Title: The Symmetry of Resonance
Author: Sheera
Date written: May 8, 2006

Rating: PG-13
Word count: 1,917
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters—that honor goes to Ms. Proulx.
Feedback: Please, please, please. You really have no idea how happy it makes me.

Plot summary: This is an interactive piece of fanfiction. That's right—I'm asking for audience participation! In this piece are four first-person narratives and I would love to see who you guys think they are.

Anyone who gets all four correct (on their first try) will get a PRIZE.

These four different narratives can be from ANY character in the BBM universe, and that also means that there can be repeats.

As a sidenote: I didn't write these in the voices of the characters so much as my narration voice. I also didn't edit this as thoroughly as I should have, again my apologies.

Is it pretty obvious right now that I desperately want responses to this? Please play along if you have any guesses!

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Watching

I was surprised that no one else saw it. To me, it had been obvious all the while he was growing up. How could other people fail to notice the way he was around girls? And how he chatted incessantly with boys, always trying to get them to stay a little longer? Though he stopped doing that when he got older.

I watched out for him as best I could, but he was pretty careful. I almost talked to him about it a hundred times, but I never could figure out exactly what to say or when to say it. I hope that those days we spent together, he could feel that I understood, that I loved him no matter what. It's my opinion that a child never can get enough of that, anyway.

When he married his wife, I tried to be happy for him, but I knew that it couldn't end well. A foundation of lies is no place to start a lifetime commitment. I hoped against hope that I was wrong; that I had simply misunderstood him all these years. Even if I hadn't been wrong, she might still be the right one for him. Love doesn't usually respect the wishes of those involved.

When it turned out I was unfortunately correct, I did my best to reach out to him. We didn't see each other as much as I would have liked, and when we did speak, it seemed we were still stuck in our old patterns; pretend nothing's wrong and nothing can be wrong.

There was one time that he let slip a name, and the hunch of his shoulders and tightening of his mouth told me all I needed to know. I said nothing, merely put my hand on his shoulder and nodded all the things that were inappropriate to say.

I knew it wasn't enough, but I was glad to give him all I could.

Lost

I saw her true beauty when I asked for her hand in marriage. Until then, she had been a pretty thing that I was willing to tie the knot with, not much else. But when I said the words she'd been waiting to hear, a smile lit her face like I've never seen before and probably will never see again. I could have plucked the sun from the sky, and it wouldn't have been so brilliant as her in that moment. It was a smile filled her whole body, a joy so easy and free it left me speechless.

After the wedding, I would only have to give her the smallest compliment to see that smile again. I was dizzy with it; when I try to remember the weeks after our marriage, her laughing face is the only thing I can see.

When she held our first child, it was there again, dimmed a little bit. I thought that was natural—her labor was long and she was exhausted afterwards. Miracle working can take it out of a woman, I suppose. Now that I look back, though, I think I'd already started eroding her with the weight of my secrets. She was strong at first, still confident that she knew what she was doing. Neither of us knew what was going on, but the comfort of shared delusion made us easy with one another.

When I took her out on the town there was a faint glimmer. I kept looking for a reaction I had no power to give her anymore. By then, the empty space of suspicions and the harshness of situations we couldn't control muffled our attempts at communication. The words became muffled and distorted trying to pass through the fog of discontent between us. I started giving up, bit by bit, on finding that woman who told me I was the best thing that ever happened to her.

During an argument that started over what time the milk man dropped off his bottles on Monday, I was hit by the unutterable rage and disappointment on her face.

I knew exactly how she felt.

The second I gave up trying to reclaim that radiance, that beauty that she had reserved for only me, is when our marriage ended. We may have kept up the motions, but there was nothing left. The worst part was that I understood exactly why she locked it away again, and knew there was no hope she could ever trust me that way again.

I loved her dearly. She deserved a husband who could make her smile like that every day. I hope someday she will be able to find it once more.

If she does, I will be the first one to congratulate her.

Luck

I often question my memories, turning them over in my head like faded, worn photographs that tell their stories in all the eyes that have looked upon them. Can I trust them? Did it really happen if I remembered it, or was it all just something I dreamt so hard it leaked over into my life? There are no answers; especially not in flaked plaster of the yellowed ceiling, which is where I always seem to be searching for them.

I have loved this wild land since I first breathed it in. I think that it has saturated me, settled into my muscles and bones—any attempts to leave it will prove lethal. I have become as much a part of this landscape as it has of me. I walk silent among the coyotes, and smile to hear the hawk's fierce cry.

I take risks to prove that I'm alive, to feel my heart fighting its way out of my chest, to hear the sound of my own breathing harsh in my ears. Of course, I know that trying to find life in the very place I could lose it is the most foolish thing I can do. But there's nothing to be done—I was made the way I was made. I've spent enough years trying to fight it. Leaping over the cliffs of the mountain on my horse, spanning that gash which holds a rushing river so far below, I can pretend I am airborne, if only for a few seconds.

How is it that so little can be said in the smallest gesture? Hatred is clearly spelled out for me in furtive glances, downcast eyes, disapproving frowns and abrupt halts in conversation. Nothing so flashy as a punch in the gut, but almost worse in a way. At least I can respond to physical assault; at least I know what to do when someone hits me. I can't put venom into my eyes—the few times I did try out hating folks it left a sour taste in my mouth.

On the other hand, fate has been kind to me. There have been many, many opportunities for her to knock me flat down, to hit me so hard I'd never get back up again. Instead, she gave me hope and something worth getting up for in the morning. She gave me a home, which is more than I ever asked for, probably more than I deserve.

In his eyes, I can see the words my heart cannot speak. In all the turbulence between us, the rocking of waves and movements of forces we cannot understand, those eyes remain, always watching, always ready. They are my safe harbor, my retreat. When our passion rocks me from my moorings, and the violence of our impact shakes my core, I can return to the patience and protection in his eyes, a wordless understanding of the things that need to be said but will never leave our lips.

Life showed me time and time again that there are no constants, there are no fixtures in the ever-changing scenery of our lives. I have seen parents disown children, connections destroyed by words spoken at the wrong moment, and men permanently maimed for trying to help another human being. But he is my constant, the rock in my ocean, and even as he resisted I think he understood—I needed him. He didn't have to honor that need, to honor my request. It was his choice. One that shifted my life to face his, forever.

I wouldn't have it any other way.

Heaven

I miss him so much sometimes that I hate him. It's like a sickness in my gut, eating at me slowly, burning me up from the inside out. I think I will die in the wind, a hollow shell simply blown away because there is nothing left to anchor me to this earth. How does a life simply pick up where it left off before love? Because now I know that's what it was, despite the fact that the four letters never flew off my tongue to his waiting ears. He was waiting, always waiting. Waiting for the admission of a truth that defined my life—waiting in vain.

My thinking is very biblical. Everything falls into the two categories of "before" or "after." Before his death, or after it. But I do not think of him as Christ, although he died for my sins. The worst part is that I know he would forgive me even if I never asked. A man with the heart of a child.

Where do the widowed go to mourn? Because surely no one around me can understand, can hear the pain I carry. Do they haunt cemeteries, brushing their hands along gravestones, letting the distillation of their agony fall to the ground in their tears as the sky swallows up their cries? I prefer the plains, the wind that never stops screaming its accusations at me, the rolling fields of corn that hide the rot in this land.

He was no saint. He knew the risks he was taking, knew the folks that he was riling up. I think to him it was just fun and games much of the time, and he is a better man than I, for that is the one trespass I cannot forgive him: his utter disregard for the value I placed on his safety.

Then again, I suppose I never mentioned it.

After all these years, I finally got my hands on a pair of glasses. Instead of drinking, I read and occasionally write. Sometimes I tell him everything he should have heard, sometimes I write to those who knew him, attempting to seal my misery into an envelope and letting the United Postal Service carry it away.

It doesn't work. But perhaps I can offer some comfort, even if I can't receive it.

Maybe I can become something better in the time I have left. I think it is what he would want. But how can a man travel farther than his legs will walk? I am not strong, despite all the teeth I've knocked out in my time, all the blood I have spilled.

Sometimes I miss him so much I hate him. Sometimes I miss him so much that I love him all over again, and for brief seconds I can recapture those resting moments where the connection lay, content and resting, not forced to prove itself to anyone.

It is in those moments that we were the best. There was an ease that I have not felt since, a loosening of places that have been clenched my whole life.

I can only hope that in Heaven, those moments are the definition of our eternity.