Author: Elsa Frohman Feedback:elsa@frohman.net Rating: PG-13 Spoilers: Through Sleeper Summary: Just who is William, and how does he feel about
being dragged into the 21st Century?
My name is William. I was born in the year of our Lord 1855
in All Hallows London Wall Parish -- one hundred forty-seven
years ago -- in a different world.
What a long, strange trip it's been.
Oh, you think it odd and anachronistic that I'd quote the
Grateful Dead? Not so strange. I am dead, you know. So I have
a certain affinity for the group -- their name, at least. I died in
1880, in a London stable. But I haven't been gone. I've been
here all along -- separated from the world, it's true, but I've
seen it all.
I saw the motor cars crowd out the horses, and the electrical
wires go up on the poles to light the world. I heard Caruso sing
in person, then on a wax recording, and now I have a boom box
on my bureau. When I was eight, I sat for a family photograph,
and my face was blurred because I couldn't stay still long
enough. Mother rapped my knuckles for that -- told me I'd
spoilt it. Now, with these digital cameras, you can have the
finished picture in less time that I was supposed to sit still for
that portrait.
I watched the first magic lantern picture shows and laughed at
Charlie Chaplin films, marveled when Al Jolson sang
"Mammy," and now I watch soap operas on the telly. I watched
when the Americans put a man on the moon. That was
something, wasn't it?
But that's neither here nor there. You aren't interested in the
march of technology. You're wondering about me.
So am I.
Here I am in the 21st Century, somewhat in control of my
facilities again after some hundred and twenty years as an
uninvolved observer. Yes, that's more or less what it was like. I
was here. If he cared to, the demon could consult me. He didn't
very often. He disliked me. I won't say he hated me. That's too
strong. But he held me in contempt. I was weak. I was
inhibited. I was pathetic. And rather than endure his sneering
disdain -- and the knowledge of the vile things he did -- I
withdrew.
Now he's called me back, and I find I have no choice but to be
in the world again.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. You're wondering what sort of
man I am.
I was never a quick study as a schoolboy. Mother assured me
that I wasn't really slow, I just had trouble keeping my mind on
my studies. She would sigh her exasperation with me when she
came to the station to meet me after another trip on the down
train. I'm afraid my school career was rather checkered. A part
of a term at school, a trip home when the headmaster decided I
needed to "renew my dedication." Mother would tutor me then,
so when I went back for the next term I wouldn't be too far
behind. I'm sure mother used every bit of influence she could
muster to get me back in all those times. She called in every
favour we were owed to complete my education.
Father didn't leave us much in terms of social position or
money. He took his own life -- before they could take him to
debtor's prison. He was an importer of wines with a marginally
successful trade, until a hopeful but ill-advised investment in
Lloyds.
He'd married above himself, and mother could have covered
his debts, but he wouldn't allow it -- until after he was gone,
when she had to anyway. There wasn't much left after that --
just enough to keep me in school, when I wasn't day-dreaming
my way onto the down train. Mother and Annabelle, my little
sister, hadn't much left to live on, and I promised them again
and again that I would keep them in style and comfort when I
finished school and entered my profession.
In my school days, my own mind, I was Ulysses -- or Jason, or
Hercules, or Paris. I fought for my Penelope, battled beneath
the walls of Troy, won the Golden Fleece and cleaned the
Augean Stables. I sailed past Scylla and Charybdis, and found
the Holy Grail. How could sums and memorization compete
with the thrill of beheading Medusa? 'Twas the sirens that got
me in the end.
Women -- they bounded my world. They were my sustenance
and my inspiration. I worshipped many a fair maiden from afar.
As a shy, awkward 14-year-old, I fell in love with the pastor's
wife, then at 15 it was the headmaster's daughter -- that
improved my studies a bit and I managed to stay at school for
the entire term. And later, when I was at university, there was a
succession of great romances, though not a one of the objects
of my affection ever knew of it. I suppose that's how I most
took after Father. I was always attracted to women above my
station. The radiant ones, the princesses and warrior queens.
My heart paid tribute. I was vanquished and enslaved. I prayed
for a word of encouragement -- a token of affection.
And none ever came.
Now, you might believe that I died without ever knowing a
woman in the biblical sense, but that wouldn't be strictly true.
When I was at university, I kept company with several women
of less than sterling character. Not that I was a regular
customer at the bordellos that serviced the college boys -- I
generally didn't have the money to spare. But more than once,
after an evening of drinking, I would allow myself to be bullied
or shamed into going along with the others. I learned
something of the mechanics of love at the breasts of those sad-
faced, pockmarked whores. And I learned that what they
offered was not what I wanted.
I wanted something pure, something lustrous, something worth
sailing a ship to the end of the world for. I wanted to slay a
dragon for my love, to climb a tower or perform a quest. I
would return from the battlefield and lay my bloodied sword
and shield at my lady's feet.
Instead, I called on Nell Griffith, daughter of one of my father's
business associates. I walked her home from church services
every Sunday, and made awkward conversation with her
mother and maiden aunt afterwards. Nell was a solid,
respectable girl, and I certainly could have done worse. But she
had the beginnings of a moustache and a thick waist, not to
mention the laugh of a crazed mule. I don't want to seem
disparaging. She was affectionate, and she would have made a
good wife -- in the sense that she could cook and had the skills
and attitude to manage a household like a brigadier general.
But I can't say I loved her. At times, I liked her. And I think
she was fond of me, maybe even beyond my potential to
complete her plans to be a wife and mother.
But Nell stopped mattering to me the day I saw Cecily
Addams.
However, let us not dwell on Cecily. You know how that
turned out. Not my finest hour. And in retrospect, I can't really
say she was worth it, the arrogant chit. If I knew then, what I
know now... but who can't say that?
We'll skip over my rather sordid demise. I don't even know
whether Nell came to my funeral. I'm certain Miss Addams
didn't.
When the demon raised my body, I found myself conscious,
but no longer in control. I could see out of my eyes. Remember
all I had been. But my mouth would not speak my words, and
my limbs would not obey my commands. And what happened
next left me reeling in horror. The blood. Blood in my mouth,
running down my throat, warming my belly. I felt the girl's
flesh give way under my fangs. I felt her heart flutter to a stop
and her body begin to cool. The taste, sharp and coppery, and
the thick, warm feel on my tongue. Words fail me. I wanted to
feel sick, but I didn't. I felt the power. I had ended a life, and I
didn't feel guilty, I felt exhilarated. And I was beyond
disgusted with myself.
But it wasn't me. It was the demon. The demon had become
me. He had all of my memories. He had my voice. He had my
body. And he had me -- trapped inside him. I could see what he
saw, feel what he felt, but I couldn't influence anything that
happened.
Can you blame me for withdrawing? I couldn't bear it. He
killed and killed again. He reveled in it. And he was me.
I did not sleep for the next 120 years. I was there, but I wasn't
involved. I saw the changes. I saw the world evolve from what
it was to what it is. And, now and then, some of it interested
me. And sometimes, the demon -- the one who came to call
himself Spike -- would laugh at me for my fascination with
technology and politics and literature. He still thought I was
pathetic. He cared about sensation, and passion, and fighting
fists and fangs. He was impatient and impulsive. But
sometimes he needed my advice, and even if he seldom took it
after he asked, I gave it. It passed the time.
Then something happened. I suppose it started when the
government types captured us and put that chip in my head. He
was at a loss then. He couldn't go on the way he was. So, he
began asking me for advice more often. Sometimes he took it.
And sometimes he didn't.
The girl? Yes, I saw her. And she was certainly pretty. But I
can't say I was interested. I'd been separated from the world so
long. He was obsessed with her. She was never out of his
thoughts. A thousand times a day he asked me what to do to
make her love him. I didn't have much help for him. I'd not
been very successful with the fairer sex myself in my day.
And when she began coming to him for physical satisfaction, I
found myself withdrawing again. The things they did together
repulsed me. Not so much because of the specific acts they
performed, but because it was so utterly loveless on her part.
Even I could see that. He saw it too, but he denied it. He
wanted her so badly that he deluded himself about her feelings.
But I could see it. I saw the same look in her eyes that Cecily
gave me on the last night of my life. I knew.
And my relationship to the demon changed as well. Now it was
I who thought he was pathetic. And he hadn't the heart to
contradict me. The contempt was gone.
I felt pity for him. He was trying... trying so hard. He wanted to
be better than he was -- for her. And she cast him off like so
much used tissue. She wouldn't see him. She wouldn't
acknowledge his efforts. She wouldn't even admit she would
talk to him, let alone have sexual congress with him. And he
couldn't even turn to me in those dark days. Denying me was
his last vestige of dignity.
Then he snapped. He faced his own personal Armageddon, and
that sent him to do what none of his kind ever would. He won
his soul back. And much to my surprise, after more than 120
years, I was back in control.
He's still here. But he defers to me. I'm the one who can deal
with the soul.
So who am I? To begin with, I am one angry man. I didn't ask
to take responsibility for more than a century of murders. Yes,
it was my failing that put me in this position. But I didn't know
what would happen, did I? I didn't know!
And now here I am, crushed beneath the weight of the deeds
done with my body. The blood on my hands, on my lips, in my
veins. The terror in the faces of the people I killed. Yes, I killed
them. My hands, my fangs, my strength, my blood lust. He is
me. I am him. I have to accept that. I was here for the whole
hundred and twenty-two year show. It was me.
It would have been hard enough, but the soul brought
something with it. That's the irony. We might have started to
make amends, but the other -- the new resident in our
consciousness -- stymied us at every turn.
I don't know what it is, but it's in us down to the deepest level.
And it gives us no quarter. I don't know what's real anymore. It
shows us things, tells us things. Makes us do things.
I am so weary of it. I've tried, tried so hard. And I fear it is all
for nothing, because he's the stronger. I was never a fighter,
and I've let myself grow weaker these long years of withdrawl.
And there was little left of him when he went to win his soul.
The restraint of the chip and the reductive effects of
disappointment and failure had worn him down so far. What
had we left to fight the other with?
We fell to him. What else can I say? We failed. I failed.
But something else happened. I cannot leave that out. Before
the other forced us back to killing. Before I had to feel the hot
blood in my mouth again.
A door opened, and she was standing on the other side. And I
saw her with his eyes. I finally understood what he had seen in
her that changed everything for him.
She was radiant. Her hair was spun gold, her skin was as fine
as polished ivory and her eyes were bright with a fire that
ignited something in me. I saw her, and knew that the word I'd
spoken so many years ago was coined to describe her. She was
effulgent. Don't laugh. I know it sounds naïve. But I came alive
a little bit at that moment, then died again as I remembered
what he had done -- what I had done. What we had done.
But she was in me. I couldn't deny it and I couldn't cast her out.
I didn't want to cast her out. She shines her light on me. She
warms me. She makes me want to try again.
After that, God help me. The evil came. The horror overtook
me. I did things -- I killed. I killed not out of anger, not out of
hunger, not out of lust. I killed as a puppet manipulated by the
other. I failed.
And I could not bear it. Death -- real death -- was my only
chance to be at peace. It was what I deserved. It was what I
craved.
She was there. I bared my chest to her as she held the stake
high. She'd put my victims out of their misery already. I
deserved to follow them.
But she looked into my eyes and saw me. My warrior princess
saw me, and cast the stake aside. She wouldn't do it, even
though I begged her.
I don't know what will happen now. She has taken me back to
her home. She says she will help me.
By God, I'll try again. A glance from her is worth the effort, the
pain, facing the despair. I'll hold on. I'll fight back. I don't
know where the strength comes from, but as God is my
witness, I'll find it.
The other sings to us and robs us of our will. But I have a new
song. And I'm going to sing it with every bit of my resolve. I'll
drown him out. I'll take back what is mine. I'll gird my loins
and do battle.