[Milliways]: All I have is a voice

[smallgayjew]

It feels odd, putting on the uniform he thought he'd taken off for the last time. Odd to know that this is it. This is the end of Hector's boys. The end of Cutlers. The last time they'll all be together as schoolmates.

Following Scripps into the auditorium, he has the odd feeling that this is just another assembly, just the beginning of another school term. It's only Scripps' wistful smile as he turns back to Posner that lets him know this is at all different.

That and Irwin slowly making his way to his seat, encumbered by crutches.

They slide into two empty seats with the rest of the boys, all of them looking oddly subdued, Lockwood even having foregone his badges for the solemnity the occasion required.

Comments

[pushtheboatout]

Dakin has not had that drink with Irwin.

It was a possibility, and then it wasn't. Irwin doesn't remember Dakin propositioning him, and Dakin can't ask him again, not after a tragedy like this.

Still. It makes Dakin consider other possibilities, other paths.

Dakin leans forward to whisper to Scripps, "At least I asked him. And barring accidents it would have happened."

Rudge, beside Scripps, turns to say, "There is no barring accidents. It's what I said. History is just one fucking thing after another."

[smallgayjew]

The service is an odd amalgam of everything Hector loved and everything he hated. Scripps sits at the school's battered, old piano as the rest of them take their places on the stage.

The song had been Posner's idea, one of Hector's favorites.

It felt like far too little to offer someone who'd done as much as Hector had. Good and bad.

[pushtheboatout]

Standing beside Posner, though, it's good to hear that voice again. Clear and perfectly one tune, and gentle.

Dakin thinks, When we're at Oxford, I hope I still get to hear him sing.

Hector would hate the way Felix says, "Liter-a-chur." He would probably hate the slideshow, and the cliches Felix employs to memorialize him, as if he were ordinary.

And then...then it's time to say goodbye, go home, prepare for university and let what possibilities occur play their course.