and was replaced by pure anger. If such a talent had gone unnoticed just until her death, what chance did I have? What chance did I have? If I died tomorrow, who would remember me? A mediocre government agent was nothing to mourn. You could get those a dime-a-dozen. I ignored my teammates, you, as you walked past me, muttering greetings and incoherent groans. I lit my cigarette and stared into the inflamed ash at the end. As it became dry, it fell on the newspaper. There it would lay, and nobody would care.

That day I decided that I would make something of myself. I would continue to battle until my last breath. I would be remembered decades past my departure. If I couldn't protect Vivien from being forgotten, I could protect myself.

And I had to protect and support my ill-named love.

The battle that day was gruesome. All sympathy escaped my actions, if there was any to begin with. The end of my blade flew into their backs, and an odd sense of accomplishment overcame me as I felt their blood seep through my gloves. Bodies began piling up, and their expressions begged for mercy. Their glassy eyes looked up into mine. I knew that they would remember this moment, quite literally, until they died.

It was the shortest fight I remember.

As I returned to my quarters, I sat on my bed and looked into the distance, the surge of anger slowly making its way out of my system and being replaced with rationalization, and the sense of my own mortality. One day, another man might hold a knife against my severed throat. Will he have enough decency to let me look away, so that my last earthly sight wouldn't be of his grotesque grimace? And if I managed to find myself in such a situation, would I be considered a legend, a fallen hero? Or would I be considered an incompetent oaf?

I did not cry that night. But I would have, if I had one speck of humanity left in me.


The group looked up at the Spy, smoking his long, thin cigarette while he eyeballed the blank television screen.

"Wow," the Sniper said, holding out the remote flatly on his hand. The Frenchman sniffed, only to clear his nose. With a smirk, he snatched the remote and flicked its on switch. He then laid his arm over the arm rest of the sofa.

"And that's why we're watching A Streetcar Named Desire," he announced as the turned on the set, just as the commercials before the film began. The Scout groaned.

"Aw, no fair!" He extended his arm out to the Spy. "I totally wanted to watch Psycho! Why do we always have to watch what you wanna watch?!"

"Listen, kid," The Soldier started, "You make up a long story on why you admire Grace Kelly or whoever the hell acts in his movies, and we'll watch Psycho."

The Scout considered the idea briefly before waving his hand at the television screen and lazily lounged on the couch.

"'S not worth it."

"I actually don't mind," the Engineer said as the jingle on-screen made everyone aware that Winston tastes good like a (click, click) cigarette should. "My lil' girl loves that movie. She knows it by heart."

"Pepper or Sarah?" The Sniper asked, turning his head to him.

"Sarah. Pepper hates black-and-white movies. She says they-"

"Make her nauseous, yes. You… you told me that before," he said, gingerly averting his eyes from the Texan.

"But man, Spook really knows how to tell a story," the Texan began, trying to fill in the gap between the repetitive commercials and the main picture.

"I know," the Sniper responded. "The last time he was this worked up over anything was when he figured out how to stab people with an icicle."

"Nah," the Texan clicked his tongue. "I think it was back when he discovered Bob Dylan."

"God, don't remind me!" The Sniper buried his head in his hands. He lowered the tone of his voice just low enough for the Spy not to hear them. "One fucking morning I wanted to wake up without him singing Highway 61 in the shower."

"What was that, Victor?" The Spy asked, moving his head away from the screen.

"Eh… nothin'."

The Frenchman stared at him with furrowed eyebrows before he returned to watching the screen, anxious for the film to start. He began tapping his foot, and act everyone noticed but did not care to warn him about. The Texan let out a short laugh.

"If- if ya think Dylan is bad, you obviously haven't woken up every morning for a year to your daughter singin'-!"

"I Can't Get No Satisfaction," the Sniper ended, looking at the screen and wringing his hands tautly.

"Huh. I 'spose I told you a lot about Pepper."

"Y-yes. Yes you did."

"Shhh!" The Spy raised up his index finger at them as the Warner Bros. logo appeared on screen. The mercenaries smiled at the Frenchman, looking at the television screen intensely. He could be such a child sometimes.

"Wait a sec!" The Scout spoke up at what the Spy considered to have been the most inappropriate moment. This was, of course, any moment when Vivien Leigh was presented. "You said five faces of that… Viv… whatshername."

The Medic quirked up an eyebrow. "Seriously? Her name is right there on display…" he pointed.

"Yeah, well, anyway… you only told us about four faces."

And the group suddenly turned their eyes towards the Spy, who desperately tried not to give in to their demands and tell them the last image of her.


You see, I did not want to tell them. It was too private. After that little fiasco, I realized that movies and photographs wouldn't be enough to keep her in my memory. I needed something, something to keep close to my heart. I needed a personal item, like those boots I keep tucked in my closet remind me of my sister. More specifically, a moment when my aunt decided that Lorraine needed some work done.

"Alright, the first thing you need to do is take off those horrible boots."

"But-!" She protested behind her book, the Bible (under which she hid a copy of Lady Chatterley's Lover, as I would later discover).

"I like these boots!"

My aunt waved her hand at her, completely ignoring me. I was sitting on the table and eating candy, bored out of my mind.

"Look, if you want to impress that man you're pursuing, you will have to make an effort. And I will help you do so."

"You really don't have to do that."

"I know... That's what makes me so nice." She smiled. "You see, whenever I see someone less fortunate than I- and let's face it, who isn't less fortunate than I?- my tender heart tends to start to bleed." She grabbed a brush off her vanity desk and walked up to my sister, curling herself up defensively. "And when someone needs a make-over, I simply have to take over, I know- I know!"

She said the last part loudly when she put her hand atop Lorraine's shoulder as the girl attempted to stand up and run away.

"…exactly what they need," she finished as the girl gave in to her demands, rolling her eyes. 'Help', she mouthed at me. My aunt held her hairbrush up and made a stroke through her curly, brown hair.

"And even in your case-!"

She looked at her bare palm as the brush got stuck inside Lorraine's locks.

"…though it's the toughest case I've yet to face…"

Huh? Ahem...

Excuse me, my mind tends to wander. Where was I? Ah, yes! The boots. Those remind me of Lo. My Ambassador reminds me of my love, my dream. But then again, everything reminds me of her. Sadly, Vivien does not have such a special place in my heart. But, I supposed, she deserved a special place near it.

So I looked at my weapon, thinking of ideas to make it happen, to keep her in my memory just a little bit longer.

So I did what I did.

And almost immediately I knew that I had made a giant mistake.