Monday 29 April 2013

The Fading Ghost

I got on the tube today.... first time in a while and noticed how weird it is to sit in a metal can in the middle of a city, and be isolated from it, no phone signal, no wi-fi, you and you mind, and the few people confined with you. While I was reflecting on this thought I heard the singing of a busker coming down from one of the tunnels usually filled with passengers, mingled in with the tannoy announcements, it gave me a sense of calm..... normality I haven't felt since I began this life..... standing alone in the hall connecting the Piccadilly and northern line I think. This was interrupted by a familiar voice.

F: It's nice isn't it?
* I turn to see Fade sitting with the Kid, his suit filthy and his mask lying next to him*
F: It's where us bit characters stay when the main story doesn't need us..... a transitional place.
P: And what is this story, Fade, or should I call you Manic now?
F: *He chuckles a little* When I know you'll know. The story however, it's the story of life..... somewhere they are kept in a big library, the entirety of human life, condensed to a story.
P: I'm guessing this library is possessed by a fear?
F: It sure is, the most benevolent.
P: A benevolent fear, you are joking?
F: I said most benevolent, he is still very deadly.
P: Okay, so who is it?
F: The Blind Man, Grandfather, the owner of the life of hundreds.
P: I still don't get how he can be even slightly benevolent, I mean he's a Fear.
F: He has the life story of every man, woman and child in his library, all those lives and he has experienced every one of them..... he takes a persons memories.... you cannot open yourself to all that life.... death.... pain................... love, and not fell something.... even God would weep. Then however there are the parodies... the alternate endings, all that could be.... we humans are good at seeing that, and the weight of infinity crushes us, yet we live on, in our story, until the last pen stroke, the last drop of ink has dried.
P: Well.... that's very deep of you Fade but why are you telling me about it?
F: Because Pete, you have become a bit character in your own story, a piece in a much longer story I started a long time ago. Even so, this is real life even bit characters have souls they've touched, someone will always cry.... even for a bit character *He nods to the kid next to him*
P: You really aren't making any sense.... have you finally gone loopy, off your nut!?
F: *He leaps up and grabs my arm* I will show you what I mean.

We teleport to a sunny field filled with tombstones, and a group of people dressed in black.

F: This is the funeral for the person you killed yesterday....his body was found and he was a bit character to your story, but he had his own that you choose to give a full stop to.
P: I wasn't my choice, it's either kill or be killed.
F: * He lights a cigarette and exhales a plume of blue smoke* You always have a choice.
P: No I don't, I....
F: You have the choice to be human, whether you let yourself become dead inside, until you feel nothing... until you are the book you leave behind, when you become part of the Blind Man.
P: What right do you have to lecture me, you have killed many more people than I have.
F: Yes I have, that has given me experience, it has stripped me of every emotion except sadness, I rarely feel pain, if I did then I'd at least know I was alive. What did you feel when you killed that man yesterday?
P: I felt sick and appauled at myself, I...
F: Are a liar, you felt relief, that it was his life not yours that was ended, his full stop. That this time tomorrow his body would be in the ground, and yours wouldn't, even a bit character has  person that cries for them.
P: Then what are you Fade, a bit character, or a full person?
F: I'll show you.
* We teleported again, when we came out the sky was cloudy, we were out side a small, but normal house*
F: Look in the window.
P: Why? *I was feeling uneasy I wondered if Fade was playing a trick on me I still do.*
F: Because I asked you to, though like I sad.... you have a choice.

I walk up to the window and see a woman, not much older than Fade crying, over a battered notebook, with white numbers carved into the leather, filled with some white stuff.  It looked like she had heard a noise, so wiped her eyes and hid the book, a kid came down, I couldn't place his age.. but it looked familiar. It crawled into what I guess was it's mothers lap, I don't think I've seen such abject dispair, the child started to Sob into it's mother's lap, and she held back hers. I turned back to Fade ot ask him who's family it was.

F: The people we kill get off easy, they get a reprieve from the pain and torment we put them through, the families however suffer most, the person most important to them died about 3 months ago.
P: Yes but who's family is it, one of your victims?
F: Yes....

* Turned and walked away, and faded into the rain that had stated*

I looked back through the window and saw two men come into the room with another woman.... I recognised them... they were the people who came after Fade that day, Tom and Grey.

Then it clicked into my head..... that was Fade's family, the people that were hurt most from his killing.

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