IT - Pieces in the Dark

Chapter 5 - Game Change

Chapter 5  -  Game Change

 

Switching off had been easier than he had thought it would be. It had been over three years now since ‘The Episode’ and he was happy.

He kept busy with day to day things.

There was plenty of ongoing work and new projects, visits to relatives, events, and many holidays with Brina when they were both able to get away.

It all just seemed to pan out as normal, and just going with the flow seemed to work, and they got on with their lives.

As time went on, he thought less and less about what had happened and what he had experienced.

It worked well for him. He just maintained a positive attitude, doing the right things with his life, and with Brina. He wasn’t walking away from it, or pretending it hadn’t happened - he was just getting on with his life and his responsibilities. As the years went by it just became a memory.

There were a few lingering changes - he did notice that people seemed to treat him differently somehow. Friends and people would come and go, and their views and opinions would influence his own thoughts and opinions, as if he were in some sort of play or process, being ‘shown’ things and getting ‘messages’, but he just ignored it generally, and kept himself busy with a fairly strict daily routine, up at six in the morning and so on.

Brina too kept him occupied with lists, jobs, and things to keep him busy. He knew she was doing it subconsciously to stop him from being idle. It was a sort of control thing, but he didn’t mind.

 Sometimes when he did have time to himself he would be able to recall the pieces, and see them in the dark when he closed his eyes, usually at times of peace, or when he was just going to sleep. It was like it was still there somewhere in his mind, an afterglow, yet still stark and cold and hard. But it was only occasionally.

His relationship with Brina had grown very strong now, and he was even thinking seriously now about making plans to take it further, and to settle down permanently.

She had already moved in with him in his house in the country.

He was a bit of a romantic if he were to be honest with himself. He loved the idea of getting married, and the joy it would bring to Brina. Especially the wedding, which seemed to be all girls were focused on these days.

She never mentioned anything to him about the idea, in her eyes it wasn’t the correct thing. However he was sure that somewhere she had already started making lists, which was her way of dealing with things like that, practical, organised, and prudent.

He wasn’t so romantic about the words ‘settling down’ though, it sounded ‘nice’ but he was sure he wasn’t ‘old’ enough, maturity wise, for that yet. Like an eighteen year old being ‘put out to pasture’. It was an ongoing dilemma between exciting and scary.

There had been the odd day, here and there, when it hadn’t been easy at all to forget what he had experienced, or to put it out of his mind and move on.

He was only usually reminded when he was on his own for more than a few hours with little to do, or it was triggered by an announcement in the news about some scientific discovery or event. There were oddly suspiciously coincidental documentaries on something on the TV, or someone else’s findings put into a paper or book that he would stumble across.

He still suppressed the urge to ‘go and tell everyone’; after all there were plenty of other things going on for him to distract himself with, or come up with something to focus his thoughts away. It was almost like he was protecting himself from a process that was slowly happening in his mind, and that needed time to work through without being prodded.