After Before and After

One Hundred

September 6, 1993

Three years is a long time. People grow from helpless infants to toddlers who can run in the wind in three years. Others embark on the first day of their senior year after three years of high school, not realizing how lucky they are to have made it unscathed. In three years, eighteen-year-old kids who don't have to listen to their parents anymore become twenty-one-year-old adults who can drink alcohol until it drowns them. People celebrate anniversaries three times in three years, another milestone that they assume will be followed by a fourth, a fifth, and a sixth one.

Three years was a long time, but at the same time, it was really no time at all. Three years ago, Jack Merridew was a thirteen-year-old kid who knew nothing of deserted islands, or plane crashes, or five months unwashed boxer briefs, or sleeping on beds of dirt and sand, or tyranny and dictatorship, or murder, murder, murder.

Three years. Three murders. The rest of their lives.

The three year anniversary of the plane crash felt far more solemn than the last two did. Jack could no longer see himself in his mind's eye; thirteen and blissfully ignorant, climbing into a plane he had no idea was going to crash land in the middle of the ocean. He couldn't see himself as that boy whose biggest problem was spending time at home on statutory holidays. He couldn't see himself as that prepubescent kid who sat up beside Ralph in front of the fire after hours, or the kid who launched spit balls at others with Roger in the cafeteria.

He couldn't see that version of himself anymore, but he could still feel it eating a hole inside him. The memory of what life had been like before the island took something away from him every time he remembered it. The possibility that he and Ralph could've ended up together and had a better story to tell about it was tragic in and of itself. Laying awake at night trying to remember what he used to see when he closed his eyes before it was the murders of children whose voices now haunt him like desperate ghosts begging not to be forgotten.

What did other people see when they closed their eyes if not Simon's back covered in bloody stab wounds as his body drifted with the tide, if not Piggy's face that was no longer a face after Jack sunk his hunting stick into it more times than he could count? What did other people hear in the silence if not the hault of hunters screaming the moment they realized that they killed one of their own, if not the horrific shout of Ralph Langley's voice as the boulder fell down in slow motion before abruptly ending Piggy's life? What did other people think about when the things on their to-do list were done, if not how much of them actually survived the plane crash, if not what part of themselves they left behind on the island when the helicopters picked up off the ground?

Three years was a long time, but at the same time, it was really no time at all.

Jack tried to think about what his life would be like in three years. Would Paige be off on her own somewhere, working for a living like Laurie and Jeffery and normal people did? Would he still be living under Evan's roof, taking beatings with breakfast and hiding bruises under sweatshirts? Would he and Ralph still be together, or will the trial or what happens after it tear them apart for good? Will he have graduated from high school? Will he still fall asleep to the images and sounds of the island and the kids who died in its sand?

Will he still be wishing he got to stay out there?

Their designated government hotel in Savannah, Georgia was quiet on that wretched Monday; the three year anniversary of the plane crash. It felt right that they weren't in court that day, even though the closure of all government businesses had nothing to do with the tragedy that brought them all here. The steps in the hallway were softer and less frequent than usual. Conversations weren't conversations so much as mumbles of acknowledgment. Everything was quiet. Every breath of air, every minute passed, belonged to September 6th, to the anniversary, to the plane crash, to the island, to the past.