What haunts you?
Nov. 7th, 2010 12:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jasongideonOOC: Debating on applying for TM, this is a dry run to see if I can.
He used to carry a pocket book with at him at all times; a conceit from a lifetime ago. It was small and unlined, faux leather bound and rarely if ever out of reach. It had been a habit of his teenage years; although if asked what filled the pages then Gideon would be hard press to remember; or he’d act that way at any rate.
The first few pages were simply names, mostly female, usually about fifteen in number but could have been upwards of thirty, in his distinctive script. Those names were the most recent. There was no adornment, no photographs and no details. Just names- as if the thought connected to them was unfinished.
The rest of the pages however; were adorned and cared for. Photographs about the size of passport photos or from the booths found on boardwalks and malls adorned the head- one to each page- with Gideon’s writing underneath.
A name and a date.
Like tombstones.
Those pages he could recount like the lines of a Shakespeare sonnets, or Michel Foucault’s essays. It was as if the pages held details and nuances that the mere names could not contain. He would pour over the pages at times, spend hours looking into the eyes and sharing the frozen smiles in a sort of communion. Or Kaddish.
Jacinta Abrams was twenty-seven on May 23, 2004 when walking home from the school she taught ; she was abducted by two men and held for three days. She would have thirty-three last week but instead she is forever twenty-seven, buried next to her father in a cemetery outside of Nashville.
Riley Washington, July 16 2005, was eight. She was at a baseball game with her older brother- Chicago cubs. She will forever be eight years old. She was cremated, along with the four girls they found her with, two of whom are still unidentified and the entire city turned out to lay them to rest one last time.
There are just shy of a hundred photographs and names in his book; each one contains a date and a name. He can tell you about them all. This book is one of others. Do not ask how many. But he’ll be able to tell you who they were, and their ages. He can tell you where they were found, and what was done to them; and even why. What he can’t tell you, what he wonders about- even to this day…
Is what they would have done the next day, or in a year, or in five years. He can tell you that some were fathers, but not the sort of grandfathers they’d be- or that some were pregnant but not what they’d name their child. He can’t tell you what Riley would have been once she graduated High School or the color of her dress on prom.
He can’t tell you if Jacinta would have married the boy who was interested in her but never got the nerve to ask her…or if he ever would.
But he has their names and their smiles in a small 2x2 photograph in a book that he keeps near him at all times. It is so insufficient.
He’ll tell you that too.
Jason Gideon
Criminal Minds
535
He used to carry a pocket book with at him at all times; a conceit from a lifetime ago. It was small and unlined, faux leather bound and rarely if ever out of reach. It had been a habit of his teenage years; although if asked what filled the pages then Gideon would be hard press to remember; or he’d act that way at any rate.
The first few pages were simply names, mostly female, usually about fifteen in number but could have been upwards of thirty, in his distinctive script. Those names were the most recent. There was no adornment, no photographs and no details. Just names- as if the thought connected to them was unfinished.
The rest of the pages however; were adorned and cared for. Photographs about the size of passport photos or from the booths found on boardwalks and malls adorned the head- one to each page- with Gideon’s writing underneath.
A name and a date.
Like tombstones.
Those pages he could recount like the lines of a Shakespeare sonnets, or Michel Foucault’s essays. It was as if the pages held details and nuances that the mere names could not contain. He would pour over the pages at times, spend hours looking into the eyes and sharing the frozen smiles in a sort of communion. Or Kaddish.
Jacinta Abrams was twenty-seven on May 23, 2004 when walking home from the school she taught ; she was abducted by two men and held for three days. She would have thirty-three last week but instead she is forever twenty-seven, buried next to her father in a cemetery outside of Nashville.
Riley Washington, July 16 2005, was eight. She was at a baseball game with her older brother- Chicago cubs. She will forever be eight years old. She was cremated, along with the four girls they found her with, two of whom are still unidentified and the entire city turned out to lay them to rest one last time.
There are just shy of a hundred photographs and names in his book; each one contains a date and a name. He can tell you about them all. This book is one of others. Do not ask how many. But he’ll be able to tell you who they were, and their ages. He can tell you where they were found, and what was done to them; and even why. What he can’t tell you, what he wonders about- even to this day…
Is what they would have done the next day, or in a year, or in five years. He can tell you that some were fathers, but not the sort of grandfathers they’d be- or that some were pregnant but not what they’d name their child. He can’t tell you what Riley would have been once she graduated High School or the color of her dress on prom.
He can’t tell you if Jacinta would have married the boy who was interested in her but never got the nerve to ask her…or if he ever would.
But he has their names and their smiles in a small 2x2 photograph in a book that he keeps near him at all times. It is so insufficient.
He’ll tell you that too.
Jason Gideon
Criminal Minds
535
