FIDELUS - RON'S STORY - CHAPTER 1

It's been so long my friend that I'm afraid that I won't know you when I see you. The last time we met and laughed together was when we were both young, both idealistic and both pure. It's easy to be joyous when your life is unsullied, unblemished and untarnished. I know how time has changed me, I wonder how it's changed you, for change you it will. A very exacting surgeon is time, cutting away relentlessly at every dream, every vision that you are fortunate enough to be born with.

I remember you with deep affection and deeper respect my friend. We have been through some times together and you were always the strong one. You were always the one with a strategy, with a plan to fall back on. You were always the focused one. Every dream we ever saw together, you were the one who set out to accomplish it. It was never easy for me to take the backseat, but I did it gladly for I believed in the genuine affection that you professed to have for me.

I wonder if you are plagued with similar thoughts as the time to meet me again comes closer or whether you are too strong even to succumb to doubts. It is always uneasy to meet after many years have passed. So much to tell and so little to say. Yet I look forward to seeing you. I look forward to seeing the lines in your face, the gray in your hair, the slack in your body. I look forward to humanizing you, I look forward to bringing you down from the pedestal I've put you on.

I have to stop myself from looking at my watch repeatedly. An oddly fidgety habit that you used to laughingly mock me about. Your censure used to mean so much to me. Even if it was merely childish torment, my oversensitive antennae used to prick up defensively. But you never realized that, did you? You were much too involved in your own rapidly evolving life.

You'll never know that these provoking ideas have passed through my conscious sphere of thought. I have lived innumerable years trying to suppress them. All those years that I spend trying to grow out of your shadow, but never quite succeeding.

You will never realize how nervous I am today, after so long. There are so many things I want to say to you, but I never will. You always avoided deliberate delving into your heart. Were you scared to search your soul? But of course you would never tell me. You are too keen on appearing wholesome, uncomplicated to the world, to me. A tower of strength.

What did you do with your life, my friend? Did you spend it like I did, trying to live up to an unrecognized ideal? Or did you spend it running away from all confrontations? There are so many questions I need you to answer, my friend, and so many answers I'm afraid you will not be able to give. I am afraid my friend you will not be able to live up to the high standards I have set for you, and I am even more afraid that I will not be able to lower them

Do you now concede that change is something to be wary of, not merely a parameter of progress. Oh, my friend why couldn't you have stayed by me. The simple life is not to be scorned. At least it ensures three meals a day and a moderately lengthy life.

I believed in you my friend and I still do. It is because I believed in you that I let you go, and it is because I still do that I'm waiting here on this freezing day in December awaiting your return. Infallibility is something I've been warned about. But oh my friend I have cherished you so dear and so long.

The wait seems interminable. I wile my minutes away wondering what your first expression will be when you alight. Will it be joy; I dare to tell myself or perhaps bewilderment. Even fear perhaps though it is difficult to believe. But I don't know you any more, do I? I'm merely trying to predict how you would have reacted.

Have you ever been afraid my friend? Not the fear which comes from a tangible danger but a bitter terror which consumes you, which gnaws at your very innards inexplicably and unaccountably. It is devouring me, my friend. I dare not flee from it, for the fear that it may hurt me infinitely more if I do. At last I have been forced to do what you have always done my friend. I have been forced to tackle my problems myself.

Chronologically we are so far and yet so close to death. Sometimes I'm scared to peer over my shoulder for the fear that it may be leering back at me. Are you scared of death my friend? You didn't used to be. I'm hoping you aren't. I would hate to ever see you suffer.

I'm here to show you how much I love you. I'm here to show that time has not changed my fondness towards you. I don't want you to leave like you did last time, unsure of whether I wanted to see you again. I want you to know that I'm unchanging in this respect.


Oh my friend, your train is coming in. Forgive me, my friend as the men in their black cloaks move forward to apprehend you. All I can say is that I am sorry. It's been so long and they were so exacting. I'm sorry if I betrayed your trust in me. All this that I have thought as I have waited to see you for the last time, I wish that I could say to you.

You will never know what drove me to do what I did. You will never know how much I had to suffer. I will be there to see you hang and I know that behind the mask of black your eyes will be seeking me out, unforgiving. I cannot ask for forgiveness, I dare not beg your pardon.

When you die remember me as a person who loved you truly. Remember me as a person who never wished you harm. Would you blame me for the miscalculation of the fates? I shall stand here in my sheltered dell as the wind keens its requiem for you. I shall weep, since they are tears you shall never see.

I want you to know somehow before you die that I never meant you ill. I need to know that you still needed me. You came when I called. Did you come to answer or did you come to reprimand. There are so many things I need you to tell me, my friend. So many things I have to confirm.

Your train draws ever closer, friend. My head is bowed in a shame I should not feel for they tell me that it was a good thing I have done. Judas did it, Brutus did it. Were they evil men? Don't condemn me, as I know you will. Understand me, as I know you won't.

I see you now. You haven't changed as much as I expected. The city air has done you good. The wrinkles are subdued, the gray hair colored, the body toned. You are in your prime after all. That makes it so much more heinous, though I don't know why. I see the anguish in your face, though I'm too far to see. I feel it course through my veins. Forgive me my friend, for I knew not what I did.


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