He sat on his bed, staring at the chest he had pulled across the room. The lid lay open and he gazed down at the contents with sorrow in his eyes.
Why did he do this to himself, he often wondered. There was no gain to be had in staring at Ameren's things, it did not full the hole in his chest, did not ease his worrying mind, certainly did not stop his drinking. Three empty bottles lay in the corner, a fourth in his limp hands as he gazed at the chest. His gaze wandered over her vibrant orange jacket, the piles of old notebooks, the beautiful lute. Countless joyous memories that surrounded the few articles in the wooden crate, but the only effect it had was one of anger. He was furious with the way the river of life had floated him along so peacefully for the past few years, only encountering the odd change of pace here and there along the way. A few minour forks in the flow, which always seemed to bring him back to his original course. Small matters in light of recent circumstances. Now he had come to a point where the current was too strong to swim back, where his choices had forced him to a final split in the path.
And both seemed to end in a deadly drop. And he was now hurtling towards the edge.
His foot collided against the corner of the box, and he released an outraged cry. He kicked it again, his cry dying to his furious growl. 'Bastard fucking thing!' He seethed through his teeth. 'Whats the point in staring at someone else's shit!' He rose to his feet, his temper rising with him, and angrily tossed the lute across the room. It clattered against the wall and then thumped to the floor without breaking. His anger was growing all the while, his mind reeling with a thousands things that could have saved him from this fate. He could have gone with them.His mind then sought out ways that could have avoided this ages ago. He could have ignored the mad bars in the hat who stood up for his twisted drunken self. He could have stayed with Iseult in Gondor. He could have raised his daughter the way she would have wanted. He could have...
'Shit on it all!' He bellowed again, collapsing his full weight back on the bed. There was no anger left in him, not for the moment anyway. 'Shit on it all...' His voice lowered to a whisper.
He was lost now, lying flat on his back as he gazed at the ceiling. Strange that, men in his state often found their answers on the ceiling. Or at the bottom of a bottle. It was then he saw it, tucked away in the rafters.
His hidden box.
Getting it down, with great effort on his part, Conn slowly opened it with shaking hands.
Ameren's crate of belongings didn't better to him, not really. As he had found out, it offered only grief. But rooting through this little chest, only the size of his head, he found something more.
Pointless objects in anyone's eyes, but meaningful beyond belief in his. 'Sentimental bastard...' He mumbled to himself as he lifted a small stone from the box and turned it in his palm. 'From that river in the Shire...' A flicker of his old smirk appeared on his face as he set the stone to the side.
'Crystal...' He inspected the tiny fragment of blue gem, watching the firelight glint off it's many edges. 'From Thorins Hall.'
'Nails.' He tossed the rusty lumps of metal into the air with a smirk. 'From the barricade in Trestlebridge...' His eyes rested on them as the tools landed beside him on the bed. 'Maybe that's why the fucking thing broke so easily... I stole three nails from it's center.' He let out a dry chuckle, suprised at how much he was beginning to sound like himself again.
'Who knew such sentimental bullshit could bring me back, eh?' Conn slowly began rifling through the box some more, inspecting each of the different items.
And it was then that he found it. A white mask, beneath all the sentimental items, a harrowing reminder of his past. 'Bugger...' He hissed as he turned the white fabric in his hands. 'Past never stayed buried does it? No matter how much good you pile ontop of it, the bad always comes back to haunt you...' He threw the mask to the floor with a sigh. 'I can't do this...' He mumbled as he stared at the mask. 'I can't go on like this...' He turned his gaze to the box. 'I can't survive on sentiment alone...'
He say there for a few more hours, thinking of the good times. The times when he'd floated happily on the river of life. The times Connwear was used to. This life of storms and rapids and waterfalls and whirlpools was not for him. That was the life of a different man. A man he used to be.
A man he might need to be again.
((Apologies again for anything I've missed Grammar and Typo wise. Also sorry for my shitty excuse for a river metaphor. But Conn ain't a poet and neither am I. I write in role!! :D))
