Picfic Tuesday: November 22, 1963, Shattered Dreams

[rachaeljurassic.livejournal.com]

Picfic Tuesday: November 22, 1963





Shattered Dreams


It brought it all back. The shock, the grief, a nation in mourning.

Earlier Napoleon had tried to describe how he felt but his voice had trailed away. Illya had told him that he didn’t need to explain.

He suspected the American had misunderstood what he’d meant, that he was reassuring him that he need not try, but that hadn’t been it at all.

Illya knew exactly how he felt.

He remembered clearly seeing the front pages of the newspapers on the stall that morning. He’d bought one and stumbled across the road towards a bench on Jesus Green.

He had read scarcely a paragraph before he’d conceded defeat, the words blurred by the tears in his eyes and the shaking of his hands. He’d heard a bike passing behind him and a group of students talking as they headed to their lectures. He’d wondered at how life could go on so calmly while his world was falling apart.

He could hardly draw breath. He’d felt like a drowning man. Shock, grief, loss, fear.

Fear for the future.

What now?

It was difficult to believe it now, sitting in the U.N.C.L.E. canteen listening to the hushed conversations, watching the pale, stark faces. How similar and yet how different this was. How things had changed, how he had changed. The things he’d learned, how his eyes had been opened.

He could not speak to anybody about his experience of such pain. They wouldn’t understand. He was not sure he understood any more. He found it hard to admit it to himself, let alone Napoleon. He was happy that the American had misunderstood his earlier, unguarded comment.

That day, ten years earlier, had not been the last time his world had come crumbling down. It had happened again three years later, and again, and again. Truth upon truth piled up in accusation against everything he had held as self-evident. Horror upon horror pointing towards a man he had once considered his hero.

He understood the people he watched as they walked mechanically with their trays to their tables only to sit un-eating in front of them. He saw them trying to cope with the news, with a world that had come to an end. He could see them struggle to understand how this could happen and how they worried for the future.

He understood.

He remembered.

The day that Stalin died.

Comments

[jkkitty.livejournal.com]

wow, never thought of how many others have lost their leaders and felt like i did that day. Thanks for reminding me.

[rachaeljurassic.livejournal.com]

Thanks jkkitty.

I've never had to go through that, fortunately. However, it is a measure of the impact of that day that watching video from the time (such as the Walter Cronkite report) still has an impact on me, who wasn't even there.