The Private Blog of Dr John Watson - The Greatest Man I Ever Knew
The greatest man I ever knew – my best friend, Sherlock Holmes – lived just downstairs from me. In the comparatively short space of time that we lived together it didn't take us very long to become quite close friends. We had virtually nothing in common, but that never really seemed to make much of a difference, and I like to think that I came to know him reasonably well throughout those first few months. In many ways Sherlock was an enigma, even to me, a strange sort of oxymoron consumed by conflict and endless contradiction. There were days when I wanted to scream at him out of pure frustration because of his arrogance, or laugh at his ignorance of text book primary school education. He would simply stop what he was doing, look up at me and calmly explain to me however why it was that it didn't matter to him or why he just didn't care.
But when it came down to the real character of the man – which let's face it is what truly matters, and what has been called into question these past long months – Sherlock Holmes was a man of very few words.
Breakfast was often a daily ritual played out in silence in our house. Sherlock would read the paper – having spent the best part of the first five minutes pushing his food aimlessly around his plate in order to make it look as though he'd eaten something – whilst I updated my blog, and Mrs Hudson pottered around the kitchen unobstructed only due to the fact that her presence was frequently unobserved. Despite her regular protests that she was not our housekeeper she frequently went out of her way to make sure that we were well looked after, and both fed and watered, even making the occasional shopping trip to pick up the groceries Sherlock had so often forgotten to collect – how he ever managed to cope before the two of us entered his life I will never fathom. Perhaps we only encouraged his apparent idleness by our willingness to pander to his every whim. But he was Sherlock Holmes – and that was all the reason people seemingly needed.
Anyway, back to Mrs Hudson. I miss her dearly – and really must make a note to ring her as soon as I am settled into my new place – but if she's reading this now I just want to say that I am sorry. Hopefully she will understand my meaning, and accept my endeavour to make amends. The past few months have been difficult I confess, I never thought that I could feel so lost nor so lonely, but there can never be any excuse for shutting out such an old and dear friend – and sometimes it is just too easy to forget that she has suffered too.
When Sherlock was on a case he wouldn't sleep for days on end, couldn't eat, and would arrive home in the early hours of the morning, having spent hours wandering the streets of London in all weathers trying to clear his mind of anything irrelevant to his current case. The process exhausted him, it was always evident despite the fact that he never spoke of his own discomfort – he always seemed to have far more pressing issues on his mind – and if it wasn't for my constant badgering of him to take better care of himself it is doubtful that he would ever have considered his own body's physical needs at all.
I am only now beginning to realise however that I didn't really know Sherlock Holmes at all – because he would have been the last person I would ever have expected to take his own life – and I confess to the fact that I miss him. I miss him so much that it hurts to think about him most of the time these days – but just because it hurts that doesn't mean that I will ever forget him, and nobody will ever convince me that he told me a lie. I am proud – yes proud – of what he achieved, of the fact that he was never afraid to speak his mind, nor to stand up and be different, and I will continue to believe in Sherlock Holmes.
The truth is that in the end he gave too much – everybody wanted a piece of him, to share in that glittery and golden utopia we call fame. But fame is nothing more than an illusion, Sherlock never relished in the attention afforded to him by the press and the media, he struggled to accept and come to terms with his new found notoriety, and when the world turned against him he simply had nothing left to give. His reputation as the world's only consulting detective meant everything – and when Moriarty stole that away from him too I guess that was the last straw, Sherlock couldn't see that he had anything left to live for – at least that is the way it has always seemed to me.
I stood and listened to the final last words of a great, and good man – I heard the heartbreak in his voice – so will challenge anyone who dares to tell me that Sherlock Holmes was a fake – a fraud. You weren't there to watch him fall. You didn't see that very human, now broken body and the blood pooling on the pavement beside him – a body made not of cold, hard stone, but flesh, and blood and bone just like everybody else.
Now the name of Sherlock Holmes has been confined to memory, the world has moved on but I have not, only these days I can only see him in my dreams. It has taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that I will never hear his voice again, nor hear him say those infamous words which are now forever imprinted on my mind, "the game is on."
I find it so hard to believe that he's been dead now for almost a year. Sherlock Holmes was a great detective, a good man with a uniquely brilliant mind. He was good at his job, and I stand by everything I have ever said about him. He achieved so much in such a short space of time, but there was still so much he had yet to do. He didn't deserve to die the way he did – feeling betrayed by the world, as he must surely have done, and alone at the very end.
Nobody knew him like I did. He was and always will be my best friend, although I never once heard him say that he loved me – then again I never said so much to him either, even though I did very much so – and I guess he thought I already knew.