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[align=center][size=9]((Sorry that most of this is in fractured sentances and sentace fragments. I was trying to imitate that sort of fragmentation of memory.))[/size] [img]http://i28.tinypic.com/auw0ec.jpg[/img] [size=7] [i]There is no guilt or innocence in you. All of that is past. Guilt belabors the dead and I am not the Iron Hammer. You multitude of the dead are merely people who have done certain things, and the memory of those things illuminates my path.[/i] ~Leto II, God-Emporer of Dune [/size][/align] [size=9][align=justify]Who dares search the past? The stories of the past explain the ache of the present; history shapes the future; still there are so few, so few who dare to look back into the darkness of their own memories. Be though it may that in our history, our pasts and our mistakes, we can find ourselves; yet we are fearful of it. All of us, but none more so than the observant, those perceptive few who know that in that darkness will they find themselves, and that in themselves will they find that darkness.[/align] [align=center]* * *[/align] [align=justify]A baby in a cradle, background of dingy wallpaper left over from the sixties beyond the old cradle that he was in. Another boy leant over, almost curious, darker eyes but the same blond hair that was beginning to appear in wisps on the baby. Rarely were two brothers so apparent, nearly-five and not-even-one looking at each other across the years, but then the older boy looked round and away as a shout of rage came from the kitchen, and fled. The baby slept peacefully on through the screams, the older brother being beaten over the shoulders, the chest, wherever their mother could reach. Rage aimed towards the now-absent father who had fled his wife's rages and left the boys behind. Then it was quiet again, and Flynn dragged himself back to the cradle and leant over the edge. Blood from his split lip fell onto Sean's oustretched hand. "You did this," said Flynn, tears running down his face. A face still young, rounded with youth, all of his baby teeth in place. He wasn't even of school age. "Your fault. Your [i]fault[/i]." With an angry pout, he pushed the cradle over and Sean, in his blankets, fell to the floor. Started crying, a baby's own reaction. Flynn stood for a moment looking down at him, then their mother's heavy footsteps could be heard in the corridor and he fled, leaving the baby behind him. It was the baby who had made their mother mad, he thought; let him take the punishment.[/align] [align=center]* * *[/align] [align=justify]Five years old, waiting at the school gates for the first time. Nervous through his classes. The skies outside were heavy with grey september clouds, the matte black playground littered with early autumn leaves. Some of the older boys were playing football, Flynn among them, but they were too rough for the younger ones and Sean, with the other new kids, sat on the damp wooden benches with their sandwiches and little yoghurts. Telling pointless jokes, the sort of things that little children think are funny but which adults force a smile at. Almost relieved at the whistle that allowed them to troop indoors again. The other children thought that he looked funny; his clothes were too big for him, and Flynn had always been big for his age. They giggled at him when he wasn't looking, his funny haircut and fingernails all bitten away to nothing. He was all skinny, not like the other boys. When the teacher tried to get him to read one of the trainer books he had trouble with the words, knowing that most of what his mother said in front of him couldn't be repeated. In his first afternoon he accidentally said a bad word and had to stand outside the classroom for a bit. Rubbing one scuffed old shoe on the back of his sock on the other foot. Sniffing back tears. The teacher came out to speak to him and he said sorry in the little way that children did, except that he knew what he had done and meant the apology this time. The teacher let him back into the classroom. One of the girls let him sit next to her, giggled with him, leant him the blue pencil the next day when he really wanted to use it. They talked in that child's way at the front gates, waiting for her mother to come and get her. Sean remembered the name now. Beth, short for Elizabeth. Beth's mother had been pretty and nice; she had worn nice clothes and long skirts, and always smelt of washing powder and perfume. Sean never saw his mother at the school gates. Flynn used to walk home with him whilst they were both at the same school. If Sean said something wrong or talked too much Flynn would hit him on the shoulder, but if he didn't speak he would be hit anyway. Not much, just enough to mark without bruising, just enough to cow the boy. Struggling with his homework, listening to his mother's heavy snores from the room next door. Three times tables. He and Beth had been reciting them the day before by the hopscotch, but he couldn't remember them now. He hadn't eaten that day. It was somewhere in February, he could remember that as well. Ice on the inside of the windows. The snoring stopped, he continued almost desperately now. Heavy footsteps outside the room - [i]please don't come in[/i] - opening door, a slap on the side of the head. Calling him a stupid boy. Rolling up the textbook; textbook striking him over and over, the effect still more terror than in pain. Somewhere there was a blank, then the next thing that he knew Sean was kneeling in the middle of the room with the textbook in his hands again. He got slowly to his feet and returned to what he was doing, reaching to wipe away tears that he remembered being there but suddenly weren't.[/align] [align=center]* * *[/align] [align=justify]Aged ten. He knew how to hide bruises by now. Flynn had moved on to senior school, and Sean had taken to lingering on his way home. Beth was allowed to walk home by herself, so Sean tended to walk with her; they were still friends, though Sean was still thought of as strange for his old tatty jumper and his patchy work. He was intelligent, all of the teachers had seen that, but his homework had a tendancy to just not turn up at all. When it did there were sometimes bloody marks on it, and the talked-of nosebleeds never turned up at school. Sometimes Flynn didn't even come home at all at night. Sean had taken to moving furniture in front of his door to try and get some peace there. Ranting and pounding on the door outside, of course, and if he made the mistake of going out to cook what he had bought that day or to wash his clothes then he was liable to be struck again. A week before he been trying to iron the collar of his shirt when she had come for him; luckily he had avoided her since. She had been angry at him, more than was right; she had the metal extension for the vaccuum cleaner in her hand and bought it down on his arm with a cracking sound that sent flashes of pain through him as he threw his arms up to protect his face. It was difficult to picture her now; her hair, had it been greying? Greasy and messy now, matting from lack of care? Greasy smears on her old, sagging skin? Dirt on her clothes, whatever she was wearing? Bruises and cuts from where she fell into and onto things all of the time? All that he could remember was the eyes, like mirrors, so that in her twisted madness he could only ever see himself, only ever blame himself for the fact that his father left.This time she had seen a better weapon, or maybe it had just been an accident, and the next thing that Sean knew his leg was burning, on fire, his shorts melting into his leg beneath the heat of the iron, and he screamed, falling backwards, head against the cold radiator, everything going black. He wasn't unconscious for long, but he awoke with his leg still burning, the iron fallen away but his flesh all seared. She was gone when he came round. Sean stumbled into the shower, locked the bathroom door, peeled away his clothes as best he could though there was blood streaming down his leg when he did. He was limping for the next month.[/align] [align=center]* * *[/align] [align=justify]Twelve. The last time that his mother had really turned on him, but then again... Flynn was seventeen by that point. His mother had fallen into a drunken fugue whilst the bruises had faded on Sean's shoulders, and he was oddly close to happy. Flynn hadn't been around for a fortnight, and when he had started to become the one whose punches really had something behind them he had become the one to worry about. He had been standing seeing that his bruises were now almost invisible when Flynn had suddenly returned after two weeks - [i]no, god no, please...[/i] "Sean, you ********' home?" Trying to ignore him, trying to scramble back into his shirt. "I asked you a ********' question." And suddenly he was there, oh no... Sean raised his hand to fend off the blow to the head, but it was followed by a cross lower, into his stomach. Flynn knew how to fight already; he was a man, if a young one, and Sean was just a boy. Sean let himself fall, waited until it was quiet to look up again, all shaking and with blood running down from his nose. It tasted like licking metal did. Flynn was leaning against the wall, all cold blue eyes and spiked hair, leather jacket, ripped jeans. Looking years older than he was. Cigarettes in his pocket, lighter in his hands. Flicking it on and off. He stood there for a moment longer, then left, and Sean pulled himself to his feet. Tried to forget the whole incident. It didn't last long though, perhaps another week, when Flynn was in the house ordering him around. There seemed to be a perverted pleasure from ordering the younger boy around. Making him act the housewife. Sean bowed his head to it, but he was too young, he could barely cook beans on toast let alone keep the house and try to clean it. Things didn't get washed up properly, and he was smacked on the back of the legs as if he was a child for it. He didn't iron the clothes well, and he was smacked for it. He burnt dinner and had his head smacked against the floor until he nearly blacked out for it. But in some ways it was easier as long as he withdrew into himself. Things started to get a little fuzzier round the edges, just pretending that it was someone else. One night it just didn't work though. Falling asleep over his work, cheek stuck to the page with wet ink; he was thirteen by then, trying to understand essays when the words danced around in front of him. Oh, he knew what he wanted to say, but the words wouldn't behave. One of the teachers had said 'dyslexic' and it seemed that all of the other children seemed to know, but only Beth didn't really care. Nothing had been done to help anyway. It was the early hours of the morning when Flynn barged in, stumbled upstairs, pulled on the back of Sean's shirt and awoke him. Sean managed not to cry out, but then he was being pushed against the wall. "Little brat," came the slurred voice in his ear. Breath smelling of alcohol. Terrible double-think: Flynn's voice, mother's breath. She couldn't be his mother. He hadn't seen her in days. But she still wailed at him from time to time and food went missing from the fridge. She didn't realise he had the credit card, surely. "You did this to us all." Tears on his cheeks, lips pinched tightly closed so that he wouldn't make a sound. It was dark. "b*****d child... devil's child... you'll pay..." Pain. Humiliation. Sean tried to struggle as the hand was wrapped over his mouth, as he was pushed down onto the bed and his trousers pulled away, but he could hardly breathe beneath Flynn's hand and with the terrified pounding of his heart. The pain, again, surely it couldn't be real, feeling dirty, why me?, didn't ask for this... then being left in tears, too weak to even sob, another slap to remind him and a threat. Hand twined in his hair, pulling his face up to those chips of ice that passed for eyes. If he told he would be killed. A nod to show he understood. Then he was allowed to curl into a foetal ball and drift into surrendering sleep.[/align] [align=center]* * *[/align] [align=justify]Fifteen by the time that it came to a head. Two years of humiliation. Their mother had sobered up for a while, then disappeared for more than a month only to turn up and break in. Sean was doing better at school though, getting good grades, more able to pin the words to the paper so that the letters didn't squirm around beneath his gaze. Good grades. Dating Beth now, but in a way young for either of them, holding hands and stealing kisses but not a thought of anything more. He was more popular. Good at sports. Successful, not the golden boy but somewhere around bronze. Everything seemed to go quite well for him. It wasn't him that was at home in the evenings; it had to be another boy. How could he be both at once? The pain was duller when it happened to someone else. Somebody suggested a class, some martial arts thing. He declined twice, then agreed just to one to see how it went. Turning up and being shown how to fall and not hurt himself, then how to punch the pads. Punch - jab - cross - roundhouse - uppercut. The teacher said that he was good, encouraged him. Taking it out on the pad was easier, until his knuckles were bruised and his hair was sticking in his eyes with sweat. 1987 wasn't known for good haircuts anyway. He went back again each week, learnt to punch, learnt to kick, learnt to fall and throw and twist someone's wrist in just such a way that the pain forced them to the floor. Three weeks before his fifteenth birthday. First day of May, O level year. He was supposed to be revising; wouldn't be able to rely just on his memory. Awake until past midnight, then trying to fake sleep when Flynn stumbled in, hit him awake. Something snapped. Suddenly his foot connected with Flynn's hip, all too fast, all too sure to be something unlearnt. Flynn gave a grunt; Sean caught hold of the outstretched wrist and twisted it over, throwing the older boy to the floor, then kicked to the head as well. Flynn went out cold. Sean froze for a moment - what had he done? - then desperatly grabbed his folder and spare clothes, shoved them into a bag, jogged across the city to Beth's house. Threw stones at her window until she opened it, all sleepy dark curls and diaphenous white nightgown with lace around the neck and cuffs. She looked at him in amazement. "What are you doing here?" "Please, let me in!" "You aren't... in trouble, are you?" "No, I..." he shook his head desperately. "I can't explain here..." She let him in. He lied, said that his brother was drunk just once and had tried to beat him up. She was all sympathy, let him sleep on her floor, explained it to her angry parents the next morning so that they were not so furious at him. By then what had happened was fading in his mind into another life. Beth's parents suggested the police; he refused, too quickly, said that it would be alright. That afternoon he skipped the afternoon of school, withdrew every penny from his mother's account as well as his own meagre old paper round money, and got on the first out-of-town bus. He never saw the town again, let it fade away. The only thing that remained was the postcard he bought for Beth but, after hours fighting for the words both in his mind and on the paper, never managed to send.[/align][/size]