Fern would always be hit the hardest out of all of us. Love, respect and dedication for a good trainer was one thing, but to fight side-by-side with another Pokemon and come to respect each other’s strengths and abilities…to fall in love with one of those Pokemon…No matter what, it all came back to that. I had been this hurt just being John Henry’s trainer and friend, and I couldn’t help but feel that the bond between Pokemon was different than the bond between Pokemon and Trainer. I couldn’t even imagine what Fern could be feeling or thinking. I felt my eyes welling up with tears again. A figure? A meaning? Sometimes she would just stare, as if she were holding a vigil, and waiting for John Henry to return.įor it to be in your nature to help and support, and then to face that kind of sadness…The death of someone you’re supporting, right in front of you…and then to have that person be the one you love…. Sometimes her eyes would dart here and there as if searching for something. When the others slowly fell asleep, she had stayed awake, staring off into the darkness on the other side of the glass and screen, illuminated by the moonlight. She had spent most of that evening and night crying softly off and on, gripping her scarf and stroking it for comfort. Though it was only just morning, Fern hadn’t slept much either, it seemed. The Captain was perched beside her, a wingtip next to her hand where she had held it until she fell asleep. Todd lay, partly enfolded by Grimer with Zoe on his other side, and Shaman Ruth sat in a corner like usual. The rest of the team had finally succumbed to exhaustion in the early hours of the morning, curled up next to each other for support. I didn’t need that memory to fill my vision and senses as completely as it already filled my mind. I didn’t want to relive John Henry’s death any more than my memories already forced me to. I thought the crying might tire me out enough to sleep, but what with all the thoughts swirling around in my head, and after remembering the nightmare the day after Sano died, I had been too afraid to let myself fall asleep. I rolled over restlessly, my face puffy and red I was sure. Maybe if I hadn’t told him to hang back….if I had insisted he go for the win, instead of reigning in his rash nature… What if it really was my fault? There really wasn’t anything we could do…That’s what I kept telling myself, but I wasn’t sure if it was working. The Sunflora felt too threatened and was able to summon more power than we could have ever known. There’s nothing you could have done, I tried to tell myself. We had seen and would see many more Machops, but none of them would be him, because, of course, he didn’t exist anymore. He was so close, why couldn’t I pull him from my mind and heart, back to me? Back to reality?Īll that was John Henry was gone. Only empty, teasing recordings that shifted and changed with time, faded around the edges and blurred if looked at too close, like a photo at the bottom of a clear, running creek. I could recall memories of the exact second before the Sunflora attacked and there he was, so concrete and real and there. So close and yet he might as well have been across the world. Some moments seemed so slow, but then there would be moments, moments like these, when you realized time was too fast to see, and that each day was composed of a million such times and most of them just passed us by without notice. He fell hard, a memory with a form, but a memory only. Time was always so fast. And then a flurry of razor-sharp leaves and he was gone.
Life filled him, determination, grit, a stoicism to stand firm, and a rashness to challenge and prove himself. Would grow tight, twisted and strained with grief and even as I wondered aloud why, hot tears would start to spill down my face. A thought would come to me and my body would just react. A hole that John Henry had filled with his presence. There was a gap that seemed to gnaw at me from the inside. It would mean that he really was….he really was gone. It would mean that there wouldn’t be John Henry to help wake me up from it. Facing the day meant proving that everything that had happened yesterday evening was real it hadn’t been a nightmare.
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