Silvertroll

Julian's Room

The chill in the air freezes the sweat running down behind her ears, her calves burn, but Alicia pushes on, jogging across the footbridge, ignoring the pain, smothering it with a wall of grief. In turn, her grief is kept in check with brute force stoicism, a trait she knew she inherited from her father, a coping mechanism that allowed her to survive for years in a hostile occupation.

Don't think, just move, she repeats with each step, keeping to the rhythm, changing it only when ascending a slope or steps. She dreads going home so she takes another run around the block. Sharp pains begin stabbing at her lower back, increasing in severity with each step.

She relents, enters her front gate, opens the front door, steps inside...

...her knees give way, she sinks to the floor and sobs.

Self-loathing adds to the poisonous cocktail of guilt and loss, anger attempting to deepen the wound. In the end, she lets all of it consume her. She feels it is a copout, a betrayal, escaping the burden by crying away the pain... so she stops crying, holding back her breath until her lungs burn.

She owes her son that.

Alicia looks up at the robotic vacuum crawling along the hallway, bumping into skirting. Her cue to get on with it. Distractions are part of life, she concludes. Working, socialising and basic survival duties conspire to steal time away from the important things. She has bereavement time off from work which leaves her with little to do, and those small remaining distractions come with their own hazards.

She hits the laundry first, only to abandon it when a pile of Julian's socks confronts her. The kitchen isn't a struggle, the dishwasher is full, but she does manage to cram a dozen more dirty cups into it.

Her phone rings.

It's her dad.

"How are you going?" He says, phrasing it like he usually does when he suspects something is up.

"All good," she tells him. "It's nice..." she stops, bewildered by what she is about to say.

"Nice?" he catches on, not letting any positive go unrewarded. "What's nice, Alicia?"

"It's nice that you call. Every day."

"Does it annoy you?"

"Yes. But it's nice that you do."

"I'm just worried about you," he says, his voice a touch croaking.

"I'm fine. You don't have to worry about me."

"How's Nathan?" The croaking disappears, replaced with a stern voice, a cop's voice.

The temptation to complain is easily provoked. Alicia fights it, "He's been great."

The dishwasher dings and announces, "Please unload the previous load."

Alicia feels a tear welling in her eye and wipes it away. "I gotta go. I really gotta keep busy. Thank you for your support. I really appreciate it." She hangs up and goes over to tackle the laundry once more.

Don't think, just move.

Alicia empties a pile of clothes into the washing machine.

"You have reached maximum capacity for this setting," it tells her. "Would you like to set a higher water level?"

"Yes."

"Could you please repeat that?"

Her voice has gone all crackly as well. "Yes," she commands.

Blip.

She picks up a pair of black boots. Alicia reaches inside one, pulls out her police badge and tucks it into her pants.

I gotta get more organised, she decides as she takes the empty casket and goes to the stairs. She climbs them, walks to the nearest room and stands in the doorway, the apprehension tearing her apart. Alicia takes a deep breath and steps inside. The room is a mess, the disorder typical of any late-teens bedroom. Alicia picks up a hoodie that had been discarded on the floor and folds it neatly. She picks up a collection of garments, jeans, t-shirts, and piles them in a laundry basket, something she hasn't done since the lecture she gave her son about personal responsibility and personal hygiene and learning not to live like a pig.

Alicia turns to face the dormant computer rig.

Her heart sinks.

She walks up to it, pushed by a sudden craving to reconnect with her child. She sits in the expensive worn office chair, reaches down and pushes the 'on' button. The system lights up, four screens, two keyboards, and a stack of drives pulse into life.

A login page confronts her.

"Password", she says.

She checks the bin. It's empty. She remembers there being a notebook with the trash, pages of indecipherable handwritten gibberish by Julian. She left it, and the room untouched, begging Nathan not to move anything.

"Damn it, Nathan,"

Alicia stands up and rummages through a shelf, flipping the pages of each book.

Nothing.

She searches through the draws. Nothing.

She looks under the bed, discovering an acoustic guitar; cracked, broken as if it had been bashed against a hard surface. She sits on the bed and places the broken guitar on her lap. A torn piece of paper falls out of the soundhole. A fragment of a handwritten letter. Alicia overturns the guitar and more pieces fall out. She picks them up and re-assembles the letter on the bed like a jigsaw puzzle.

Julian.

What can I say? I am going to miss you greatly. You have been such a gentleman to me other the last six months.

You have been so kind and so funny and you have always managed to brighten up my day. Your compliments of my outfits have made me smile more than you know. You are an amazing guy Julian and I wish you all the best in the future. I have been so lucky to share this short time with you. Thank you for an amazing friendship...

Libby.

A sound, like a thud, reverberates from outside the room.

Downstairs.

"Nathan?" she calls out.

Nothing.

She moves to the door; cautious and alert.

"Nathan!"