Dear Roy – Part Two

This is part two of one story. Part one is the previous post: “You and I, another planet ago – Part One”.

“Dear Roy,

I’m unable to say how long it took me to put it all together. All the pieces that I didn’t see. And when I did, I still couldn’t see it. The whole story. The big picture. Why it all happened.

Do you remember the day we met? You were lying in the dirt, yourself being more dirt than anything else. Your shoulder was bleeding. We never asked you what had happened. We just imagined, our imagination running free back then, that you had been in a battle and had just about made it out alive. Little did I know that this wound was permanent, agonizing you, very close to your heart.

The time it took me to figure it out cannot be put into numbers of years. It has been a blur. Do you know why? Because I myself am a blur. I am a blur of two people. One being the person I grew up to be. School graduate. Then student. Medicine. Because I want to heal people. (The irony will hit you later on.) The other person being the little girl who watched her best friend enter his home and never saw him come back out. I was determined to let go of her. The pain was too bad, it hurt so much at times that I couldn’t breathe. So I left. I let go. But apparently that wasn’t entirely my decision to make. She followed me. And she’s still here, despite the effort I made to get her to leave me alone. She’s still there. That’s why he’s still there. And why you’re still there.

I watched the two of you enter Timmy’s house that day, back then when we met on another planet. I heard the gunshots. Two. I waited for the third one. But there wasn’t a third one. Because there weren’t four people inside, one of them killing three people. There were three, one of them killing two.

When I travel back in my mind, I see you two go inside, I hear the shots, I hammer at the door, and I see Timmy, telling me not to worry and to go home and wait for him to find me. Now I know better. I know that wasn’t the way it went. That was the story my head made up. Starting with you. Because we were never on another planet. That was just you. We were right there, in real life. And what happened was Timmy going in alone. Me hammering at the door. Because of the bad feeling I had in my gut, in reality and on the other planet. Him, pale faced, coming to the door, telling me not to worry and to go home and wait for him to find me. Then two gunshots. Two. Because there were three people and one was doing the killing. It wasn’t you.

It was the man who had replaced you, to everyone’s misery, after you had died. Who had done all the damage he could. And who finally decided to call it a day by pulling the trigger. Finish and move on. Didn’t he know that you can’t extinguish the past, even if you kill it? I wonder how much of it followed him. I hope it torments him until this day. But I doubt it. It’s not people like him that are tormented by their past decisions.

I didn’t know. When I saw you that day, the bleeding shoulder, the hidden gun. I didn’t know it was supposed to be a warning. How could I have known? I didn’t know until the two of you, what was actually just him, walked in and shut the door. Then it overcame me. A feeling. A bad feeling. Because still I didn’t know. How could I have known. I should have known! Because it all means something. Do you know why? Because I saw you today. You and Tim. On Old Spitalfields Market. And I followed you around, dying to see his face. But that’s not possible, of course. He’s gone. He has been gone for sixteen years now. He would be a grown man by now. Handsome, I bet. (Is he handsome?) I followed you for a while and then I stopped. That’s where I saw him. The man who had done the killing.

I am the only one who knows. And I know you can’t extinguish the past, not even by killing it. But I thought maybe that’s why it’s all still there. You and Tim and the little girl inside of me, refusing to let go. And suddenly it all made sense! The pieces finally fit together. So I decided it’s time. It’s time to be the one doing the killing because that’s the one who survives. It has to be me. I am the only one who knows. Besides, isn’t it a classically fine way to take vengeance?

Love always,

Elizabeth”

This is the last letter from a series of letters written by Elizabeth Stevens over several years. They were found at the scene next to the victim. The man she adressed in her letters, Roy, is believed to be a hallucination Elizabeth had as a child. Roy is also the name of Timothy Carter’s deceased father, Roy Carter, who passed away when Timothy was only four years old. Timothy’s mother soon remarried. The man known to her and her son as Jonathan Kent was a notorious con artist and marriage impostor. The remote small town where the Carter’s lived as well as Mrs Carter’s small fortune created a perfect setting for Mr Kent’s show.

Mrs Carter met Jonathan Kent a year after her husband passed away. He was a true gentleman, kind, charming, generous. She fell in love with him and had no doubt he felt the same way. A year into the marriage he flipped the switch. He became choleric, abusive and imperious. Whenever Mrs Carter was close to breaking free of him, he seemed to be able to find his ‘old self’ again. Years and years passed and Mrs Carter finally closed her eyes and let it all happen, unable to find her way out of it.

Six years after Jonathan Kent had met Mrs Carter and her son and had lied his way into their home, he decided he was done. There was nothing left for him to gain and it was time to move on. On a Saturday afternoon the man known as Jonathan Kent pointed his gun, a 45 ACP, at his wife and stepson and pulled the trigger. Twice. Both died at the scene. Before the sun set on that particular Saturday, Jonathan Kent disappeared and was never to be seen again.

Until the day Elizabeth Stevens found him. Haunted by the past and the memory of her beloved friend Timothy, she didn’t hesitate to take revenge. Before the sun set on that particular Saturday, a man known by many names, one of them being Jonathan Kent, was found dead in his London apartment. Killed by two bullets fired out of a 45 ACP. One to the head, one to the shoulder. The only person who mourned him was the only person who knew him. A woman who had just met him and knew him as Brian Shaw, a charming gentleman who she was beginning to fall in love with.

Jonathan Kent’s a.k.a. Brian Shaw’s real name could never be determinded. Neither the weapon nor the killer were found. Instead there was the pile of letters, each of them adressing a man named Roy, but giving the investigators nothing concerning the sender but some unidentified fingerprints and a first name. Elizabeth. There was nothing to be found on Brian Shaw, the man shot dead at his London apartment. There was nothing to be found on a woman called Elizabeth who was in any way connected to Brian Shaw. There seemed to be no way to connect the finger prints to a real person. A few months later the case was closed.

At the same time on another planet, a boy and a girl could be seen side by side, hopscotching down a dusty road, fields left and right, leading into eternity.