Dr. Sid Hammerback

Theatrical Muse: Week 292: Question 292

2009-07-22T15:52:37Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 1041

Show and tell.

“This is my daddy. He cooks.”

Christopher was proud of his father, and it showed as he puffed out his chest and stood to full height in front of the man in the tall white hat, toolbox in one hand, other hand resting lightly on the boy’s shoulder. A Chef seemed like a much better option for a school parental career’s day than someone who cut up dead bodies. Smiling, Sid thought briefly, and then dove head first into speaking about his profession during his five minute allotment, while the fireman, the doctor and the optometrist waited patiently at the sidelines.

There was a time, actually, there were many times after the Twin Towers fell, that I was tempted to stop moving, to stop feeling, to stop processing. All this continued life around me, and sometimes, all I wanted was for it to vanish, was for me to become unfeeling, un-noticing, unmoved by all the loss. I just wanted to be some sort of numb extant pillar, punished by being the one to remain, but unyielding to the influence of life otherwise. I am continuously thankful for the chances I have been given since that time, the opportunity of support from my friends and family, the ability to keep working when it looked like I might fall apart. I am grateful to Mac, because now he allows me a certain about of pretence, a pretending that allows me to go about without being known as the one, just like him, who lost it all.

Marianne was playing the role of petulant lover and he the role of decisive master, her long heels stamping the dance floor as he held her a little too tight, a little too possessively for absolute comfort. He dipped her and she mocked forgiveness, pushing suddenly closer to him, back to his chest, slithering down his body, hips gyrating all the while. As the sparks between them became almost tangible in the air, she snapped once more, putting a little space between them as he twirled her, both sets of feet moving all the while. He showed her off and between them they told a little story of their own making, gave a little performance, a tiny insight into an imaginary but entirely believable other kind of life. It helped that his hair was streaked with grey and hers wasn’t.

Some people are unable to be divided, as their love creates an indivisible bond between them, one that is satiated in togetherness and strained in separation. It is why such conditions exist as broken heart syndrome, or those slightly mysterious but all too real cases of an elderly widow or widower dying soon after their spouse has. With Marianne and I, if we were both old and doddery it would have been like that. My heart, in the end stages of life, I am sure would not have been designed to live without her for very long. However, I have at least thirty good years ahead of me, and at the most many more than that, and this number was only larger when she died, when my sons died. My heart needed to continue, because as much as Marianne meant to me, she was a apart of my life, and my life, with her departure, with the departure of Christopher and Michael, it still, at that point, needed to continue. The need to continue has been one that has stayed with me ever since. Whereas they once gave me something extra and something lovely to live for, I now live for myself, and for their memory, and for life itself, of course.

“This is my girlfriend Marianne.” Sid said, propping the red haired girl against the teacher’s desk, nudging her into place with an errant hand on her upper arm. They had only really been dating for about a month, but it wasn’t like they had broken the news to everyone. The teacher, having had sat through seashells and five assorted pieces of interesting leaves and insects quietly rolled his eyes and gave the boy permission to continue via a wave of his hand.

“She has lovely hair, like a sunset, and she smells like flowers. Lavender today because her mom bought her some new soap. I taught her to make cookies and she showed me how plait her hair. Her favourite ice cream is vanilla with sprinkles, and she laughs like those, those.”

Forgetting his speech wasn’t part of the plan.

“Sleighbells on the horses at Christmas time near Central Park.” the girl interjected, smiling widely, happily, her cheeks just a little bit red as she urged the boy to go back to his desk, sharp fingernails suddenly pressed square into his palm.

Once I had a wife named Marianne and two children named Christopher and Michael. For many, many years, decades even, my wife and I showed each other off to the world, and through our own individual learning, we told each other many things. When my boys came along into our lives, we showed them off and told of them to family and friends and to the inquiring prising hands and eyes of old grandmothers walking the streets of New York City. I once had much to show and tell of, and while I was a proud man, I was never greedy, I was never too egotistical, too narcissistic, too anything bad. Then suddenly, all that I had to show and tell to the world was gone, simply extinguished in a combination of flames, death, planes and falling buildings. Since then, I have my job to show up for, and my friends and family to tell stories too. With the memories of my wife and children close by my heart and my head, this form of show and tell is enough to make me happy. I still miss my wife and children, and I always will, but it has not stopped me living, because I have too much that I can show and tell to the world, too many things I still want to do and speak of. Their love, the memories of them, and now the love of my family and friends, it does sustain me in happiness, it does, it always will.

Theatrical Muse: Week 286: Question 286

2009-06-12T08:54:24Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 540

Under what circumstances, if any, is it ok to break the law?

“Have you ever broken the law, Sid?”

Mac’s tone was conversational, his left hand grasped around a steaming cup of coffee, the other with fingers pressed against a particular article in a newspaper, where his name had gotten a mention. When the CSI spoke, the Medical Examiner looked up from a fine examination of his own lunch and quirked one eyebrow down, the other flying upwards towards an imaginary heaven. Briefly proud of this feat of facial muscle mastery, he momentarily lost concentration and spent several seconds assuming some degree of a dazzled expression.

“Sid?” Mac pressed on further, catching the arrangement of the other man’s face and letting a small amused smile tug at the edges of his lips.

“Why do you ask?” the ME replied, smiling himself, amused, placing more bait on the hook as it were. As if Mac didn’t know about some of the things he had done, seen, experienced.

“Just curious.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Mac said, drinking from his coffee cup, replacing it on the table, staring intently at his lunchtime.

Ah, so it was a game.

The eyebrows lowered themselves, the look of a storyteller replaced one of befuddled amusement.

“I suppose, without mentioning acts of sexual deviancy and exploration.” Sid said, pausing and rolling his shoulders in a shrug.

“I stole a packet of gum when I was eight. I do remember partaking in creating the absence of a window one time.” he continued, smiling at the CSI’s blank stare.

“We were rescuing puppies.” the greying man said, shrugging once more, pushing his glasses up his nose with one free finger.

Mac blew air through his teeth, an unusual motion for someone normally so reserved. He finished his coffee with a final swig, grimacing slightly as all the finely granulated sediment of leftover beans ran down his throat.

“I broke a couple of windows, I suppose. Hawkes told me of some of your stories Sid, I’ve already heard many of them.”

There it was, conversation finished.

The men turned the topic at hand onto work after that, work, and papers, and cases, politics, future things to do, to deal with. Not the breaking of laws, the enforcing of them, the following of them, the interpretation of them. What Sid was going to do with the bloated water laden victim whose smell was beginning to permeate up from the morgue, or so several lab workers said.

If only he knew, though, if only he knew all the indecent things he had done. What would Mac think of him then? Having flouted so many laws, not harming anyone, never, but always in the name of love.

Acrobatic artistry near articulated skeletons,
Coitus conducted underneath cakes stalls,
Gyrations given near tubs full of gelatin,
Maverick mastery of womanly downfall

Sexy seduction carried through on the stairway,
Threesomes thriving with thrill and thunder,
Mile high ministrations all on the airway,
Foursomes then fivesomes then orgies and all

Exploits endured on a library trolley,
Breaking barriers to bang on the walls,
Holiday mischief under high priced pink holly,
Doors deftly unlocked to let deviants past

Insensitive idling of leather and whips,
Hiding hurriedly while naked and bare,
Lovers loving through locked living lips,
Remember, remember, the absence still there?

Theatrical Muse: Week 272: Question 272

2009-03-13T07:36:05Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 625

Do you have any pets? Would you like some (more)? Why/why not?

Although I do not have one now, I have had various pets throughout my life, and have been close friends with, probably, just as many. For those who may have not been to New York City, imagine the number of people it contains. Without going into trivial specifics, it is indeed a very large number, a terribly large number of people from different backgrounds, preferences, cultures and schools of thought. Now, think of how many people within New York City are likely to own one pet or more, think of all the pet stores, competitions and pet shows that are within this fair city. Without trying to consider it from a purely economical standpoint, pet ownership perpetuates all this industry, and all this industry perpetuates yet more and more pet ownership. While I believe in things in moderation, in not having a home overrun with animals, nor spending all your hard earned money on them, not abusing or mistreating them, pets do make people happy.

When I consider my past animal ownership, I think of it fondly, because the dogs, the cats, even the fish that I have owned, have all made me happy in one way or another. Looking back on the multitude of experiences, I have ridden the ride that all pet owners ride, many times by now, yes indeed. I have, in my continued ownership of animals, fed and cared for them with all my heart, yet just as equally I have seen every single one of them die, because time moves on, it must, and cats and dogs do not live anywhere near as long as we do. They perpetuate their cuteness, their undying love, affection and wry gratitude, but eventually, like so many other things, they must be let go when their age and their pain, get too much for any reasonable person to let continue.

The first dog I owned was thin, wiry, black and white greyhound mutt. It was thin as all greyhounds tend to be, but it was never quite like a greyhound in nose or tail or eyes. Perhaps that is just my mind distorting the memory, though, because I treasured that dog very much, and it always seemed super to me, on a heroic, wonderful scale. Jenna was adopted from the pound, I think, when I was about three years old, so we grew up together, dog and owner boy. The terrific nature of her was that she knew the city, in the end, as well as I did, and went under many various names and affections to garner leftovers from the deli or meat from the butcher, lovely memories like that, rare nowadays in occurrence as we wrap ourselves tighter in rules and reservations.

Yes, my first dog was a wonderful experience of animal ownership. Old as she was by the time I met Marianne, that dog loved my future wife selflessly as we two people would grow to love one another in the future. I miss them both, very much. I do not own a pet nowadays, because I am content with being alone, as I am, living life without the people that would have filled by house, alongside any other animals that we as a family, had chosen to own. No, I do not own any pets now, but I may choose to do so in the future, a cat or a dog for companionship, a bird for song, a fish to watch, maybe that will come, in its own due time. Now, however? Now, I am alright to be without pets, because I have known the joy of having them, have experienced each anima’s peculiar traits and preferences, and, it is ok to be without that for a while, I think.

Theatrical Muse: Week 269: Question 269

2009-02-13T09:43:10Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 774

Write about a time you were outsmarted.

I was born in Canada, but spent only such a short period of my early childhood there that I remember very little compared to all the recollections I have of my life in New York City. My parents, however, are both Canadians, accents and all, so their influence in infancy and beyond on my mannerisms and my speech, affect me greatly, even to this day. With NYC being as multicultural as it is, you wouldn’t notice the slight alterations in my pronunciation compared to any random person in the street, but it is there, I promise you. I speak fluent French as well, which may or may not be a dead giveaway depending on where you have travelled in Canada and who you have met.

On the street among average tourists and average city inhabitants, you wouldn’t note me down as unusual when I speak; neither do I find my own voice very unusual. Children are cruel though, and with atrocious accuracy the meanest can pinpoint the most minute differences in someone else and extrapolate it outwards to monstrous proportions. For a while, when I was very young, in first grade it was put around by some maligned individuals, older boys I am sure, that I brought snails to school for lunch. I assure you, I did no such thing, but speaking French, something I already did well at that age, the leap to the conclusion is simple, at least it is to someone older, to me now.

By the next week the kids were sure to have moved on to something else, and it was the Brazilian boy next I think, but the taunting was enough to send me to my mother with tears in my eyes, this I remember very well. She held me on her knee and recounted to me in that brazen manner she can sometimes have, that I was no different to the other children, counting with meticulous words my ten fingers, my ten toes, two eyes, two ears, a nose, a tongue, a pair of lips. Our parents are very smart individuals, for they come, after a point, well equipped with many stories and desires to make their offspring feel themselves to be the best that they can be. I was outsmarted that day, not in a negative or bad way, into thinking that I was a normal child, a boy, smart for all that he could do, and handsome too.

In my procession into adulthood, and in my early marriage to Marianne, I realised, had already realised for the most part, how smart my mother was, my father as well. They took a big step in taking themselves away from their whole world, from where they had grown up and fallen in love, and moving everything out here into this city, for work, for love, for money, and so I could see a better day ahead of me. They sought to teach me what they desired, and now I have come out the other end, into my own life, a smart and well adjusted individual.

I never quite grasped how important outsmarting your own children was until I had my own sons. In trying to teach them values of my own in hope they would grow up to be good people, several times I had to be quick stepped on my foot, ready to respond and assure them, assuage them of all their worries. It was a unique thing, to watch them adapt to the world they had come into, solving their problems and seeing their way through situations which have long since fallen to simplicity for even the most basic natured adult. While adults are brought up by their parents, parent or denoted carer, it is hard for us to realise the scope of the role undertaken to raise us, until we ourselves, are put in a similar place.

I am thankful to my parents for teaching me all that they did, crafty or not, for what they taught me and how they brought me up, have left me with valuable talents and ways of considering the world around me. I consider myself to be a polite and relatively normal man, but I am perfectly knowing that without my parents, I would not be the person I am today. In outsmarting me and challenging the way I thought about myself or the world at certain points of my life, both early and later, they have well seen that the future I have now is one in which I can manage and stand up for myself, irrelevant of the troubles or costs that get in my way.

Theatrical Muse: Week 264: Question 264

2009-01-09T09:52:36Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 739

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun.

That is a very astute statement by a very talented and important writer. It is true as well, both for the public at large, myself included, as well as the criminal aspects of our society. A criminal carries his past with him, showing it up through his recent actions and crimes, just as much as someone who has suffered some grievance during their life, continues on without committing a dastardly act. Every single day of our lives we carry our past with us, and even in sleep, in the loss of consciousness, we are tied to what has come before that very moment, because our past life, our past experiences, our culture and our heritage, remain with us always. What we have done, what we have had done to us, it does help to create some of our future. Our past, any individual’s own past, it makes up who they are and who they may become. While it does not constitute the makeup of a person entirely, all their future choices and experiences predicated by what they have done before, it does influence how we act, how we continue on.

What the past shows us, as a collective race, is that people can change, because of what has come before then, and also because of what they imagine could come. One day, a person will not like artichokes, and the next day, they might try some and they just may love it. Each person can change, each person be different from one day to the next, but it truly depends on what kind of person they are as to what will happen to them. In us, we carry our past, and while not completely, it does help us to be who we are, who we can be. From slavery to equality, from segregation to being together, to all the opposites of the past becoming whole, humanity has moved on a great deal from the ignorant bliss of caveman living, but we still have a long way to come. Yet again, and forever, we must be aware of our past, what we have done, and we ought to, we must, use it to create a better future for ourselves.

I am a man, indeed I am, who knows how the past can affect someone, how it can be carried within yourself, identifying you invisibly as someone marked, in a moment that has long since passed by, with the irremovable mark of despair or tragedy. I know what it is like to be so vibrantly aware of my past that I could almost feel it as tangible in the moment, instead of a memory of a past moment where the moment itself could be touched and influenced. I wish, on some days, that I could touch the past, because nudge a moment here, unwind a spell there, and my world would be different. I would be better off, well, at least happier, if Marianne and my boys weren’t gone, because they were snatched from me. It’s not like we were divorcing, or she was being drawn away from me for some reason, no. One day, one morning, she went off to work, she took my two sons with her to show them the world of the big people, of business, and then, as fast as you can clap your hands together, she was gone. Like the sound of a clap, the sound from it, the ramifications of the falling of the Twin Towers, has echoed for me, throughout the years since.

The bitter truth is, that whether we like it or not, and fortunately I like it most of the time, we carry the past with us. What we have done, what we have lived through and experienced at the past, at the hands of anyone or anything, that becomes part of us, and whether or not this is evident is subject to how influencing it is. Our parents raise us to be good people, and hopefully we are good people, that is how life goes. For most people, we can not ever run away from our past, because it is not even really the past in many ways, no, the past is us, we are our past, we carry it always, in many forms. There is no letting go of it, because it makes us who we are, it reminds of who we have been, and who we will become.

Theatrical Muse: Week 259: Question 259

2008-12-09T06:17:14Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 1572

Write a prompt that begins with the words: "I don't understand"...

“I don’t understand.”, the woman said, looking at him, her face crisscrossed with confusion and interlaced with doubt. Sid smiled at her, and shrugged, his shoulders lifting and dropping in an empty gesture as he ran his right hand quickly through his hair.

“Just don’t open the oven door. Twenty minutes, take them out, put them on the bench, they’ll be fine.” the man said and then turning his head, holding up a finger, indicating he had to go.

“We’ll be back by eleven, they’ll be fine. Don’t open the door before then, or they’ll, go poof.” he said, elaborating the possible deflating of choux pastry with unexplainable hand motions.

Sid Hammerback rolled his eyes at his wife as they slipped out the door, the New York City air cool, but not unwelcome, and heady with a slight scent of roasted chestnuts. Was it that late in the year already? Ah the incompetence of quick at hand babysitters.

Years later, Sid looked back on that moment, as he chronicled memories and poured out a shot glass of what, by process of elimination, must have been whiskey. His head uttered a dull thump of resistance as it was downed, and he sighed. Months after that moment, he still remembered things suddenly, seemingly arbitrary moments of a life he no longer belonged to, except, by now, the glass bottles were back in their places, only occasionally examined and opened, to match this, or nightcap that.

In one of those early moments though, fuelled by alcohol and the desperate need to do something other than focus on their departure from his life, he looked through photo albums. Being that he was trying to lessen his pain, this helped very little, but it was a point of focus, of remembering, so at least it served some purpose. He came across a card one night, a well wishing card, an anniversary card. He prised it gently from the page of the scrapbook slash photo album, opening it with nimble practiced hands.

Inside were scribbled the words of a friend, one who now lived somewhere in remote Africa, or so he had remembered, then.

20 years.
Happy anniversary you lucky git.

There were some general wishes below it, and he put the card back, in that moment, and set about trying not to focus, which was, in itself, a fruitless task, way back then.

And now, in a moment of the present, tired after a double shift, lying in a makeshift camp bed in the corner of the morgue, waiting for someone to take over, he returned to the memory within a memory, examining it, not as the married man, not as the unhappy widower, but a person who was at a point of contemplative intelligence.

Twenty years, two sets of decades, four sets of five years, ten sets of two, something like, seven thousand three hundred days, give or take leap years and other trivialities decided by people concerned with time being on time. Twenty years ago, they’d been married for a while. At twenty years old, then, another set of twenty, they’d only been married for a little bit. After twenty years of marriage, they had still had years ahead of them, moments of peaceful quiet and hopeful disturbance. No children yet, no, that came later on, later than some, but still alright.

In the camp bed he silently examined all those thoughts he had had way back then, all those things that were somehow, somewhere, still true, in some respect.

Twenty years, another shot of, still whiskey, now, way back then, when he wanted to loosen his grip a little, just for one moment, a handful of mere occasions. No permanent alcoholism, but oh how it hurt, oh how the pain and the terror and the insecurity tore at him, ripping at his insides until he just tried on the suit of the very person he disliked, the one he would never wanted them to have seen him in. If he was a widower, wait, what was the word synonymous to that, for lost children? What word aligned itself against widower, for, lost children? Was there even one? He couldn’t remember, no, certainly not.

What would they have been like when they were twenty. In their child years, they had many features, both, of their parents. There was a slight coppery shimmer in their hair, reminiscent of their mother, and they both had high cheekbones from her side of their parentage. They had his long, easy face, and their eyes, Christopher’s a stark blue, and Michael’s, a startling amalgamation of green and blue specks. They had their shared love of words, and, they were intelligent. Would they have grown up to be builders or artists or film makers? Would they grow up to be Chefs? Would they then, translate, like he had, into a world of crime solving, medicine, even? Or would they have followed their mother, more businesslike, efficient in attire and able to handle large numbers and demands? Who would they have married? Girl, boy, and what would the grandchildren have been like? Twenty years after they were twenty, would they be happy?

Back in the camp bed now, Sid sighed, happy, but, the pertinent decision of leaving work soon and falling into bed was an abatable nuisance, that had to be, well, abated, put aside, until he could actually do so. So, while the morgue, his morgue, favoured emptiness in lieu of being busy, while the world stood still for a moment and no one was dying or arriving there, he returned to his thoughts, consumed, in his tiredness, with the thought of twenty years, and what all those occurrences of sets of twenty years had meant to him.

A couple of years later now, childless, wifeless, and trying to return to normal, he took a trip down to ground zero, stood their staring at a yawning, empty hole where the World Trade Centre Towers had once been. Walked down from Liberty Street, after watching them open up the Tribute TWC, after seeing more people who were like him, invisibly scarred and damaged, some empty, some still with people left. He had stood with Mac, their faces silent, respectful, had stood and watched, and then walked, because he was catching the train home. Didn’t feel like driving. Sid stood there for a while that day, remembering how, once, he had attended a pre-Christmas Christmas party there, one of those trivial things, back then, when he had bought Marianne chestnuts off a street vendor, when he had been making éclairs for his mother, who was too busy to babysit.

Sid stood, rolled off the camp bed and stood as the door to the morgue opened, hissing, creaking, protesting, and he made a mental note to get maintenance to look at it. He smiled and greeted his replacement, exchanged knowing smiles been co-working friends, and handed over all the relevant papers, case reports, things that would have to be followed or dealt with during the next shift. The other man, the other Medical Examiner smiled at his tired eyes and apologised for being late, handed him a bag of hot chestnuts. Were they selling them this early, already? And then they parted ways and Sid shook himself from remembering memories, and memories remembered within memories. He drove home, parked his car, went into his house, smiled at the children’s drawings hung permanently on the wall, the woman’s umbrella still resting in the stand. Sighed, showered and went to bed. No alcohol now, no, no more, not like way back then, after his wife and children had died, burning inferno, all pain and terror and quickness. Now he was just Sid Hammerback, understanding, knowledgeable, Sid Hammerback, childless, widower, Sid Hammerback, maverick Chef cum Medical Examiner.

The only thought that stung him, a final showdown, curtain call as he drifted off to sleep, was one panicked moment, way back then, just before he had fallen down those stairs he had fallen down. In twenty years time, who would remember him? When he was old and decrepit, when his blue eyes had started to turn to water and when he was older, getting older still, who would remember him? He had already dealt with the death of his lover, one decision that most, many people dreaded, and she, she was gone. He had dealt with the loss of his children, worse still, something that no parent wanted to experience, ever. So, without them, being an only child, with most family in Canada, and some, here or there, in America, who would remember him when he was old, and his parents were dead, and, he would be all alone, so no one might remember him.

The one thing that he saw now, though, that he hadn’t seen back then, being drunk, before falling down those stairs, the one thing that rocked him gently as he went off to sleep, after waiting on a camp bed and working a double shift was that, if anything, the people that he helped, would remember him. When he would pick up his scalpel, mockingly holding it like a carving knife, and would then uncover the trials and tribulations of those passed, when he helped to solve mysteries, the people he solved mysteries for, would remember him. Even those people he had loved, and had lost, would remember him.

He understood that now.

Theatrical Muse: Week 250: Question 250

2008-10-05T15:46:28Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 953

Write page 57 of your 300-page autobiography.

Married life was fun. Married life had been fun, more specifically.

He still remembered everything about her. Her eyes, her hands, the smoothness of her skin and the warmth of her touch. Her red, red hair, and her boiling hot lips. The way her subtle graces bended even the stiffest of his wills, amongst other things, and how, when he was with her, he felt graced by the most supreme royalty. That slight pretence with which she fell on him after sex, her breathing stilted, ragged, but her eyes firing, smouldering, all those typical things, those words, that spilt forth from cheap holiday romance novels. She made their thoughts coalesce with just one look, and could always bring him back from the brink of exhaustion, with just one stare. He remembered everything about her, and even though he had her captured in video, in song, in sound, in photographs, in handwriting and silly little notes and love letters, it would never be enough. It would never be enough to make him stop missing her, and never be enough, not ever, to bring her back, not that such a thing was possible anyway.

The man was up, standing on the tips of his toes in worn ballet shoes, flimsy cotton pants adorning his legs, falling around his ankles. He wore an undershirt and his glasses were starting to fog up, but he kept dancing, kept leaping and twirling, bending and swaying to the music in timing perfection. The sound filled his ears and quelled out any questioning thoughts with glorious rhythm and tempo, but the pain remained, still stabbed at his heart and ripped through his chest. And he kept dancing, pulling himself up, forwards, and around, over and over again, hanging onto the chance that the longing might just soften if he pushed himself over the edge until he could go no further. It didn’t.

More than a million seconds he had been without her, more than a million ticks of the clock she had not been by his side. He felt royal for having been with her, but now, that feeling, that emotion of unbridled joy and unrestricted happiness, the he gained by actually being with her, was gone. He had no wife to shine next to, no one who knew his history, his likes, his dislikes and kinks like she had. He had no one that he knew as intimately, romantically, as he had her, left. He had people left, had parents and family and her family, but, theirs had been a special kind of closeness, something familial, but also, beyond familial. When he got sad, it showed on his face, and he knew it. When he couldn’t bear to admit the truth, he filled the air with pretence and tried to keep himself safe. Sometimes, he hated himself for it, and sometimes, not quite so much.

Life as we know it, often occurs in a series of events that vary in importance. Those that are somehow memorable, are sometimes indeed, remembered. I remember my wedding day, I remember the birth of my children, and those events from when they were growing up. I still have all their pictures, all their schoolbooks and toys. And it hurts, yes it does, hurt, because I married my true love, I married my perfect match in life, and I spent decades with her by my side. She and I had a life together, had children together, and they were meant to grow up tall and big be and strong. We were meant to grow old together, because we were meant for each other, and we knew it. I remember September 11 also, I remember planes and fire and pure terror. I remember being frozen in place, and then I remember helping out. I remember realising that they were gone, and I remember loss, I remember funerals, empty coffins, eulogies, all those things. All those things which are memorable, I remember, and even those that are painful, I remember, because the memory of everything that was, and is no more, is not something that goes away, not with time or years or anything.

Millennia ago, the human race reached out and became more than tree climbing apes. We became brilliant, and it is because of this brilliance that we fell forth to beauty and ugliness. We created, we invented and we rejoice, we battle, we win, we lose. We have carved out our place in remembered history as something great. I am grateful, yes, that I got to meet someone so brilliant as my wife, and, resultantly, my children. I know I was lucky to succeed where many fail, I know that. I know that the human race is brilliant, but I also know, firsthand, that it can be corrupted, evil and beyond the worst of ugliness. In a hundred years, people may remember the planes that destroyed my family, but they probably won’t remember all the individuals that perished because of them, and they almost certainly won’t know of or remember me or the other families like me. In the end, we are all but dust, but while we are here, we are brilliant, we can be brilliant, and because of that, because of Marianne, Christopher and Michael, I will live. Because I live, my memories are remembered, and they are important, they have great importance.

I have lost some of the greatest things in my life, but I continue. Some people may not know what it is like to lose loved ones, or to lose them in such circumstances, but that is fair play. I have loved, I have lost, I have grieved, and I continue. I am brilliant, and I know it.

Theatrical Muse: Week 246: Question 246

2008-09-05T04:47:48Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 660

What are the five steps to a successful negotiation?

Kissing.

“Ah. Ahh.” the man moaned, sliding back onto the bed, easing onto it as if it were the finest of frozen ice lakes. The welts across his back were red and fresh, she was acting harsher tonight, and it was his role to play along, play the submissive, to retreat with the appropriate moans and sounds. She pounced on him, straddling his chest and crouching, bending down to kiss him. Ah, sweet negotiation. She soothed his sores, licked them better and let her red flaming hair hang all over him, straight and silky as the sheets beneath. She was so angry, so beautiful, so his. So very much, his.

Hugging.

“We’re in the middle of the park Sid.” she said, eyes all concern and pretend pretence.

“Come on, love.” he said, playing the role of the rough cockney bastard. His hands had snaked their way into her winter jacket, under her shirt, and were presently undoing her bra.

“You lost those inhibitions a long time ago Queenie.” the man whispered, pressing himself tight against her, their bodies an amalgamation of flesh under layers of protective winter clothing. He withdrew her bra and tucked it into a pants pockets as they hugged, looking the ever loving wintertime couple taking a wander around Central Park.

Touching.

When he came home raging, running on an adrenaline high she would press against him, push him to the wall and snare him in a kiss, strangling his rushed head and any drop of anger until it all melted away into passion, into love and kindness once more. She took away the frustration, the triumphs and falls of the kitchen and made him human again. No longer was he the man with the sharp knives, managing the fantastic and creating the impossible, he was just Sid Hammerback again, just himself and nothing more or less. With her touch, she could heal all wounds and push back all emotions until they became calmer, more becoming of someone at home, not someone at work. But when she didn’t want to calm him, she’d let him take over, and he’d push her into the wall, graze her lips with a kiss, she’d let him push her to the limits, harder, faster, always stronger. With just a touch, his, or hers, she always knew what he wanted.

Food.

Fine wine. Lemon risotto. Duck confit. Asian greens. Cream. Berries. Raspberry coulis. The finest foods, the best shopping list, the most exotic flesh coloured plates to eat off of.

Sex.

Pound, pound. Touch, kiss, pound, rhythm, electricity, feelings, higher and higher. Rushing forwards, upwards, beyond. Swinging, swapping, coming back home. Deep breaths, soaring on a high, lifting upwards. Walls, whips, swings, toys, masks, up and up, higher always higher, control, losing inhibitions, deeper, slower breaths, pushing forwards. Chocolate, handcuffs, leather, buckles, sanctity and depravation. Sanctuary, sanctuary, oh blessed sanctuary.

It approaches that time of year again, and once more my thoughts darken. Without Marianne, I am still myself, and yet still, I am missing so much. What people don’t see when they look at me every day, is her. They don’t see that I shared decade upon decade of my life with a beautiful woman who I saw go from a girl, to a woman, to a lady. They don’t see my dead children, the empty coffins, or all the pain and regret. They just see me, and for those who don’t know my personal history, that is always enough. For those that do, they watch, and they wait, until I need them. I am happy, but I would have been happier with Marianne by my side, my children in my home. I have sex, good sex, but it’s not the same as it was with her. It will never be the same, and I miss that. It’s hard, knowing what people see when they look at me, knowing that they’re always, most of the time, so wrong, so very wrong.

Theatrical Muse: Week 242: Question 242

2008-08-03T19:20:05Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 962

Write about a time that you were the bearer of bad news.

One of the hardest things in life is to inform a person of the death of someone they have loved or deeply appreciated. Usually, the first sincerely caring people who are informed of someone’s death, outside witnesses and other sympathetic persons, are indeed loved ones or those who are closely attached to the deceased in some other way. I have watched numerous times, too many times really, it feels like sometimes, the faces of people when they learn of the death of someone they love or like. Of course, yes, people like Mac and Stella, they are often the informants of a person’s passing, but when they look at the body, I am the one who confirms it. I am the one who has to tell them, while looking at their daughter’s corpse, their husband’s or father’s body, what has happened to the person on the slab that I have never met before, but have dissected and pulled evidence from.

I know all too well the pain that can come from the death of family members, and of loved ones. It is a pain that, although sharp and accurate like acupuncture, is hard to place or identify into one classification of emotion. Grieving the loss of someone loved dearly as life itself, and needed as much as fresh air, is a terrible thing that can have disastrous ramifications that simply do not end at the vague finishing point of a certain period of emotional upheaval. No matter what anyone else says, the death of a loved one, of someone a person has a close connection to, is worse than just losing someone to the passing of time that as a result causes the changing of relationships.

Most of the time, I do not see my act of confirming death to be a bad thing. It can be sad, yes, especially when emotions are grazed raw and surface in the morgue, when it could really be more beneficial to have that happen in a different location. Showing people the bodies of the deceased, so they can begin their farewell process, it is not a bad or horrible thing. I take people as far as they want to go, I show them as much as they want to, or are allowed to see, and I care for them just as I have cared for the bodies of the people that have left them behind.

When September eleven occurred, and I realised what I had potentially lost, well the thing is, I knew I had lost them, actually. The moment they died, I knew my wife and sons were gone, because they were my family, they were some of my dearest loved ones, save my parents, and the connection was there, so very strongly, for all of the time we spent together. So, when September eleven occurred, and I realised what I had lost, my world dropped out from beneath me, and for so many moments, things ended. I am unfortunate because I never found the bodies of the people I loved, when they died. I have mourned and grieved and moved on with remembrance in my heart, mind, body and soul. At the same time, I am silently thankful for all of those people who are able to see something physical, and who eventually have the case they have been affected by, solved, with appropriate sentencing or punishment in mind, that will be enacted as needed. I am not a cruel man by any means, but as any regular deliverer of bad news will know, especially one such as I, involved in the legal system as I am, the following of the law is an important and highly regarded matter. Laws make up our society and the society makes up the laws. Without one, the other falls into chaos and disrepair.

When I told my mother and father in law that their daughter was dead, that their grandchildren were dead, and when I told my own parents that their grandchildren were dead, that their daughter in law was dead, well, those were some of the worst moments in my life. I feel for all the people I deal with in my line of work, who are harmed through criminal acts or horrible accidents. I work in an honest profession, with noble people fighting a war against the consistently, constantly pressing walls of crime, death, murder and the outpouring of all that is evil or unkind about humanity. To be the bearer and bringer of bad news, is not a good thing in many ways, but neither is it a bad thing. It has both positive and negative qualities, the relief of knowledge, the pain of loss, for example.

In my job and in my life, I do the best that I can, nothing will ever change that. It doesn’t, however, change the fact that, at the end of the day, or at the end of my shift, I am happy to go home, most of the time. There is, after all, a limit to how much bad news I can give, and such a thing is a matter I am well aware of. In my job, I do what is required of me, always, no matter how painful it may be. If I have to deliver bad news, then so be it, but that is not all that my job is. I do a job that is good, I do something that I believe in whole heartedly, because without Medical Examiners and people like us, death at the hands of a crime or an accident can not be fully explained. I help people, and to be very frank and blunt, dealing with death, crime, sadness and despair, is outweighed by that very fact, alone.

Theatrical Muse: Week 237: Question 237

2008-07-04T08:37:16Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 965

It's your birthday! If anything were possible, what would be your perfect way to celebrate?

When my wife was alive, and more recently, when my children had been born, and were alive also, birthdays in our household were wonderful occasions, terribly colourful events of streamers, cake and special congratulations. We were happy when it was someone’s birthday, because we relished in the fact that whoever was the birthday person, now had another year under their belt, another full term of experience, and living, that they had just completed. Birthdays are also very good excuses for cake, and special dinners, and thoughtful presents of varying kinds. They are very good reasons for organising to take the day off work, for freeing up a schedule, in order to spend precious time with loved ones.

Now that I am alone, now that I have become, without my wanting it, a widower, I have gone back to spending my birthdays with my parents, as I did in the years preceding school, and friends, and birthday parties with sandwiches and balloons. I have, indeed, spent most of my birthdays during my life, with my parents, in one way or another, but now, it is mainly with them that I celebrate the occasion, herald the day. We have cake, I receive some lovely presents, and we share lunch or dinner together. Sometimes I cook, sometimes we go out, sometimes we order in, whatever we feel like on the day. If, by the evening, I am left to my own devices, I tend to end up at home, and if I haven’t eaten at that point, I eat then. It is coming up to seven years since I lost my wife and sons, seven years I have spent without them, and in the more recent years, I have, done certain things, in the evenings I am left alone on my birthday, to take my mind of their continued absence. If I spend time, home, alone, on my birthday, after spending time celebrating with my parents, then, so be it, and, if I don’t, then that is fair enough also. Sometimes, I even share a drink with my friends.

The thing I am trying to get at is, before my wife died, before, even, my sons died, I celebrated my birthday as a joyful occasion. I loved, I laughed, I opened presents and wore silly hats if they were passed around. Their death, does not change that, because if it had, it would not be something I would want to happen, it would be something I needed to fix right away, for the simple reason that, I need to live, I need to continue to be happy some of the time.

Mac and I share something gruesome in common now, something that changed our lives those near seven years ago. We both lost people we loved dearly, and there is a strong, but rarely acknowledged bond because of that. Rarely acknowledged because we try not to bring our personal lives into our work, in a largely significant way, as it may become highly disruptive if we did. So, the tradition for my birthday, now, is time with my parents, the sharing of cake, the giving of presents, and kind, accompanying words with this event. We share lunch, or dinner, then I say my farewells and go home. I spend my evening as I see fit, but, without fail, now, because our lives have changed, I can expect Mac to knock on my door. I can expect, that, on my birthday, we will share a drink together, even just coffee, or perhaps something a little stronger, and that we will smile, and nod, and silently acknowledge the tragic event that brought about this tradition. Some people might think it an odd, pointless thing to do, but I have done the same for him every year since he lost his loved one also. People, can think what people may, they can think what they want to, but I still celebrate my birthday as a happy occasion. I do not work on my birthday, because I need to be reminded of the life that I can continue to live, and that I can continue to receive and appreciate the love, company and friendship that I get from my family and friends, my parents and co-workers. I have known Mac for a long time now, and he is a good, friendly man. My parents, I have, obviously, known for my entire life, and they are people I will always love and appreciate for their love and generosity of spirit.

Since the death of my wife and sons, my birthday has not changed, hardly, and if only, slightly, because of their absence. For me, it is still a happy day, where I am free to spend time with the people I love, and know closely. I am immensely grateful that I am still able to do this, because, when my birthday is over, not only do I have another year of experience under my belt, I have been reassured that there are still people in this world who care about me, that I have not lost everyone I love dear and close. While it would be nice to continue to have spent my birthdays with my wife and sons, also, the birthdays that I have now, are just as special, just as nice, because I am reminded that I am loved, that I am needed in this world, and those facts, really, are some of the most important facts of all. To be honest, truly and truthfully honest, my birthday is an important day to me, and in absence, in death, that has not changed. The core acts of love and celebration, appreciation for my family and friends, for my life itself, have not changed, and for that, I am forever, continually, grateful.

Theatrical Muse: Week 233: Question 233

2008-06-04T08:19:02Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 670

Surprise! Your mother/a priest/an arch nemesis/the tax man/dinosaurs/your ex/a famous talk show host is at the door -- and at a most inopportune moment! Now what?!

“Coming!” Sid said, and the shout came out more garbled than intended, because he had just spat out a mouthful of toothpaste into the bathroom sink, and was trying to rid his mouth of the taste of mass produced mint flavouring. Rinsing his mouth out with water, he tugged on the nightshirt he had just abandoned in favour of getting ready to face the day, and ambled quickly down the stairs and over to the front door. All his actions felt like they were done with a certain numbness, because, really, he was just going through the motions, just waiting for things to sort themselves out, and feel right again. He knew, it would take time, there was nothing he could do about it, but it still didn’t stop him from feeling pain, numbness, sadness, insanity.

Opening the door, the tired, slightly bedraggled man met a face that took him a few moments to recognise, especially as he had been expecting to see a police uniform, a fireman’s uniform, anything, really, involved with the law, and not, religion. As such, he looked quizzically at the Priest for a few seconds, studying his black shirt and the white section in the middle of his collar, before he looked upwards to the face smiling benevolently at him, and smiled slightly in immediate recognition.

“Puddles.” he said, and the two feel into a welcome hug, with faint traces of awkwardness and relief. He was still in a pair of boxers and a nightshirt, after all, and probably smelled faintly of toothpaste. Welcoming the Priest in, Hammerback directed him to the kitchen with a smile, and indicated that he would go and make himself a bit more presentable for the day, and for his friend, for his visitor.

Having brushed his teeth and dressed, the man appeared down the stairs a couple of minutes later in fresh, albeit, somewhat crumpled clothing, just as the other man set two cups of coffee down on a small table in the living room. He himself, didn’t have anywhere to be that day, so it didn’t really matter all that much, even if he might have to change later, if he was going to go outside.

Stephen Puddles had been a good friend in school, when bullies were many and real friends were a handful of people with similar interests and tastes, connections and intentions. While they did not spend as much time together anymore, leading different lives in different parts of the city, they had met for coffee or lunch, or even a walk, every now and then, and were still quite familiar with the goings on of each other’s lives.

“Your mother rung me Sid. I thought, it might be a good thing to come over, see how you were doing.” the Priest said, voice gentle with an underlying tone of comfort to it. They were sitting on the couch now.

Moving his eyes, from staring at the coffee in the cup, and turning his head to the right, to face the other man, Hammerback tried to smile, and failed, as small, fresh tears rolled down his cheeks, obscuring the framed children’s drawings hung on the wall, and the pair of roller-skates cast recklessly near the stairs.

“I feel empty. Not, forever empty, Puddles, but, for now empty.” the man said, quietly, his voice catching and choking as the tears burned his eyes and stained his vision. He couldn’t help it, he was sad, he was lonely, he was, he had been, left to face the world without the only woman he ever loved, without his own two children, and he knew it.

Moments later, he felt the Priest’s arm around his shoulders, and a mere whisper of “It will be ok.”

It was comforting. He, was comforted, and that, was one of the only things that seemed to matter in a mere moment, amongst a group of a thousand memories, both tragic, and, happy. He missed Marianne and the boys. He always would, miss them.

Theatrical Muse: Week 229: Question 229

2008-05-09T04:06:42Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 1410

If you could get anyone drunk, who would it be and what would you do?

I have been terribly drunk a handful of times in my life, but by no means am I an alcoholic, and, really, during those times I didn’t break the law, that much. I mean, I fell down some steps onetime, and a time before that, I , broke, well, snuck into a university library and had sex with my wife. To be perfectly honest, I didn’t even break into the library, because the door was already open. That being said, it was the library of a university I wasn’t going to, and had never attended, which, really, with the warm buzz flying throughout my body, made the sex all that more exciting. But, no, no, I am not a constantly drunk person, no, never, and now, especially as I am far older, and quite wiser, I like to drink responsibly, as more of a recreational hobby than an activity with the pure intent being to just drink what I can while I feel like it. At that, while I say terribly, I have never really been drunk to the point of putting myself in danger, or putting others in danger. I also, definitely, have never driven while drunk, and neither did my wife.

As a father, I only had more than one or two drinks on a very rare occasion, usually when I was out for a weekend with my wife, and my sons were at my parents’ house. I made sure my kids were taken care of, and then I let myself enjoy the time I had alone with my wife, and yes, we did enjoy a bottle of wine or two, but made no mistake, I never drank alcohol and put them in any kind of harm’s way. If we went out to dinner, one of us, either Marianne or I, would not drink, and would then drive home. That’s just the way mature adults have to act, and how they should act, for their safety, and for the sake of the safety of their children as well.

I think it is all very well to drink alcohol, as long as the person drinking it knows their limits, and stops before they are drunk to the point of sickness or loss of control. It saddens me that some teenagers these days have gotten into their heads that social drinking and wild partying is something to be done almost to the point of excess, and even to that point and beyond. It is not, because, I have been there, I have had my handful of wild partying days, and while I never did anything so stupid that I really regretted it, I soon saw after waking up in strange places a couple of times, that it just wasn’t worth it. I was lucky, really, that my wife and I were together at a young age, and always had an eye on one another, but not so many teenagers are as fortunate as that. What I am trying to say, is that while a wild party or a drunken teenage experience is avoidable, it is still something that happens in this society. Even if a person does get drunk, irrespective of whether they are a teenager or an adult, they should still try and act responsibly, and make themselves safe.

That is not always the way things go, really. As much as I would like them too, I still get people on my table that have crashed their cars while drunk, who have been killed in a drunken rage, or who have mixed copious amounts of alcohol and pills with shocking results. As a Medical Examiner, I do my duty, and autopsy those who need to be autopsied. I collect the evidence, take blood samples, get the appropriate analysis work done, and present the appropriate results as they come, and as they are needed. However, while don’t become emotionally attached to the bodies I work on, I still feel a certain amount of sorrow and compassion for people who die because they were drunk, or harmed by someone who was drunk. For those who aren’t chronic alcoholics, it is a thought that, some hours earlier, before their death, these people who have died, were just leading their lives. Then came that party, that night out, were things for them and for others, changed permanently. As for the innocent people who are harmed by those who have drunk themselves to excess, gone out of control and caused accidents, for them, I also feel compassion. While it may or may not be someone’s fault that they have died because of alcohol, or have harmed someone else because of their excessive consumption of the stuff, it all boils down to the one basic fact. This fact is the thought that really, drinking in excess, getting drunk, can cause dangerous situations, can harm the drunken person and the people around them, and can cause severe horror or injury, to any number of these particular people.

The simple fact is, that alcohol can harm, and alcohol can kill. I would never intentionally get a person drunk, especially by way of misleading them. For me, being drunk, and only slightly so, is a situation, that while I do not especially like it and its ramifications, is one that was reserved for my wife, and is reserved, for some of my close friends. I could get drunk, but not extremely so, with my wife, and I still can, with some of my friends. However, I have never gotten blindingly drunk, to the point of extremely stupid actions fuelled by alcohol or alcoholic rage, and I never will. For me, I would much prefer to have a one or two drinks, maybe three, and make them good ones, enjoyed with friends, after which I would stop and drink other things that didn’t have alcohol in them. For me, nowadays, as it has been for a while, there is really no good reason to get drunk, and there really shouldn’t be, ever. Sure, I may be sad sometimes, but I seek out my good friends, my memories, or simply my home in this situation, and not the bottle. As an ME, and even as a Chef, I have seen too many lives ruined and ended, or simply ruined, to ever want to become drunk especially so to the point where I lose control of myself.

I have been drunk a handful of times in my life, and I have done stupid things, but I never got anyone hurt. I have only been blindingly, incredibly, really drunk, once in my life. I don’t mean tripping over myself and laughing drunk, waking up with a bad headache drunk, I mean, completely smashed and hammered, beyond all reason. One evening, in the month following the death of my wife and sons, when I was actually alone one evening and not in the company of my parents or friends, I brought out several bottles of several varieties of alcohol from the cupboard where I keep all such things. I know that night I consumed a copious amount of wine and my fair share of brandy and whiskey, and perhaps other lesser amounts of things I don’t quite remember. While I may not have needed to get that drunk, it felt like, as time passed, more and more the suitable thing to do, because, gradually, the pain lessened, and the world grew fuzzier, and I crashed on the couch, only to wake up late the day after and vomit several times. While I don’t call it a turning point, it was not an exercise I have repeated since then, and was not one I don’t really ever think I had done beforehand either. But, that is the point I am trying to make. Alcohol is dangerous, it is, and can be, a deadly poison to many people, who do not, or can not stop drinking it. The vital thing is, and the thing that I have always done, in the exception of that one lonely night, where it probably pointed me in a direction far less worse than the one I was contemplating, is to drink responsibly, and appropriately, at all times. Do that, and nothing in the course of a person’s history of drinking alcohol, can ever fail them, providing that even while slightly drunk they don’t engage in a threesome in a library hallway and get knocked inappropriately with a book trolley.

Dinner and a Chat... (Locked to just_chemicals)

2008-05-04T17:21:07Z

Sid Hammerback sat at a table near the front of the restaurant, beside the window, but not too close to the doorway. In that position, he got to enjoy the cool night air drifting in through parted glass panes, but still had the comfort of the delicate warmth the interior buzz of people provided. His eyes scanned the trickling crowd of incoming people and departing guests, trying to discern a face from the crowd that he probably wouldn't recognise. With a chuckle, he had left a small description of himself for her, so she could, at least, try to locate him. Bespectacled, greying hair, 5' 10", blue eyes. Seeing as he was seated, the height was unnecessary, and, he was amused, because he had forgotten the fact that such a description, meant he could have been about one of at least three people in the restaurant. Years ago, going out for dinner had been easy, because he lived with the person he was dining with. In recent years, it had been harder, but not significantly so. The present circumstance wasn't hard, and he was sure, she might recognise him by the fact he was sitting alone, but still, he couldn't help but smile, because things were different now, and they would never be the same.

Perhaps, it was the intent that bothered him, just slightly, ticking at the back of his mind. It was easy, to go out with a lover, just as easy to go out with a friend. If he was going to fuck a person, and they both knew it, then dinner was easy, and best if it was quick and full of subtle messages. But meeting someone new, with no intentions of afterwards, except the prospect of one less stranger and one more acquaintance, was, perhaps, the meeting that presented the most difficulty. There were two people, meeting for the first time, because they possessed similar interests. She did really know his past, and he barely knew hers.

Sid was a relatively tall man, thin, with a shock of wavy, greying hair and black rimmed glasses. He wore a dark silver tie and a dark blue dress shirt with thin silver stripes, tucked smartly into a pair of long black pants. On his feet were black leather shoes and his jacket, which matched his pants, hung on the chair he was sitting on, and hid a worn leather shoulder bag. The restaurant itself, he had chosen largely for the ambience, the staff and the price. Nothing too out of the range, but good meals nonetheless. Considering his past, he made a well defined habit out of knowing the best places to eat around the city, based on several discerning aspects. This one, also, was well lit and offered a nice range of food. The thing was, he partially considered the place as a past and present chef, judging it on its food, its appearance, and, yet, also partially on the basis of just a normal person. It had impressed him in the past, and it impressed him now, because it was nice, and smart, and not too over the top.

Beckoning over a waiter with a polite "Excuse me", the man smiled. He had only arrived a couple of minutes ago, and, left briefly to wait, to prepare, for an evening out, he sought to give it his best.

"I'm expecting a lady friend tonight, two glasses of water, two menus, please." the ME said, and laughed when the waiter patted him on the shoulder.

"I have not seen you in a while! I shall tell Jean Claude you are here! And your water, post haste!" the man said, giving Sid another affectionate pat on the shoulder, to which he took no offence, in the slightest. Seconds later, water and menus on the table, Hammerback went back to his quiet game of watching the door from his perfect vantage point facing the entrance, and settled in for the arrival of a woman none too late, as he had been only a couple of minutes early in his arrival. As such, the time at the present was indeed, an early six thirty in the evening.

Coffee Near Central Park... (Locked to dr_julianna_cox)

2008-04-29T17:24:43Z

Near Central Park, along the middle of the street, sat a small, homely cafe, Cafe Superb. Nestled in between a bookshop with large glass windows and soft cushioned seats, and a curious looking toyshop, it seemed by and large to be just another quirky part of New York City. Sid Hammerback sat in a seat outside the cafe, at a table shaded by an umbrella. As the city whirred around him, he was quiet, peaceful even, reading his newspaper, his glasses clipped around his face. A pencil was stuck behind his right ear, the end of which disappeared into a ruffle of gradually greying hair. A half empty cup of strong piping hot black coffee sat on the table before him, which almost looked as if it couldn't have been drunken as quickly as he had done. Coming off a double shift that had started sometime early in the day previous, and had then stretched into the wee hours of that morning, he had resigned himself to a couple hours of sleep before arriving fresh faced to wait for his company to lunch, or, whatever it was he might end up doing with the woman that had so dubiously been dubbed his main company for the day. That was him, Sid Hammerback, quirky evanescent, partial loner.

As steps clicked towards him, he quirked an eyebrow and looked him, smiling pleasantly when he saw it was only one of the waitresses working at the cafe, the one who had welcomed him in and taken his drink order previously. Her order pad hung over a smart apron tied at her waist, leaving her hands free. With fluid hand motions, she spoke to him silently.

"Waiting for a lady friend, Sid? A date?" the woman signed, and he responded with a shake of his head before raising his hands to reply.

"Another Medical Examiner. New to the City." he tapped out, waving his hand around in the air, in a generalisation of how large his home was, and laughing.

"Big shot?" she questioned, looking at him, her interest evident in her eyes.

The man shrugged.

"I don't know." he indicated, and paused, hands mid movement.

"She's a woman." the man motioned, and grinned when the waitress took it as her turn to laugh.

The ME shrugged again for emphasis.

"Every new person is different. I won't know who she is, until I know her." he signed, and let out a silent sigh.

"Be happy. You've done a lot more than some people have. You deserve it." the woman motioned, and then pointed to her own wide, friendly smile.

"Do you want to order something for her?" she questioned, looking at him directly.

Sid pondered this idea for a moment, whirring through the menu he had imprinted into his head at a categorical, almost automatic speed. If she was a date, then chocolate cake, if she was a "special friend", they wouldn't have any time for eating, or drinking, for that matter. But she wasn't, and he felt he had to respect her, because she seemed worth something, he could feel it. A bran muffin seemed to make him indifferent. Not that every food had its meaning, but it was all in the presentation of the food, and himself.

"Blueberry muffin. Black coffee, like mine." he signed, and smiled mischievously for a moment, his eyes flashing roguishly.

"I'm going to be on my best behaviour, I promise. No creeping her out." he signed out, chuckling, more to himself, than to the waitress really.

"Thank you." the ME said, giving a little wave as the woman turned away.

Hawkes said that when he went to his creepy place, he tended to lose himself some of the time. That time, however, he did want to try, he was going to be well behaved. Things were different, with whoever he met, however comfortable he felt with them, however much they knew about him. With a close friend, he might be devilishly uncouth, and with someone he intended to fuck, he could, and might, set up an intricate game of foreplay. This was normal, however. Two normal people, meeting at a close to normal cafe, ok so they employed mainly deaf and blind workers, but he liked it. They were going to have a normal drink, and talk about New York City. He was excited, of course he was happy, just happy, to meet someone new. He had so many things to show her, if, and when, she wanted to see anything at all.

So, returning to the ever extravagant game that was waiting, Hammerback went back to his paper and his coffee drinking, a seemingly normal person sitting in the shade of a cafe umbrella, his head slightly bent, his glasses on his face. It briefly flitted across his mind that he should have left his fellow ME more of a description other than the location of the cafe itself, his name, and an indication towards his love of coffee.

If he wasn't going to offer the muffin to her, he would have worn it on his head. These were both silly things to do, both the presence of a muffin, and the concept of wearing it as a hat. Seeing as it was lunchtime anyway, and they should be eating a salad, or a sandwich, and he definitely thought that muffin headwear wasn't really a suitable thing anyway. His slight mistake was fixed when the coffee arrived soon after, minus one muffin, but with the addition of an all too knowing wink from the waitress.

As an advertisement for some upcoming outdoor films caught his attention, followed by a rather bland article on the best type of fish to own, Sid was tucked away into his own world of relevant obscurity, perfectly at ease in the brilliant, large, city, that he called home.

Theatrical Muse: Week 225: Question 225

2008-04-09T18:03:59Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 1872

"Do not the most moving moments of our lives find us without words?" Marcel Marceau.

The snow drifted quietly down onto New York City. An occasional blow of wind would create a rush of noise that would rattle through the streets, both those that were bustling with people, and those that were empty. Up a few floors in a department store, sitting at window table in a cafe, Sid Hammerback was located on a comfy armchair seat, his hands clasping a mug of hot cocoa, random plastic shopping bags sitting at his feet. His wife had placed them there, bought him a slice of Christmas fruitcake and the hot drink, and left him to go shopping for his present. Occasionally, he would wriggle in his seat, squirming in an all too childish fashion as he thought of what she might be buying him. It wasn’t the monetary value attached to the present, nor the idea that he should receive a present at all, but it was the concept of what could be done with the present, in conjunction with Marianne. His wife knew him well by this point in their life, as did he to her, and together, they were perfectly in tune with one another. As such, his excitement came not from the prospect of some new item to use, to do something with, but from the very fact that he was getting something bought for him, with care and love intended. Something that he could not even begin to guess the nature of, because his wife, his lovely, adorable wife, still knew how to surprise him after all the years they had spent together. Sid Hammerback was excited because he was getting a surprise from someone he loved, very dearly. Nothing, at that moment, could have made him feel better.

Time blended into one continuation as the man stepped through the doors and into the first floor of the department store. Nothing much had changed over the years, in basic layout at least. There were new Christmas decorations, new clothes, but the clothing was still on the first floor, the perfume was still tucked neatly away up the back. Brushing off the snow on his coat onto the doormat just inside the sliding doors, the Medical Examiner walked forwards, automatically seeking out the lift without even putting much thought into where he was going. At the third floor, he stepped out of the moving metal box and headed towards the cafe. A woman behind the counter, whose own face showed the passing of time, looked up from the book she was writing in and smiled warmly, her eyes friendly, welcoming. With a few exchanges of words, she showed him to his table, and tucked the small reserved sign into her pocket before taking his order. He did not need to speak his order by now, because she knew, she always knew, that what he ordered, would always be the same.

Christmas time was a time of modicum greed for him. As long as he could be with his wife, his family, and have a good time, the man was happy. He had his rituals. At his parents’ place, he would meet with what family came to New York City during the holiday period. On Christmas Eve they would gather for a small meal and drinks, and share stories and photographs, memories and jokes all saved from the year that had passed by since they had last seen each other. Sometimes some people had not seen each other for more than a year, and there would be much excitement, many cries of astonishment and admonishment at how things had changed. Marianne’s family was more substantially spread out than his was, so whatever family of hers were in the city, were invited along. Sid and Marianne had been together that long that all their respective family members, by that time, knew each other quite well. On Christmas morning, he would wake up early and open presents with his wife at their home, then make breakfast. They would meet both sets of parents soon after, and go to church. At around eleven, he would go and open presents with his parents and Marianne’s parents, and whoever else might be staying at their house and was not out sightseeing or catching up on local gossip.

In between the stretch from lunchtime, which was a small affair of the previous night’s leftovers, and dinner, the loving couple would arrive home, and promptly engage in wild, erotic sex. It was a Christmas tradition after all. While they had a normal set of presents that they exchanged, things like books, vouchers, makeup, cologne, there was another set of more intimate presents that were reserved for that special, Christmas Day afternoon period. In that time, while preparations began at Sid’s parents’ home for the big Christmas dinner, they exchanged whips, naughty underwear, edible delicacies and saucy books.

Christmas night was when it began and finished in the big, final culmination to one of the largest gatherings of family he and Marianne experienced all year. Arriving late afternoon at Sid’s parents’ house, smelling suspiciously freshly showered, the loving husband and wife would begin to help with the preparations for a large Christmas dinner. Sid would cook and cook and cook, furiously so, and Marianne would entertain children and hang decorations. Then they would have dinner, they would eat, and laugh, and be merry.

Over the years, the rituals had not changed, much. He would still have a small dinner on Christmas Eve, still go to church with his parents, with Marianne’s parents. Marianne’s family would still join them for the festivities, and they would all share presents, and then, have a big dinner on Christmas night. He would help cook it, as he always did.

Cocoa in hand, Christmas fruitcake on a plate in front of him, the man dwelled on the memories of the past, and the woman went back to writing things down in her book, looking at him occasionally. Only a few lonely shopping bags surrounded his feet that year. No long did they sit around him like children waiting for a story, no longer did he wriggle and squirm like a child himself. She watched as his nose twitched, smelling the toast that had just burnt in the kitchen. It was not an obvious smell, but it floated out of the kitchen door all the same, and lingered, briefly, in the air, before being dispelled by generous amounts of Christmas cheer, warm drinks, and mistletoe.

Sid Hammerback still enjoyed Christmas, but it was not the same affair it once was. It still held the same excitement, the same anticipation, but some of it has disappeared since he had been left alone in life, in company of someone else to love and adore.

Marianne returned just as he finished his cake, and swallowed his last mouthful of cocoa, her timing, impeccable as always. She carried a bag with a deep rectangular box on it, and she seemed, strangely, out of breath, for someone who had only been within the confines of the department store. Giving their farewells to the waitress who had served them, the couple departed, walking to the lift without barely taking an eye of each other, laughing, and talking, in between themselves as they carried the various bags of random, assorted, presents, and other holiday accoutrements. Alone in the lift, he quickly freed his hand and rubbed it against the thick woollen material of his wife’s skirt, pressing and stroking on her inner thigh. Withdrawing the offending fingers as they reached their floor and the doors opened, he retrieved his bags and they were on their way, back to their car, back to their home, back to their bed.

When he had told her, the waitress, who had gone on to run the cafe inside the department store, had looked silently at him, and had hugged him, wordlessly. As smoke had continued to billow out of the Twin Towers, she had stood at his front door and hugged him tightly. When he arrived at her cafe that day before Christmas Eve, to continue the tradition his wife had started all those years ago, the one that had once seemed fresh, and was now, comforting, old, brilliant actions, the woman had looked at him sadly again, and had shown him to the seat. She showed him the seat he had sat at every day before Christmas Eve for over a decade. She removed the reserved sign, a new addition, and had whispered to him that when he came, each year, from then on, his seat would be sitting there, waiting for him. His meal, his hot cocoa and his Christmas fruitcake, was free, was complimentary, but that year, and those years afterwards, he paid for it anyway.

And that day before Christmas Eve, as Sid Hammerback sat there, in his seat, by the window, looking down onto the street bellow, he smiled faintly, warmed by the tradition he could still maintain, in all its meagre eccentricities. The year the tradition had started, they had been forced to finish their Christmas shopping during the hype that surrounded the day before Christmas Eve. They had succeeded in doing so, and, from there on in, while they got most of their shopping done in the period before the Christmas craziness set in on New York City, they would always reserve some to be done on that special day. In a strange way, the excitement, the anticipation, the ritual of her leaving him there before running off to do something excited and unexpected, all for him, gave them both the strength to get on with the two long, but enjoyable, days ahead of them. She would buy his present, and, the day that came before the day that came before Christmas Eve, he would have bought hers while she waited with a hot drink and some Christmas Fruitcake. It was all tradition, as strange as it was, it was all tradition, and it was so, very, comforting.

He did not have his wife anymore, nor did he have his two sons. But at the time of the year that shouted family, at the time of the year he spent with his family, he maintained the tradition, because, it made him happy, because, it gave him hope that the Christmas festivities ahead of him, would not remind him that much of how much he missed his wife and his children, but more on how he had enjoyed their company, during that time of the year, and during the rest of the year, while they had been alive.

They were a happy couple, a loving couple, people so perfectly synchronised with one another, that the sheer chance that they had met, had formed such a loving relationship, seemed statistically impossible in a world that could be filled with alternating hope and dread.

They loved each other, and they were happy. It was Christmastime and it was time to celebrate. Words could not describe how much they enjoyed being together, being near everyone that they loved and cherished. It was Christmas, it was Christmastime, and they were together. It went without saying, that they celebrated the holiday together, with ever ringing enjoyment, gratitude, merriment and pleasure.

Theatrical Muse: Week 221: Question 221

2008-03-12T05:42:44Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 902

"Never pray for justice, because you might get some."
Margaret Atwood.

When I think about it, justice is one of the things I would like sometimes. Sometimes, when I am in one of my more unhappy places, one of my more depressed states of mind, I would like terrorism to end, I would like an apology for terrorist crimes, I would like to see people jailed for killing my wife, my children, people I knew, and people I didn’t know. Other times, though, when the anger, sadness and pain subsides, I am calm, and, I don’t, really, feel the need for such vengeful deliverance of justice. I am human, after all, and subject to changes in emotions, whims of thoughts, needs, wants, desires. It is just, mainly, the reason that I think about these things every now and then, is that very reasons. I am, indeed, human, and because of my designation as a human being, I can experiences one of the widest arranges or emotions known to the scientific community. It is, resultantly, no wonder that sometimes, I think vile, cruel thoughts, that, in a normal state of mind, I would never think of doing to anybody, really.

I lost everything all those years ago, all those months, days, hours, minutes, seconds ago. Every inkling of time that passes now, I am without my wife, my sons, and, I know it, oh don’t I know it. I prayed for justice then, and, sometimes, I still pray for justice now, because, I need to, somehow, in those times, I feel that I honestly need to, just, pray for something, some form of an answer. I never found them, never found a trace of their bodies, a bone, a tooth, a possession, some hair. I’ve never had, foolproof answers as to where my loved ones have gone. No doubt, in some time, I may get a call, when someone, somewhere, runs a DNA test on a dusty piece of remains, sitting on some shelf. There isn’t that much news about the towers now, what happened, what might be happening, what they’re doing. I tried to follow once, but now, I just wait, in the back of my mind, I wait for that call, that letter, that visit, even though I well know, my wife, my sons, my darling lover and our children, were probably obliterated in fire, in burning, in ashes and terror.

I don’t seek vengeance on the people who destroyed my life. I don’t want to hunt them out and kill them. Sure, I’d like to see someone punished, someone caught, because people who murder others willingly, should be jailed. That is the simple rules for crime and punishment, though, and they don’t always hold true in the real world. Murders walk free, the innocent get locked away, and even while this is all occasional happenings, it illustrates my point. Not everyone gets punished, and not everyone, gets what they deserve.

What I am trying to make clear, is, that I am sad, so very sad, that three of the people I loved the most, were destroyed by hate, by vengeance, by cruelty and spite. I can’t help but feel angry and vengeful myself sometimes, because I have lost so much, and I never, really, got to bury anyone, got to, finalise, my pain in knowing that proper justice had been served. I don’t need counselling because I’ve accepted, what has happened, and I have not been destroyed by grief, nor am I overly spiteful or vengeful to the point that I have lost the plot and gone nuts. I am, in most ways, fine, actually. I am alive, and I am grateful that I am alive, and still here to see the new days and remember the old memories. I am, eternally grateful that got to spend decades with my one and only love, my partner, my lover, my other half. I am thankful that, for a short while, I had two beautiful children, who loved and adored me.

I walk alone now. I come home, to an empty household, to empty bedrooms, an empty kitchen, a dining room, a lounge room, that, sometimes, through sleepy, unadultered eyes, seem strangled and bare. Then, I remember, what has been, what life filled these rooms, these hallways, these now empty spaces, and I smile. I had a wife, I had children, I have been married and blissfully happy, and I am forever grateful that I was allowed to learn what that was like. Without them, I am, of course, saddened, but, I am still happy, so very happy, that I am still here, that I am still alive, well, and with all my memories intact. I may, in my darker hours, pray for justice to the horrible, atrocities that were committed to this beautiful city all those years ago, and I may do so, even in my lighter hours. But, make no mistake, I will not lose my faith, nor my will, nor my ever zealous love and thirst for life. I never will, because I count myself as lucky to have had what I had, for so long. Without it, I may, sometimes, become sad, but, other times, I am so, so happy, and, so, so, alive. I have been blessed, I am blessed, and will always be blessed, with life and happiness. It is more than I could ask from life itself, and for that very fact, I am forever grateful.

Theatrical Muse: Week 216: Question 216

2008-02-20T05:09:15Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 780

Impossible.

I still remember all the things I did with my wife. I remember when silly, childish sleepovers turned into her curled up in my bed, cradled by my arms. I remember how she used to make a vague attempt at hiding under my bed a couple of times when my parents passed by the door, even though my parents never, really, minded that much about her sleeping with me in my bed, in their house. I remember all the places we had sex, how they felt, how they smelt, how it was just to be with her, so entwined that we seemed one being. I miss that, and, I haven’t had such a close attachment to another person since her death, and I doubt whether I will ever again. You don’t form a close, immediate bond with someone you meet in your teenage years, and just, find someone else, easily, after they die. Neither can I, sometimes, in my darkest hours, bear the thought of just, replacing her with someone else. Not that finding someone else to love, to be with, would be replacing her, of course, I know that, but still, it wouldn’t be the same, could never, be the same.

Stella, Mac, and the rest of co-workers allow me to keep a precious pretence of sensibility and complete happiness. When I speak of a fictional family that once existed, in some form, most of them don’t know the difference, and those that don’t, never correct me or tell me off. Those that don’t know about my past, about the tragedies I have been subject to, never are interested in my family life to the point of intrusion and discovery of my lack of, well, anybody else living in my house. Mind you, I do not think this is a selfish act, since most of us are New Yorkers in some form, and, as such, are very busy people, not to mind, people who are trained somewhat by our city, to be, unobtrusive. Simply put, my co-workers know that our private lives, are indeed, our private lives. They are not subject to regular scrutinous examination, and are, really, to be talked about after polite, direct, inquiry. I make this sound rather regulated and complicated, but, it’s not. We respect each other’s privacy, that’s all. A regular examination of the wellbeing of all people in a person’s family is not needed, because a simple “How are you going?”, suffices just fine.

Marianne was special, because she, with regularity, made the impossible possible for me. When I did not think I could be happier with my life, or could not be happier on a particular day, she would delicately draw down my boxer shorts, or impromptus, take me to a play in the park. I surprised her too, by doing equally as magical, loving things, but this realistic realisation of impossible feelings is something she made me see through my very own eyes, something which I can really hope I made her see too. She was committed to me, to making me happy, as I was to her, and her own happiness. Think about is for a second, if someone can make you happier than you thought possible, how do you survive without them? To be honest, I don’t know how I have survived without my impossible creating Marianne. She was like magic, and she breathed existential happiness, and, she made the impossible possible, plausible even, as if it, as if any matter, was never really an impossible matter at all.

I am grateful for my life, and the fact that I continue to exist without having being maimed or rendered incapable of serious, dependable thought. However, the thing is, I have lost, the love of my life, my partner, my lover, my other half, and, not only that, but my two sons have died as well. And, I miss them, all, terribly, like nothing else, with a sadness in the pit of my being that feels, so deep, and dark, and beyond repair. However, because of them, because of Marianne, Michael and Christopher, I continue to live, as they gave me happiness and completeness beyond my wildest dreams. I know, every day without them is bitterly painful in some ways, but, in other ways, I am happy, because, what time I had with my wife and sons, was wonderful, splendid and complete. Marianne, my wife, and Michael and Christopher, my sons, each, in their own individual way, made my wildest, most impossible dreams, possible, they made them, into, real realisations of the imagined whim, the errant thought or dream. For that, I am ever grateful, ever loved, and ever happy.

Theatrical Muse: Week 213: Question 213

2008-01-18T16:45:10Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 1410

"There's enough sorrow in the world, isn't there, without trying to invent it."
E.M.Forster, A Room With A View.

“Ah.” The man breathed slowly, shifting delicately on the balls of his feet, his toes barely touching the ground. There was a silly, quiet grin on his face, and his eyes were full of a hidden, secretive sadness. Stella stood n the middle of his kitchen, looking at him, somewhat warily, but with eyes that were also full of curiosity. Barefooted and rocking slowly on his feet, Sid Hammerback had been caught off guard by her rather impromptu question.

“Do you still think about your wife?” she had questioned, her eyebrows raised apprehensively as she stepped into dangerous, mainly uncharted territory. He could see, by the look on her face, that she had immediately regretted the question.

He had been more open with her as of late, especially when she had caught him the other day, in the break room, gingerly fingering an intricate, delicate, and old, Alice band from way back when. Pained and lonely from one too many sleepless days full of work and dreary images, he had gone home to change and shower, and came back with his memento, and his dinner, to eat before he began work again. It was his way, after all, to grind himself against the stone when he felt more lonely than lonesome, and such a manner translated into weariness, tiredness, and generally being more lonely than when he had started out. Either way, she had found him there, turning over the worn leather and heavy beads of the precious items. She had seen the tears welled in his eyes, and that painful look that he wore, one of a recently wounded creature who continued to live with almost unbearable pain. And, moving over to him as light turned into dusk, she had sat in a chair close by him, near him, and hugged him, letting him rest his head against her shoulder, his face buried in her hair, until all sense of wanting to cry dropped away.

Stella was a special person to the Medical Examiner, as she was, to him, a good, dear friend who seemed to give him a never ending amount of friendly smiles, kind words, and most of all, unquestioning support. She knew he was lying when he mentioned a supposed dinner with his wife and daughters, or a trip to the zoo. She nodded all the same, and let him keep up the pretence of pretending to have a family, so that people in the lab, and in the morgue, who knew him less well, would not feel sorry for him, and would leave him alone. Despite that, he had never really, in so many words, explained to her what had happened to him all those years ago. She knew someone close to him, probably a partner, had died, and that he had lost more than one person, and that such deaths had something to do with an accident. She really, even knew that it probably had been nine eleven that had caused him such grief, but, yet, despite that, he hadn’t chosen to extend on such already given information. She had been there at the lab a while, so, she probably knew more than he had let on, and perhaps Mac had seen, in good confidence, to tell her things that he had not, but, all the same, he wasn’t sure what she knew, and had not feel inclined, in the past, to let on any more factual words to her.

However, after seeing him in the break room, he had invited her over for a meal and a quiet word. The meal bit he knew, but, the quiet words, he wasn’t quite sure of, wasn’t quite prepared for. A meal before conversation usually prolonged the agony anyway, but that was how he had wanted it, needed it, to be. He could not bear the weight that delicate, intricate, saddened words would add to the feeling, the very taste, of a wonderfully prepared meal. As such, he had chosen to leave them until coffee afterwards.

She had been a wonderful dinner guest, watching him with inquisitive eyes as he, most excitedly, explained the difference between different Chinese vegetables, as well as the importance of a good sambal olek. He had made her help him stir a fine glaze like sauce in a saucepan, and had handed him the knife that he then used to cut the fish he had bought, into fillets. And, when, after eating a fine, delicately flavoured meal of fried rice and deliciously spiced fish, he had decided to put together a rather impromptu dessert, she had offered to wash up and put the dishes into the dishwasher. She did not ask why there were children’s drawings in frames, or why many of the ornaments on his shelves had the present air of a woman’s touch and desire. She was perfect.

Coffee, though, had turned into more wine than actual coffee, when he had declared with rather surprising conviction, that he would pay for her taxi home if she needed one, in the end. She could see it, and he knew it. He was trying so hard to impress her, trying, so hard, to be, to act, to appear, normal to her, and not look like a complete nut bag.

And so, there he was, a barefooted, barely drunk man, in the entranceway to his lounge room, looking at the most beautiful woman he had seen in a long time, who had just asked him a question about his dead wife. She had said think, not miss, right?

The Medical Examiner looked the woman squarely in the eye, remembering fondly how nice her hair had smelt, that other day, and how nice her perfume smelt now. Daises, lilacs, roses, lavender, all in one. She had a most eclectic scent, just like Marianne had. Something that was intrinsically personal and beautiful, and not entirely due to the perfume that she wore.

He sighed, his head dropping, his smile fading, his eyes darkening briefly, and then flashing with a most impressive resilience as he took up the CSI’s gaze once more. What they were doing was illicit, dangerous, wasn’t it?

“I still think about her, every other day, well, everyday really. Don’t think I’m obsessed, Stella, but, my wife, Marianne, she was my real, true, other half. She finished my sentences, shared my bizarre tastes, accepted my, desire to be just as different as she was. The moment I set eyes on her when we were so young, I knew, and she knew, that we would, and could, be together forever, no matter what. She was the popular, pretty girl, who everyone wanted to be, the smart one that they looked up to, and I was the hideous glasses wearing freak geek who knew the inner workings of frogs, and comic books, an all that.” the man said, trailing off when he realised that she probably, really, didn’t want to hear that much history, that much information, about his dead, deceased, wife.

“I still miss her, if that’s what you wanted to ask. I really, really do, because, she was something more than completion, something more than life itself, and I, I was lucky enough to have been called her partner, her lover, her other half, her mate.” The Medical Examiner continued, afterwards, landing on his feet and pausing to take a deep drink of the heavy red liquid in his wineglass.

Stella stopped his babbling by taking the few steps forward that were needed to reach him and pressing her finger against his lips.

“I know what it’s like.” she said quietly, her voice almost a whisper, and then stopped, her eyes contemplating, her brow furrowed.

“Well, not really, but, I know the feeling, of missing someone you love. Mac has, Peyton, and, he doesn’t need me, doesn’t want me.” the CSI continued, just as quietly, stopping herself when the man took a step back and smiled, slightly, sadly.

“It hurts more than anything, doesn’t it? More than fire, or ice, or, being cold, or burning hot. More than desire, more than anything you can, or could have, ever imagined. And the worst thing is, you can’t do a thing about it, except let it eat away at you, at your soul, until you feel empty, and hollow, and...” Sid said, and continued to speak.

“Alone.” The two people, the Medical Examiner and the CSI said, in unison, and, still together, they smiled.

Theatrical Muse: Week 209: Question 209

2007-12-20T04:17:04Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 1082

What are you afraid of?

What am I afraid of? I am afraid of death, plain and simple. However, I only mean death in a particular way, not just, in general. I actually have no problem with death itself, the concept, the reality, even in some way the experience. The only fear I have about death, is that I will die, in some horrible accident, and my body will never be found. Which, is a reasonable fear, seeing as that’s how I lost my wife and my two children.

I have a remarkable respect for death in itself. As a Medical Examiner, I now deal with it every working day of my life. I am, in some ways, like a surgeon who operates on the living, and fails to ensure their survival, except, my patients, as it were, are always dead, and I am always telling parents, partners, families, friends, whoever turns up, that the body inside the morgue is indeed, their loved one. I am always the one showing the body and providing a comforting shoulder when it is identified. My role in comparison to this alternate, parallel surgeon is that I deal with death, and it is a good, but rare day for me, when one of my bodies is alive. I cannot say that I don’t deal with life, because, I do, in every aspect, really, deal with it, even though it is moreover, a past life, a life once lead that continues no more. I see dead people on my tables, and it is my job to see what killed them, to closely identify and examine their final moments, who they were, and, hopefully, aid in discovering who or what it was that caused their demise.

I know, a fear of dying in an accident and never having my body found is an irrational fear, in many ways, because I don’t have an extremely high chance of that happening to me. I am a middle aged, public servant, as it were, with a comfortable long lasting job, good pay, a good home, and a car that is safe to drive. I am not a soldier, so I don’t have a chance of being blown up to bits, and I do not test deadly weapons, deal with radioactive goods, and I definitely am not a secret agent with a death threat against him. Statistically, my chance of dying in an accident and never having my body found, are very slim. I try to think that, when the thought coils my stomach up in fear, but, sometimes it works, and, sometimes, it does not. It would be easier to believe it was an irrational fear, that could easily be put down to irrational worry, if my wife and children hadn’t died in the September eleven terrorist attacks. They never found their bodies, and, consequently, there are three empty graves that I visit once every week after church, but before lunch. I was there the day after it happened, I helped fight fires, and treat the injured. And even though it had been a day already, each person I helped, I still hoped the next one, the next three, would be my family, would be my loving wife and my two sons. That is why I fear this irrational mode of death, because that very kind of death took away my life and three of the people I loved the most in the world.

Fucks are cheap, and saying I love you can, last a lifetime in some circumstances, but the goodbyes I gave to my wife and children as they left on that fateful day to go to the end of their lives, were indeed forever. Sure, I do not fear much anymore, I mean, I heartily indulge, or have indulged in the past, in BDSM, voyeurism and swinging, and I have slept with woman who enjoy the feel of snakes and other creepy crawlies on their body. I have rational fears too, like the fact that I would indeed fear someone who pointed a gun at my head, and threatened to shoot it to kill me. I worry that what I eat, has something in it that will make me go into anaphylactic shock again, and no one, especially Stella, will be there to know what is going on with me, and why I can’t breathe properly. But, these fears, they are all fine and dandy, and they don’t, make no mistake, they don’t, rule my life. It is that select, irrational fear, of dying, horribly, and my body never being found, that lurks in the back of my mind, sometimes, when I get depressed, or terribly sad. It is the whispers of terror, pain and sadness that it tries to spread in my mind, that chill me to the core and bone, because, I know it can happen to me, and won’t, just happen to someone else, that isn’t me.

I miss Marianne, Michael and Christopher, I always will. I have the comfort that they are together in whatever afterlife they may have, or, possess, and I know that I’ll be with them someday. This thought, is not according to scriptures, or passages, or anything from the bible, really, at all. It is just something I know, and feel, even when I am drunk and stumbling down stairs, or when I am just, at work, with my fellow colleagues. I want to continue living, continue with life itself, for whatever time I have left. And when I die, I will die, and leave behind no regrets. For now, however, irrelevant of what may happen tomorrow, or today, I continued, onwards and upwards, in so many respects, because I have to keep living, moving, experiencing, all the world has to offer me. If I didn’t, then I wouldn’t be the person my wife loved and that my children cherished. Just because they are dead, I can’t stop being me, and I definitely, will never do such a thing. I need to be myself, because being myself, continuing to be, who I am, with all the predilections and associations my nature and person entails, keeps me going. I need to keep going, because I do not wish to end my life at my own hands, and because I enjoy what I have now, even if what I had in the past, which I treasured, is now gone. In the end, I am alive, and I am grateful for my life, and all that it contains.

Theatrical Muse: Week 198: Question 198

2007-10-05T11:21:08Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 460

If you could have any mutant/super power, which one would it be, and what would you do with it? (If you already have a mutant or super power, what one would you trade it in for?)

I’d be Superman. I know, that’s more a collection of superpowers, but, right now, at this very moment, I’d be Superman. I sure as hell don’t feel like a Superman, or the Superman, but, still, I would be Superman, Clark Kent, the whole deal, if I had to. Because, if I was Superman, then maybe, I could turn back time, and, maybe, I could save her. It’s worth it, at least, to imagine, because it makes me feel better, at the end of the day, for a short period of time, especially when I’m having difficulty sleeping. When I have difficulty falling asleep, specifically, sometimes, I imagine that I’m a superhero, that I’m Superman, or the Green Lantern or even the Flash.

I doubt whether even Superman could save my wife, my two children, my sons. Surely, not even he, could remove an event in the past that is now, so concreted into time, that it seems impossible to remove. An event that affects, and has affected, so many, many people. It has touched Mac, it has touched me, and I thought we were the ones beyond reproach in life, the invincible ones, as it were. Or, at least, I did, for a while, in my absent minded daydreams in the years prior to the destruction of the twin towers on that fateful September day.

The possible, intricate reality is, and, it is a reality that most certainly exists, is that, life moves on. People overcome grief, but it will still linger with them for eternity, as will the guilt, in some circumstances, when they feel that there was more that they could have done to help a person, or persons, to survive. I am guilty of that, of that certain weakness, but, in many circumstances, but, as it always happens, really, it is my strength. The fact that I know she died loving me, will quell the sadness, the guilt, the fear and trepidation when I need it to. It will not make it disappear, and it may return again, full force, but, at least, I know I have something to help, something to comfort me. It’s all I need, some of the time, and, other times, I’m just lost, and, I don’t know what to do. Either way, I knew love, compassion, friendship and warmth. I can go to my grave knowing that I, at least, did something for her, for them, before Marianne, Christopher and Michael died.

I was her Superman, their Superman, and even though it’s not really, or, not at all, my fault, I still let them down. I let them down because they died, knowing that I love them, and with I knowing that they loved me, and I never got to say goodbye.

Theatrical Muse: Week 194: Question 194

2007-09-06T17:59:01Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 531

"The true magic of this broken world lay in the ability of the things it contained to vanish, to become so thoroughly lost, that they might never have existed in the first place." The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, by Michael Chabon.

Mhm. There is sex in the air. There is a rumba in the air, something sensual, that beat that is undeniable to the human heart and the human, brilliant, colourful soul. It’s sad, but, it’s been nearly six years since my wife and children died, and, it’s tragic. Tragic, because, I’m still alive, I’m still here, and, they’re not. Yet, my feelings, continue. I look at other women, and, sometimes, men, and, I admire them, I want them, I desire, them. And, I steel myself, when I remember, my family, my past, which gets further away every day. Nearly six years, and, it feels like yesterday that my heart dropped out of my shoes and onto the floor, shattering into a million pieces in the process. The thing is, I know Marianne wouldn’t have minded me having sex with other people. We were swingers, we’d done it since we got together, basically, which was, a lifetime, a lifetime that took forever and a day. A lifetime, I treasured every moment of. She always told me, anyway, that, if she, died, I could, go on, with my sexual escapades, you know. I have, and, it’s not to say that I don’t have my regrets for doing so, but, I couldn’t, remain without sex forever. It’s not in my nature to, it’s never, been in my nature to go without the carnal pleasures, and the intricate, delicate touches that come with sexual intercourse.

It never gets easier, it never will. Psychologist after psychologist may tell you that, they have, told me that, but, it never does. Mind you, I never went to a psychologist after Marianne died, I just have psychologist friends. We shared thoughts over coffees in the aftermath of September eleventh, and, I was told things. I think, it’s as close to counselling as I’ve come, apart from other various talks with friends, family, colleagues who are also friends, and much like family.

The devices of the human mind are intricate, complicated, and, can be pleasurable and scary at the same time. What leads one man to murder, may lead the other to salvation, and so on and so forth. For me, losing my family, has not led me to suicide, but, to the relentless need to keep on going, to continue, despite all my inwards and outward feelings, because, she would have wanted me to, they, would have wanted me to. Marianne, Michael, Christopher, they would have wanted me to keep going, and, Marianne, of course, would have wanted me to keep having sex. Fortunately, I’ve kept up both the continuing, and sex parts of my life, so, in some ways, I am content and satisfied.

It is just, it’s been six years, and, although it doesn’t worry me in the slightest, I still miss them, I still dream about them, I still, sometimes, just rarely, and, occasionally, wake up and think that they are there, just waiting for me at the kitchen table. It is, a torment, really, to wake up and think you smell your wife’s perfume in the air, on your hair, and then, remember, that she’s gone, forever.

I miss her. I miss them. So much.

Theatrical Muse: Week 190: Question 190

2007-08-12T09:44:48Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 836

You've temporarily turned into a child, what do you do? (Child muses are temporarily turned into adults!)

He looked at her, danced with her, loved her, cherished her. And when he appeared as her father, and then her lover, her look was one of incredulous delight. It was a small time production of The Sound of Music, something done, organised, rehearsed, in between university classes, weekends, parties, social events. Oh sure, most of the main characters had an understudy, but Von Trapp was sick, and his own understudy couldn’t be found. Therefore, since he was meant to be playing Rolf, and was the understudy of Von Trapp, he was playing both Von Trapp, and Rolf. It wasn’t that hard, but, it still was.

Although Ralf and Liesel had only just begun a unique journey of courtship, or, ended it, really, their own dating had been going on for years, and, as they danced, and wowed the audiences with their captivating looks, their cherishing, loving, it was clear they were in love, even if circumstances and history itself prevented their characters from ever getting together. And, as Liesel’s father, his sternness, his order, his melting of nature, his captivation with Maria, he was believable, even if he was, playing, two parts, two alternating parts, that really, should have been played by different people.

The two budding actors ran out of the changing rooms, hand in hand, kissing, their stage makeup still on, their hair still done, brushed to correctness. His muffled “Mhmph.” as they crashed into the side of his car was greeted with her warm laughing, her giggles. Leading her around to the front passenger seat, he opened the door for her, got her seated, and then ran around to the driver’s seat and got in. Driving her back to their home, their apartment, he cooked her dinner and they lay together on a mattress, under a rug, in front of the television, watching flickering colour pictures wave in and out of the screen. Empty bowls sat piled beside them, drops of rice and sauce left within their depths, and they eagerly examined each other’s faces with their lips, tongues, fingers, skin. There was something so sex filled about that moment as he positioned himself above her, humming a song softly within his throat, his contained voice rumbling pleasantly.

As he pressed against her, she smiled, greeting him, the warmth of her skin radiating off her body in waves. Twisting, turning, waves. The next night, Von Trapp was still ill, his understudy was still missing, and Maria, who had been sleeping with Von Trapp outside the play, was now ill as well. As he played father, and then lover of Liesel, she played Liesel, and, Maria. There was a rousing case of missing understudies around, because, he was originally playing Ralf, but was understudy to Von Trapp, and Marianne was understudy to Maria, but was meant to be playing Liesel. It was true, most of the major roles, did have understudies, but, many of the understudies were already other parts as well, some major, some not. The rest, well, two of them at least, were just, missing. It was complicated, but, it made the after performance sex, even better, as they enacted out the roles of two sets of lovers, within their sheets. That was something terribly artistic about it.

They bowed at the performance of the third and last night, acting the parts they had on the second. Sid as Von Trapp, as Ralf, and Marianne as Maria, as Liesel, they bowed, and bowed, and bowed, to raucous cheers, applause, and flowers.

The thing about such childhood like fancies, the stories that the play told, the way, they danced, sung, loved, held, each other tight, was that, they were true, they had, indeed, been lived. There was nothing so truer in that bowing, applause filled moment, than their endearing, surviving love. Couples pressured as they had been, may have cracked, refused, and halted under the foolish dual roles they were putting to play, putting into action. Being two people on stage at once? It was silly, and foolhardy to say the least. But, it had also been, so, much, fun.

The Sunday night, brought with it, no performances, no makeup, no tiring dual roles to fulfil. Tying up her dress, he combed her hair, and kissed her on the cheek. They arrived at the dancehall, themselves again, lovers, poised and ready for the rest of their life to continue, and, begin, not to end, never to end. Kissing her as they danced, the man smiled at his lover, his young wife, the music filling their ears, their hearts, their heads. Rooted in the present, they twirled and whirled with the whimsical melodies, and jerked and pulled at each other as a more upbeat tune came onto the speakers. And, as he lead her to their real bed that night, and tucked her under the covers, and lay beside her, he was happy. For all the world, he was happy, she was happy, and, they were happy. It was, perfect. It was perfect.

Theatrical Muse: Week 186: Question 186

2007-07-17T07:58:19Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 992

Religion.

I believe in God. I believe in having faith, in praying, in believing, in something. People, I myself need to have something to hold onto when times get tough, and during other circumstances, when they are just happy, content. I have faith. I have religion, I have faith, I have a God, and, maybe, that is what is important when you speak about matters such as this, in relation to me. I was born and raised as a Christian, if that helps. Specifics, ah, if you want specifics, that can come later.

Religion to me is faith, and faith, in that circumstance, is religion. Belief is intermingled, is mixed, into that, so much so that these three, are very much, one. It is not so much that I am, extremely religious, to the point of exposing quotations, but, instead, adherent, to my religion, and many of the ideas that it holds and contains. Morals, ideas, concepts, beliefs, things like that, I get them.

The man stood at doorway leading into the church, leaning slightly against the frame of the door. He watched as the other man knelt on the kneeler near the alter, took off his glasses, closed his eyes, put his hands together, and prayed. Of course, Mac didn’t know, whether Sid had closed his eyes, but he just assumed he had. Watching the Medical Examiner’s back, he stood, silently, only to move, twisting his head, when a woman with a whimpering infant came up next to him. She too saw the other man, deep in his prayers, and looked to him, questioning why he stood there, and not next to the other person. She stood there for a moment, next to him, and then walked away, supposedly to take a walk and comfort her now bawling baby. The Detective watched on, continuing to be silent, still, just watching and waiting for his friend to finish, whatever he needed to do. Then, they would get coffee, and settle down for a chat, before returning to work after their lunch break. It was one of the few that week, they had spent out of the building, or not on location at a crime scene. It was a nice moment, a lovely, silent, quiet one, nestled perfectly into the bustling city that surrounded them. The thing about Sid was, that, most of the time, he knew what he needed to do to make himself better. Even if he got lost, he’d still find some way to pull through. It was an admirable quality that the Detective possessed also.

Religion is about gentleness, understanding. Prayer, is not an absolute answer, it is an action, a way of, letting things out, of giving words, thankfulness, to something greater. Prayer is a way of preparing, for the life, the day, night, evening, afternoon, ahead.

As Sid stepped into the elevator, he saw a flash of jackets pants and smart shoes out of the corner of his eyes, and stuck out his hand to stop the door from closing. Holding it open until Stella stepped inside, he smiled at her, his teeth bearing themselves in a warm welcome, as she thanked him with an out of breath nod. She shied away from his blue eyes as she caught her breath, inhaling, and taking one deep breath inwards. He stared, confused, momentarily, as she glanced at him, and then away, before, once more, turning to his eyes and meeting his gaze completely. It was almost ghostly, he experience between them, as if, they were both, aware of each other, but, wary, at the same time. It was as if, they themselves were real, but the person, standing across from them, wasn’t exactly, there, or, all there. Just as the elevator stopped at their floor, just, before the doors open, the man stepped forward, and gave the woman a quick peck on the cheek. The doors opened, and he stepped away.

“Good morning, Stella.” the Medical Examiner said, as he stepped out of the elevator first, and hurried away, his cheeks flushes with an unusual, bright, form of embarrassment.

I find religion hard to talk about sometimes. This is one of those times, so, instead, I shall talk about love. Love, is not just about the aesthetic curves and whims of the body. It is about loving someone, so much so, that you can’t imagine life without them, ever. It is, about those slight moments, those nice, lovely nuances, and those occasions, where the very air in your lungs, your breath, is taken away from you, because your companion, your partner, is so very lovely. It’s not, when everything is boiled down, about procreation, about the continuation of the human race. No, that’s, not, what love is. That is simple, basic, rudimentary reproduction and passing on of the genes. Love is different to that. It’s about appreciating the fact that, although you’re perfect for someone, they’ll still probably criticise your driving every now and then, and forget what you like on your toast. It’s about forgiving those minor misgivings, and focusing on the greater feeling of utter and blessed triumph, because you recognise that emotion as more valuable. And hand, in hand, ultimately, it is about being with someone you love, and someone that, you know you love, and who loves you, in return. If it is never about anything else, which certainly isn’t a true fact, then it is about utter and devoted companionship, in whatever form that companionship chooses to take.

In the end, love, is all about love. Religion, is all about religion. Each has its triumphs and its downfalls, and, ultimately, imposes something dear and lasting on the person who is involved in it, and who is affected by it. You can’t deny love, or religion, you can’t just banish it away once you have had it. Essentially, while you may be able to forget love, and religion, you can never, completely, forget, either one.

Theatrical Muse: Week 182: Question 182

2007-06-24T04:51:06Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 920

You've just won an award! What would it be and why?

The man closed his eyes, swallowed, and stopped mid cut. Opening his eyes, the Medical Examiner stared off into space briefly, his hand hovering perfectly unmoving, precisely in place, the scalpel it held halfway embedded into the flesh of yet another Jane Doe, or, more precisely, one Miss Sarah Sharpe. She was a beautiful young girl with red hair, and beautiful eyes. The unblemished skin of her torso lay before him, so, he already thought, she had died of something over than a gunshot, or a stab wound, something internal, that he didn’t know of yet.

Marianne had once been like that, a beautiful, young, slight thing, full of boundless energy and charming smiles. This girl, reminded him of her, just like others had done before. The way she smiled, the way she laughed, her teeth sparkling, her head shaking until some hair fell over her eyes, and, with her voice ringing like chiming bells, she had to calm herself down and brush it away.

The tragic thing was, for him, that he had lost everything that day. His world had crumbled, falling downwards into a million fragile, tiny pieces, until it seemed he had nothing left, and no other choice, but to continue. As much as he could have, gone crazy, left sanity away, and become enclosed to his home, to his grief, he wasn’t able to stop after her death, after the death of their sons. He had to continue, had to get himself up and going, because, he needed to, because, he wanted to, because, she, would have wanted to.

After a mere few seconds had passed, Sid kept cutting, his knife slicing firmly into the skin and underlying tissue of the young female victim. He smiled quietly to himself, as he processed her, noting her strong muscles, her well trained body. There was no desire or romance about the act, about the job, he was committing, but, despite all that, what he knew, what he had learned, in order to get there, into that position, gave him knowledge to interpret what he saw in each person. She was an athlete, and a fine one at that, so when he determined that her heart had been the cause of her untimely demise, he was, puzzled. This puzzlement was briefly lasting though, and, he talked quietly for a moment to the young woman as he sewed her up.

“You knew what risk you were taking.” he said, to her, and to himself, as they were the sole people in the morgue at that period in time.

“But you couldn’t give up what you loved. And in the end, it killed you.”

The lonely man chuckled to himself in a brief moment of light heartedness during that particular sad and tragic moment. She had died because of what she loved, she had died, doing what she loved. While Mac and Stella were looking into the girl’s enemies, he had the answer. Miss Sharpe, the young woman found on the racing track, was dead, by way of her own self, and no other. Although he didn’t know her, he somehow thought that she would be happy at that, happy at her fitting end, because, although she would have much preferred life, she had died, because of her love for sport, and not someone else’s love or hatred for her. In a world full of murder victims, this case, wasn’t the worst of them. Also, he was talking to her, and, since it was not a habit he had developed, nor kept up, over his years as a Medical Examiner, it amused him, somewhat.

In the end, he was trying to make himself happier, by looking at the brighter aspects of the death of the young woman on his table. He was also, trying, not to concentrate on the bubbling uncomfortable knot in his stomach, by ignoring her red hair, and smooth skin. What precious reminders lingered in that moment, had to be pushed aside, because, he couldn’t stop, couldn’t halt, and break down, because of the pressure of outward memories. He had to continue, and, while he considered continuing to be a good thing, and a decision that he had come about making, by way of his own choice, it was, still, so very, hard.

He found the predilections of human nature to be interesting, and alternately fascinating and happy, and tragic and sad. So, slipping the woman away into her own holding place, and pulling off his gloves, the man smiled. Happiness was an alternating aspect of his world, sometimes, it was there, and, sometimes it wasn’t. At least, he was still alive. At least, he had a chance to continue. It was a lot more than he could say for some people, and it was a gift, that he was truly grateful for. He had life, at least, at least, he had life. He was thankful for that, and thankful for the memories he was able to keep close and dear to his heart and mind. Nothing, could take that happiness, that, gratefulness away. Even if it did grow and change, shrink, and, sometimes, seem to not be there at all, it was always there, and he was, always, aware of its presence. His knowledge of those hopeful feelings, that happiness and gratefulness for life, was his reward, when nothing and no one else, seemed to be there, because, such knowing, assured him of better days ahead, and the fact that he would, indeed, continue on into them.

Theatrical Muse: Week 172: Question 172

2007-04-06T06:43:13Z

Name: Dr. Sid Hammerback

Fandom: CSI: New York

Word Count: 577

If you could pick anyone in the world, alive or dead, to be your parents, who would it be and why?

Fortunately for me, my parents are still alive. Although it can be thought of as odd, my saying, fortunately, I do not find it so, for I know various people who have lost a parent to the passing of time, or otherwise. For people my age, it is usually time, although, I have known of other circumstances, usually sickness, or accidents, but, sometimes, even murder. That being said, I do not know a significantly large amount of people who have lost a parent, or parents, in any form, but it is present. Present because I’m getting older, and more poignantly so, in some cases, because, even though it isn’t a parent, I’ve already lost loved ones. I know what the pain is like, what the loneliness is like, and so I attend the funerals I get invited to every so often, and stand and sit there with an air of knowledge about me. I know what it is like, I know what pain and loss is like, and it is horrible, truly horrible.

I am glad that my parents are still alive, really I am. Both my father and my mother have been indestructible towers of strength for me, throughout my life, and so clearly after the deaths of Michelle, Christopher and Michael. They have supported me always, and, I made them proud grandparents. Christopher loved them both, and Michael was endlessly fascinated with my father’s hair, as well as my mother’s. Michael tried to imitate my father when he sat at his desk working through some of his paperwork, although, he hadn’t quite yet grasped the concept of being orderly. He would give a small shout of frustration, as my father does sometimes, and then throw his papers everywhere. And piece of paper, covered with scribbles of imitation work, and drawings of people, animals, trees and flowers. Not terribly detailed mind you, but, they were wonderful to all our eyes. He was learning so fast, and growing so rapidly, and, Michael, was always there, watching out for him, and occasionally messing up his hair.

I’m sorry, although it is not a bad thing, I think I, well, to be honest, I don’t really think I trailed off. Knowing every factor possible, that you can gather, about a circumstance, is often the best route to take, and, although it may make you shiver, although it may make one feel, burdened, learning, taking in, what you can grasp, is a great thing.

I have always known that there will be a time at which each of my parents will pass on, will die. I will bury them, as any dutiful son should, and I shall mourn and grieve them. I will not do such a thing, and let it be false, because, when these occurrences, happen, the fire of missing will spring back into my very present forethought. I will miss them, I will miss my mother and my father, for as long as I live, because, they will, eventually, at some point, be gone from my side, gone from having a living presence in this world. I will not be alone when this happens, but, I will be, lonely. So, until that time comes, I try not to think about it, and, moreover, enjoy what time I have left with two people so full of life, love, generosity, knowledge, and intense, intense, caring. Without my parents, I would not be here, today, in more ways than one.