Disclaimer: If someone could tell me where the rumor started that I was LMM, I would pay them to spread it around a little more. Har, har har.
"All human wisdom is summed up in two words - wait and hope "
-Alexandre Dumas Père
O&O&O&
You wake up in the morning, and give yourself one happy moment to be ordinary. You look at the sun and bless its rays tumbling onto your skin. The birds still gossip with their usual vivaciousness and the grass is splashed with the morning's tears.
These things do not know that one June night the world's axis shifted on Atlas' back. That night a boy ran into a party and changed the lives of everyone there. That a shot man in Europe has shot the world to insanity.
A trickle of subtlety heartbreaking pain in your right ventricle reminds you of your duty this morning. You are to stand and watch the man who you love and does not love you ride off round a bend to death.
You have no doubt that he will not come back. This war will destroy him. He is too beautiful for this. Beauty in an ethereal sense of the word.
Going down to breakfast, you think that this should be normal. The light should denote laughter and happiness. Bruce should be chattering like a magpie, but he is unusually stonily silent. There is too much hiding in the silence.
Walking along to the train station, as if this were a funeral procession (No, don't think that. Please, can't think that. Nonononono.), you remember things you'd rather were lost in memory.
You were standing by the train platform, and suddenly there he was. A breath was held captive for five seconds in your throat as you stared at his starry eyes and aquiline features for the first of many times.
The simple power of change that moment caused did not wash over you for years. Not until a day when he stepped through your front door, freshly back from school, and smilingly holding out some flowers. A sight engraved on your mind as if it were a locket you kept around your neck.
There are moments you wish you could forget the pattern of his smile's creases. But it is impossible-asking for winter's chill on midsummer's eve. You are Andromeda on the rocks, tied to watching the sea's rise and fall. No Perseus on the horizon. No sweetly saving forgetfulness.
If it were just pain it wouldn't be so hard; it is the hopelessness that is killing you cunningly, patiently. But inescapably.
Finally, sometime during this dither of ache, you arrive at the train station, surrounded by your family minus one (you give Jerry and Jem a quick thought and prayer.) You have come full circle-back to the place it began.
A maelstrom of kisses around the black haired focus of your thoughts. You want to curse everyone who takes a moment of his precious time left from you, though you doubt he would feel the same.
He finally stops at you. Your eyes must speak something of your secret to him, because, rather than the expected hug, he comes quite close and places his lips upon your cheek. For a moment, time stops and all you can think is that after waiting so long, you can wait longer. He is not ready. He is going off to war and you can't turn his world on its own hinges right now.
When he head comes up, you manage a tiny smile. That is how you want him to remember you. Little Una, with her thick black hair and dark sapphire eyes.
His own eyes tell you much about conflicts in his unique poetic language. Then, without a word, he turns to his sister.
After he has boarded the train, you walk over to Rilla and grasp her hand, asking for and receiving comfort and understanding. Rilla knows.
His train rounds the bend and for the next few minutes, until you are standing in your front hallway, you have no thoughts. Everything is reserved for feeling, for the anguish eating you from foot to head.
But eventually the words come back, and you hear your Mother Rosemary say, "Well, I'm thankful that ordeal is over."
You don't say anything, but think: It isn't over. It has just begun.
O&O&O&
A/N. That was a quick little thing I started back in June, and just decided to finish. I know I write waaay too much about Una/Walter/Shirley, but they are so fascinating and I find them easier to write than other LMM characters. Gah. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed. Please review (feedback always makes my day).
Hope you all have a splendiferous day!
marzoog