White Noise

You've Become A fyclinf Coward

           

The family spent a moment assembling their tacos, piling the warm shells high with sizzling taco meat, fresh lettuce and tomatoes, and then drowning it all in taco sauce. Over all, this was a very good dinner, a very good reminder of what John had waiting for him at home. He had eaten two tacos before conversation started up, and it was going well, it really was. He didn't talk to Mary, she didn't talk to him, Rosie was silent and cooperative, the food was amazing, John was just starting to think that maybe he had overreacted when he crawled to Sherlock on his hands and knees, that maybe he didn't have it all that bad. And then the conversation started. Mary started to talk about her day, nothing important or notable, just how she had to drop Rosie off at daycare so that she could go to tea with her friend Janine and how Janine's boyfriend was a total jerk and how she was cut off in traffic and then she went to get some onions for the tacos but the store was closed, and she just went on. And on. And on. And suddenly John was starting to feel that pulse, the slow drumming in the back of his head, the beating that sounded like the heartbeat of the heart he had broken, and his eyes flickered to the empty chair in front of him, the chair that he had always imagined would hold the one he loved, should he ever come to dinner... And John's optimism diminished, the crushing wave of reality hit him so hard that he nearly choked on the taco he was attempting to swallow, the sound of Mary's voice and her useless stories and the empty chair, and the fact that John was sitting here with this banshee while Victor and Sherlock were God knows where with each other, doing God probably doesn't want to know what, and he was here...all alone.  The shadows were creeping in, yet the sun hadn't fallen, the darkness was started to fall upon his kitchen yet no one else noticed, and no one bothered to turn on the light. The darkness was so intense that for a moment or two John couldn't see the table in front of him, he couldn't see Mary, or Rosie, or even his hand if he held it to his face. Pitch darkness, that was what his life held for him if he stayed dormant, darkness, unknowingness, misery. Why would he ever pick a life like that? Why would he ever try to convince himself that he was happy here, with his terrible life and his terrible wife, how would he even consider this hell hole to be habitable? And the shadows, they collected, the darkness was all moving into a shape, a humanoid shape, swirling and churning until finally it formed a man, sitting in the empty chair across from him. A man that he had seen before, constructed of his misery, a man with skin of starlight and curls of the night.
"Sherlock." John muttered to himself, his lips barely even forming the word properly, sounding nothing more than a jumble of sounds and letters, however it meant so much, it meant so much to the man who knew its connotation. Sherlock Holmes, the man he had chased away while trying to keep hold of him forever.
"I'm sorry dear, what was that?" Mary wondered with a little laugh. Dear. John just laughed a little bit, shaking his head, his fists trembling, clenching around his silverware, staring at Sherlock, who was sitting so languidly on that wooden chair, a smile on his beautiful face that said so many words. He was taunting John, teasing him, his very presence in this unforgiving darkness was reminder enough that nothing could ever go back to the way things were, John's eternal misery was even more miserable now that he was trying to keep himself from going back to the blissful alternative. He knew there was a better option, and yet this time he was purposely locking those shackles back around his feet, making sure that he stayed put even when he didn't want to. Oh the torture he put himself into, and for what? To prove something to himself, to Sherlock? Obviously Sherlock didn't care, obviously he didn't know, not enough to understand. Mary went on, somehow she had something more to say, and every word was another laugh from the shadows, ever word was a movement, a gesture, a twitch of the facial muscles or a wink of the eye, that thing knew that John wasn't happy, it knew that this was the final straw, now and forever, things were going to be different. John stared at that figure for a while, staring at it in its stillness and blinking, until finally it started to move. Slowly at first it put its hands on the table, slowly it rose to its feet, leaning across the table with such seduction that could only be accounted for the man it was trying to resemble, Sherlock Holmes, his face made up of darkness, was leaning closer, across the table filled with the remnants of their dinner. John leaned forward as well, unnoticed by his wife and daughter, trying to get closer, the Sherlock figure just laughed, and reached out a shadowy hand, playing across John's face and finally disappearing right into his skull. And it moved closer and closer, wading into John's brain as if it had finally gotten the right of way, as if he had finally consented to its being there, and it filled his skull with darkness, unmeasurable darkness, maddening darkness. John blinked for a moment, tuning back into Mary's conversation as he felt his brain get kicked and jumbled around, he felt his ears start to pop, his eyes start to roll, his mouth start to loll...
"And then I told Margret that her shoes didn't match her dress, and she was just so appalled by that, I mean, I didn't think it was rude, to be perfectly honest, I was just trying to help out but oh, oh how she...."
"OH JUST SHUT UP!" John screamed suddenly, grabbing the knife that had been lying by his plate and bringing it hard down onto the table, jamming it right into the wood so that it stood upright. It danced a little bit in the wood, wiggling this way and that, and John could only watch it, he could only bother with the knife as the whole kitchen descended into chaos. Mary shrieked, nearly falling out of her chair in an effort to get away from John's sudden flash of anger, running to shield Rosie, who had burst into terrified tears. And then there was a silence, filled only by Mary's mutterings and Rosie's cries, and John sat steaming in his chair, knocking on his head violently with his fist as he felt the shadows swirl around his brain, starting to take over and infuse themselves in everything he did. But oh, the sight of them, cowering there like scared children! So helpless and so appalling, whimpering and crying as if this was all real, as if this actually mattered. John kicked away his chair, getting to his feet with a growl of anger, casting one last angry look towards his family before storming towards the garage and climbing into his car. As he backed out he realized he really didn't know where he was going, but it would seem that anywhere was better than here. Maybe he didn't have a plan, but there was at least one place on this god forsaken earth that he definitely couldn't be, and that was the very same place he was forced to call home. So he drove, not towards the city, not towards Sherlock's house, the other direction, towards the forests, and the farmland, and the towns. Once or twice John pulled over the car so that he could get out and collapse on the over grown weeds, screaming to himself in the middle of the abandoned country roads, screaming to an audience of nothing but random weeds and fields of corn. He collapsed onto the dirt, he beat his fists into the ground, he sobbed for his lost love and for the years of misery he had imposed upon himself by insisting that he could go back to the way things were. He was a broken man, shattered by his own hand, and yet he was trying to make it everyone else's fault, Mary's for existing, Sherlock's for leaving him, Victor for being the selfish, beautiful brat he was, Mrs. Hudson for pepper spraying, Rosie's for existing, oh he could go on and on and yet he didn't want to, he couldn't bring himself to consider the main offender in this entire crime. Maybe it wasn't him, but the things inside of his brain, whatever was there and whatever wasn't there and should be. Maybe it was the shadows, now ingesting his very soul, maybe it was their fault he had taken his own life in his hands and shredded it to pieces. Maybe it was his heart's fault, for picking only the most unavailable man in the entire city. Maybe it was no one's fault, maybe it just happened. Maybe it just was.