Dai Stihó

It’s knock, knock, with no answer, and then I hesitantly try the doorknob; it’s been a few years since we last talked but I had found out through mutual friends that they were still living here, and I wanted to say hello.

The doorknob turns and the door opens with a click, and the foyer is still as I remember it – the main feature being the giant mirror directly opposite the door. It used to scare the bejeezus out of me when I was six or seven and went downstairs for a midnight stack; I recall waking the two of them up quite a few times, before I learned that it wasn’t a ghost in the house, it was just my reflection.

“Bill? Brady?” I call out, wondering if both of them were home. There’s a faint answer from the back of the house, and I head in, peering into the once-familiar rooms as I pass by. The grand piano makes me happy – he always told me that he wanted one sitting there, ready to be played at any time, and I almost stop to tap out a few notes on it. But no, I can always do that later, and so I head for the sunroom that bubbles out the back of the house. It was always his favorite place, for all the cliché reasons that everyone else laughs at; I always respected his optimism.

And there they are, Bill laying on the sofa, Brady in a lounge chair next to him, and I smile at my old friends, a wide smile... until I see past the images that my memory superimposes and am sucker-punched by reality. I topple, strings cut, and only manage to stay on my knees because Brady leaps forward to catch me.

“You’re just in time,” Bill says, and I cry. They are hysterical tears, hysterical because even at the end of all things, he maintains that humor, that smile on a face that is as pale as a sheet. I see the lines on his face, I see the pain that he has gone through, but what tells me that I need to calm down is the peace he emits, a peace I do not have the right to disturb by losing it in front of him.

After a second, I blink away the tears in my eyes, though I do not wipe my face, and urge Brady to go back to him, because I knew that they were holding hands, and he is more deserving than me.

“I never knew…” I started, still on the floor, once I trusted my voice would not disappear as my strength had.

“Because you didn’t ask,” Brady says, a touch more sharply than I had expected. I deserve it, but no, Bill would never let a friend feel slighted. He smiles, though what an effort it must be, and then makes a few movements – shaking his head, I realize a few seconds later.

“No, but you look well, you have been living wonderfully, I hope, and you have come back to see me, so it will be all right.” And after I smile back at him, he turns to Brady, and it is a look that has moved mountains, a look that has changed history. Unconditional love.

-

I become aware, acutely, that there are only two people in the room whose chests are rising and falling, and I leap up, remembering my training and my memories with him, until I feel his touch on my arm. It is not a strong touch, but it freezes me in place.

“No,” he says, and I stop with my hands ready to pound on his still chest. I am unwilling to let go, but his touch, his voice, they are bonds on me that I cannot break.

Brady touches me on the shoulder, pleading with two fingers, and I retreat, trying to find a place where I would not be in their way. But the moment I step back, I no longer exist to them, merely an observer, one who does not affect the observations.

Bill smiles once more at his love, keeping his body together with pure force of will, and with one last breath, his soul departs, as peacefully as anyone could ever wish for.

//

A/N: The story described came to me in one of the most intense and vivid dreams that I have had. I do not know the two people that I have described except for their writing, but his story – their story – is one of the most heartwrenching that I have ever read.