Killing Teddy

Prologue

 He stood with his thoughts and looked out upon the street of fleeting bodies. More often than not remarkable people are the most unremarkable of them all. To walk down the street on a cold, mild, or warm day will no doubt produce people appropriately dressed for that season with their various attributes which no one will think much of unless there is something truly unusual about them. It’s the shame and the curse of the human condition that we see disability, colour, race, weight, height in a light of notability - we cannot simply accept it without staring even if it is just for a brief glance in a second. The same applies to emotions too. If we see someone upset, crying, angry or even with their heart on their sleeve; just some kind of expression that conveys feeling, we notice it, we pick it up – we judge it, we look for weakness. Although the majority of these things are the subconscious habits of a tainted race we continue to do it, perhaps leaving Darwin with the final word when it comes to looking for weakness and finding an advantage over it.

 Humankind has members that only look out for the individual at any cost and seeing weakness is a part of its ultimate failure, its moral hypocrisy and need to make each need to member feel better through juxtaposition of what is superior. There is no generic ‘we’ for the species when it’s only full of self serving people who are only interested in their own comfort and survival. Most definitely there are charities, people who give to them, people who go to other countries to help those less fortunate than themselves, armies, nurses, doctors, firemen, the police and even your neighbour who lent you that tray for Christmas dinner, who all appear to be doing good and selfless deeds for other people but that does not change their motivation or the condition in which they do it. Where would they be if they didn’t get paid? Didn’t get something back out of it? Your neighbour may want to borrow a pot, use your lawnmower, have you take their children to school, comfort them in a time of crisis. The services, charities, all these ‘selfless good deeds’ would never be made if people were not happy in some aspect of their life.

 People require shelter, food, company and have a desire for some form of entertainment. There is no good - merely a subversive need for the conditions to allow humans to flourish. When these are met for a man, woman or child they suddenly find themselves feeling sorry for everybody else and feel that they can stand and deliver from their tall mountain of success to those who stand below it. When people have what they want to pass the time until their inevitable demise then suddenly good seems to have come out of the shadows when it was never really there. 

 But then there’s a doubt - a pang of something like a flash in a starless night sky. It has the ability to take over us, to make us feel for a moment that we are younger or older or wiser than we actually are – to make us feel that the thoughts of the present are wrong. Sometimes doubt can be as painful as it is releasing even if just for a brief second. It has the power of nostalgia; to make us feel like what we think now is something twisted that took us off the path we once thought we were on – perhaps long ago.

 When doubt strikes it brings with it the bitter sweet taste of nostalgia as well as regret and sorrow for what time we’ve missed out on if we have been doing something all along that was never was what it appeared to be. If you’re lucky these feelings pass, you can fall straight back into the lull of ignorance. If you’re not, it stays, it grows - expands to take you on a rollercoaster, a journey into the past and the future to see what was and what could be. It can redeem those willing. But redemption is only for the willing, the bold, the brave – the coward who wishes to change, the bully who wishes to stop. But doubt in the present is the first step.

 For that boy with the tear filled by empty eyes all these thoughts suddenly and quite unexpectedly blasted into his heart filling it with the heavy poison of doubt that spread to regret that turned to the sinking feeling of loneliness. He felt its grip and as it dug deeper into his soul a single tear filed out of his eye to blend with the pouring rain.  He couldn’t remember how it had gotten to be like this for him or what exactly it was he could do about it. The emptiness and the loneliness were things that he couldn’t fight – they were enemies that were alone within that attacked when he least suspected. His demons where things that gathered pace like a snowball riding down a hill, gaining speed, strength, substance as it went.  He felt utterly exasperated at his situation. What he could do about it and how he could get out of it were things lost to him. No there was nothing to come out of it, for there was nothing left to go back to.

 Hope was something he lacked, something that he had used up long ago to finance his war of attrition against topics, people, things and places all in the name of some higher cause, some greater principle over all the little ones that make the difference on the small scale. He had lost track, lost sight of most things in his life and what was worse he knew it but hadn’t admitted it to himself until now. He wasn’t content with it, but he accepted it. He accepted the past for what it was, the present for what it should be and the future for what it would never be. He was startled out of his thoughts by the repetitive beeping of the pedestrian crossing until it went silent and replaced by the engines of cars.

 He was just bewildered with himself. This moment, this rut he was in could only be likened to standing on a rug and having it pulled unexpectedly away from underneath you. In a single moment he had realised that there was nothing left for him, that he had lost everything. There was very little left to fight for. No.  There was nothing left fighting for now. Friends, family, himself - all things that had suffered, had paid the price in the most ironic of ways: him trying to maintain them. What he cared about was gone.

 The rain continued to fall hitting with its millisecond impact on the paved road and coloured metallic shells that moved swiftly though the gathering water. The darkening purple sky of the late afternoon heightened the deep colours of the shops that aligned the streets. He stood idly in his bus top looking out through the plastic window. People gave a cursory glace at him as they walked by. He hated it. It was something people did when he walked along the street. He loathed it, despised it. To the best of his knowledge there was nothing uncanny or overly hideous about his face; nothing greatly abnormal about his physique or the clothes he was wearing. He was frustrated by people, their ways and their humanity. It was a hideous situation for one to hate people he had never met purely by their subconscious failings and judging them by the looks he received – isn’t that what they do to him? Had he become what he hated?

 He sighed. He disliked like this whole area. No, that wasn’t true. That wasn’t true at all. It was a hub for him, somewhere so full of spiritual nostalgia that it was like walking into a timeless bubble that would forever hold its spark, not so much for what was on the outside but for what he held in his heart about it and how it made him feel. However, in times like this that hurt. It reminded him very deeply of what was going on in the present and pain like that ultimately exploits the past to fuel its vendetta against the heart.

 The tears started again in his eyes, the tightness of the throat with that uncontrollable urge to fall over and slip into a deep eternal sleep of rest at last. He tucked his head into his thick, lined woollen scarf. He chocked out sniffs trying to contain himself as the emotions came, trying to remember a time when things were not as bad as they were now; a time when things were better, when he himself was a better person. He fell against the side of the window, his knees buckling as one hand held his scarf trying to cloak his face as his left reached out to grab the edge of the bus shelter. His desperation was a sign of his defeat, his resignation and acceptance that release for a cure to an imploding shell. 

 He had done everything he could for everyone he cared about. He no longer fought it the tears that kept coming, the wave after wave of heart breaking truth. He lifted himself off the window of the bus stop. His tears streaked his face, it red with the strain. The rain continued to pour down, hitting his moving body.

 He walked onto the road.

 Nobody looked at him this time.

~Interlude~

 “Second chances?”

 “Second chances.”

“I’d always hoped they were true but suppose I lost faith.”

“You see that always was your problem Mike you never really did believe that when something failed it could be reborn into something different - maybe even come back around one day and be in its full glory once more. You can speak of a Phoenix or a regeneration or healing but aren’t they all the same thing, the product of experience being put to new use?

“I never thought of it like that before.”

“And that’s why you sent me.”

“You know I missed you. God knows those are words I never thought I’d say to you but I really did miss you. I haven’t seen you like this in years - a long time indeed. Either way the last time I saw you I’m pretty sure you hated me.”

“Oh I did. But that doesn’t change the fact that I’m here now like this.”

“Is that why..?”

“That’s why I look like what you remember me as. Just accept that time is something that is much like a round ball. If you keep going further round you will eventually encounter what you left behind and the more times you go round the more you see it. Here I am for you now. You saw me before and now you’ve seen me again. Does that really change anything?”

“It’s just strange. You haven’t aged a day and you’re someone else to what I know now. I missed you. I don’t understand why I’m not petrified meeting you and seeing you again; I always was before. What? Why are you smiling?”

“I’m smiling Mike because there’s everything to smile about and you haven’t changed one bit and I hope you never do. You’re not scared of me because you weren’t then and that’s where I’m from. In this place it would make no difference; I’m here because you wanted me to be and you remember me with the love we had and you remember me knowing that once if you had ever needed a guide I would be there. I’m not your guide per se but I am someone who will point you in the direction that you need to go - much like I did before all this.”

“You always had a beautiful smile. Shame you were a bitch. But I don’t think I told you that I liked you’re smile enough. So what is this shindig? Angels reunited? Is it an opportunity? The big one? Funny, I never knew it would be sitting on a wall watching a setting sun with you. I always loved this place, for the memories, for everything. The orange glow makes everything feel so wonderful, so warm like my memories of here. And I suppose it’s just a coincidence this jacket fits again?

 “It’s an opportunity yes. As for my smile it doesn’t matter if you told me then, you told me now didn’t you? That jacket always did fit in your mind so don’t act surprised. This is your place. You’ll see it again, you’ll be here again. You’ll see me again. Trust me when I say that this is your time; feel the heat of the sun for it will never set in you’re mind. See it all, see them all again. Learn, feel every emotion. Love the life you live.

 “Are you telling me little lies?

 “Mine were never little. Now close your eyes.”

“Let’s get on with whatever it is then. Time’s a wastin’.”