The Last Romantics

Protected Passion and Projectile Poetry

"Life began, perhaps accidentally. I was small for my age, deathly small, and upon my birth had to be tended for months before I was strong enough to complete the normal functions of a baby boy. My mother cared for me as any mother might care for an invalid, up to the point where she had to be cared for herself. I don't remember her face, Doctor. I don't remember her voice. She died before I was old enough to remember, before I was old enough to gauge my own perception on the woman who might have cherished me through the whole of my cold, desolate existence. Though like a weed I grew, feeding and festering through the cracks of a London sidewalk, hidden within the walls of my parent's estate. We were not rich by means of inheritance, no our last name had meant nothing before the mine had opened. My father was a business man, and under him worked hundreds of men trained only in the art of steel forging. It was a hard business, one with no room for remorse, and before long my father forgot what it meant to have pity...to have feelings of any kind. My first memory of the man, the one which sticks out so vividly in my mind when asked to recollect...was when he fired a man for having suffered an injury. The poor creature got his hand crushed between rocks in the mine, and in recompense for his suffering he was sent away from the mines without a penny of compensation, forced to seek work as an invalid and a cripple. I remember this so vividly, I remember standing silently in the doorway and watching as the man hobbled away. "Serves him right," my father dared say, "for his clumsiness." I remember feeling remorse, sympathy too strong for a child of my age. I remember wondering if my father really was a villain, or if I was the strange one for feeling an ounce of pity. I questioned myself and my morality...as if feeling remorse for strangers was a defect. My father cared not for the fate of his workers; he cared not for the humanity of each one. He never saw behind the ash streaked faces, he never looked beyond the strained and broken bodies that crawled from the mines every day. He saw in each one of them merely a set of hands, and in those hands the tools that would surely make him rich. My father cared not for people, only for his own reputation, only for his own accumulating wealth. He cared not for the two sons which were set in his care, the two sons which were being trained from birth to take upon the same views of the world. I was never taught to nourish, to cherish, or to love. I was taught to be harsh and cruel, to fight the world and all of its inhabitants, as if I was going to someday find myself alone. I was taught mathematics, finance, and figures. Never emotions, hospitality, or affection. Thankfully what my father failed to compensate for was my brother's influence over me, my older brother who had spent more time with my mother than ever I had a chance to. Mycroft was his name, seven years my elder, and thus had more years within the world to experience its delights. He knew the love of nature, the love of people. It was Mycroft who taught me the ways of the world, Mycroft who saw me through my schooling and attempted to make me more of a human than my father would have it. He attempted to put life into the thing he saw growing before him, he attempted to soften the stone heart that was forming inside of my chest; he tried to help it to beat... I set the stage on my seventeenth birthday, oh most certainly the tenth that my father had promptly forgotten about. It was then that my life changed from the mundane to the extravagant, it was then that I was given leave of my dreadful home to search a more permanent state of mind, a more changeable complexion, and a more wavering heart. It was within the library that I often longed, seeking refuge from my father's icy domain next to the large and blazing hearth, surrounded by books which held more interesting tales than the reality that was presented before me. The volumes were my greatest love, and throughout those seventeen years I must have read them all twice, at least those which interested me. My father's section of literature occupied an admittedly small portion of the massive room, and those books were ones I would never dare to touch, volumes so boring and analytical that it would displace the years of adventure and fantasy I had been so accustomed to. My father never bothered to entertain himself with things that would not advance his career, and so his literature contained of nothing more than books on metal, and on industry. Books with more numbers than pictures, and not a hero or princess to be heard of. It was a terrible pass time to read of things so dry, and so that night I had reclined over the sofa with a story of romance, a book of Shakespeare that taught my heart through careful steps how to find the good in another person, and accustomed me to the life I might be able to lead once I broke free from the shackles that bound me to the mundane. I dared dream of love, even though there was a part within me that assured it was a long ways away, that finding the right person in this terrible world of ash and smoke would be quite the impossible dream. Though to couple with my doubt, there was an equal sense of determination. I knew my life depended on getting out of this hellish place, of escaping into the world where the flowers bloomed fully, and the sunshine was able to reach through the thin white clouds and touch the ground below. Here the sky was full of smoke, a layer so thick that you'd expect to see the stars through the dense clouds, billowing and choking all that was beautiful in this world.
"I rather expected to find you here." Mycroft interrupted, tearing my attention from the words which were so familiar to me that I ought to just read on without looking down. This book had always been one of my favorites, and the lines were to me as familiar as would be closest friends.
"Nowhere else to be, Mycroft." I debated, folding my legs up to my chest and watching as my brother approached the fire. He was dressed in his usual suit and tie, holding his delicate hands over the flames and staring rather remorsefully into the ash that was accumulating in our hearth. I watched him for a moment, wondering what his purpose in interrupting me might have been.
"How does it feel then, to be so old?" Mycroft asked at last, of course making reference to the significance of the seemingly ordinary day. I paused, reflecting back on the years wasted before my birthday, and surely looking forward to many other years spent in the same stagnation. All in all, a simple change in age proved to be no different. Today was spent just as yesterday had been, and tomorrow would be a repeat once more. I was not a year older; I was a mere day older. And there was nothing truly fantastic about that at all.
"Rather the same as always." I admitted with a simple shrug. My brother chuckled, nodding his head as if he knew the feeling all too exactly. At last he removed himself from the fire, deciding that he ought to turn his attention to the creature he had come to visit. He sat beside me on the couch, where my legs might have gone had I extended them any farther outwards. Perhaps Mycroft didn't care much for my comfort, or perhaps he didn't care to have my feet on his knees should comfort demand it.
"I bet you're wondering where your present is?" he presumed.
"I haven't expected a gift in years, Mycroft. This year is no different." I debated. My brother merely chuckled, shrugging his shoulders as if he happened to know a little bit more on the subject then I did. I dare let myself hope, perhaps there had been some collusion after all?
"Well Sherlock, you ought to thank me for my persuasive nature. I got the old beast to budge, and to sacrifice some of his pocketbook on your behalf." Mycroft muttered, sitting up a little bit straighter in his self-proclaimed pride.
"Oh yes? What have you bought for me then?" I wondered a bit anxiously, closing my book to assure that he now had my full attention.
"Not bought, Sherlock dear. Invested. Invested in you." Mycroft muttered with a curious little smile.
"You certainly have my attention." I admitted quietly, my heart beating in frantic anticipation. His words were curious, however they were beginning to take the form of something I had dreamed of for a long time, something I dared not hope too much for, lest I find myself ultimately disappointed.
"It's hard for me to say this, hard for me to give you up so easily. But Sherlock, I have convinced our father to send you to university." Mycroft announced at last.
"I knew it!" I exclaimed, throwing the book to the ground and flinging my arms around my brother's neck in a quick and rather painful contortion. "Mycroft, I knew my prayers would be answered!"
"Now Sherlock, keep such passion behind a stiff shield. Don't let father see you so excited, or else he might change his mind entirely." Mycroft warned, allowing my embrace to last a moment longer before he at last fought me away from his shoulders. I settled back into my position on the couch, sat up against the armrest with such excitement in my eyes, such ecstasy in my heart. I was escaping, oh this was more than a promise of education, this was a promise of freedom.