Time Passages (Queen or Freddie Mercury Fanfic)

Foreword

24th November 1991.

I remember everything about that day- but at the same time, I remember nothing.  I was there, but I did not yet even exist.  I was both alive and dead.  I was a body without a soul, and a soul without a body, separated from myself by time and space, with nothing to do, really, except wait.  Wait for the right moment to spring, when I could open my eyes for the second first time, face the brand new, unfamiliarly familiar world, and recreate what had yet to be created.

I am not going to introduce myself.  You may call me Foreword Man.  Or not.  In fact, no, don't.  That sounds rather like one of those mindless comic book knockoff films.  I really don't expect you to call me anything, to be honest, as you won't hear from me again until later.

But as I was saying, you may think it odd, the day I chose to spotlight, that winter-fall evening.  A very sad day for the world, as I recall. 

The day a man named Freddie Mercury was pronounced dead in his home, brought down by a truly evil disease called AIDS. He was only forty-five years old.

People often speculate what might have become of him had he survived. A tragic story was his, they say- a man who lived to entertain and thirsted for love. Not just the adoration of fans, but a real loving relationship. Some say he found it with Jim Hutton, a man who wrote an indiscreet bio discussing his life and times with the star. Some say his only true love lay with the taciturn Mary Austin, his one-time lover and long-time friend, to whom he left his house and most of his fortune.

But even amidst these important people, there lived no peace in his soul. Resignation, perhaps; contentment, occasionally; but peace? He only knew peace once before the 24th of November, 1991. It was something he never talked about, never shared. Something he wanted more than anything to forget.

For in his mind, it should never have happened. It was as though God had gone out of His way to bring him down, trip him up. But as the years passed, and the memories mellowed- they didn't fade, they merely mellowed- he did indeed become resigned to what he assumed his purpose was: to make millions happy, and use that happiness he brought to cancel out the emptiness in his own lonely heart. Born to be tragic. Born to live on his own. It was made in heaven, he decided, and there was nothing he could do.

But I would be undermining the entire story that's to come, if I were to say right now that Freddie Mercury's life- not his legacy, mind you, but his life- ended that autumn day.

Because it didn't.

In fact, it had barely begun...