I stand on the windswept coast, thinking of him. The wind is
whistling through the house behind me, and blows the doors closed
with a loud bang. I jump at the sound, now-a-days unused to loud
noises, surprises and danger. I have grown soft, I guess. I don't
miss the old days, I just miss him.
I never got to know what drove him, if it was something besides
violence and a lust for power. Never got to know how he was recruited
or suborned or if he simply volunteered. He was so normal in so many
ways. I have come to know that at least. Boogieman, murderer, coward,
liar and thief though he might have been, after all this time I
realize he was also just a man. Often scared, in pain, hungry, tired
or bouncing on his toes with nerves or expectation or exasperation.
Maybe it was the simple commonplaceness of it all, the banal needs
and desires that always threw me off balance when I dealt with him. I
knew he liked his coffee white and sweet, his jeans tight and his tee
shirts pristine and that he was always thirsty and often cold.
When he was killed in front of me, I felt nothing. He was just
another man in the way who died for interfering. I walked right past
his cooling corpse and went on my way to more, much more important
matters. I did not blame Skinner for gunning him down like a dog, I
did not protest when his body conveniently disappeared, I did not
wonder if he was ever buried or left to rot somewhere. His humanity
had no value at all.
I feel the wind bite through my coat. The back of my neck is raw from
the cold; somehow, a thin line of flesh always remains uncovered
despite my best efforts with hoods, turtlenecks and scarves. I hunch
into my collar and turn back from the beach towards the house. There
is no profit from these old memories, no comfort or closure.
Sometimes, I think I see him. In town or in a crowd scene on the
news, I will suddenly get a twinge of recognition and bend closer to
the screen or walk faster on the street. It is never him, of course.
He is dead - I saw it. He was no clone or super-soldier. He bled red;
he breathed and then stopped breathing.
Despite the evidence, in spite of the fact that I was a witness,
something in me has a small, small doubt about his demise. I want to
believe it is because I could never figure him out and that my Spidey-
sense is out of order. Just that something niggles at me, like an
itch I cannot reach in the center of my back. A maybe... I pace the
coastal edge that drops off to a foamy sea in front of my cabin and
wonder.
2) Seaside
I can feel the warmth of the winter sun on my face. I hear the sea
lapping at the end of the pier and I am buffeted by a strangely
comforting wind that is far too warm for March. I flex my hand on the
arm of the iron chair. I have been clutching it tightly, afraid of
being alone in the open. It almost makes me laugh, this fear of mine.
I was never comfortable in the open, even when I could run and see. I
used to think I was suited for the dark night and now all I have is
darkness. Serves me right, of course, I jinxed it a million times and
now it has all come true. Me, all alone in the dark and with fear as
my constant companion.
I curse the fact that they came and took me, `healed' me and left me
to rot in comfort. Better, I should have stayed dead.
I heard about Mulder the other day. He is a source of interest
amongst those who have wound up here, his legion of unsubstantiated
dead. I hear that he will rise again someday. And that there's a
photograph where he's dancing on his grave. Someone told me Scully
was there too, her arms wrapped around her waist and an unamused
expression on her face. I can picture her clearly, the same sour look
she always threw my way directed at him and his lack of empathy at
how she must have suffered and prayed on that grave a million times
while he was gone.
You always were a total schmuck as a boyfriend, Mulder. You only have
romance in your soul for your losses, never for the living around you
who give a damn. The only reason she stayed true to you was her own
less than generous capacity for love and life. You fitted yourselves
together in a mishmashed kind of two-headed coin that never managed
to roll away from pain, trouble and unhappiness. You deserve each
other.
I hear the gulls screaming at the waves. Yeah, yeah, fly and scream
and dive into the cold, cold sea for dinner. Sometimes they die,
Mulder. Sometimes they dive in a moment too soon or too late and a
wave drowns them. Then they get to be food for something else's
dinner. That's the way it is. Eat or be eaten, fly and dive at your
own risk.
Well, I certainly crashed and burned, didn't I? I bet I never fooled
you, for all your apparent gut wrenching anger and sorrow. You hated
your old man, Mulder. I know you did. You hated the old man who
really was your father even more.
What did you think you were going to find at the end of your quest?
Was it The Truth, with a capitol T, a way to stop the aliens and save
the world and a ticker-tape parade in your honor? That the world
would care it was saved?
So we're saved, life goes on, the good guys go after the bad guys and
fit the punishment to the crime. You are reinstated in a newly
humbled Bureau. No surprise that they were at the beck and call of
the old men and never knew it, seems after 9/11 they can't
differentiate shit and shinola, not that they ever could.
I don't blame you, not really. I don't blame myself either. I didn't
go to kindergarten and Show and Tell that I wanted to grow up to be
crippled assassin. You probably said you wanted to play shortstop for
the Yankees and passed around your genuine imprinted Babe Ruth glove.
God, I'm tired and bored. I listen to all the books I never got a
chance to read. I just was sent over a hundred hours of some kid's
series about wizards and a young bereft schoolboy hero. I think when
I'm done I'll send them to you. This kid is right up your alley and
you can hear all about him on some midnight drive you take to
somewhere to save someone who doesn't give a damn.
I think the next book I listen to will be read in Russian. Russian is
suited to tragedy and sorrow. English is too crisp and precise to
fully convey suffering through freezing winters, tepid springs and
megalomaniacal Tsarist mandates.
It's not surprising that the Russians were second only to the States
in their involvement in the conspiracy. They know all about Programs
and the toll of losing millions of citizens in plagues and wars.
Strange how much you remain on my mind, how in the darkness I see you
so brightly lit and in living color.
3) In the Moment
The Gunmen's paranoia pays off. They find a deed to an Italian
seaside resort in the minutia of the syndicate's paperwork. I got
them copies before I ever let the FBI get a hold of them. No one has
been traced to having used the place for dirty deeds. It seems it is
a sort of retirement home for those lucky enough to live and stay out
of the limelight of War Crimes tribunals and general consortium clean
up.
Interpol is `generous' enough to include me in the raid on the place
even though I have rubbed their international noses in the cover-up.
As usual, no one is happy to have Spooky along for the ride. The
Brits especially love to rub in that moniker. I ignore them, grateful
that Phoebe is not along for the ride as well.
It's a beautiful day. The sun is shining and a warm breeze is blowing
despite the calendar.
Suddenly I feel that ever-present tickle grow fierce and the hair on
the back of my neck stiffens. Ah, my eyes and subconscious recognized
him before my eyes and the cogent part of my brain adjusted to the
light. He is sitting strangely still, upright and quivering. I wonder
why he hasn't run, like the others, to cars and helicopters, to
escape.
I approach him from the rear. He turns his head slightly, sensing my
presence and then I see it, his horribly scarred forehead, and the
blank eyes with rapidly blinking eyelids. I have a momentary urge to
cover his eyes from behind and say Boo! Instead, I walk around him
until I am right in front.
"Well, well," I say in a low voice, "I see you've managed to rise
from the dead, Krycek."
He smiles that smirking smart-ass smile. He raises his head, trying
to focus on where I am standing. I see that he has his fake arm half-
hidden a blanket while his other hand clenches and unclenches on top
the blanket. He does not reach for a gun. This must be my lucky day,
a trapped and damaged Alex Krycek with no weapons and nowhere to run.
"Good of you to drop by," he murmurs. "Were you in the neighborhood?"
I reach out and smack him across the face; he sensed my intent but
couldn't avoid the blow. A red patch blooms on his cheek.
"Don't hold back on my account," he says, still smiling. "Let it all
out. If you've been holding out all this time you have a lot to
unload. Don't you Repression Boy? Go ahead, finish it if you can."
I raise my fist. I do not care that he is blind or a cripple. He is a
total bastard no matter what his condition, but I find I cannot hit
him again.
"You could just shoot me," he taunts.
I bite my lip and walk a few feet away to regain my composure and get
another beach chair. I drag the old-fashioned heavy thing back with
me and sit down. "How?" I ask him, although I really don't care. I
take some more deep breaths.
He shrugs and does not answer.
"Why here?" I try again.
He moves his head as if he is looking the area over. "It's as good as
anywhere." He says, opens his mouth to say more and then doesn't.
"I don't know about that Krycek" I answer. Your next domicile is
gonna be a lot less comfortable and I really doubt anyone is gonna
wheel you out into the sunshine."
He shrugs "whatever," he says and sits back in his chair, relaxing a
bit.
With excellent irony, it turns out we will sit here and guard the
ones we managed to catch. We will be here until the suits in London
and D.C. decide what to do with these people. People who are well
known to all of us as master criminals and about whom there is not a
shred of evidence or proof other than our memories. That should be
enough, but even I doubt the War Crimes Tribunal has the stomach for
locking up old men and cripples for life. I cannot imagine Judge
Rebecca Merryweather looking at his blind ravaged face, missing arm,
and sentencing him the way he deserves.
We sit in silence as the day lengthens and the sun hides behind
clouds and the wind really does tell us it is March and not June.
4) Tomorrow and Tomorrow
I've been here three weeks. The Senate subcommittee on alien
insurgents has taken a two-week break for Easter and Passover. The
Brits are having referendums for party dominance and no one wants to
deal with this problem in a timely manner. Skinner seems to think
this is a holiday of some kind and merely said he would go feed the
fish in my apartment.
I sit with Krycek every morning on the sunny beach. The weather has
changed and a hint of grass has begun to grow along the edge of the
beachfront closest to the sidewalk. He manages on his own, going from
his room to cafeteria to the beach. He has a room with a private
bath, so I guess he manages there as well.
We do not talk much; when he grins, it makes my blood boil so I don't
elicit any conversation that allows him to bait me into losing my
temper. I notice he does not shave himself very well, every morning
there is a place or two that he missed. His sideburns are uneven, but
that might be from the lopsided surgery and the taut scars.
Three is no doubt he is in pain much of the time. I relished it at
first, but now I wonder. I take a deep sigh; he does also although I
am sure he does not notice he has copied me. He goes far away behind
those blank eyes. I know this because he rubs his forehead and his
mobile mouth turns down in a set of creases that weren't there before.
We never touched, except in violence. Well, there were a few
commonplace touches when we worked those few cases together years
ago. I look for any sign of that excitable rookie and find he is long
gone, if he was ever real at all.
One day he brings a portable CD player to the beach and puts on a
talking book. He has chosen well, an Anne Tyler, bitter feminist
angst, read by a sultry voice. The plot winds back and forth, friends
who become enemies, lovers who betray, and sex that is
unsatisfactory, it frequent.
He has a sharp and unused laugh that startles me because I was
watching him instead of following the story.
Alex Krycek, I think, Alex goddamned Krycek. All those questions that
haunted me when I thought he was mostly, if not finally dead come
back to me. They are foreign and unnecessary intrusions in the spring
sunshine.
Knowing he is alive and right here in my face, aren't answers, but
somehow I feel complete. A long time ago, a man who helped told me an
old proverb, "Keep your friends close, but keep your enemies closer."
I watch him slide his fingers over the CD case, looking for the next
one to put in the player.
I reach out and take the case, pop the other one out and put this one
in. The story resumes.
He reaches out to take the case back. I take his hand instead. It is
warm and dry and trembles ever so slightly in my palm.
I think he is my destiny.
Fini
Kate Bush Could you see the aisles of women? The wind is whistling Elvis are you out there somewhere Another Hollywood waitress The wind is whistling Elvis are you out there somewhere The wind it blows
Commonplace
by Flutesong
1) Sea Foam
King of the Mountain
Aerial
Could you see them screaming and weeping?
Could you see the storm rising?
Could you see the guy who was driving?
Could you climb higher and higher?
Could you climb right over the top?
Why does a multi-millionaire
Fill up his home with priceless junk?
The wind is whistling
Through the house...
Looking like a happy man?
In the snow with Rosebud
And King of the Mountain
Is telling us she's having your baby
And there's a rumour that you're on ice
And you will rise again someday
And that there's a photograph
Where you're dancing on your grave
The wind is whistling
Through the house...
Looking like a happy man?
In the snow with Rosebud
And King of the Mountain
The wind it blows the door closed
