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It's been a very long time since he left. It's been a very long time since a lot of things though hasn't it?
I haven't seen anyone in years, well anyone living. Everyone here just seems to be a placeholder, a mutilated meat sack filled with memories and hurt and they're all just wandering around lost and scared. Alone.
Some of them make it out though. Some of them ‘get over it’ and ‘move on’ and they live or they tell themselves they do. They throw away the keepsakes (or just bury them deep inside a wall) they pick up their hobbies again (baking) and are so proud of themselves at how much better they're getting they think the final result is too pretty to eat and so they let it sit and rot on their kitchen counter.
They join the off-brand anarchist mafia and give themselves a scary name and a scary outfit (which just happens to include his coat) and they storm the empty unfinished streets with a false hope of injustice. They never find anything of course because they don't even know what they're looking for (they do and it's gone) they will admit they'll never find it though.
They stop going to the meetings after hearing some news. some kid (their kid) finally lost his battle (their battle) and everyone moves on as quickly as it happened but they don't. They go back to their old ‘house’ in that old ravine and they sit and weep on the ice cold floor and bake his favorite cookies in the old 'kitchen'.
They then eat them after they’re burnt and hard and cold and they eat them too quickly and barely chew and they eat them like they haven't eaten in weeks (they haven’t) and it all happens so quickly and then they’re throwing up and then they're passed out on the floor.
They don't go anywhere after that nothing happens. Nothing changes. They wake up on the cobblestone floor, buttons pressing into their back and they trudge back home and nothing changes.
No one hears from them (no one asks) and everything is silent and still and the world moves on and they I sit alone in my bed every day I and I get up and I
bake and I put it amongst all the other half rotten things and nothing moves and nothing stays still and I'm so tired and I miss my kid and I miss my president and I miss my home.
I miss wilbur. I can say that now without feeling bile race up my throat and my breath quicken. I can say that now without seeing a vine covered whole with tnt inside. I can say that now and I can stitch his coat back together and stitch a new flag onto it and wrap it around my whole body, almost suffocating myself.
I can look into the eyes of his father and see him as just him, not a monster who took away the sun. I can look into the eyes of his little brother and see a boy, the boy he fought so hard to protect and who I held so dearly and I can let the tears prick in my eyes and I can let myself remember how much I missed him.
I can go outside in the early morning and look at the sun and the dew on the grass and look at the foggy trees in the distance and enjoy one of wilburs favorite pies I used to make with one of the tea recipes he gave me.
One day though I see the clouds getting greyer and I can feel a sickness settle in my stomach and it feels like there's a storm or a hurricane or a plague coming but nothing does the air just hangs thick and grey and cold for weeks.
Until the whole world goes up in flames as I look upon a crater that once had a heart and vines with blood pumping through them and a family to water those vines and I see a man standing there. in a crater now barren and dry.
He looks older and tireder and there's white in his hair and he's wearing the coat he died in not the one she wears and he's yelling with a grin on his face and the sun is rising and everythings too hot and too close and before she knows it she's stumbling away with tears in her eyes.
It's been a long time since he came back. It's been a long time since a lot of things though hasn't it?
I haven't seen him in years, well him living. He just seems to be a placeholder, a sewn together meat sack filled with memories and hurt and he's just wandering around lost and scared. Alone.