Time Alone
Richard sat at his desk, scribing what he remembered about his encounter with Tommy into his journal. He was well into his third one since arriving at the island. The writing within them was in arabic in a perhaps vain attempt to prevent the labs from reading them. They were the only thing on the island that Richard considered truly
private, his last refuge from the electronic eyes and ears. They contained not only descriptions of his life on the island but his thoughts and impressions. Richard trusted his journals more than his own memory, proof against the grinding of time and the distorted lens of hindsight.
He finished the entry and laid down his pen. He had found new hope somewhere within the encounter with Tommy. In bringing Tommy back to the village he had proved to himself that it was possible to come back from the brink, heal the human part of the mind. It was only one isolated incident but it shone with potential that Richard clung to. That with help the in born feral mind of the transformation could be beaten.
As long as that was true, then no matter what shapes the villagers bodies would be twisted they remained human. As long as they remember who they were, before the island and enshrined the values of civilization then they would win this battle by default. Moreau and his little paradise island couldn't last forever, his ego was to large to see any flaws in his design. His arrogance to extreme to be tolerated by those under him. If the staff was just as trapped here as the islanders then they too would holler for freedom before too long. That was the best case scenario, but it was something to hope for.
Despite that glimmer of hope there was one thing that was bothering the old man as he closed the journal and pushed it away. Digging into his pocket he pulls out a gold chain, on it three rings hang. Two of them are simple gold bands, one much larger than the others. The last is a diamond solitare that had cost nearly three months of his salary at the time it was purchased, over thirty five years ago. Catherina Macintosh Harrison had worn it for twenty five years. Richard laid them on the table then folded his hands and rested his on them as he gazed at the rings.
Grief was still a dull ache in his chest, but that itself did not trouble him. The primary emotion that he felt wasn't grief, but guilt. "I forgot her," was the thought rolling through his head and bouncing against the insides of his skull. Before coming here before the changes, Richard dreamed of her every night. Any thing with fire and passion reminded him of her, he could not go a day without the feeling a raw wound in his heart. He had learned to live with it, found strength from the pain when he was in some corner of the world that god had long abandoned. She would want him to be there, witnessing the story because thats where she would be if she was alive. But lately she had just slipped from his mind. He had kept going, doing what he could in this insane place.
Was he simply moving on? After ten years, was time healing the wounds? He laid his inhuman hand down next to the rings. It wasn't a paw but the fingers were more like thumbs tipped with claws. They were too thick for the large ring. He worried that it wasn't just the healing of a wound. That like ring didn't fit the finger, his brain had been twist so that Catherine didn't fit.
A single tear rolled down his cheek as he carefully slid the rings into the desk drawer and closed it.
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