Work Text:
Oft denk' ich, sie sind nur ausgegangen,
bald werden sie wieder nach Hause gelangen.
Der Tag ist schön, o sei nicht bang,
sie machen nur einen weiten Gang.
— Friedrich Rückert
as adapted in Kindertotenlieder (1904)
“Mornin’.” Teddy Daniels wandered down the steps at 8:00 AM for his cut of the morning air, a servant of his habits. Turning up to the office was a lot like turning one’s self in, so he liked to get his fill of the falling leaves and fresh grass before the walls closed in. A job like this is prison with pay.
“Mornin’ boss.” Chuck tipped the pack of cigarettes toward Teddy. Once taken, he wordlessly lit the end for his partner. “What’s the move?”
“Dunno yet.” The possibilities of the day stretched out between the two men. For one, another day to pick apart the happenings in Shutter Island’s closed hierarchies. For another, another series of Sisyphean efforts to treat a man adrift in deep waters.
Dr. Lester Sheehan was no surgeon, but there was something to be said about his precision. He was a hard man to throw off, which lent itself rather well to working with the ward patients, present company included. The cross-examinations of the other doctors threaded the needle of Andrew’s anger. Dealing with Andrew Laeddis was a lot like dealing with a case of senility in the older clinical cases. You didn’t disrupt the logic of their fantastical stories, rather, you wandered down the beaten path with them, assuming the roles of the long-dead friends and lovers until you both ended up back at the beginning. Back to reality. It’s a cold, harsh thing, and if it were truly a choice, insanity is what he figures most people would pick.
“You got a girl back home?” Asks Andrew, or Teddy. The good doctor usually has a knack for knowing who he’s going to get on any given day. However, he is left with the determination ‘inconclusive’.
“Hard thing to keep in my line of work.” It’s as much the truth for Chuck as it is Lester. Nobody waits up for him, a blessing and a curse. There’s no time for loneliness here.
Teddy took a thoughtful drag, smoke curling around his lips.
“Yeah. I know what you mean.” He tapped the ashes onto the stairs, because better the bricks than the sticks. “But if you could have anybody… What would’ja want?”
“I never been picky.” The truth is halved. Teddy is on it like a bloodhound.
“Bullshit. That ain’t all.” Every man has a mind for love, Ted knows that as fact. Whether they want it or don’t, they’ve gotta weigh the odds and make the call. Chuck fixes him with an odd stare.
“How’s about this, boss? I want the stuff I can’t have.”
“You and fifty other Johns lookin for Lauren. I didn’t ask you all that. We’re in a mental institution, for chrissakes. Won’t look crazy to play pretend for a minute or two.”
“Okay, okay!” Chuck held up his hands, nodding his defeat with a wry smile. “Maybe tall, light hair and…the biggest blue eyes. S’like I’m lookin at the sky when I wake up to ‘em.”
“Die beiden blauen Augen deines Schatzes, that it?” Teddy cursed Dr. Naehring’s kraut-boozing tastes for the strains of Mahler that dogged his proverbial steps. The composer’s work was a hell of an earworm, even if his countrymen were a bunch of warmongers. “Plenty of girls fit that bill.”
“You see any girls here?” Inquires the brunette, blowing smoke into the wind. Teddy supposes he doesn’t, after a moment of thought. Tall and brown-eyed, short and blue-eyed, eyes big but not so big as to invoke the great beauty over their heads. He gets it. There was— is no girl but Dolores for the former Marshall. Never again will there be. It’s a kinship perhaps, that there isn’t a woman alive that can war with the pictures their want paints.
“I’m sure she’ll let you take her home.” He pointed to one of the women shambling across the courtyard, her stare as vacant as her bones were brittle. The older man gave him a light shove, huffing his indignation.
“Real comedian. What do you want then?”
The sound of playing children fills Teddy’s ears, all squeaking merry go rounds and jump ropes skipping. Out of the corner of his eye he catches the seesaws tipping, colorful clothes stained with mulch and twice-skinned knees coming up on a third with all the roughhousing. Hours will go by and appetites will be forgotten until the lunch call reminds the kids that it’s time to eat. He’ll kiss their foreheads and tell them that mom’s sandwiches are the stuff of magic, so they’ve gotta eat the crusts too if they wanna grow big and strong.
He wants to kiss the lips of a liar soaked to the bone. He wants to be followed by the lie through the rain and to tell it his secrets before separation. He’ll know where home is if he looks for the light and follows the stairs to the top. Two great loves will await him, dark and light. One asking him to let go, the other begging him back to the now. He wants to make a choice. Their decisions were made for and because of him, now is the time for him to act. He can choose.
Andrew shrugs.
“Same as you. I want what I can’t have.” He says, putting the cigarette out.