Jarod's Journal

Jarod stood at the end of the tracks, watching the man walk slowly into the horizon with the boxcar looming beside him, his head down and his shoulders bent. The air was quiet and still, laced with the memory of early morning fog. Every step he took caused a cloudy puff of air to pass through his lips, visible as it rose before him into the air...the smokestack of a departing train.

As the man walked, his hand stretched out to touch the side of the boxcar, a loving caress that hit like a heartpunch. Jarod knew how much Carter Moldorf loved his trains...how much the whole Railroad Museum meant to him.

Yet somehow, it wasn’t enough to fix things.

For the first time it struck Jarod how even in triumph, a picture like that could be so sad. With Jarod’s help, Carter had managed to stop the city from taking away his permit to run the museum...had even declared the surrounding rails a historical landmark, allowing him to continue under the auspices of the local government. It didn’t change the fact, however, that Carter’s son had died in one of the train car displays, and that Carter himself had been framed for mismanagement of the cars...accused of killing his own child.

Carter had gotten back what he cared about...but nothing would ever bring back the son that he loved.

It was a rare occasion where nothing Jarod could do would ever be of true comfort...where winning the day just wasn’t enough to make things right. It hurt him badly, knowing he’d been unable to ease Carter’s suffering...he was a good man.

Good men didn’t deserve this kind of sorrow.

Glancing down at his notebook, Jarod shut it on the article covering the reclamation of the museum and laid it on the rails near a prominent railroad spike, buried in the track...golden, symbolizing the spike laid to join the two halves of the Transcontinental Railroad. Reaching into his coat pocket, he withdrew a small model train car...one that Carter had given him from the gift shop when Jarod first arrived in Lake Forester.

With great care, Jarod set the little train car atop the red notebook, along with a single red rose and a horseshoe. The train car was for Carter...

...but the rest? Carter told him all about the strange, wonderful notion of horseracing.

After he left Lake Forester, Jarod was going to head down south...see if this Kentucky Derby was worth a shot.

Muse: Jarod
Fandom: The Pretender
Words: 425

Dreams often take images from the subconscious mind, which is why they’re so often left up to interpretation. Mine are no different, except for the fact that my own memory has been so thoroughly compromised through the machinations of circumstance and the ever vigilant servants of the Centre.

I dream of many things...I always have. The things they’ve made me do, the things I can’t remember...like my parents.

I suppose that’s the one dream that haunted me the longest, and in some ways still does. In the dream, I’m surrounded by clocks, and in the distance I can see a house. I’m on the front lawn...at least, me when I was younger, about four or five years old, not long before the Centre took me, I’m guessing.

I also see my mother...she’s hanging wash on the line outside, her back to me. I can hear her voice calling my name as my child self stares at me...trying to tell me *something* with his eyes...but even when I call out to my mother, she doesn’t turn around. I never see her face in the dreams. I didn’t then...and I don’t now.

What’s disturbing is that now? I *have* seen her. I have a photograph of my mother, and I’ve seen her in person...I was so close to meeting her, to holding her...

Yet in my dreams, I still can’t see her face. I can’t dream of my younger self running into her arms, of her turning around to smile...perhaps it’s because I don’t have those memories anymore, nothing for my mind to manifest. Sure, the imagination can do wonders...but mine was pretty severely restricted while I was growing up.

Maybe that’s why I can’t see her face, though...I need that memory. Going to her, putting my arms around her...maybe it’s one of those dreams that don’t come in sleep. You have to make it happen before you can ever even see it.

Well...just like nothing gold can stay, neither can the darkness. And when this waking nightmare that is the Centre is finally over, you can bet your life that I’ll find my family...my father, myself...and my mother.

And together...we’ll make the dream come true.

Muse: Jarod
Fandom: The Pretender
Words: 379