"Calmly Sailing On" part 1 of 1

by Pellinor 
__

Classification: SA

Rating: PG

Summary: The end of the X-Files, seen through the eyes of three 
who neither understand nor care.

Content warning: This is a sad 'un. Proceed at your own risk. I'll 
say no more.

Disclaimer: Not mine. I make no money from them, though.

Archive freely.

******

The artist at harvest
__

I spoke of women, once, late at night at College, in the long 
shadows cast by a single lamp. 

I learnt that I was different, then. 

I saw the curve of the skin at the base of a throat. I saw the 
warm auburn of a tress of unbound hair. I saw green eyes shot 
through with brown. I saw the elegant movement of a neck.

I saw as an artist. 

"You see only details; you miss the whole." My friend burnt with 
the earnest fire that only the young possess. "You don't talk to 
them. You don't want to know them."

I blinked. "They're nothing to me. Why should they be?"

I have painted the textures of a blade of grass; I care nothing 
for the grandeur of mountains. I painted a woman's hands, once, 
scarcely glancing at her face. In a battle, I would paint the 
raindrop on a trampled petal.

I have lived a solitary life; I have been happy.

Now, I see the gold of a living ear of corn. Beyond it, blue. My 
focus is intense. The voices are a distraction.

"No." A woman's voice, loud and firm. Then, quieter, carried to me 
on the wind: "Be better than them."

The spell is broken. I am lying in a sea of corn, immersed in 
colour. I reach out a hand to part the stalks, and see a tableau. 

A car is surrounded by half a dozen other cars, its occupants 
trapped. There are two of them - a man and a woman. They are both 
out of the car. He has a pistol trained on the soldiers who 
approach them; she has her hand on his arm, restraining. There is 
nothing of interest in their colours, but that could change. 
Changing light gives an infinite newness to old scenes.

"No," she says again. "If it's got to end here, end it well. Stay 
better than them."

He is torn. Defiance and defeat war in him, marring the beauty of 
his perfect shooter's stance. His shoulders are the flaw in the 
picture. 

Slowly, his eyes shut. They stay shut for a very long time. He is 
a still life.

"Okay," he says, at last. He lowers the gun. Somehow he looks 
stronger now that he's accepted defeat. "But they won't take it. 
End it well." And in a sudden movement he raises his arm and 
throws the gun as far as he can. It arcs over my head - black 
metal against blue sky and a flash of reflected sunlight. I will 
treasure the image.

I close my eyes to savour it. I hear her, but do not see her. 
"Yes," she murmurs. I hear heavy footsteps too. "End it as 
ourselves."

I blink, and forget the gun. Her dull hair is a wig; her true hair 
is.... I run my tongue over my lips, considering. Burnt umber and 
ochre and all the colours of Tuscany, mixed with light. I need to 
paint her hair.

"You have it?" The soldiers close in. I catch a last flash of her 
hair, and then it is gone. Their voices are harsh. "You have it? 
Where is it?"

I hear the sound of a single blow, but two gasps - his first, then 
hers. 

"They'll tell us." There is confidence in that voice. "_After_."

As they are led away, I hold my breath. Colours flash like a 
strobe light. The soldiers are grey and dull; her hair is.... is 
_beautiful_. I see snatches of it only.

I try to hold onto the memory as they are driven away, but it is 
as if it is carried on the wind or written on water.  

All I see is the gold of a living ear of corn, and beyond it, blue

******

The gravedigger in autumn
__

I watch, pause, and then move on. Here, in this place of tears, I 
have never cried. What else can I do? 

It is a small group of mourners in the rain. I know the spot - 
memorial stones without a grave. I rest my hand on the rough bark 
of a tree, breathing fast from a hard morning's work. They are my 
five minutes' break. I will watch until my breathing is slow, then 
start again.

"I'm not happy with this." A dark-haired woman presses her fist 
against her mouth, as if fighting tears. "Not happy."

The tall, balding man steps towards her. His hand hovers over her 
arm, then withdraws without touching her. "I think.... we have to 
accept it as truth." Each word is considered, measured. 

The woman crouches down, her coat trailing in the mud. She reaches 
for the memorial stone, tracing the letters with her fingers. 
"This is the second one I've ordered for her. _He_ opposed the 
first one. He said it was too soon. He was right." Her voice 
rises, wild and almost angry. "He was right then. Why not now?"

The silver-haired lady scarcely flickers. She is in a world of her 
own. It looks serene, but I have seen a thousand forms of grieving 
here. This is her way. Inside, she has nothing left.

"I was told by a man I...." The tall man shrugs stiffly. "Not 
trust, but believe - in this, anyway. They were on the run for 
weeks, and then they were captured. He's sure that they're dead, 
this time."

"The man...." The silver-haired woman steps forward, and there is 
sudden steel in her eyes. "Was it....?"

"He says it wasn't him," the man says softly. "I think I believe 
him. He knows, but he didn't order it. I think he mourns your son 
too."

The younger man pulls at the dark-haired woman's arm. There is an 
anger in his eyes that seems inappropriate, somehow. As if seeing 
it too, the woman shakes him off. Deliberately, defiantly, her 
fingers move from the one stone to the other, giving them both 
equal reverence.

My breathing slows. I tense my fingers on the bark, then push 
myself away. 

I can not care. I don't want to care. I am all smiles in the 
evening for my children.

This is a job.

******

The fool in winter
__

Bacon, curling on the grill. My baby, wrapped on a white towel and 
laughing. Coffee. Freshly baked bread.

Why _this_ smell? Why, after searching two years for a job, do I 
get one in a place that smells of decay and urine and the chilling 
smell of disinfectant that cloaks smells yet more terrible? The 
imagination fills in those smells.

When I get home at dawn, I will bury my face in my wife's hair and 
inhale.

The smell is the worst. There is no escape. I can close my eyes to 
the white faces, the open mouths, the trails of drool snaking to 
the pillow. I can tune out the wordless mumbling, and clawing of 
fingers against the metal bars around the beds. I do not touch 
them.

If one dies, I am to alert the doctor on duty, but I am not to 
touch. I will hold a glass to their face and watch for it to steam 
over. I can't help but thinking that a clear glass is a relief, an 
escape.

When do we die? When we lose our minds, or when we leave our 
bodies? Which is death?

I know the answer, now.

"They hurt me." The woman with the close-cropped hair speaks as I 
pause in the doorway. In the week that I've been here I have grown 
used to her empty bed. She spends her existence at the bedside of 
another, and the doctors let her. "They hurt me here." She 
gestures low on her abdomen, then her fingers brush against the 
forehead of the man in the bed. "They hurt him there." Stick-like 
fingers in his dull hair.

The metal door frame is cold against my fingers. I say nothing. I 
was warned before I started that I was to believe nothing any of 
the patients said to me. For my own peace of mind, they said. My 
sleep would be screaming nightmares.

Distance. Disbelief. Detachment. I wrote it out and stuck it to 
the refrigerator with a magnet. 

She gives a broken half smile, though her eyes swim with sudden 
tears. One hand stays on his forehead; the other gestures at her 
own. "I think they hurt me here, too, but not as bad as they did 
him," she says, simply. She blinks, and tears fall down her sunken 
cheeks. "Why doesn't he wake up?"

I shake my head. My mouth opens as if to speak, but I remember in 
time. It will only encourage her. 

"Did I love him?" There is no awareness in her face of her sudden 
change of course. Her mind is a feather, blown by the wind. "He is 
special to me. Were we lovers, before?"

His eyes are open, but he doesn't move - never has for months, I 
was told. He breathes for himself, but tubes feed him. Many would 
think it better if they didn't bother. Perhaps the doctors think 
of them as humans. I, though, am little more than a night 
watchman. It is not my job to do so.

"There are.... bits." She presses her fingers into her brow. Her 
other hand encloses his, squeezing until their ten entwined 
fingers are white. "More when I'm holding him. _He_ was there, 
before. I see him; I see faces. No names." She shakes her head 
bleakly. "No names. They took those from me too."

<They?> I stop myself just in time.

"We had something." She frowns. "They wanted it, and they wanted 
us, too. We ran. And.... and everywhere there was corn."

I look at my watch. My wife will be closing her book and reaching 
for the light. Sometimes I find her in the morning, curled round 
my pillow, holding it to her breast. I came close to crying, the 
first time I saw it.

"I think...." She is shaking, her eyes widening. "I think he was 
an FBI agent." His wrist looks as if it would snap under the 
weight of a gun. "I think.... I think I was one too."

I can't stop myself. I laugh - a sharp bark of laughter. The man 
in the room next to hers thinks he's the Pope.

"You're not one of them?" Her voice gets louder, harsher. I glance 
at the blinking red light of the monitor, remembering what I was 
told about their aggression, and when to call for help. The 
doctors know how to apply restraints, and a needle. "This is a 
prison. Why are you here?"

I step back. She is scarcely human to me, but I have no love of 
the needle, and the glazed look that lasts for days after it. 

Her fingers curl. "Are you bad, or a fool?"

I lick my lips, and break my rule. "It's not a prison," I murmur. 
I know it's a lie, but, if it's a prison, its for their own 
protection. They are fed, and clothed, and kept alive. Outside, 
they would have nothing.

Tears creep down her cheeks, but her face is strangely regal, 
despite the sunken cheeks, the cropped red hair. "A fool," she 
says, firmly, shaking her head. "A fool...."

I press my hand against her face, inhaling. There is still enough 
of the smell of home.

******

The fool in spring
___

I step down the hallway, my stomach tightening at the smell. The 
passage of a month has intensified it, rather than weakening it. 

I step, pause, step. Each pause is enough to look into a room, and 
see the sleeping figure and the rise of fall of the chest, and to 
know that all is well. 

Grey hair on a pillow, and a face like paper.

I step, pause.... pause....

The bed is empty, and the chair beside it. The ghostly echo of her 
voice still seems to linger in my head. She was the only one who 
ever spoke to me, speaking real words. She could string a sentence 
together, though the content was all lies.

I wonder if he has died, and if she is mourning him in her half-
animal way, curled on her own bed, but when I pass on to her own 
room, it, too, is empty.

I stand at the door, hand pressed against the metal. Footsteps pad 
in the hallway, fast and anxious. I recognise the voice of the 
doctor who interviewed me for the job, all mildness and smiles. 
There is no mildness in his voice this time. He is harsh, used to 
giving orders.

"Someone talked. Find them."

Something tightens in my throat, and I think it is fear. I think 
of the soft skin of my baby's cheek, and the smell of my wife's 
hair. 

I say nothing, and pass on.

******

The gravedigger in summer
___

I peel apart the two slices of bread, peering between them. Soft 
cheese and salad. I pull a face, but settle down to eat them, my 
legs stretched out on the grass. It's sunny, and a light breeze 
touches my cheeks.

The graves look beautiful in early summer. Petals fall like a 
carpet on the turned earth.

As I chew, I watch people.

I often think its strange that, for someone who works with the 
dead, I see so many of the living. Friends, relatives, lovers..... 
They comes in a constant procession, some in the first flush of 
tearful grief, some in the rueful ache of a long-distant loss.

Two women come hand in hand, slowly. The dark-haired one leads; 
the red-haired one follows. Her steps are slow. When the path 
forks, the older one pulls at her hand gently, as if guiding her.

I idly wonder if she is blind, but then she blinks at the pink 
petals and I can tell that she sees them.

"Here," the older woman murmurs softly. I see her lips move, but 
her voice doesn't reach me.

Still holding hands, they crouch down beside the twin memorial 
stones. I saw something here, once, I remember, though I forget 
what it was. I see so much. For my own peace of mind, I forget it. 

The younger woman runs her finger across the lettering. "D-A-N-A?" 
she murmurs, spelling out each letter slowly, then she glances at 
the other woman, anxiously, almost hopefully.

The older woman swallows hard, then nods. "That's right, 
sweetheart."

Her red hair is beautiful. She turns towards the other stone. 
There is freshly turned earth beside this one, and flowers. Her 
throat works convulsively, but she doesn't speak.

The older woman places an arm protectively round her shoulders, 
then seems to consider, and removes it. Her own fingers stroke the 
first stone, retracing the name her daughter spelled out. She 
swallows again. The sun makes her tears shine. "We can have it 
removed."

"No!" It comes out firmly, and I see a spark of fire in the 
younger woman's eyes. Then she shakes her head slowly, and her 
face fills with understanding and regret. "Leave it. _I_ died too, 
didn't I?"

I lick my lips, then my fingers. I'll ask her for some meat 
tomorrow.

******

END

******

APPENDIX

The inspiration for this story:

Musee des Beaux Arts
by W H Auden

About suffering they were never wrong, 
The Old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking 
dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's 
horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree
In Brueghel's "Icarus", for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had too on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to, and sailed calmly on.

******

Thanks: To Miss Becky for pointing out my very unfortunate and very 
funny spelling mistake.

Feedback is greeted with gratitude, and always replied to. I'm 
going to America on Thursday (Season finale! FBI! DC Expo! 
Martha's Vineyard!), though, so my reply will be delayed for any 
letters received after then. 


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