CHAPTER 22:
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"Hush little baby, don't say a word. .. "
"Jeannie?"
"Hello, big brother."
"What are you doing here?"
"Mom sent me to see if you're alright."
"Mom?"
"Yeah. Don't you remember what happened? You fell from Gabriel's tree house."
"That happened more than 20 years ago, Jen."
"Shh. It's ok. Everything is going to be ok. Papa's gonna buy you a mockingbird. And if that mockingbird don't sing.. .. "
"Please stop. Something is awfully wrong here. You're not supposed to be here. You're far away."
"But Rod, we told each other we'd always be there for each other. And now you're hurt."
"I'm not hurt. I was feed by a Wraith."
"A Wraith? What's a Wraith?"
"A Wraith. . you know. Alien. A life sucking one."
"Why would you want to be fed by one?"
"I don't! Didn't! It just put his hand on my chest- and fed. It didn't ask me!"
"Why didn't you fight, then?"
"I tried!"
"But you couldn't have. Otherwise you would have succeeded. A creature that tries to feed you doesn't sound too bad."
"It doesn't feed me. It feeds on me. On my life force."
"Reading too much sci-fi again, huh? Where do you keep all those journals, anyway?"
"Underthebed"
"Huh?"
"Under the bed, ok???"
"Hey, no need to be defensive. This is a very manly thing to do. Reading sci-fi books. Right."
"You're mocking me again."
"But Rod, why of course!"
"Stop calling me Rod."
"No can do. You're a stick and that's it. Besides, now you're ill so you're supposed to listen to what I say."
"Since when what you told me to do worked for my advantage?"
"Now I'm truly hurt. When anything that I told you to do didn't work for your advantage?"
"Edna Madison."
"Well, if you're stupid enough to believe that telling a girl that you have a crush o her sister will make her fall in love with you will work then you deserved the slap."
"It was a very aching one."
"Oh, poor baby."
"Stop that. I have a delicate skin."
"I have the same skin. You know that. Besides, am I getting Alzheimer or afterwards she also dated you for 4 months?"
"Yeah, ok. She did."
"See. I was right."
"You didn't mean to be right!"
"That makes it even more so. So you need to listen to me. Problem solved, million of lives saved. . . what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"I know that nothing. Spill."
"It's just that. . you're not really there. And I don't want to miss you again."
"You know that even though we had that fight I still care about you, right?"
"I'm supposed to be the protective big brother."
"You were always a pretty lousy one. I was a better big brother."
"You're right."
"Ok, now I'm concerned. A McKay admitting a fault. You really do believe that you're hallucinating me, don't you?"
"Yeah."
"Give me your hand."
"What?"
"Don't be such a baby. Give me your hand."
"You're not going o do the Red Trail on me again, right?"
"Promise. Now give me your hand. Thank you. See, you're holding me. I can't be hallucination. You're feeling me."
"I felt her, too?"
"Her?"
"Sam."
"Getting some, are we?"
"Stop that. She was. .. not real."
"Listen to me real carefully now, ok? I'm here and I'm not going to go away again just because you want me to."
"You already did."
"I was mad."
"It was my choice! MINE!"
"Rodney, you knew dad was dying and you still didn't come!"
"So?"
"So? Your dad's last wish was for you to forgive him. Was that so hard to give?"
"Yes, ok? It was."
"Why?"
"Because I couldn't. God, Jeannie. Things were easier for you. You weren't the child genius."
"You're doing that again, feeling sorry about yourself. Don't you think that sometime I wished I could be genius, too?"
"but . . you're popular. Why would you want to be. . ."
"Special?"
"Yeah. It's not as fun as the brochure tells you, you know."
"I know. And I know that you had it worse from dad, but you have to look from his perspective, too."
"What perspective? Everything his mom told him to do, he obediently did!"
"Rodney, listen to me because I'm going to say this only once. You don't know everything. No matter how smart you think you are in Physics, you know nothing about people."
"So you, being the famous psychiatrist, do?"
"No. but I try to understand them. Not to judge them as harshly as you do."
"So now that's my fault. Thanks."
"Look, you think that I'm illusion, right? Then why would your mind want to create me in the first place if it wasn't for what I'm currently saying?"
"I'm a masochist."
"Rod, I knew you my entire life. You never did anything that wasn't for your own good."
"True."
"You don't sound as defensive as most people would."
"I'm not ashamed of who I am."
"Yeah? Is that why you never told your friends about mom?"
"Don't get her into this."
"Why not?"
"Because you fucking know what she was."
"What she was? God, Rodney. She was a human being. With faults!"
"She died!"
"No. she ran away. You know that because we told you that many times before. "
"I saw her grave!"
"Rodney, mom went away 30 years ago and left us both with an over-achiever as a father. Accept that."
"Why?"
"Because, as you already know, you are about to die."
"I thought you didn't believe me."
"You didn't believe yourself."
"I'm that fucked up, huh?"
"Apparently. You needed someone to help you."
"I don't need your help."
"Yes you do. Otherwise I wouldn't have been here."
"Why I need your help?"
"Because you need to forgive her. You need to forgive your friends and yourself. There's no other way."
"But she went away. She left us with him. How can you not be mad?"
"But I was mad at her. For so long. I even searched for her."
"You didn't tell me that."
"What you expected that I'll do? You convinced yourself that she died, for heavens' sake!"
"Ok, ok, so you found her?"
"No. but her sister told me that she didn't think she was a good mom."
"What are you talking about? She was a great mother."
"Rodney, please don't get hurt. Don't ask."
"Come on, you know me. Of course that with this introduction I will!"
"She. .. she couldn't handle it. "
"Being a genius' mom, you mean."
"Don't be stupid. Being a mom, period. She didn't want me, too."
"But.. You forgave her. And dad, too."
"He stayed, Rod. He chose to stay."
"It was better if he hadn't."
"Really? You wanted to be thrown to the orphanage? Because I worked with kids who grew up there and were born there and died there. It's not a happy place."
"Mom would have come back."
"She wouldn't have. And you know it. She couldn't handle raising us, and I wouldn't want her to. In fact, I don't think that if the circumstances were reversed we would have it better."
"So this is our destiny? To be forever emotionally traumatized?"
"Probably. The world has a sick sense of humor."
"Great. Another thing that has a sense of humor. As if I don't meet here enough of these."
"Are you really mad of him? For not saving you, I mean."
"I don't know, Jen. I want to. "
"You're mad about yourself, then."
"How much you take for hour?"
"A lot. But this is a freebee for my beloved brother. So maybe this is why I'm here."
"You mean other than that I'm bored and my mind is searching for excuses for my abandonment issues?"
"Yes. I'm here to show you that you need to forgive yourself. You're human."
"I know I'm human!"
"No, you don't. Because if you had you would have accepted your failures and mistakes."
"That's called being a perfectionist."
"No! That's hubris. You always were arrogant."
"So sue me. That's who I am."
"Imperfect."
"Yeah, imperfect. Happy?"
"Yes. They will hurt, Rod, but failures are the only way you will ever learn other things."
"It also kills me."
"Why are you so afraid of dying?"
"Aren't everyone?"
"I'm asking you, not the whole bunch of everyone that is in this room right now."
"Ha ha. I don't know. I guess I simply don't know what's there."
"You also don't know what's going to be tomorrow."
"Well, I'm terrified from it, too."
"So death is your equivalent for tomorrow?"
"I'm a neurotic person.. . woooaa- - what are you doing?"
"Take my hand, Rodney."
"Why?"
"Can you hear that sound, Rod? That's your heart shutting down. Don't fight it. Don't fight me. Take my hand.. . and you'll find out what happens tomorrow. Papa's gonna buy you a cart and bull. And if that cart and bull fall down, You'll still be the sweetest little baby in town"
Right before Rodney's mother went away only to never come back, she sat in his room and asked him to look her in the eyes for a minute. When he turned around he could see she was crying. He forgot all about it. Maybe he never wanted to remember before.
He asked her why she was crying, then. Because he was 10 years old and the world wasn't really complicated. And she answered that we always cry right before we leave because even if our physical bodies can't stay, the tears can linger on forever. Think of it like a ripple effect, she said and hugged him tightly. Even when the source of the anomaly is no longer there- the ripples can go on and on for as long as we need them to.
He finds that fitting that he feels tears running down his face while at the background there's the high- pitched whine of the breathing machine line getting flat.
He thought he would have years left. Months. Days. But maybe he did have them, he simply didn't notice.
Einstein did say that time was relative, after all.
THE END OF PART 1