The Quiet Man

Line of Reasoning, Round One

It's as if I never left.

It really is: garish wallpaper and the same comfortably over-washed bedclothes, the familiar wood and the rug at my feet, it's all the same. Nothing's changed. How is that possible? It's as if she had no tenants while we were gone, and this place just stopped and held its breath.

But I know that's not true. There were others here, for a little while, at least, in our places. Someone other than you in your bed, someone other than me in mine. Intruders, squatters. But there’s no sign of them now. No trace at all.

In the sitting room, I could tell. Someone else had been there: it was tidy. In the kitchen, our temporary absence was obvious. No lab equipment, no eyeballs on the counter, no limbs in the fridge. But here, there’s no sign. It’s unchanged. There must be something different, some sign of the previous tenants left behind, like a scar. You’d know the moment you looked, if you came in here. You’d probably see the signs of strangers everywhere in here. They won’t be strangers to you by now: you probably know their professions and their habits, you’d know if they broke up or stayed together. You know what they like to eat for dinner and who slept where. Rooms don’t talk to me the way they talk to you. I can’t see anyone else here.

She might have put it all back just for me, knowing what she knew. Is it meant to be comforting, this room preserved in amber? It’s a little bit terrifying. I’ve dreamed myself into this room too often. Am I actually here this time? Or is this a fantasy, some bit of a delusion born of impossible hope? Have I finally cracked and can no longer tell the difference? Ella would know. She wouldn’t approve, I’m sure. Dancing on the edge of sanity like this. Can’t be healthy.

I should get my bags, I should have brought them with me. At least one. My clothes, my things. My toothbrush. I wasn’t thinking. I could spend the afternoon here, putting things away, getting myself in order. Calming down. Reuniting with reality. Then go back downstairs and verify: are you actually here? And if you are, if you’re still alive and breathing, sitting on the sofa or hunched over the desk, what is it I want to say to you? I couldn’t tell Ella. I could barely speak at the funeral. What do I want to say?

Why did you do this to me, Sherlock?

Why didn’t you take me with you?

Welcome back.

I missed you.

Don’t leave me again, all right? Never. Never again. I can’t bear it.

The mirror above the dresser still has a chip in the top left corner. Of course it does: it wasn't going to magically heal itself, was it, or creep further down the mirror like a patch of damp. It is what it is.

You’re still breathing, still smoking, still causing trouble. You’re downstairs, caught up in details I can’t see and following trails I don’t understand. Just like you always did. You’re alive, like I wished you would be.

Christ.

That’s not how the world works, it’s not. People don’t get their wishes granted like that. Not those kinds of wishes. Second chances, reversals of outrageous fortune, no. It doesn’t happen. But I touched you. It’s true.

You’re pacing again downstairs, I can hear that familiar dull creak of the floorboards holding your weight. The rules of the universe are different with you, I should have known that. Reality is shaped differently in your presence. The impossible is commonplace, obvious. How could I have known? How could I not know? I wished that you’d come back, and now here you are. The embodiment of a fantasy, alive and well.

Alive, anyway.

Dead was the only way you could be a fraud, you bastard. I knew it. The only thing I wanted to be a lie, was. It’s too perfect. Another shoe’s about to drop, isn’t that it? There’s more I don’t know. They’ll snatch you away from me again, maybe. You’ll snatch yourself away. Maybe we’re only set to have this one afternoon, and then you’ll vanish, and no one will believe me when I tell them. It’s my own secret, my own tragedy. I can’t take it. I can’t. Don’t test me on this, Sherlock.