Sinking
Like Stones
By: Dark Draconain
Rated: G
Feedback: If you
please
Disclaimer: I
own nothing. Title from "Don't Panic" by Coldplay
Summery:
"A hundred years from now, when they write about him, what will
they say?"
Author's Note: Another less-than-recent piece of writing, this time from July 2004. I wanted to write something about how Jon dealt with his dad's death, and how that influenced his decision, without it being a really, really angsty "I'm nobody living a dead man's dream." This is how it became his dream, too. So there.
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Sinking Like Stones
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"A hundred years from now, when they write about him, what will they say?" asked the man in the drab black suit.
I would say he was a dreamer. I would say he was a good man. I would say he reached for the stars, and couldn't care less about what anyone said. I would say I loved him.
"They'll say he was a scientist," I replied.
"A very good one," the man pointed out, scribbling something onto a tattered notepad.
"Yeah."
"Okay," said the man. He sighed and shoved the pad into a pocket of his overcoat. "Sorry about your loss, kid."
"Thanks," I told him. I watched him walk away, leaving me behind. Alone with a dead man's ghost. I turned back to the tombstone, watched shadows flicker across its grainy texture. I ran my fingers over the stone. It was cold. Cold and lifeless, without passion or feeling.
That was wrong. It didn't fit. This slab of rock was the last earthly piece of my dad and it was meaningless. It was dust.
I turned away, walked back through the smog and damp of San Francisco, never to return. Wet blades of grass slashed my polished black shoes, shinning faint reflections on the toes. They were like dark little mirrors. A way into another world; a world that could never be reached.
Somewhere someone disagreed. Someone thought the impossible could be done. They would find a way. Dad would have found a way. What would I do?
Would I walk away like I was right now? Would I try to find the way?
Dad used to tell me to never give up. "Reach for the starts, Jon," he'd say "because the sky just isn't high enough."
But the sky seemed plenty high from my vantage. Too high.
It struck me then that I didn't know who I was. My whole life I'd been my father's son, living my father's dream. And now he was gone. So were did that leave me? A blank page. A blank page sitting next to an inked pen, ready to be written on but with nothing to write.
A hundred years from now, when they wrote about me, what would they say? Would I be just another footnote in my father's legacy?
I didn't believe in destiny. I didn't believe people were chosen or not chosen. I believed you made your own way.
I stopped walking and turned around, went back to the tombstone.
It was as cold and grey as when I'd left it. I didn't know what to do; I didn't know where to go. I didn't want to think any more.
All I wanted was my dad back. But that was something no one could give me. I sat down on the grass and faced the rain. It was picking up, lashing my face, beating tears out of my eyes.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to end this way.
I looked back at the headstone, ran my fingers over it again. Felt the cold. The mirror in my shoes was shinning against the rain, glimmering like a sparkle at the end of time. It was subtle. It was a little thing. But that was all life was: a series of little things.
I smile cracked my face, pushing through hot tears that ran down, cooled by the rain. I watched the way the water bounced off leaves, springing back to life after falling and shattering: Silver daggers ricocheting across an impossible impasse.
"I'll see you later, Dad."
I stood and walked back the way I'd come. I wasn't going to be a footnote.
fin