|
|
Post by Dr. Gene Menelaus on Jul 8, 2010 14:37:16 GMT -5
The garden was a haven, a blessedly silent one. Dr. Menelaus could feel himself relax as he drifted beneath the shade of the trees. The near-permanent worry lines smoothed from his forehead, his hands drifted at his sides instead of clenched there, and an occasional smile even twitched at his normally grave expression.
He loved the shadows and light here. Both were harmless.
Eventually though his tranquil comfort must come to an end. He knew it would, because each time his path through the garden led him to this spot. He could have turned his back on the small graveyard instead of retracing his steps. Yet the souls there would haunt him whether he avoided them or not. At least this way the sad little ghosts (if they did haunt the graves,) could have some company.
The doctor picked some of the wildflowers as he slowly made his way to the graves. His peaceful expression drained away more with each step. When the mounds came into sight, he stopped and put a hand to his chest, as if he feared to see their spirits. He did fear that, though he never had. He came close to crushing the small flowers in his gloved hands.
When he remembered those blossoms, he started to move again, reluctantly. He paused to drop a few on each grave. They looked odd there: sudden and small bits of color on an otherwise solemn canvas.
|
|
|
|
Post by Arthur Colquhoun on Jul 8, 2010 16:19:36 GMT -5
Most of the other children tended to stay away from the graveyard- they didn’t like the feelings of emptiness and helplessness that were associated with the graves. Yet, for Arthur it was one of the few places he felt at peace at. His own brother- an identical twin, at that- laid amongst the fallen. It was here that he came to talk to his brother on occasion. The young boy wasn’t sure if his brother could hear him, but it helped him feel comforted at any rate.
A tree stood near his brother’s grave and the eleven year old found it amusing to climb up there every so often. There was a spot that he could view the graveyard from while being completely hidden himself. Once the leaves fell, the spot would be of no use to him and he was taking full advantage of it now.
On this particular day, he had managed to climb up to the spot with a baseball clutched in his right hand, no easy task. The ball was falling apart, but Arthur didn’t care- he had stolen it from one of the other boys and had no intent on giving it back. He hadn’t been up there too long before he heard footsteps. Immediately, his body tensed. Holding the ball still, he looked out into the graveyard and spotted the man at once. It was the doctor, the one adult here that was supposedly safe.
As the man approached the graves closest to the tree in which he was in, Arthur’s eyes narrowed. He never understood why people placed flowers on graves. “Why place flowers on the graves? It’s not like the dead can see them,” he called down from the tree, trying to make his voice sound deeper than it actually was. He hated the fact that he still sounded like a child.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Gene Menelaus on Jul 8, 2010 20:58:41 GMT -5
Dr. Menelaus drifted wistfully through the graves without noticing his silent watcher. He paused at one or two who belonged to certain children...ones he'd known, or liked in particular, or even disliked. Their voices rang so clear in his mind. Yet they were silenced forever.
He knelt and placed one gloved hand tenderly over an unmarked mound. For that moment, he couldn't dislike the Shadow Man quite so much.
Then the voice rang out. Startled, the doctor fell next to the grave. He sprang up and glanced about wildly--he couldn't locate the child, and the airborne quality of the voice gave rise to fearful ideas.
"A-ah, you... are you a spirit? I mean no trouble if you are!"
He pushed his gloved fingers nervously up the bridge of his nose.
|
|
|
|
Post by Arthur Colquhoun on Jul 8, 2010 22:09:11 GMT -5
Arthur held back a laugh when the doctor fell over. A smirk appeared on his face when he heard the next part. He knew that it was bad of him to be so amused while in a graveyard, especially when the doctor seemed to be mourning. And he knew what he was about to do would surely send him straight to Hell.
“Aye, good sir. That I am. And you are standing right on my grave. Please, if you could be so kind, and take three steps forward and one step to the right. Just be careful not to step on John’s grave or you might have two of us talking to you.”
Proud of his quick thinking, the young boy quickly readjusted himself in the tree so he could get a better look at that man. In his haste, the ball that he had been clutching in his hand fell to the ground.
Thump
The object landed softly, a few feet away from the man. Arthur’s eyes widened in horror, then shut as he willed himself to become invisible.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Gene Menelaus on Jul 8, 2010 22:51:12 GMT -5
The good doctor lifted both hands to his face when the 'ghost,' spoke again. "Oh...I...this was..." His wits momentarily left him in his fright. He stepped, or rather, stumbled the three steps, and then the one. He swung his head around, whipping his hair back and forth nervously as he waited for more ghosts to pop into sight. Or speak.
Then a thought finally crossed his terrified mind. "T-that grave? You said it was yours?" The voice didn't match the child he remembered.
Menelaus went fully silent at the thunk sound. He tensed up, expecting an enraged spirit to appear, or some other such horrifying sight. He believed in ghosts enough before the Shadow Man showed up at the orphanage, secretly confirming all of his supernatural fears to be true. At least in his own mind.
He took a tremulous couple of steps toward the sound, and knelt to see... a ball of some kind? He brushed his fingers across it, jerked them away, and then finally returned to pick the worn object from the ground. Surely a ghost hadn't thrown this...
At that moment, he looked up and saw the very much alive boy in the branches of the tree. "Oh!..."
He could only stare at first. "You, ah, should come down from there." The doctor managed to calm his voice, if only a bit. "Those branches don't look quite safe. If you fell, you might hurt yourself."
|
|
|
|
Post by Arthur Colquhoun on Jul 9, 2010 23:22:27 GMT -5
The boy watched the doctor’s actions with interest. Never before had he been able to tell an adult to do without receiving a smack to the head or worse. There was a slight feeling of guilt when Arthur realized just how frightened the man seemed to be, but he quickly pushed that thought aside. He was still considering how to answer the question about the grave when the ball fell.
The silence after the ball dropped was worrisome. While not all that familiar with the supernatural world, he was fairly sure that spirits, even those that belonged to children, couldn’t throw balls from trees. If they could, his brother would have knocked him upside the head with one a long time ago. The moment he opened his eyes, realizing that his attempts to become invisible were useless, the doctor looked up.
A shiver went through his spine and his body tensed. While the children at the orphanage were supposedly safe from ever being harmed at the hand of an adult, he was still well aware of what life had been like before.
But, of course he was expected to come down. He looked at the branches around him when they were mentioned to be unsafe. “These branches?” he asked curiously, giving a few of them a good shake to see if they stable. “What happens when children fall from trees? Do they die? Have you actually seen a child die from falling out of a tree? Is falling from a tree more painful than getting beat?” he asked, the questions pouring out of him with little space in between.
The fact that he had minutes ago been pretending to be dead and was expecting a punishment had left his mind. “So, sir, you wouldn’t recommend hanging upside down from this branch?” he asked as he reached towards the bough closest to the one he was sitting upon.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Gene Menelaus on Jul 10, 2010 23:22:05 GMT -5
The doctor's eyes widened and his mouth dropped open at the slew of questions. He tried to frame an answer, and each time the boy asked another. A frown creased his forehead at the mention of beatings. He, too, remembered the atrocities committed here. He rarely if ever mentioned them aloud, even if others did. So, he would avoid that particular question.
"You...may break a bone, perhaps an arm, or a dislocation," he said, quietly serious, if still flustered. "Perhaps if you climbed a bit lower to the--"
And then the boy asked the upside down question.
"Oh dear. No, I would not at all suggest it." The doctor took an awkward step or too closer, in case the energetic boy did come tumbling down. Not that he himself was overly strong, but he could certainly break his fall if he had to.
|
|
|
|
Post by Arthur Colquhoun on Jul 11, 2010 22:20:54 GMT -5
After the multitude of questions, the child was surprisingly silent as he contemplated his next move. It was his mouth and his lack of inability of knowing when to be quiet that had gotten him in trouble on numerous occasions.
The mention of a broken arm did nothing to stop him. Already he was moving towards the branch, eager to try out his new idea. The threat of a dislocation made him pause, one hand on the new branch and the other on the old one, and wrinkle his nose. Perhaps hanging upside down would not be that pleasing after all.
“Perhaps it is time for me to come a bit lower,” he finally said after a few seconds of silence. Being in the tree had suddenly lost it’s appeal. Slowly he lowered himself down a few branches, looking down at his feet as he did so.
“I, uh, come up here to think at times. About the past and such. I suppose it is a bit of an odd place to do one’s thinking.”
Once at another sturdy looking branch that was close to the ground, Arthur sat down. He was almost eye level with the doctor now and was much more calm than he had been a few minutes ago, though his body was still tense with caution. “Why-” he quickly bit his lip, not wanting to sound childish by asking so many questions. Instead he glanced over at the graves.
|
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Gene Menelaus on Jul 12, 2010 0:29:17 GMT -5
"Ah-!" The doctor moved right underneath the branch as the boy edged toward it. He sighed in relief when Arthur decided not to swing dangerously on it after all. He wouldn't have to carry another injured child to his office. He thought of how many times he'd done that in the past few years. Enough to lose count. Quite a few of those had ended up out here, after dying in agony, slowly or quickly. If only he could have mended all of them. They'd still be alive--distrusting yes, cruel, some of them, or mad, hateful, but not ended.
He shook his head. His expression had slowly grown sadder and more distant with his tangled thoughts.
"Thank you... that appears to be a much safer height," he said, trying to keep his voice normal. It wavered a bit when he spoke next. "I suppose others would consider it odd, but... I come here to think as well." He smiled, a tremulous expression that he couldn't keep on his face.
The boy was almost eye to eye with him. The doctor flicked a quick gaze over him, checking absently for any harm. Of course he found none. Children climbed trees fairly often and without much to show for it other than a few scrapes. He worried too much, he supposed, but... all of these children had felt more than their share of pain.
He tensed a little at the unfinished question. He, too, glanced out at the graves, unsure of what else to say.
|
|
|
|
Post by Arthur Colquhoun on Jul 15, 2010 0:09:45 GMT -5
Being closer to the ground made him much more aware of exactly why he was here. If he climbed out of the tree and took about ten steps, he’d be at his brother’s final resting place. That night, two years ago, was a very distant memory. All he could remember was the blood. Someone had pushed him aside before he could see exactly what or who had ended his brother.
The playful boy had vanished, replaced by a more serious looking child with dark circles under his eyes- oh, how he hated sleeping. He nodded at the doctor’s words. “I was unaware that thinking amongst the dead was a common pastime for others,” he said quietly.
Silence was something he disliked. Silence and stillness. As the conversation ceased, the boy grew progressively more wiggly. He couldn’t take it- he jumped and landed cat-like on all fours. It was a short fall, but he had imaged that he would land feet first when he did it. Almost instantly he jumped back up, his face growing red from embarrassment. “It was wrong of me to interrupt your flowering. Would you, uh, like me to go pick up some more for you?” he said quickly, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Or perhaps you need to get back to your doctoring?”
|
|
|
|
Post by Dr. Gene Menelaus on Jul 18, 2010 1:30:14 GMT -5
"Perhaps it depends..." A storm gathered in the doctor's eyes as he gazed out at the graves. His thoughts often became torture when he walked among those sad remnants, marked and unmarked, of darker times. It was a reminder that he'd been unable to do anything to stop those deaths. He hadn't been unwilling, but crippled by his own cowardice. He came here more because he thought he deserved it than anything. Also, perhaps, to give any lingering spirits a little company.
He tried to shake himself out of it. The lively boy had suddenly become somber. Gene got a better look at the deep shadows under his eyes. His instincts as a doctor won out over his other thoughts. He still looked worried, but in a more focused way.
"Have you been sleeping enough--"
Just then, the boy leaped out of the tree. Gene stumbled backwards, openmouthed, then couldn't help a small laugh at the boy's words. Flowering? Oh dear. At least this boy seemed to have some of the energy that children should. "Ah...I...suppose I might go back. Would you accompany me? I may be able to give you a sleeping draft, if you are having difficulty sleeping."
He sounded far calmer and steadier when discussing medical matters.
|
|
