Hereafter
Written for Jenn.
O mistress mine! Where are you roaming?
O! Stay and hear; your true love's coming,
That can sing both high and low.
Trip no further, pretty sweeting;
Journeys end in lovers meeting,
Every wise man's son doth know
What is love? 'tis not hereafter;
Present mirth hath present laughter;
What's to come is still unsure:
In delay there lies no plenty;
Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.
Jehan sat on his bed and looked 'round his room, with his eyes wide in surprise.
"Oh.. they've changed it such a lot..."
The room was wallpapered in a pale seafoam green, which was why he'd rented it in the first place. That colour was gorgeous, especially after he added lavender curtains to the two windows. It was nice and bright in the morning so that he woke early enough to get a few things done before his classes.
The wallpaper was still there, although faded, but someone had taken away his curtains and replaced them with a white gauzy drapery about the windows. Jehan didn't like white with the seafoam walls.
Slowly, he got off the bed and walked over to where his chest of clothes used to be. There was a small bureau there now, with a small white cloth over it. Upon that rested several rectangles of a dull, smooth substance he couldn't name. They had the faces of several men and women on them, and he looked sadly at the one of a girl with stern eyes. They weren't any of them of anyone he knew.
He looked back over at the bed. He remembered sleeping there very well. He could still imagine feeling the soft quilt his grandmother had made wrapped about him. If he tried very hard, he could still imagine Phillipe holding him close in the winter. Because, he remembered, his apartment was always very drafty, and it got so cold. They curled together to stay warm, when even Jehan's quilt didn't help.
Whoever lived here now had replaced the quilt, as well. That, though, was only natural. Jehan moved back to the bed and put his hand on it, even though he couldn't feel anything. The new bedclothes looked much warmer, and fuzzy, too. Likely they were much nicer than his old, grey quilt.
The new owner had also removed his little writing desk. Jehan worriedly sat back on the bed, and looked at the spot where his desk used to be. It had been replaced by a small table that had a pipe and several books stacked on it.
Quietly, Jehan pretended it was still his desk scattered with poetry. This new person was very neat--Jehan never kept his things in order. Of course, there was a reason for that. Everything to him was equally important, and he wanted it where he could see it all, instead of piled, as though one poem was of less importance than another. Everything belonged on top where it could be seen.
He put his hand on the table, and tried to pick up the pipe, but it slipped through his fingers. He pushed at it, and it rocked as though a breeze were blowing it. Finally it fell over, spilling ash.
Abruptly, Jehan began to cry, and his cheeks went silver with the tears. All his poems were gone; that was clear. It wasn't likely they were just out of sight. They'd been burned, or thrown out with the rubbish. Then he felt angry. They were his poems. They were his life. So many of them--so many of them had been for Phillipe.
But that was his own fault. He'd never gotten up the courage to give them to Phillipe and so he'd missed his chance. He lay back on the bed, wishing it was still covered with his quilt. He remembered Phillipe through the same haze he remembered everything else.
Phillipe had--yes, Phillipe had ginger hair, and green eyes. Of course, Jehan was the only one who called him Phillipe, really. Everyone else called him Combeferre, because... there must have been some reason... There must have been some reason, but Jehan couldn't remember it. He remembered that his own name was Jehan and that Combeferre was really Phillipe, but that was all. He didn't remember the names of his friends.
That, though, was because he was old. With a sigh, Jehan pulled himself up and hugged his knees. He was one hundred and eighteen years old, yesterday. One would never remember anything when one was that old, wasn't that so?
Jehan looked down at himself. He was still half-transparent, and he could see a foggy-looking bedspread through himself. It was no wonder he couldn't pick up the pipe or feel the bedspread. He was old, and he was the only one who remembered anything about himself, and suddenly he was frightened by that. There was no one else to remember what he'd done as a child and there was no one else to remember Phillipe and he kept forgetting. He was losing his memory. Everything would go with his memory.
He scrambled off the bed, and rushed to one of the walls, pressing his forehead against it. The wallpaper was the only thing the same about his old apartment. The new owner had moved the furniture and replaced all the things that were Jehan's.
With a soft cry, he jerked back from the wall, as his head began to slide through it. He collapsed in the very centre of the room where no one could touch him and rocked back and forth. Everything had changed. He couldn't remember the way Phillipe's voice sounded. Everything that was his was gone.
Suddenly, he heard footsteps, and looked up to see a young man walk into the room. The young man reminded Jehan a little of--of someone he'd once known.
"Demmit, my pipe. Ash all over the place. I must keep better care of my things, mustn't I? Ah, yes, I must," he said to a kitten which had appeared and was stumbling around his ankles. "Pretty Andrea, I'm going to feed you."
The kitten hadn't even noticed Jehan. He felt as though he might cry again. He hadn't changed, really, in a hundred years, even if everything else had.
He staggered to his feet, and pushed through the door to the hall, breathing in gasps. It wasn't fair. Nothing of his was left. Everything was gone. Everyone was gone. He was the only one left, and he was hiding his face in his hands.
He squealed and fell back as a voice whispered in his ear, "Jehan. No, no, hush, Jehan, it's all right." He could feel hands on his shoulders--he could feel hands on his shoulders, light as silk.
"Phil-Phillipe--" He looked through his fingers frightenedly. Phillipe's fuzzy-around-the-edges, half-transparent face looked back.
Slowly, Phillipe pulled Jehan's fingers down, uncovering his face. His expression was terribly sad, and yet he was trying to smile. "Shh, Jehan, it's all right." Just as slowly, he kissed Jehan, and somehow Jehan didn't fall right through him. Somehow Jehan could kiss him back and he didn't dissolve.
Then Phillipe drew back, and touched his fingers to Jehan's forehead. "It's all right," he said again. And then he wasn't there any longer.
Jehan shivered convulsively, feeling his throat tighten and then relax, closing his eyes. Now he could remember. He could remember everything about Phillipe and about his friends (Joly! Feuilly! Courfeyrac!) and his own self. He could remember something like this happening before, perhaps fifty years ago. It was all right.
But he wasn't ever going back to his old apartment.
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