A moonlit goodbye

Jack Haistings stood in the darkness on the quarterdeck, the silent presence of the moonlight to keep him company.

Alone on watch, only the reflection of the moon's spherical face in the water faintly illuminated his dark shape against the velvet midnight. The sound of the water lapping gently at the side of the ship kept a steady beat to it's wooden body creaking, while the salty smell of the ocean and the wet planking prickled his nostrils, triggering another wave of thought.

Standing in the silence, his heartbeat was the only thing he could hear; the throb of his pulse reverberating in his ears. As he stated into the distance, a flash revealed the images playing with his conscience and twisting at his thoughts. With the images refusing to be swatted away, Jack allowed them to come forward.

In his mind's eye, a haunting repetition, he saw first lieutenant Pullings scream and fall backwards in repeat, the silent scream and the fall happening again and again. The muffled sound of a shot echoed through the silent images and ricocheted off the inside of his skull. The smell of heated gunpowder, wispy smoke, and the foul stench of his own fear came hauntingly to his nostrils again. The phantom, metallic taste of blood spread rapidly across his tongue, prickling at his tastebuds and causing him to swallow painfully. The crackle of a shiver ran along his pale skin and he flinched away from it.

The whole ship's crew knew he'd had done it; the barrel of his revolver had been warm from the shot and the officer was dead, laying in a thin spray of crimson flecks on the deck. Dead.

Dead as the men sent to the bottom of the sea in battle, and all he had in rebuttal was that the gun went off by accident.

The boy's body trembled and his legs threatened to give way whereon he cursed at them in whisper, and told them to wait but a moment longer. He opened his eyes and took in a deep breath as he shivered in the breeze that seemed to have come from nowhere.

He could not put it off any longer.

Slowly, Jack reached down the neck of his uniform, gently retrieving a thin-chained, gold necklace. Slipping it carefully up through his collar and ruffs he held it up to his face, trembling as the chain shimmered in the moonlight. It was a long cord, fashioned to hang low on one's shirt, and on the end of it hung a tiny pendant, his mother's face imprinted on the surface. She smiled gracefully up as he held her carefully in his hand, almost watching him.

"Mother." he mumbled, longing creeping back inside him as her gaze fell upon him.

From deep inside him somewhere, there came a faint murmuring. The boy twitched once, and began to listen. He could head a faint whispering, and as he listened to it he became aware of what the whispering was. Almost unrecognizable, a tiny voice was speaking his name.

The boy looked down at his necklace that smiled at him with a haunting disappointment.

Jack opened his mouth to speak, but his words slurred. Swallowing and avoiding tears, the boy cleared his throat.

"Mother I-"

His mother said nothing.

"Im so sorry." he suppressed a whimper. "I wanted to do it right. I really did! But mother! I cannot be blamed! It was not in my will to have him made so fragile! The bullet went through him so easily! I told him mother! I told him! He could have ducked!"

The boy began choking on his sobs, but the pendant showed no remorse, and stared at him silently as they got louder.

"Why did the lord make him so fragile? Like a flower! He broke with so little effort!"

Tears began to flow freely down his face, his cheeks feeling as if they were in fire as he pleaded some form of forgiveness. Any form.

"I'm just so sorry! I really am!"

Slowly, trough the darkness, the pendant looked up at him, and shook her head. Her face was then a mask of silent disappointment, twisted with another emotion he couldn't quite identify. Her eyes were calming as she looked up at him, catching him in her gaze.

"Jack." she whispered to him smiling, though her face was saddened.

"Please, you mean to much to me."

The pendant smiled up at the boy, her metal face slightly distorted.

"I love you, Jack. You were the son I gave birth to and you always will be. You always meant well. The other officers never understood you. They will forgive you."

The boy blinked down at the tiny face of his mother as it slowly faded back to a calm expression, her features free of worry.

"Mother-" he trailed off as his sobs carried across the breeze.

For several moments he stared at the delicate pendant, until a sudden, violent shudder brought back his senses. He swallowed hard and shook his head at the necklace.

"No mother." he whispered to the night as he wound a small length of the chain around one fist.

"They will never forgive me. Not for what I have done."

With enough of his senses returned to allow a narrow path of thought, Jack's heart began to beat like drums in his ears, the blood rushing to his feet. He swallowed once again, clearing his throat.

"I love you, mother." he said to the night. "I ways have loved you, and I always will. You had great faith in me, if no one else did. You believed I would become a great officer in this English navy, like my father, but you were wrong. I should have been the son you deserved. Oh how I wish I was that son."

Jack closed his eyes and wrapped the chain around his second fist allowing a length of it to dangle between them. "But I'm not."

With a final look out to sea, he undid the top of his uniform down four buttons, and pulled off his neck ruff and black necktie. Then carefully, gently, he looped the gold cord around his neck and began to tighten it.

As the sun rose, it's early morning rays lit up a gold haze around the spreading rose and apricot sky. The edges of the world above looked like a painting hung by angels. The clouds as white as snow drifted lazily like swans across a lake, leaving small thin traces of themselves across the picture.

Under them, Jack lay peacefully on the quarterdeck, gazing open, glassy eyed up at the colored sky. Loosely draped across his neck and over his chest, the glistening gold chain and his mother's face lay smiling upward with her son.

Together, they watched the clouds roll by.