This is all KayJay and Mitai's fault...and if it's at all good, thank them profusely for it. :) KayJay for reading this one and making me blush. Mitai for being the first one so many months ago to give encouragement. Thanks to them, and to the peoples of #plotting and #subcafe for the warm welcome. And profuse thanks and brownies to Mitai for posting this. :) Feedback would be welcomed: heatherlyh@softhome.net
Please no MSTing or PopUps.
All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Fanfic:
Put things back where you found them. (All Marvel characters are not my creation, and will be returned in one piece.)
Play fair. (Comments and constructive criticism welcomed.)
Don't hit people. (But no flames)
And it is still true, no matter how old you are -- when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.
(Well...it is! :)

Heard No More
by Heatherly

My namesake is dead.

Well, not really. And to further muddy the dark waters of this metaphor, he's not really even my namesake ... name-sharer? One who shares my name?

My name-sharer is very much alive, but his fire has died. The man who gave him sound and fury is now nothing.

And I live. A curious puzzle. That the death of a man I have never met, that I know very little about, can so deeply grasp the emotions swirling beneath blue fur and yank them out to be judged.

And measured...

Perhaps that's it. Death often becomes a time for those left behind to judge, to measure themselves. Perhaps I feel measured. What have I accomplished?

Or perhaps it's the generational sigh of regret, as one of our own passes on, leaving us to wonder what we really accomplished, and where have we come from there...

Certainly a plausible hypothesis. I am sure those born in the '60s regard the man as an icon of the times, or at least, part of an icon. And he is the first part of that icon to die. So now the collective cohort is left to wonder if the promises imagined during that time have come true, if the icon has come to fruition, or if it has been forgotten...they feel measured. Now they must determine whether or not the ideas they envisioned have become reality.

Or perhaps it is that I, as part of this society, am reeling from the loss of a leader-figure. The generation grieving for JFK did not grieve for a man they knew personally, they grieved for a symbol, an icon that was now gone...

Perhaps it is the fanciful wonder, the ignored hope that I might be such an icon, that my death might be as...

Ah ... there's the rub. Perhaps, it is nothing so complex as a generation re-evaluating their potential, or a society grieving a symbol, or even my brief bit of vanity...

Perhaps it is nothing so simple as fear.

Perhaps it is only hearing and reading on countless headlines the joke turned truth ... perhaps it is that Dr. McCoy, by virtue of his living representation, is dead. Passed on. Ceased this mortal coil. And I...

I am afraid.

"Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

-Macbeth

In memory of DeForest Kelley.
January 20th, 1920 - June 11th, 1999